Five Minutes With: Noam Chomsky
By Niral Shah, Dartmouth College
Thursday February 1, 2007
Noam Chomsky is as prolific and controversial as ever. Beginning his career with pioneering and immense contributions to the field of linguistics and early cognitive science, Professor Chomsky of M.I.T. turned his attention to politics during the Vietnam War. He has published condemnations and critiques of corporate media control, American foreign policy and imperialism, global capitalism, and economic inequality in an unrelenting torrent since then. Chomsky’s contrarian and sweeping dissents, and unreconstructed (some would say anarchistic) politics have earned him adulation in some quarters and derision in others. He has been described by the New York Review of Books as “the most widely-read voice on foreign policy on the planet” and an “anti-American fascist“ by David Horowitz. In his forthcoming book, Interventions, Chomsky continues this wide ranging and impassioned contribution to the policy debate with a collection of 30 essays covering issues from Hurricane Katrina to Iraq, and from Intelligent Design to Hamas. Campus Progress called Chomsky this week to talk about the current state of the globalization, the United States, activism, and why there is still hope for the future.
Campus Progress: People are often surprised, given your association with contemporary political issues, to find you are a professor of linguistics. How much overlap is there between the academic study of linguistics and your more political work?
Noam Chomsky: It’s approximately zero. Nor is there any reason why there should be an overlap. We don’t stop being human beings because we are involved in scientific work. If you look more closely, if you really pursue it, there are deeper abstract connections which in fact go back to 18 th century thinkers, but it’s a very abstract connection. There’s almost nothing to do with a direct application to contemporary affairs.
What do you think of the work of George Lakoff, who has applied linguistics in his political work?
I don’t see any place in that work where linguistics and cognitive science enters. A lot of it seems to be sort of common sense.
What do you see as most fundamental obstacle to a functioning and socially-just democracy in America?
Well the most pressing obstacle was one of the themes of the leading American social political philosopher of the 20 th century, John Dewey. He pointed out that, as long as we live under what he called industrial feudalism, rather than industrial democracy (by industrial feudalism he meant the corporate, capitalist structure) then politics will be nothing more than the shadow cast by business over society. Industrial democracy would mean placing economic decisions and workplaces under democratic control. And yes, that’s true. As long as there’s a very high concentration of private power, essentially unaccountable to the public and overwhelming influence in state policy, then yes, politics will be the shadow cast by business over society. That’s a major obstacle. You can’t have a democratic society, a functioning one, where the major decisions are out of public control.
How does current antiwar activism compare to that of the Vietnam era, and what effect has it had?
Activism is much higher than it was in the ‘60s. You hear the opposite. People say, “Well how come we don’t have a 1960s style anti-war movement,” [but] people have completely forgotten that antiwar protest was so limited in the ‘60s. Most people don’t even know that John F. Kennedy attacked South Vietnam outright in 1962. That was war, but there was no protest. You could barely get three people in a room to talk about it. It was years before a protest developed. In October 1965, when there were already hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops in South Vietnam and the country had been destroyed, we had the first national day of protest in Boston. It was broken up by counter protests, and to the applause of liberal press.
At any comparable stage, the protest is far higher right now than it was in the ‘60s. It did develop in the late ‘60s into a significant enough force to truly influence policy, as has already happened with Iraq. That’s part of the reason there are constraints on the extent to which the U.S. can use violence in Iraq. There should be a lot more in my opinion, just as there should’ve been far more in Vietnam, but what’s happened is significant.
Why have college students organized a very large and effective movement against the genocide in Darfur, but not against the war in Iraq?
You can say the same about columnists in the press, or commentators and editorial writers. They’re very upset about the atrocities in Darfur, but not the atrocities that we carry out. There’s a very simple reason. It’s extremely easy to condemn the crimes of others, especially when you’re not making a proposal to do anything about it. The condemnations of the crimes in Darfur are not accompanied by any proposal about what we should do. Nobody’s saying “let’s send an expeditionary force to end it.” The proposals are all in the form of, “Why don’t you do something about it, and we’ll applaud.”
