From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Mon Jul 04 2005 - 02:33:44 BST
Hi Ham and all,
On 3 Jul 2005 at 4:19, hampday@earthlink.net wrote:
Please don't expect me to research Noam Chomsky just to answer your
challenges, Mark.
msh:
I don't. I expect you to have done (or be willing to do) the
research necessary to defend the opinions you post to this forum. I
expect you to stop using this forum to publicize your political
and/or religious dogma, only to retreat from engagement when
challenged. In other words, I want you to stop criticizing things
you don't know about. For example...
ham:
For a professor of linguistics, the man [Chomsky] has an inflated
opinion of his ability to analyze international affairs and a seeming
disinterest in the subject for which he is popularly known --
Philosophy.
msh:
I have no idea what Chomsky's opinion of his own abilities might be.
On what grounds do you base your pejorative conclusion?
As for his interest in his profession, Chomsky is a world-renown
linguist and cognitive scientist who has for 50 years ceaselessly
contributed to his field. It is impossible to study linguistics or
cognitive science without encountering his ideas. In fact,
comically, the very paper from 1995 which you quote below (as
evidence of Chomsky's Lenninist leanings, I suppose) is one presented
at a conference exploring the limitations of enlightenment science
and reason, a la Derrida and other deconstructionist philosophers.
His other major intellectual interest, for more than forty years, has
been the analysis of international and domestic affairs, revealing
and documenting abuses of power with the underlying belief that
illegitimate hierarchies of power should be exposed and dismantled.
ham:
Like many liberal writers whose entire career has been spent in
academia,
msh:
Those darned "liberals" again. Chomsky gives hundreds of talks
(always to packed audiences, often numbering in the thousands) and
interviews around the world every year, a fraction of the total
number of requests for same. He has seen and/or documented the
results of abuses of power in just about every country on earth. In
short, your claim that his entire career has been spent in the ivory
tower (which even if true is irrelevant to his ability to analyze
American foreign policy) is ill-informed nonsense.
ham:
Chomsky has a myopic view of entrepreneurship in
the free market and a decidedly leftist bent which, in his case,
leans toward anarchy.
msh:
Saying someone's view about anything is "myopic" without providing
substantiating details is meaningless drivel. This is merely another
way of saying that his view of entrepreneurship in
the free market is not the same as yours.
As for your charge of leftism and anarchy, I believe you are correct.
But your implied negative interpretation of these positions derives
from simplistic, even comic book understanding of the terms.
Leftism doesn't mean Stalin any more than anarchism means a bunch of
unkempt people in long black coats, with scraggly black beards and
frizzled hair, running around with little round bombs looking for
trouble. If you want to know about anarchism, read Bakunin, Tolstoy,
Kropotkin, Rocker, Guérin. It's a mistake to rely on the ignorance
of your audience to carry the message of your remarks: you're in the
wrong place for that. You might want to try the Limbaugh or O'Reilly
web sites.
Now, on to your quotes...
ham:
The following quotations are from material I'd collected for response
to your last posting. While I'll leave the political analysis to
you, I think they will suffice to illustrate my point.
Noam Chomsky on Rationality/Science
Z Papers Special Issue, 1995
"Several writers appear to regard Leninist-Stalinist tyranny as an
embodiment of science and rationality. Thus 'the belief in a
universal narrative grounded in truth has been undermined by the
collapse of political systems that were supposed to [have] produced
the New Socialist Man and the New Postcolonial Man.' And the 'state
systems' that 'used positive rationality for astoundingly destructive
purposes' were guided by 'socialist and capitalist ideologies'--a
reference, it appears, to radically anti-socialist (Leninist) and
anti-capitalist (state-capitalist) ideologies. Since 'scientific and
technological progress were the watchword of socialist and capitalist
ideologies,' we see that their error and perversity is deep, and we
must abandon them, along with any concern for freedom, justice, human
rights, democracy, and other 'watchwords' of the secular priesthood
who have perverted Enlightenment ideals in the interests of the
masters."
msh:
I fail to see what point of yours is illustrated by this paragraph.
Do you interpret this as being evidence of your belief that Chomsky
is a Leninist? Maybe you should read the whole paper rather than
just pull a paragraph containing the word "Leninist." But even this
paragraph taken out of context cannot be interpreted by a careful
reader as embracing Lenin. Chomsky is questioning the
deconstructionist view of the inadequacy of Enlightenment science and
rationality. All of the quotes within the quote are from papers
presented by others, with whom he disagrees. In this paragraph
Chomsky is saying that it is a mistake to devalue science and
rationality just becase some socialist and capitalist ideologies
speciously claim their values are supported by rationality and
science.
