My wife and I drove to Philadelphia yesterday afternoon from New York. We were a half hour along when I said, Damn. I had forgotten a biography of Noam Chomsky I'd meant to grab and bring along. Oh, well the O'Neils will have one, my wife joked, a reference to her cousins.
I told my wife why I wanted the book. The day before I'd had lunch with a scholar who told me what a large impression Chomsky had made on him. My friend said that his memory was that Chomsky had not begun writing about Israel/Palestine till his parents died. Chomsky's father was a noted Hebraicist in Philadelphia, Chomsky himself had been a Zionist when young, and it would have hurt his parents too much for him to speak out against Israel's conduct. I was stunned by my friend's comment.
I said to my wife, "That means that one of the most important thinkers in the west didn't express his true thoughts on an important subject out of fear of hurting people."
"We all censor ourselves all the time."
"Yes but this isn't censoring himself about whether he found his father in bed with the neighbor, it's about a monumental abuse of human rights in our name as Jews."
My wife said, "It would have deeply hurt his parents and Chomsky knew that. It's like the famous thing Einstein said, 'Remember humanity and forget about everything else.'"
I'd never heard that. I said, "It's still amazing to me that Chomsky would have put aside such an important idea for the sake of his parents. My father wouldn't have done that."
"No your father wouldn't," my wife agreed. "Do you think your father was raised like Chomsky?"
After that the conversation became more personal, about my father's relationship with his mother and father and the ways I'm like my father. When I was young, a friend said that some family relationships are based on "negative intimacy," and I believe now he was pushing me toward the awareness that my father and I share a certain harshness. A lot of things went through my head, about my harshness on Israel, my parents' feelings about Israel, and my relationship to my father. Got to find that Chomsky biography.
Remember humanity and forget about everything else.
That's a beautiful quote from Einstein. I'm reminded of John Wooden, legendary UCLA basketball coach:
"Consider the rights of others before your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights."
I fail miserably in this regard everyday.
And someone recently called me naive on Jewish clannishness and suggested I read Chomsky! Some things are so evident that Chomsky doesn't need to spell it out for me.
What's the name of the book, Phil? (The Chomsky biography.)
I'm not certain that Chomsky's motivation for issues to get interested in necessarily were his relation with his parents. Thats a speculation.
Consideration is important, ALWAYS.
Even if one differs in specific conclusion, its still up to the individual to determine HOW and what specifically to make an issue of.
Picking fights, multiplying fights, rationalizing positions on the basis of what you're angry or irritated by, is NOT THE SAME as thought or even dissent.
Chomsky, while the formost linguist alive today, is a failure outside of that field.
I do not expect advice from a master plumber on how to lay concrete. He may know something about it, but applying his plumbing knowledge to the field is a waste of everyones time. And that is what Chomsky has done regarding the A/I conflict, wasted everyone's time.
I don't know that Chomsky's ideas on linguistics are as universally accepted as he and his advocates claim they are. There is much debate within the field, as far as I can tell (I've admittedly only done cursory research on this).
B.F. Skinner's ideas on behaviorism always resonated more with me, from a common sense standpoint, than Chomsky's. Noam has of course completely dismissed Skinner in a rather mean-spirited way – par for the course with Noam when someone's ideas conflict with his own.
That was also the case with Norman Mailer and the Jewish religion. He wouldn't write against the religion for fear of hurting his mother. I posted the reference and quote on here somewhere a month of two ago.
I think his philosophical assumptions are interesting and suggestive of a conflict between almost a pre-exodus vs post-exodus consciousness and interpersonal relations from a political perspective.
But, he only articulates exceptions to mutual respect, rather than proposals that reconcile actual conflicts.
Actual conflicts include MUTUAL wrongs, and in addressing only the wrongs relative to a single party, he presents half a coin.
He repeatedly states "what other explanation can there be?" as some defense of his own perspective, but entirely without considering or articulating other explanations.
Its an intellectual vanity and a stacked game.
Chomsky has fawning followers, largely because they similarly have not had to engage "what do you propose?" Similar to Phil's role as journalist, of a nearly solely exagerated critical stripe.
