Noam Chomsky (Chomskyism?)

[Stephen Colbert]

For the life of me I cannot ascertain why this main is so demonized by people. I have read "Hegemony or Survival" and am reading "Chomsky-Foucault on Human Nature" and I find them both to be wildly satisfying and authentic reads. Why is the stigma there from both the left and the right? Is it merely his foreign policy critiques and his apologisms for totalitarian regimes such as the Khymer Rouge?

Thoughts please

[NecroCommie]

I don't know, but if anyone ever identifies himself as "Chosmkyist" I will kill myself immediately.

[Dimentio]

I don't know, but if anyone ever identifies himself as "Chosmkyist" I will kill myself immediately.

Doesn't Chomsky adhere to Rosa Luxemburg?

[Zanthorus]

For the life of me I cannot ascertain why this main is so demonized by people. I have read "Hegemony or Survival" and am reading "Chomsky-Foucault on Human Nature" and I find them both to be wildly satisfying and authentic reads. Why is the stigma there from both the left and the right? Is it merely his foreign policy critiques and his apologisms for totalitarian regimes such as the Khymer Rouge?

Put quite simply, although Chomsky is Okish on US foreign policy his critiques are your standard radical liberal arguments about how they violate international law. This seems to first of all imply the possibility of some kind of peaceful Imperialism and second of all completely ignores the role of the working classes in resisting Imperialism.

Many Leninists are not fond of Chomsky because he spouts the whole "Lenin was an intellectual beuracrat who just wanted power" line. And he rolls out the communist left in support of his theses as well, trying to make them out to be basically anarchists in marxist clothing, which is enraging.

He also believes in some kind of mythical split between the "young humanist" Marx and the "old cranky authoritarian Marx" which means he clearly has never bothered to do any serious reading into Marx.


Doesn't Chomsky adhere to Rosa Luxemburg?

He seriously distorts Luxemburg's position on the Russian Revolution. Luxemburg may have had criticisms of the Bolsheviks but she was pro-Bolshevik and pro-Lenin all the same.

[GreenCommunism]

how did chomsky defend the khmer rouge? the united states backed them for some time i think?

[Zanthorus]

how did chomsky defend the khmer rouge?

He didn't. He pointed out that the US had been massacring people in the region five years before the Rouge took power and that they were equally if not more responsible for what happened in Cambodia. Foaming at the mouth patriotic americans then tried to slap him with Khmer Rouge apologist label for daring to suggest that the US was an equal if not worse evil to the "socialist" states.

[graymouser]

Chomsky is a public intellectual who has provided the left a certain service in putting forward an accessible critique of US foreign policy with many correct points, and this is valuable to have. Unfortunately his limitations are severe, such as his reliance on concepts that the revolutionary left considers illegitimate such as international law, his theoretical muddle on the question of any kind of organization to fight against capitalism (including his perverse swings every four years where he says voting for a Democrat is useful because of the tiny differences between the two parties), and for Marxists his distortion of the Russian Revolution and afterward. Revolutionaries have to criticize even a popular figure like Chomsky so that the clear lines can be drawn between a "radical" critique and revolutionary theory. That doesn't mean we should throw away the baby with the bath water, but his flaws should be pointed out clearly and consistently.

[The Idler]

He's an anarcho-syndicalist not a Marxist, which is why Marxists and Bolsheviks (which he is particularly critical of) will dismiss his arguments as "liberal".

[Zanthorus]

He's an anarcho-syndicalist not a Marxist, which is why Marxists and Bolsheviks (which he is particularly critical of) will dismiss his arguments as "liberal".

First of all there are many anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists who would regard Chomsky's analysis as "liberal" as well. In particular Chomsky's support for people like Chavez and Castro tends to not flow too well with your average anarchist.