Furthermore, in the case of Darfur, the crimes happened to be carried out by an official enemy, Arabs. There’s nothing easier than condemning the crimes of an official enemy. On the other hand, looking at your own crimes, that takes moral integrity. And that’s difficult. You don’t get praised and lauded: You get denounced and vilified. It’s not just true of the United States. If you were in the old Soviet Union, it would’ve been very easy to protest American crimes, with great drama and breast-beating, but how about Soviet crimes? That would’ve been different.
That’s not saying there shouldn’t be protests about Darfur—there should be. And there should be constructive proposals about it. But if you want to explain the difference, it’s elementary, and it runs right through history.
You are listed as one of the enemies of America in Dinesh D’Souza’s new book, The Enemy at Home. What are your thoughts on that?
I feel proud, of course, just as dissidents in any country are proud to be denounced by supporters of state violence.
Income inequality and the growing income disparity in America are becoming increasingly prominent public concerns, but what is the solution?
The post-World War period has been divided into two clearly different economic and social phases. There was a phase from the ‘50s to the mid-‘70s when there was very high economic growth—in fact unprecedented—but it was also egalitarian. As growth increased very sharply, so did social indicators of quality of life. In the ‘70s, that began to reverse. Growth continued, even though slower than before, but it became highly inegalitarian. Today, real wages for the majority of the population are barely different than what they were 30 years ago. There’s been enormous wealth concentrated in very few hands.
The neoliberal measures that were instituted starting in the late ‘70s, at different times in different countries, have had the effect of slowing growth rates, increasing inequality, slowing rate of productivity growth and flattening social indicators. There are countries that have escaped this effect, but they violated all the rules. They did it by using the principles that the rich countries had used in the past, and grew and developed in violation of the rules of the IMF, the World Bank, and the Washington Consensus. But where the rules have been followed, it’s generally been harmful if not disastrous.
Will the leftward movement in Latin America create a sustainable bloc that is meaningfully independent from, or even effectively critical of U.S. policy?
Latin America is the region that most religiously followed the IMF-Washington Consensus rules, and it was disastrous, and there’s a reaction to it. This is the first time since the Spanish conquest, 500 years ago, that the Latin American countries have begun, slowly, to integrate with one another, and to deal with their internal problems.
The new party line in the United States is that, yes, there’s kind of left center governments, but there’s a good left and a bad left. The good left is Lula in Brazil, and García in Peru. The bad left is Chávez in Venezuela, and Morales in Bolivia.
President Kirchner of Argentina said, “We are going to rid ourselves of the IMF,” and they did by partly defaulting and refusing to pay the debt, an illegitimate debt in the first place, and partly by just buying off the debt with the help of Venezuela. Brazil, in its own way, did the same thing. Bolivia will probably do the same. The IMF is losing its effective control over Latin America. This economic weapon of control is weakening, and the military weapon is also weakening.
The U.S. used to routinely overthrow governments in Latin America. It went on for decades, but it can’t anymore. The last time the U.S. backed a military coup, in 2002 in Venezuela, it had to back down very quickly. There are tremendous barriers, and it’s very hard to know if Latin America can overcome them. But there is development of a kind that’s never happened before. It is, in many ways, the most exciting part of the world.
Your long record of dissent against U.S. policy suggests that your misgivings are certainly more enduring than the Bush administration, making prospects for change seem limited. Do you see your work as being pessimistic?
First of all, you’re quite correct. The Bush administration happens to be at the extreme, or perhaps off the extreme of the spectrum, but it’s a pretty narrow spectrum. What are the chances of change? Well, we’ve seen it. Things are a lot better now than they were 30 or 40 years ago, and a lot of it’s because of people of your age, who didn’t just sit and watch, but did something about it.