What's the name of the book, Phil? (The Chomsky biography.)
Robert Barsky wrote two different bios of Chomsky:
"The Chomsky Effect: A Radical Works Beyond the Ivory Tower" and
"Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent"
When he was young he had major problems when he heard about the fire bombing
of Dresden and the nuking of Hiroshima, for example. At the time nobody around him gave it a thought, except to cheer on the home team. Although Witty's assessment of Chomsky is valid, as far as it goes, he's
always written against (usually hypocritical) mainstream opinion, and done it consistently and with extensive scholarship. He also stated that if the world's leaders at the time had also been put before a Nuremberg Court, all would have been executed. Power always gets to speak. Chomsky spoke truth against (hypocritical) Power. The thing he most admired about the USA was its support of free speech.
Witty articulates the usual criticism of Chomsky. It also happens to be a half-baked criticism of Jesus Christ.
Einstein: 'Remember humanity and forget about everything else.'
Doesn't this necessarily mean forgetting about personal inconveniences like whether or not one's Zionist relatives are going to be "hurt" (boo-hoo) by speaking out against a supremacist, caste-system ideology that they are partial to and that is killing innocents by the droves?
Witty's criticism is definitely the standard line I've heard against Chomsky.
He's extensive in his research and has always given very deep and meaningful analysis of world issues.
Of course criticism of him is valid but I think it's sort of irrelevant when you consider that Chomsky wouldn't want you to rely on him as a prophet.
He wants you to see different points of view. So, like that quote goes…"to NOT have read Chomsky" (or something like that) is not at your advantage.
He isn't abstract in his arguments. His ideas are sourced and concrete. We can disagree on the conclusions. In the end, we're better off with him around as one of those points of view.
@Ed
Exactly. I mean, there are a thousand 'sayings' that we can twist to our own agendas.
I can just picture Witty saying that "blah blah it's not proper and diplomatic to blah blah Jewish community in the Diaspora blah blah."
I think there is a point when these delicate sensibilities must be disregarded in the face of the very REAL suffering of the victims.
So take for example, Israel Apartheid Week. Go to Norman Finkelstein's site and check out the latest articles on that from Canada.
Basically, some politician is crying because he says these activists aren't taking into account the potential to incite hatred against Jewish students and the larger Jewish community.
Basically, don't talk about Israel because of the Holocaust.
It always comes back to that. That's the crux of their game. They don't give a damn about the Holocaust. It's just a device for them to squelch any sort of dialogue on the I-P conflict.
Amazing how grown men and women, people with important jobs and lots of influence are behaving so shamelessly.
I can't think of a more corrupt ideology. Zionism destroys everything it touches.
Phil,
I am so glad you bring Chomsky back into the "light". A brillant mind, he provides a direct and clear analysis on a wide variety of issues,he has for many years been a major critic of US foreign policy. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict has not been his sole focus as a review of his writings will show. If only Obama's foreign policy staff would read his material. Anyway, thanks.
Joan
A Fierce debate has been raging in 'The Independent' about Israel's conduct in Gaza. Here, one leading Jewish thinker (Antony Lerman) argues that until Jews shake off their persecution complex, there can never be peace in the Middle East. Antony Lerman is the former director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research.
"Must Jews always see themselves as victims?" – By Antony Lerman, Saturday, 7 March 2009
"In the wake of Israel's attack on Gaza, eager voices are telling us that anti-Semitism has returned – yet again. Eight years of Hamas rockets and the world unfairly cries foul when Israel retaliates, they say. Biased media are delegitimising the Jewish state. The Left attacks Israel as uniquely evil, making it the persecuted Jew among the nations. Even theatres keep wheeling out those anti-Semitic stereotypes, Shylock, Fagin and the "chosen people", just to torment us. If this bleak picture were an accurate portrayal of what Jews are experiencing today, who could deny that suffering is the determining feature of the Jewish condition?
