[Peace-discuss] No one is immune from criticism, not even Chomsky

[Phil Stinard]

I agree with this criticism of Chomsky.  I have a video of a speech he gave 
at MIT, and when someone asked him what they could do as individuals, he 
ducked the question.  I noticed that, and it bothered me.  Perhaps Chomsky 
is just trying to be modest and not force his views on anyone, but he does 
give a blank check to those who want to continue running around and being 
complacent.  For that reason, I view him more as an ivory tower 
philosopher--very intelligent and very correct in what he says, but not 
particularly inspirational.

My other criticism of him is that he seems to be tacitly supporting John 
Kerry as the "lesser of two evils."  That's just WRONG, especially coming 
from someone of such high principles as Chomsky.  I'm waiting to see if 
Chomsky recants, but I haven't seen signs of it yet.

--Phil




>Date: Sat, 1 May 2004 21:06:45 -0500
>From: Morton K.Brussel <brussel4 at insightbb.com>
>Subject: [Peace-discuss] Criticism of Chomsky?!
>To: peace-discuss at lists.cu.groogroo.com
>Message-ID: <5CD3C8A4-9BDD-11D8-A4E5-000502314E22 at insightbb.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
>Take a look at ZNET for an interesting criticism of Chomsky: I append
>only a bit of it, the beginning and the end.
>
>April 27, 2004
>
>   Talking Back to Chomsky
>
>   By Cynthia Peters
>
>   Our social change movements have benefited enormously from the work of
>Noam Chomsky. The incredible energy he brings to his speaking and
>writing means that millions have been exposed to his analysis of U.S.
>foreign and domestic policy. But he has one favorite rhetorical device
>that always makes me nervous. He'll suggest that something is obvious.
>Maybe he doesn't realize how much this puts people on the defensive.
>One can't help but wonder, "But what if it's not obvious to me?"
>
>   If Chomsky considers something to be obvious, and yet I puzzle over
>it, does that mean I'm stupid? Take, for example, the question he gets
>asked at the end of every talk. He says he gets letters about it every
>day. When I worked at South End Press in the 1980s, we used to ask him
>to include something about it at the end of his lengthy denunciations
>of U.S. imperial policy in Central America and the Middle East. If you
>go to these books, you'll find, after 600 pages of analysis, a short
>paragraph about what I am talking about.
>
>   It's the question of what individuals can do.
>
>   And Chomsky thinks it's obvious. In an interview with David Barsamian
>in the May 2004 issue of the Progressive, he says, "The fact is, we can
>do just about anything. There is no difficulty, wherever you are, in
>finding groups that are working hard on things that concern you."
>
>   On the one hand, he is right of course. There is no alternative to
>joining groups, which I take to mean organizing. And on my more hopeful
>days, I think that indeed the problem is that too many people just
>don't understand this obvious fact. They think that teaching kids to
>share and depriving their sons of toy guns is political work. They
>think that volunteering at the shelter and practicing "random acts of
>kindness" is going to bring about social change. They think that
>wearing hemp and riding their bikes to the food co-op can help build a
>better world.
>
>   If lots and lots of people think this, and we can reach them and
>convince them that social change is not going to come about via random
>and individual gestures -- if that's the piece that's holding them back
>from real organizing -- then we're in luck. Our mission is
>straightforward. We just have to be like Chomsky and go around telling
>people to get busy, the path is clear, the array of organizations to
>join or create is obvious.
>
>   But it strikes me that that is not what is holding people back. It
>strikes me that it is not at all obvious what we should do, and that by
>implying that it is, we risk making people feel stupid, when in fact
>they are quite right to ask the question, "What should I do?"
>....
>And to conclude, she writes:
>
>In a Boston Globe book review (April 25, 2004), George Scialabba called
>Chomsky "America's most useful citizen." I don't disagree. He has laid
>bare the workings of the beast and explained its functioning --
>critical components of any social change activist's toolbox. But I wish
>he would stop implying that how an individual responds to this beast is
>so obvious. If we think it's so obvious, we won't prepare ourselves for
>the problems, especially the three biggest ones explained above. We
>will not be effective. And we won't begin to build the kind of
>movements that will be a match for the beast unless we take these
>problems seriously and address them.

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