This is in fact a very interesting paper, so I'd like to post a link
to the document in its entirety, in the hopes that the philosophers
on this list who believe we need to transcend rationality in order to
grasp the true nature of the world might read and respond.
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/1995----02.htm
Back to Ham's quotations:
Although the following two paragraphs have no links or references, I
happen to know that they come from a revised version of Chomsky's
introduction to Daniel Guérin's Anarchism: From Theory to Practice.
Since you (Ham) have just pasted them without indicating what it is
you find objectionable, I must insist that you help me understand why
these quotes "serve to illustrate your point."
To save space I won't copy the quotes here but, instead, ask you to
point to ideas you disagree with, and tell me why.
Ham then provides another book review which is (as are most book
reviews) just a statement of the reviewers opinion without supporting
quotes, analysis, and argument. Or, perhaps, with phrases pasted of
of context to give the illusion that Chomsky's thoughts are in line
with the reviewers. However, I find nothing to disagree with in the
two paragraphs offered below, other than to say that Chomsky would
never be so childish as to spell America with a "k." Therefore I
have to assume the reviewer has his own reasons for trying to
associate Chomsky with such a word.
ham:
Kent Windschuttle on "The hypocrisy of Noam Chomsky":
"Chomsky is the most prominent intellectual remnant of the New Left
of the 1960s. In many ways he epitomized the New Left and its hatred
of 'Amerika,' a country he believed, through its policies both at
home and abroad, had descended into fascism. In his most famous book
of the Sixties, American Power and the New Mandarins, Chomsky said
what America needed was 'a kind of denazification.'
"Of all the major powers in the Sixties, according to Chomsky,
America was the most reprehensible. Its principles of liberal
democracy were a sham. Its democracy was a 'four-year dictatorship'
and its economic commitment to free markets was merely a disguise for
corporate power. Its foreign policy was positively evil. 'By any
objective standard,' he wrote at the time, 'the United States has
become the most aggressive power in the world, the greatest threat to
peace, to national self-determination, and to international
cooperation.'"
msh:
Again, Ham, what do you find objectionable here? And why?
On to atheism vs. nihilism:
msh before:
You're equating atheism with nihilism. You need a better
dictionary. Besides, NC doesn't even refer to himself as an atheist.
When asked, he says something like "Well, so far, no one has been
able to explain to me what they mean by 'God.' So I don't even know
what it is I'm supposed to believe in, or not believe in."
ham:
Yes, when it concerns philosophy, I do equate atheism with nihilism.
I've made this connection before in a variety of ways. When one not
only rejects the concept of a primary source and the value of
transcendency, but asserts -- as a philosopher -- that all such ideas
are "irrational" and that he has "nothing to propose" in their place,
this is the expression of a nihilist.
msh says:
Chomsky has nothing to propose as a replacement for God, for those
who require one; this doesn't mean he believes in nothing and has
nothing to propose, In your opinion, anyone who doesn't believe in
God is a nihilist, even if that person believes that all life is
intrinsically valuable, and that human beings, working and
communicating together, rather than in competition, can solve their
own problems. I'm sorry, but this just does not come close to
matching the philosophical definition of nihilism, which is:
"Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing
can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme
pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true
nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose
other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy. "
http://www.iep.utm.edu/n/nihilism.htm
msh before:
As for Fred Christie's putative book review, you could have saved a
lot of time just by going to the MOQ archives and pasting any one of
Platt's or Mel's unsupported Chomsky-bashing diatribes. They, and
now you, admit to never having read Chomsky, though all of you are
brimming with opinions regarding the value of his work.
ham:
Why should I want to do that? I'm as capable of sizing up a person's
persuasion as is Platt or Mel. If it talks like a snake and writes
like a snake, etc. Besides, I have enough research to do to support
my own thesis without having to gather fuel for other peoples'
battles that aren't even focused on philosophy.
msh:
See my opening comments. If you don't have time to support your
opinions, then stop using this philosophical forum as an outlet for
your dogmatism, only to cry foul when your dogma is philosophically
challenged.
ham:
Tell me Mark, what is there about this self-proclaimed "democratic
socialist libertarian" who wants to "de-nazify Amerika" that appeals
so much to you? Personally, I wouldn't want to have anything to do
with him.
msh:
Neither would Platt or Mel. All the more reason to read Chomsky very
very carefully.
I have, in fact, disagreed with NC on a number of issues. What I
like about him is his unrelenting attacks on illegitimate power (that
is power acquired and maintained through physical and psychological
violence) and the misery it causes throughout the world.
Now, let's forget the childish "de-nazify Amerika" which you've
dishonestly quoted as if they are Chomsky's words. What is your
objection to identifying, challenging, and hopefully ameliorating if
not extinguishing fascist tendencies within the American population
and government?
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
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