In most Jewish circles, if you pause to question this narrative and suggest that it might be exaggerated, that it unrealistically implies a level of dreadfulness and victimhood unique to Jews, you'll attract hostility and disbelief in equal measure, and precious little public sympathy. But in the work of Professor Salo Baron, probably the greatest Jewish historian of the 20th century, we find powerful justification for just such a questioning……"
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to independent.co.uk
I ran an audio subscription library of collected lectures, audiobooks, poetry, etc on progressive themes in the early 90's.
We had close to 200 hours of Chomsky lectures, on a variety of subjects, maybe 40 hours on Israel/Palestine. I was good friends in the early 80's with an individual that was an early organizer for East Timor issues, which Chomsky articulated well.
On other issues, Chomsky was alternately insightful and carefully connected the dots and answered the question sincerely "what other interpretation could there be?", and more often preached to the choir, demonstrating a large volume of references, but FAILING to respectfully examine other prospective interpretations of the same facts, and very conspicuously selecting data to include in his math.
He had a predisposition to favor the underdog, and specifically the anarchist-like independant bold militants. So, he (and Finkelstein very similarly) appreciate, support, advocate for Hamas and Hezbollah as "principled" heroes.
I don't regard them that way. The determination to not compromise fundamentally is either a virtue, or its egotistic stubbornness that puts large populations as great risk for the drunkenness of their policies and practises.
Quite often you inadvertently create gems, Witty.
"I don't regard them that way. The determination to not compromise fundamentally is either a virtue, or its egotistic stubbornness that puts large populations as great risk for the drunkenness of their policies and practises."
Perfectly describes Israel.
Chomsky isn't perfect, but he's better than virtually all of his critics, IMO, probably including everyone in this thread.
I have my own criticisms of him, and some of his followers can be a little cultlike, but I doubt there are many who could be in public life and comment on human rights issues as long as he has and have a better record. We all have our blind spots.
It's important to note that many people have come to see Chomsky as more of a liability than an asset in helping the Palestinian cause. The reason is simple: Chomsky refuses to believe there is an Israel Lobby that has any sway outside of how it may happen to line up with "U.S. imperial interests". Chomsky views Israel as a "U.S. client state".
The crux of this website, and of writers such as Walt and Mearsheimer and so many others, is that this is plainly wrong, in fact nonsensical.
Yes, Chomsky was a Zionist in his youth, but he was on the far left of Zionism. The group that he supported (I am not sure if he was an actual member) supported a bi-national state in Israel/Palestine.
What would be Chomsky 's view of Palestinian "prison city" Qalqilya in West Bank, it's most advanced buntustan in making?
Like Gaza, it is completely surrounded by the walls, and there are 16 checkpoints between this town and the next one. Its inprisonment just cannot be explained away as a function of rabid capitalism. It is function of rabid racism in MHO.
@ witty
"He had a predisposition to favor the underdog, and specifically the anarchist-like independant bold militants. So, he (and Finkelstein very similarly) appreciate, support, advocate for Hamas and Hezbollah as "principled" heroes."
Witty does too, except in the case of Israel. He's PEP all the way, 'neath his rhetoric of abstract Mr Reason. Thus, he's for the status quo, exactly what the USA and Israel do not need. He's like a typical German in 1940, saying, "why is everybody always pickin" on us?" He's just less handsome. And much richer, more insulated, more cushioned.
"I don't regard them that way. The determination to not compromise fundamentally is either a virtue, or its egotistic stubbornness that puts large populations as great risk for the drunkenness of their policies and practises."
Exactly, Israel is just such an example of egotistic stiff neck life. Has a history, you know.
Chomsky faltered at the Israel Lobby door; Finklestein took up the dropped ball, the cause of speaking truth to power.
Thanks Dickerson3870, brilliant article. And yes, it's painful to watch, an amazing alienation from reality: Must Jews always see themselves as victims? Antony Lerman
"it's about a monumental abuse of human rights in our name as Jews."
nothing that's done in Israel is in your name, traitor. Calm yourself, little doggie.
Li'l pooch doggy Mondowoshkes, cute little pet seeking his master's approval, barking at those his master hates.
I'nt he just adorable? Who's you master, li'l pooch?