Niral Shah is an intern at Campus Progress. He is working on a dual major in Government and Economics from Dartmouth College.
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Chomsky will never admit there is a lik between his liguistic and political work. I find that it a bit strange that. His linguistic work discounts any social input, what he says is that language is all in built, there is nothing out there, he I would refer to the social sciences. He says the social sciences has nothing to contribute to his linguistics, social sciences are merely a political ideology. During the 50/60’s, ie the McCarth era, the military/government of the USA wanted to take over the linguistic and cognitive science field which was dominated by marxist ideology and interpretations. What better person to champion than Chomsky himself.
— Ed Beck - Feb 1, 03:04 PM - #ed, that was a ridiculous representation of what Chomsky has and hasnt said about the “link.” He did not mention social sciences, he was talking about his political views. However, he does talk about the links of social sciences (behavioral, linguistics, psychological, etc) to topics like human nature and human affairs and his responses have been remarkably consistent: we dont have a firmly established theory that explains us but the data we do have does not require a special degree and in fact is recognized by “regular” people all the time. I also noticed that you completely refrained from diving into his explanations of his opinion. Of course, you can disagree with him. It’s just his personal opinion. He doesn’t see any link between his work and his views. Maybe its because he held his current views when he was 13 and listening to conversations at his uncles news stand, which preceded his linguistics work. Maybe thats why he calls his socio-political/economic understanding “common sense.” Perhaps that’s why he brings up social justice issues that have raged all over this planet for thousands of years and that peasants and blacksmiths and factory girls have had a detailed and intimate understanding of the realities of their worlds without being linguistic or science professors. I want to know why so many people feel that knowledge of such elementary facts must be tied to a higher education. Why insult people like me who dont have a college education? I feel I have a pretty firm grasp on the pathologies of our society and after reading books like Upton Sinclairs, Cry for Justice, I can see that many other people know and understand precisely the same things that Chomsky does. Anyway, dispense with the wild conspiracy theories, please?
— michael mcgehee - Feb 2, 11:49 AM - #Ed –
Chomsky has said in the past that the links between his scientific and political thought are very tenuous. If you seriously investigate his work in linguistics/cognitive science, you might better understand what he means. Chomsky’s linguistics work doesn’t just propagate a theory of language but, in a fundamental way, a theory of knowledge (primarily the acquisition of it). His point of view roots him firmly in the Enlightenment, as he has pointed out here and elsewhere: “[I]f you really pursue it, there are deeper abstract connections which in fact go back to 18th century thinkers”. Thinkers such as Hume and Kant, who were also very concerned with politics, moral philosophy, and so on.
Much of your comment is muddled, and therefore difficult to approach. I seriously suggest you read Chomsky’s linguistics work, a fairly accurate summary of it, or the work of others expanding on it (Jerry Fodor comes to mind).
From what you’ve written I assume you don’t like his political ideology, but here again I think you would benefit from reading some of his writing on the topic. He definitely isn’t a “marxist” in any sense, and the historical record certainly doesn’t support the idea that “the military/government of the USA” “championed” Chomsky for anything. Quite the opposite; he has been seen as an agitator and an official enemy by both governments and pundits for a long time. His writing has only recently broken through to a mainstream audience (due, no doubt, to the fact that the dangers he has warned about for decades have become more apparent).
— Sean O'Brien - Feb 2, 12:26 PM - #A bit of comic relief on the relation of formal studies and politics - Link
Are their any progressive uses for higher math?
First post —
I’ve come to realize that probably one reason I struggled with algebra, geometry et.al., was that it seemed to me that these were basically reactionary academic disciplines, useful for designing weaponry or potentially repressive computer technology, but not with any obvious humanistic or social positive uses.
If I’m wrong about this, I’d appreciate it if people could show me how this discipline can have
— David Alexander - Feb 2, 04:20 PM - #progressive uses.
