Adding Insult to Injury: Nancy Fraser Debates Her Critics
Adding Insult to Injury: Nancy Fraser Debates Her Critics
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雪上加霜：南希·弗雷泽与她的批评者辩论
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发表时间：
2010
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通讯作者：
Lisa Disch
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作者：
Lisa Disch
这本书有一个朗朗上口的标题和漂亮的封面艺术，增加了读者的期望，这将是一个吸收和娱乐阅读。价格是合理的，使它成为一个潜在的吸引力的文本。事实上，这本书总体上写得很好。美国与技术的浪漫是复杂的，矛盾的，令人困惑的，它当然值得更多的学术关注。然而，关于这个问题已经写了很多，但没有足够的内容进入本书的页面。导言表明，它的作者，小说作家和英语教授格伦斯科特艾伦，想象观众基本上不熟悉社会和文化研究的科学和技术，并往往留下印象，他是不熟悉的大部分工作自己。艾伦专注于他所看到的美国人对纯科学的怀疑，而不是技术的怀疑，他正确地推测这种怀疑可能源于社会阶级差异。他报告说，在研究这本书时，他开始想知道在多大程度上。. .美国文化塑造了美国的科学实践”（第5页），好像这是一个完全原创的问题。在第一章中，他惊奇地发现，1848年，美国科学促进会把促进“更纯粹”的科学作为其目标（第17页），并在一般情况下意味着惊讶于他的发现的社会，政治和阶级为基础的性质的科学（尽管目前还不清楚AAAS的愿景如何成为美国人不信任科学的论点，而不是至少我们中的一些人赞成它的论点）。他在第三章中讨论了美国科学的“销售”，但没有明显提到社会学家多萝西·内尔金（Dorothy Nelkin）或媒体历史学家马塞尔·拉福莱特（Marcel Lafollette）的工作，这两位学者尤其以仔细记录媒体对科学和技术的表述在历史上如何达到这一目的而闻名。然后，在第四章，艾伦介绍了美国实用主义，没有提到约翰杜威，谁只是客串出现在几页后。当然，杜威对实用主义的贡献将是一个很好的支柱，在此基础上建立任何关于美国对实践知识的看法的论点。最后，作为整部作品结尾处两页的附言，艾伦承认有两个问题“在本书中没有特别提到，那就是种族和性别”（第260页）。我很难用特别恰当的学术语言来表达我对后一种说法的反应，似乎最能概括这一点的短语是：“嗯，duh！”虽然艾伦对美国文化的一些见解很有吸引力--例如，我们对实用的偏好和对效率的痴迷当然听起来很真实--但它们并不像书中所呈现的那样具有理想的说服力，因为这本书倾向于忽视太多重要的问题和学者。艾伦可能在社会学和科学史方面，以及在媒体研究和哲学方面，阅读了比他的主题所暗示的更广泛的内容;如果是这样的话，他应该在他在这里所写的东西中反映出这种阅读。在这种情况下，一剂避孕药可能会有所帮助。虽然（根据大多数相关的民意调查）今天的美国人更喜欢具有经济或社会效益的科学（例如，创造就业机会，健康和财富的科学）似乎是真的，但美国人继续喜欢和信任科学以及技术也是真的（即使有些人对某些特定点持怀疑态度，如进化论和气候变化）。如果像艾伦显然认为的那样，怀疑一切纯科学的东西是美国文化的一个独特特征，
This book has a catchy title and nice cover art, adding to the reader’s anticipation that it will be an absorbing—and entertaining— read. The price is reasonable, making it potentially attractive as a text. And the book is, in fact, generally quite well written. America’s romance with technology is complicated, contradictory, and confusing, and it certainly deserves more scholarly attention. However, much has already been written on this subject, not enough of which finds its way into the pages of this book. The introduction suggests that its author, fiction writer and English professor Glen Scott Allen, imagines an audience largely unfamiliar with social and cultural studies of science and technology, and tends to leave the impression that he is unfamiliar with much of this work himself. Allen concentrates on what he sees as Americans’ suspicion of the purely scientific, as opposed to the technological, a suspicion that he correctly surmises may have roots in social class distinctions. He reports that in researching this book, he ‘‘began to wonder to what extent . . . American culture [has] shaped American scientific practice’’ (p. 5), as though this were an entirely original question. In Chapter One, he marvels that in 1848 the American Association for the Advancement of Science adopted promotion of the ‘‘purer’’ sciences as its goal (p. 17), and in general implies surprise at his discovery of the social, political, and class-based character of science (although it is not exactly clear how the AAAS vision is an argument that Americans distrust science, instead of an argument that at least some of us approve of it). He discusses the ‘‘selling’’ of American science in Chapter Three without any apparent reference either to the work of sociologist Dorothy Nelkin or to that of media historian Marcel Lafollette, two scholars especially well-known for their careful documentation of how media representations of science and technology have historically served this purpose. Then, in Chapter Four, Allen presents American Pragmatism without reference to John Dewey, who makes only a cameo appearance a few pages later. Surely Dewey’s contribution to Pragmatism would have been an excellent pillar on which to build any argument about American perspectives on practical knowledge. Finally, as a postscript about two pages from the end of the entire work, Allen confesses that two issues ‘‘not specifically addressed in this book are race and gender’’ (p. 260). Struggling to express my reaction to this latter statement in particularly appropriate scholarly language, the phrase that seems to sum it up best is : ‘‘Well, duh!’’ While some of Allen’s insights into American culture are intriguing—for example, our preference for the practical and our obsession with efficiency certainly ring true—they are not ideally persuasive as presented because of the book’s tendency to ignore too many important issues and scholars. Allen may have read more broadly in the sociology and history of science – as well as in media studies and philosophy—than this presentation of his subject matter implies; if so, he ought to have reflected this reading in what he has written here. A dose of empiricism may be helpful in this context. While it seems to be true (on the basis of most relevant opinion polls) that today’s Americans prefer science that has economic or social benefits (for example, science that creates jobs, health, and wealth), it is also true that Americans continue to like and trust science as well as technology (even while some segments are doubtful about specific points, such as evolution and climate change). If, as Allen apparently takes as his premise, suspicion of all things purely scientific is a peculiarly American cultural