And his analysis of the Bolsheviks is liberal. He repeats the bog-standard liberal argument the Bolsheviks were intellectual elites who manipulated the poor unsuspecting workers into revolting against that nice Kerensky fellow. He also rather ironically trots out none other than Rosa Luxemburg to absolve himself of the "liberal" tag which is dishonest since in The Russian Revolution Luxemburg makes it clear that even while critical of the specific tactics of the Bolsheviks she supports the Russian Revolution and the Bolsheviks in general. She calls Lenin and Trotsky the "wise heads at the helm of the Russian Revolution" and makes it clear that "it would be a crazy idea to think that every last thing done or left undone in an experiment with the dictatorship of the proletariat under such abnormal conditions represented the very pinnacle of perfection". And her closing remark is that "the future everywhere belongs to “Bolshevism.”"

Luxemburg also defended Lenin against charges of "Blanquism" coming from Plekhanov:


We would dispute comrade Plekhanov’s reproach to the Russian comrades of the current “majority” that they have committed Blanquist errors during the revolution. It is possible that there were hints of them in the organisational draft that comrade Lenin drew up in 1902, but that belongs to the past – a distant past, since today life is proceeding at a dizzying speed. These errors have been corrected by life itself and there is no danger they might recur.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1906/06/blanquism.html

[Barry Lyndon]

As a Leninist myself, what particularly infuriated me about Noam Chomsky's so-called analysis of the Soviet Union is that Chomsky does not even mention the context in which the authoritarian measures made by Lenin took place. No mention that 12 foreign armies INVADED Russia in that period, and that the navies of Britain, France, Japan, and the United States were simultaneously blockading and strangling the country. No mention that the Bolsheviks in their first few years in power were fighting an active counter-revolutionary army that was slaughtering Jews in pogroms wherever it went, and had it won would have undoubtedly installed a fascist military dictatorship. Never mind that the other socialists such as the Left SRs had originally been welcomed to participate in the government by the Bolsheviks, but were repressed after they opportunistically tried to seize power by assassinating Lenin and launching a coup de tat with the help of British intelligence.

No, don't bother with actual historical facts, it's all because Lenin and Trotsky were evil authoritarians who wanted power for its own sake. It's interesting how on this one issue Noam Chomsky bears a striking resemblance to the capitalist propagandists he castigates on so many other occasions. And his appropriation of Rosa Luxemburg has been spoken to by other posters. I wrote an e-mail challenging his portrayal of Luxemburg, providing as evidence one of several pro-Bolshevik things she said. Chomsky's response was the Luxemburg was in jail at the time so she was not aware of what was 'really' happening in Russia.

It is also confusing and ironic that Noam Chomsky has had many kind words to say about other revolutions in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Cuba, etc., even though none of those revolutions would have had a fighting chance of survival against the onslaught of US imperialism without Soviet military aid.
His support of Hugo Chavez is also interesting, given that Hugo Chavez quotes Lenin and Trotsky as his inspirations regularly. It seems that Chomsky simply appropriates such movements as being proto-anarchist when it suits him.

I speak as someone who generally likes Chomsky and who was in large part radicalized by reading his work. But I have realized he has limitations. Something Chomsky himself would approve of, since as far I can tell he sincerely wants people to think for themselves and not accept any 'official' version of the truth, from him included, as he has said many times.

[syndicat]

Put quite simply, although Chomsky is Okish on US foreign policy his critiques are your standard radical liberal arguments about how they violate international law. This seems to first of all imply the possibility of some kind of peaceful Imperialism and second of all completely ignores the role of the working classes in resisting Imperialism.



wrong. "Hegemony or Survial" is an anti-imperialist tract. In reading Chomsky it's helpful to keep in mind the distinction between ultimate aims and what he regards as appropriate tactics at the present time.

in regard to values he describes himself as an "anarcho-syndicalist sympathizer" not an anarcho-syndicalist. I don't really find his thoughts about anarchism itself very helpful, other than that he recognizes that the word "anarchism" is quite vague and has numerous interpretations, which is true. in regard to his critique of Leninism and the Soviet Union, he is simply taking the usual libertarian socialist line...and in this case I would agree with him. If Michael Parenti doesn't like it he can kiss my ass.

[this is an invasion]

He's quite liberal.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Reading Chomsky's observations about anarchism, the historical anarchist movement and anarchist/Marxist thinkers is skull numbing.