All these big words will not conceal the ugly fact that he is just a filthy traitor to his former people, a disgrace to his grandparents. A liar just trying to join in on a hate-fest, in never ending chase for that warm and fuzzy feeling that is acceptance.
anyone who wants to understand the zionist mentality needs only to read the previous comment.
"My friend said that his memory was that Chomsky had not begun writing about Israel/Palestine till his parents died."
This appears to be incorrect. Prof. Chomsky was writing about Israel/Palestine as early as 1968, according to his preface to "Middle East Illusions," a 2003 book in which five of his essays from a 1974 book are republished. Chomsky's father William died in 1977, according to Wikipedia.
In politics Chomsky is capable of inspirational polemics at times, but in general his political judgement can be atrociously off. His support for the Khmer Rouge well after the genocide there had been well documented is the most obvious example. His efforts to portray Israel as a pawn of American imperialism is another.
My friend said that his memory was that Chomsky had not begun writing about Israel/Palestine till his parents died.
FWIW, your friend's memory about Chomsky waiting to write until after his parents' death is not true. Chomsky's father, William Chomsky, died in 1977 (I don't know his mother's dates); Chomsky's first major book devoted to the Middle East, Peace in the Middle East? Reflections on Justice and Nationhood, came out in 1974, three years earlier — and was composed of pieces written over a number of years prior still, back into the 60's IMS.
Firstly, I think the fact that Chomsky has always avoided class analysis in favour of woolly anarchism is significant: it makes him, like all anarchists, incapable of becoming a genuine revolutionary, and thus a genuine threat.
Second, his condemnation of US imperialism is fatalist rather than activist, though no one ever admits this fact.
Third, his linguistics theories seem to me to be completely nonsensical (by European academic standards). Their real function seems to me to be simply to assure him of an academic sinecure. He plays a role for the US establishment, as someone who can be pointed to as evidence that the US allows 'free speech even when it utterly disagrees with it.'
Fourthly, he is indeed treated with excessive deference. There is a YouTube videotape of him being 'interviewed' by the normally hyper-aggressive Zack de la Rocha that is positively cringe-inducing to watch, and utterly worthless.
Fifth, he is (and this comes to all of us) now senile, anyway.
Why would anyone argue with a spouse about Noam Chomsky? You aren't living if you are both that passionate about Chomsky. One of you needs to have an affair!
"nothing that's done in Israel is in your name, traitor. Calm yourself, little doggie."
You may want to believe that, but the rest of the world begs to differ. America is the most hated major nation on the planet thanks to its identification with Israel.
I have never been able to read Chomsky. His prose is so sleep-induceingly ponderous that after a very short time I really do not care what he has to say.
Shirin, to be fair to him, I think he was one of the first people to use really detailed phrase-by-phrase textual content analysis to expose the loaded way in which official phraseology is (as Eduard Hodos puts it) "nimbly-constructed." But this doesn't seem to me to support his theories about linguistics, as such. It is just a matter of close observation.
Remember humanity and forget about everything else quite certainly referred to the good of all humanity, to human rights, to decency, not for sparing one's parents' feelings if they are rooting for the extermination of a whole people….
Einstein was telling Chomsky's parents to remember humanity.
He was telling Chomsky to remember humanity.
Palestinians are humanity.
One way or the other, Rowan, I find Chomsky virtually unreadable. I remember one book I had to read for an Anthropology class at the university. The content was fascinating, but the book was horribly painful to read because the writing was so bad. I remember noting sentences that went on for ten or more lines. I read that book because I had to. I don't have to read Chomsky. Therefore I do not have the discipline to slog through his badly written prose even when I am interested in what he has to say.
When I started looking for guidance about the tragedy of the return of some Jews to Palestine, I started with Chomsky as he was always portrayed as the respectable and trustworthy face of the largely, according to the media, illegitimate mob who raised their voices about Israel's selfishness.
He was not tainted with the "sympathizing with terrorism" slur, the neo nazi slur, the lunatic holocaust denier slur or the the more general antisemitic smear that seemed to be attached to anyone else who spoke up.