I also feel this could be useful in developing better ways of teaching higher mathematics if such uses could be found.
socially positive uses of algebra and geometry? here are a few you might consider: architecture & art, physics and statistics off the top of my head.
calling A & G reactionary disciplines is not accurate. An academic discipiline may have reactionary adherents, but even Economics or Psychiatry is not intrinsically conservative. The practioners and their resulting institutions may (or may not) be reactionary. In saying this I making a distinction between an academic discipline which requires intellectual rigour and at least the semblance of a scientific method and, in contrast , ideologies where neither are required. Algebra etc (although I think economics and psychiatry are more relevant) may appear reactionary to you as they are more intertwined with dominant ideologies.
— rod sanchez - Feb 2, 07:54 PM - #Kudos to all who replied so positively to Ed Beck’s muddled and greatly misspelled comment on Chomsky. I appreciate their replies (tho I may disagree with them in part), especially michael mcgehee and Sean O’Brien. David Alexander is seriously unfabulated about algebra, in which I excel, perhaps due to his lack of ability in same; rod sanchez appears to have a valid argument, to wit, that scientists are not necessarily reactionary nor progressive (I abhor the terms conservative and liberal as having distorted meanings in today’s US society). Chomsky is a shining light of reason and observation about the USA and the world.
— Raff Ruff - Feb 4, 02:12 PM - #I’ve always felt that there’s a definite connection between his linguistic and political interests, no matter how many times he will vehemently deny it.
A lot of politics seems to be about the manipulation and control of language; a great way to understand that is through linguistics. Of course this may be a bit simplistic and sort of tautological, to use a fancy sort of word, but it might hold true.
It’s also good to see anyone, Chomsky included, holding onto such hope for the future. At times one can break down into the cynical, or even fatalistic, cycle of thinking that plagues the “progressive” and “social change” movements.
— Alex Cacioppo - Feb 8, 02:00 AM - #The difficulty re the apprehension of Chomsky’s teaching centres on the everpresent focus on individualization of the man. This is evidenced in the questions posed, and what I would call the babble about him resultant. It’s the issues always. I call for true rigor, as we’re in an unprecedented crisis. It’s clear that celebrity culture hurts both discourse and true change.
— george mcfetridge - Feb 8, 12:38 PM - #Agreed. Would venture a guess that he never intended to become the almost-cult figure he is now, much less celebrity. It’s often disturbed me, too.
— Alex Cacioppo - Feb 8, 12:42 PM - #Chomsky does not encourage others to seek an “overlap” between his professional work and his political work.
Maybe this is why :
If a child falls into a river, anyone there can save the child.
They don’t need qualifications – they just need to care as human beings.
Chomsky’s political work is him responding as a human being to the plight of other human beings.
Thus, the link with his professional work is, as he says “zero”.
Any “overlap” might prevent us from caring about the plight of others.
— Richard - Feb 10, 06:20 PM - #Chomsky is right in his views about the way U.S. has been cunducting—still is, although now diminishing— its exploitationary abusive foreign policies in the L.A. region.
— Luigi - Apr 29, 10:33 PM - #Horowitz is correct on Chomsky only if facts matter. Leftists like Chomsky who practice Liberalism are blinded by their hatred of capitalism. Churchill called capitalism the unequal sharing of blessings, and called communism the equal sharing of misery. Sadly, Churchill, like Horowitz, was correct: Leftist philosophies (liberalism, socialism, communism, fascism) have always been miserable failures that caused widespread misery. Liberals, like Chomsky, that continue to defend the indefensible are by definition mentally disordered.
— Simon - Sep 3, 06:48 AM - #well i think, that chomsky had said already that his “political views and linguistics has nothing to do with each other thats why life is very complicated” thus i take it as it is. there is nothing further to go on about, that will be a waste of time for you. the only way for you to aprove or disaprove what he said and why he said such things is for you to read his stuff. which i think you have not.
— willis - Nov 15, 01:44 AM - #