His work on foreign policy is slightly better, and makes for some decent ammo when confronted with pro-America propaganda, I've found.

[NGNM85]

Chomsky is simply the most visible, and most crucial and indespensible Anarchist alive today. If only we had a hundred more where he came from.

[x359594]

Put quite simply, although Chomsky is Okish on US foreign policy his critiques are your standard radical liberal arguments about how they violate international law. This seems to first of all imply the possibility of some kind of peaceful Imperialism and second of all completely ignores the role of the working classes in resisting Imperialism...

I think you've put it too simply.

Chomsky cites international law and the professed values of the bourgeois democracies to show that these are entirely ideological constructs designed to cover capitalist expansion and exploitation. That's been a dominant theme in his writing since since the publication of his first book of political essays American Power and the New Mandarins published in 1968 and containing essays that date to the mid-1960s.

In that same book in the essay "Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship" he deconstructs Gabriel Jackson's The Spanish Republic and the Civil War 1936-1939 (1965) as an example of "counter-revolutionary subordination" for ignoring working class resistance to fascism, the very class that made the greatest effort to resist Franco's uprising; this is hardly ignoring the contribution of the working classes to revolutionary struggle. Also note that he saw that the anti-imperialist struggle in Vietnam was an indigenous worker-peasant phenomena, as described at length in At War With Asia (1970.)

Finally. I trust no one here will call him a self-hating Jew for his life-long uncompromising anti-Zionism (we've already read the canard that he backed the Khmer Rouge.)

[Red Commissar]

Chomsky's heart is in the right place but ideologically he is not very consistent. With that said I don't think he has any sort of "ideology" in mind that he can contribute to and call his own. In light of what he as contributed though, he has made some good comments on US policy and I think he is rightfully one of the better intellectuals of our day. I've found that he's served as a good gateway (alongside Howard Zinn) for some people to look at socialist ideologies in a completely different light than what is pushed in western societies.

[Comrade_Julian]

Well, when I think of Chomsky I think of Howard Zinn. Then I think, "Howard Zinn is a hell of a lot better than Chomsky," and then I get off topic. :thumbup1:

[Karl Marx AK47]

As a Leninist myself, what particularly infuriated me about Noam Chomsky's so-called analysis of the Soviet Union is that Chomsky does not even mention the context in which the authoritarian measures made by Lenin took place. No mention that 12 foreign armies INVADED Russia in that period, and that the navies of Britain, France, Japan, and the United States were simultaneously blockading and strangling the country. No mention that the Bolsheviks in their first few years in power were fighting an active counter-revolutionary army that was slaughtering Jews in pogroms wherever it went, and had it won would have undoubtedly installed a fascist military dictatorship. Never mind that the other socialists such as the Left SRs had originally been welcomed to participate in the government by the Bolsheviks, but were repressed after they opportunistically tried to seize power by assassinating Lenin and launching a coup de tat with the help of British intelligence.

No, don't bother with actual historical facts, it's all because Lenin and Trotsky were evil authoritarians who wanted power for its own sake. It's interesting how on this one issue Noam Chomsky bears a striking resemblance to the capitalist propagandists he castigates on so many other occasions. And his appropriation of Rosa Luxemburg has been spoken to by other posters. I wrote an e-mail challenging his portrayal of Luxemburg, providing as evidence one of several pro-Bolshevik things she said. Chomsky's response was the Luxemburg was in jail at the time so she was not aware of what was 'really' happening in Russia.

It is also confusing and ironic that Noam Chomsky has had many kind words to say about other revolutions in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Cuba, etc., even though none of those revolutions would have had a fighting chance of survival against the onslaught of US imperialism without Soviet military aid.
His support of Hugo Chavez is also interesting, given that Hugo Chavez quotes Lenin and Trotsky as his inspirations regularly. It seems that Chomsky simply appropriates such movements as being proto-anarchist when it suits him.

I speak as someone who generally likes Chomsky and who was in large part radicalized by reading his work. But I have realized he has limitations. Something Chomsky himself would approve of, since as far I can tell he sincerely wants people to think for themselves and not accept any 'official' version of the truth, from him included, as he has said many times.

