MARK BAUERLEIN
235
against it. He simply assumes the former and pigeonholes anti-contin–
gency responses as rage. Again, the opponent's attitude substitutes for
his reasoning, and because rage implies helplessness, Lauter's character–
ization suggests that there is no valid reason to counter the contingency
premise. That someone would deny contingency dispassionately on
epistemological grounds is out of the question.
The second citation, by Stanley Fish, appears in the afterword to a
collection of essays on neopragmatism, and recites the same shift from
philosophical debate to psychological inspection. The remarkable thing
about the passage is how breezily Fish affirms this bullying maneuver.
First, he asserts the impossibility of meanings and values transcending
their locale. This "no transcendence" thesis is a logical necessity and/or
an empirical given, period. Next, anybody who fails to recognize this
fact is not just mistaken or confused, his entire "form of thought" is
"suspect." When challenged by those who think that local meanings
and values are "unreal," Fish's pragmatist does not counterargue
for
the
reality of local meanings and values, but instead wonders whether his
antagonist is ideologically blinded or psychologically disabled.
What could lead otherwise responsible academics to implement such
narrow-minded, accusatory, cocksure tactics when it comes to con–
structionist ideas? How has constructionism licensed inquirers to aban–
don protocols of debate, specifically, the civility that requires learned
combatants to listen to each other? Constructionist notions have
become so patent and revered that their articulation need no longer
happen, except as reminders to professors who stray from the party
line (many utterances begin with "We must remember that... "). Those
who raise objections soon find themselves trapped in debates shaped by
us versus them forensics, enunciated in an idiom of brazen philosophi–
cal avowals and insinuations about the character of adversaries. Non–
constructionists feel not so much refuted, as ostracized. The humanities
become a closed society, captive to a weak epistemology with a mighty
elocution.
This polarizing, personalizing rhetoric indicates that social construc–
tionism has an institutional basis, not a philosophical, moral, or politi–
cal one.
It
tramples on philosophical distinctions and practices an
immoral mode of debate. Though it declares a political goal for criti–
cism, it is not a political stance, for no political movement has issued
from constructionist thinking.
It
has won few converts outside literature
and "studies" departments, much less outside the university walls.
Instead, what has emerged from social constructionism is not a philo–
sophical school or a political position, but an institutional product,
