The following comes from a preface which Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont wrote for a book of Jacques Bouveresse, a preface entitled “Modesty, Rigor and Irony.” Bouveresse, it so happens, had been criticizing the literary/critical establishment for the same sins which Sokal and Bricmont enumerated in Fashionable Nonsense (1997), only he went farther, got there first and delivered even harsher jeremiads.

Bouveresse also astutely analyzes the sociology of intellectual life and the tactics used by some media stars (and their supporters) to immunize their ideas from reasoned critique. Here is one (pp. 64–65): First, you make some ambitious and revolutionary philosophical claim, citing in its support a prestigious scientific result such as Gödel’s Theorem; then, when critics become too precise and insistent, you explain that your use of science was “only metaphorical” and you berate your critics for being so bloody literal-minded. Here is another (pp. 18–20): Start again by making a flamboyant assertion that is either illogical or unsupported by evidence; then, when challenged, pose as a victim and accuse your opponents of being “flics de la pensée” [thought cops], “gendarmes” and “censeurs” [censors]. When people who control major collections in the publishing houses, hold chairs in the universities and have prominent positions in the media repeatedly pretend that any criticism of their views amounts to censorship, it is, as Bouveresse observes, quite comical indeed.

Comparing Bouveresse’s observations of French lit-crit circles to the antics of American cdesign proponentsists is left as an exercise for the reader.