Styles of academic warfare, as revealed by titles of academic articles
bicoastal March 7th, 2007
In 2003, these academics wrote an article:
Cass R. Sunstein & Richard H. Thaler, Libertarian Paternalism Is Not an Oxymoron, 70 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1159 (2003)
Two years later, this academic responded:
Gregory Mitchell, Libertarian Paternalism Is an Oxymoron, 99 NW. U. L. Rev. 1245 (2005)
It’s a deliciously blunt response and it has a distinctively east coast pissing match flavor. Is this an effective technique in academia for persuading others?
A west coast approach is exemplified by Alan Sokal’s academic prank. Sokal wrote up a nonsensical “postmodern” argument about the construction of quantum physics and got it accepted by a (once) respectable academic journal:
Alan Sokal, Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity, 46 Social Text 217 (1996)
But Sokal teaches at NYU and received his Ph.D. from Princeton, so it’s not surprising that he also said this:
“Anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor.)”
Are there any other serious figures in academia who prank instead of, or as a complement to, argumentation?
Is one technique more effective than the other? In what circumstances?
In 1998 Lisa Heinzerling, a midwesterner by origin who now resides and teaches law on the east coast (at Georgetown), wrote a piece in the Yale Law Journal called “Regulatory Costs of Mythic Proportions.” The article criticized the practice of discounting the vale of future lives saved when conducting cost-benefit analysis environmental, health, and safety regulation. Professor Heinzerling launched a west coast style attack on the cold formality and spurious claims of neutrality that proponents of cost-benefit analysis (like Judge Posner, who Professor Heinzerling clerked for) rely on to justify their claims, and offered a more warm, optimistic, California dreamin defense of our society’s desire to protect the health and welfare of future generations.
Yale Law School’s own John J. Donohue III, a man with a name that screams “I’m from the east coast and I’m damn proud of it, now go make me sandwich,” countered with a clunky yet devastating response article title: “Why We Should Discount the Views of Those Who Discount Discounting.” That’s just how we roll on the right side.