I thought it was a 21 nation blockade? That could be dyslexia on my part. What does he have to say on Maoist China? I've heard Parenti tear into his ass before in several speeches. Here's Parenti hammering home what you've said: "Throughout the seventy-three year history of the Soviet Union, the soviets were relentlessly violated with counter-revolutionary invasions. Civil war, forced industrialization, Stalinist purges, Nazi conquest, cold war, arms race, nuclear threat, trade discrimination, and economic embargoes distorted the development of Russia's socialist transformation."

[Barry Lyndon]

I thought it was a 21 nation blockade? That could be dyslexia on my part. What does he have to say on Maoist China? I've heard Parenti tear into his ass before in several speeches. Here's Parenti hammering home what you've said: "Throughout the seventy-three year history of the Soviet Union, the soviets were relentlessly violated with counter-revolutionary invasions. Civil war, forced industrialization, Stalinist purges, Nazi conquest, cold war, arms race, nuclear threat, trade discrimination, and economic embargoes distorted the development of Russia's socialist transformation."

Actually it was more like 10, sorry. The countries that militarily intervened in the Russian Civil War against the Bolsheviks were the British Empire, France, the United States, Japan, Italy, Greece, Poland, Rumania, Serbia, and Finland. Together they comprised over 100,000 men, inc. 40,000 British, 28,000 Japanese, 24,000 Greeks, 13,000 Americans, and 12,000 French.
The British, French, Americans and Japanese were the only countries that possessed powerful navies, so they were the enforcers of the blockade.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_Intervention_in_the_Russian_Civil_War#Forei gn_forces_throughout_Russia

[Proletarian Ultra]

Chomsky is boring as shit, which is harmless in the moment but unforgivable in the long run.

Anarcho-syndicalists are not liberals, but Chomsky isn't really an anarcho-syndicalist.

[Ocean Seal]

I don't know, but if anyone ever identifies himself as "Chosmkyist" I will kill myself immediately.
Were commies we have a new tendency every day.

[Barry Lyndon]

Chomsky is boring as shit, which is harmless in the moment but unforgivable in the long run.

Anarcho-syndicalists are not liberals, but Chomsky isn't really an anarcho-syndicalist.

How is it unforgivable in the long run? Just curious.

[Proletarian Ultra]

How is it unforgivable in the long run? Just curious.

There are several ways a work can hold your attention. One is to directly connect to your life. Another is to make you feel like you can do something you couldn't do before. Another is to be threatening. Still another is to be beautiful. If a work is to be revolutionary it must be all of those.

Now, a boring work can be important; it can be a source for writing that is revolutionary. Capital is an example of that. But boring work after boring work just becomes background noise.

Chomsky's project is based on the prejudice that just documenting things can ignite a movement to change them. Obviously that's not true. Useful anti-imperialist work has to mobilize. Chomsky's work inspires a feeling of genteel outrage, but that's about it for the first couple of works you read. After that it's just one damn thing after another.

[GreenCommunism]

isn't he doing his work as an intellectual? do you suggest he should do more ground work?

[Broletariat]

I don't know, but if anyone ever identifies himself as "Chosmkyist" I will kill myself immediately.
I believe its time to, as they say, deliver.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=29520

It used to say he was "Chomskyan" I swear.

[Foldered]

The issue with someone calling themselves Chomskyist, in my opinion, is that it would simply be synonymous with "thinking critically."

[Wolf Larson]

Chomsky is a public intellectual who has provided the left a certain service in putting forward an accessible critique of US foreign policy with many correct points, and this is valuable to have. Unfortunately his limitations are severe, such as his reliance on concepts that the revolutionary left considers illegitimate such as international law, his theoretical muddle on the question of any kind of organization to fight against capitalism (including his perverse swings every four years where he says voting for a Democrat is useful because of the tiny differences between the two parties), and for Marxists his distortion of the Russian Revolution and afterward. Revolutionaries have to criticize even a popular figure like Chomsky so that the clear lines can be drawn between a "radical" critique and revolutionary theory. That doesn't mean we should throw away the baby with the bath water, but his flaws should be pointed out clearly and consistently.
He criticizes the Bolsheviks because he's an anarchist.

