Noam Chomsky

I have never liked Chomsky, not since my undergraduate days. I have thought that he reflexively sees what is bad in America and defends the indefensible in everyone else. Even tough I am still essentially Chomskyite in my theories of language acquisition and the structure of thought, I was pleased a few years ago when his ideas were shown to be not absolute, which the late Larry Trask had always claimed.

But there he was, being interviewed by Tyler Cowen, so I thought I would give him another try.  It had been years, after all, and the blurb suggested they would talk about what he thought he had gotten wrong. Always healthy.

I was amazed and embarrassed at first. He spoke convincingly about liberty as the lack of external compulsion, as in John Stuart Mill. He discoursed on a half a dozen philosophers dating back to the Greeks, and excoriated good liberals like Woodrow Wilson and especially Walter Lippman for their open willingness to manipulate public opinion by deception because of their contempt for the common man. Had I misjudged the man for so long? Was he always better than I had thought, but I would not listen? I consider that one of the great intellectual sins after all, and would be horrified to find it in myself in such thorough fashion.

Then he railed about public opinion still being manipulated, allowing the governments of the world to ignore obvious warning sign like the advancement of the Doomsday Clock a few more seconds by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and the spell was broken.  It is at best a metaphor, it is based on the feelings of one set of Atomic Scientists about political matters in which they have no special expertise, and the recently declared that incorporating "Queer Theory" was essential to avoiding nuclear war. He had similar statements about a field that is not his own about environmental catastrophe. He could be right. But any number of other people might also be right, and there is no reason to regard Chomsky's opinion as superior to others.

Once such spells are broken, one can take them back to the ideas that just bamboozled you and see them afresh. He spoke of Wilson being elected to keep us out of war and then advocating that we get into WWI, putting forth propaganda that may have helped the change of opinion occur. But he painted it as America as a pacifist country in 1916, and rabid war-mongers only two years later. If someone is elected to keep us out of war, it means that the question is open in the country and this is something of a referendum. It means 40%, perhaps 45%, think it's an okay idea. Similarly, when America becomes "warmonger," there would still have been isolationists opposed. This was not 0% to 100% manipulation of opinion.  Wilson wasn't elected to keep us out of war with Brazil, after all. What politicians like to claim is a mandate is sometimes just a move from 49 to 53% approval. The country is not that changed.  As a binary, he has a point.  Being at war versus not at war is a big difference.

Also, events intervened between the pacifist America and the warmonger America that may have done most of the persuading.  Wilson's beating of the drums may have had little effect. 

I don't recommend the interview, and am glad I got Chomsky right in early 1972.