Famous Postmodern Quotes & Sayings

In a famous hoax, physicist Alan Sokal submitted an article to a leading journal of cultural studies purporting to describe how quantum gravity could produce a "liberatory postmodern science." The article, which parodied the convoluted style of argument in the fashionable academic world of cultural studies, was promptly published by the editors. Sokal announced that his intention was to test the intellectual standards of the discipline by checking whether the journal would publish a piece "liberally salted with nonsense." Sokal, "A Physicist Experiments with Cultural Studies," April 15, 1996, — Dani Rodrik

Yes, he scorned his family's decadent ways, but perhaps that wasn't so much about the money per se, but rather the wastefulness of it; the lack of energy and drive it represented, as if the Ransomes were - like that postmodern throng of the famous-for-being-famous set - some odd collection of spoiled Emperor-brats walking a red carpet without any discernible talent to clothe them. The things the Ransomes - and their once-large fortune - could have accomplished ... they could have changed the world, or at least impacted it in positive ways. — Roberta Pearce