It dawned on me (or as the spinners say "I gradually became aware over time") that he provided very little in the way of insight into why the Israeli actions were so (it seemed to me) implacable, inflexible and intransigent.
I got the impression that he was the tame Israeli critic, criticizing only what was considered acceptable by Israel itself. I concluded that I would learn nothing from him about the way forward (unless I saw perpetual war as the way forward) and searched elsewhere.
His period as chief gatekeeper of one side of the debate saw an inexorable rise of Israel's influence in the west, and coincided with ever more outrageous and selfish acts initiated by Israel.
Most people find it very hard to remain calm and dispassionate in the face of the gross injustices perpetrated by the Israeli ruling clique (Down with proportional representation!) and Chomsky provided a way to set that concern to null.
I know him only from my reading, I have no idea what is in his heart, and maybe he does all he can, but he inevitably left me feeling like I had been conned.
I must say that this blog and (most of :-) ) its commenters and blogs like Martillo's are much more productive in articulating the issues, and sometimes even pointing to solutions.
They are much more so if you are an antisemite looking for new reasons to hate Jews. Their solutions often point to genocide.
The reason may be partly that, since explicitly marxist analysis is regarded by the mainstream media in the US as somewhere on a par with child murder, anti-imperialist writing is a bit stunted. I think that Chomsky's general approach to geopolitics owes a lot to the so-called 'world systems theory' of Immanuel Wallerstein:
link to en.wikipedia.org
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This is pretty much marxist-leninist, but without ever admitting it. In fact the wikipedia article on the theory itself describes it as 'post-marxist'!
link to en.wikipedia.org
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Thus, these people can exploit marxian ideas selectively — and, very very importantly, without 'bringing them home.' In other words, they never make the obvious (to a marxist) connection to the necessity of class struggle at home. And thus, they are permitted to teach.
"It is basically wrong for us to project our whole harmless soul and heart, all our good nature, our idealism, onto foreign peoples. This applies to Herder, who wrote the "Voices of the Peoples", probably in a drunken hour, and caused us, in later generations, such boundless suffering and misery…"
"For the SS Man, one principle must apply absolutely: we must be honest, decent, loyal, and comradely to members of our own blood, and to no one else. What happens to the Russians, the Czechs, is totally indifferent to me. Whether other races live well or die of hunger is only of interest to me insofar as we need them as slaves for our culture; otherwise that doesn't interest me."
" We will never be hard and heartless when it is not necessary; that is clear. We Germans, the only ones in the world with a decent attitude towards animals, will also adopt a decent attitude with regards to these human animals; but it is a sin against our own blood to worry about them and give them ideals, so that our sons and grandchildren will have a harder time with them."
Jewish History: Facts Versus Delusions
A great read: link to eaazi.blogspot.com
See Forward, Part II for a discussion of rethinking Chomsky.
Phil, this is a very good post, thanks.
"Yes but this isn't censoring himself about whether he found his father in bed with the neighbor, it's about a monumental abuse of human rights in our name as Jews."
I can understand this. It's easy to criticise a people or country if one feels no connection to them. It's harder to do so if one has a genuine concern for those one criticises.
People understand this intuitively, which is why your critiques carry much more weight than those of an anti-semite. An enemy's criticisms might be accurate, but they are also predicable and often self-serving.
A friend or family member's critique, made reluctantly and at personal cost, is much harder to dismiss.
In accord, it's pretty hard to dismiss this, from a true American and made at the right time:
link to commondreams.org
Second, his condemnation of US imperialism is fatalist rather than activist, though no one ever admits this fact.
The major flaw in Chomsky’s position is that finance trumps industry. Industrialists can’t function if it is withheld.
The Military Industrial Complex IS subservient to the “defense” dept. Israel-firster honchos that direct contracts their way. Real power lies with capital now as ever. Empires come and go while finance is enduring and mobile.
The contention that the military industrial complex is preeminent is completely baseless. Who holds the purse strings that the industrialists rely on, both in finance and DOD purchasing?
Chomsky never investigates this, whereas writers such as Jeffrey Blankfort and James Petras, among many, have done excellent work in this regard.
Joachim's links are an important read.