[Wolf Larson]

I don't know, but if anyone ever identifies himself as "Chosmkyist" I will kill myself immediately.
LOL sorry about your luck:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Chomskyan

[Pawn Power]

This seems to first of all imply the possibility of some kind of peaceful Imperialism and second of all completely ignores the role of the working classes in resisting Imperialism.


If by "completely ignores" you mean "actively participated" in the resistance of imperialism, then you would be accurate.

[Pawn Power]

Well, when I think of Chomsky I think of Howard Zinn. Then I think, "Howard Zinn is a hell of a lot better than Chomsky," and then I get off topic. :thumbup1:

Competition, division, a market of ideas- that's the capitalist spirit!

[RasTheDestroyer]

I find Chomsky's critique of U.S. hegemony to be incisive, correct, and effective at addressing a wide audience, but I have yet to read from him any cogent and articulate program or method for revolutionary action outside of 'occupy your factories.' He often appears unable to bridge the gulf between his investigations into the problems and crises related to hierarchal social structures and the sound theoretical formulations that should follow from them. The absence of any clearly defined methodology could be the cause of this. The most striking examples of this deficiency are shown in his admitted inability to identify a sythesis between his theory of language and his social theory (if there is one) and his apparent stupefication when asked during a seminar to explain the principle notions of dialectical materialism.

As a philosopher, he likely has a cognitive rationalist bent, and a tendency toward reductivism that causes him to apply the binary logic of computer science to the study of language.

French philosopher Gilles Deleuze developed the contrasting philosophical concepts of the 'rhizome' and the 'arborescent' as analogies for two forms of thought. Thought that is rhizomatic, like the botanical stem of the same name, is linked together in horizontalized, non-hierarchical and multiple points of connection. On the other hand, thought that is aborescent, like a tree, is characteristically cut through with dualistic and binary divisions of reality - a description that Deleuze asserts conforms to Chomsky's hierarchy of formal languages.

[Trotskist]

I love Noam Chomsky but I think that he needs to propose a United Workers Front in USA instead of spending his energy on videos and seminars.

Another folks who i think are great but need to be more into real activism are American Middle class rich left like Chris Hedges, Heather Rodgers, and Alan Maass and like the bourgeoise liberal folks of socialistworker.org and the international socialist organization (ISO). They are good but their problem is that they need to be into more activism with the US workers and the poors with americans beating the bullets , the people who eat from food-banks, the undocumented citizens, and the homeless.

Another leftists who i like but i think need to be more radical are: Naomi Klein, Michael Moore, Jessy Jackson, Paul Krugman, Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, Ron Paul, Al Sharpton, Bob Bar, Berny Sanders, Luis Gutierrez and other bourgeois-liberal reformists, like the folks of the bourgeoise american left like The Nation, Commondreams, Alternet, Counterpunch, Truthdig, Dissidentvoice, Democracynow, salon, MotherJones, etc. are pretty good but the problem is that they never propose an organized United Front or Large Socialist Workers Party as an electoral option for the 2012 elections.

I prefer Larry Holmes from The Workers Party, Bob Avakian, Fred Goldstein who has a good book in lowwagecapitalism.com, the folks of socialist appeal, marxist.com, Freedom Road Socialist Party, socialist alternative, socialist action and The Anarchist Party of New York, The Socialist Party of USA with Brian More, and many other marxist workers party out there who are a lot more closer to the Marxist-Trotskist-Leninist tradition of change

.

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For the life of me I cannot ascertain why this main is so demonized by people. I have read "Hegemony or Survival" and am reading "Chomsky-Foucault on Human Nature" and I find them both to be wildly satisfying and authentic reads. Why is the stigma there from both the left and the right? Is it merely his foreign policy critiques and his apologisms for totalitarian regimes such as the Khymer Rouge?

Thoughts please