Noam Chomsky: The Elvis of Academia

[T_i_B]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,11913,1094708,00.html

On the railings outside my local train station at Harringay, in north London, someone has carefully placed a series of small white stickers. The stickers, all at eye level, are designed, I suppose, to be the first thing you see on the way to work and the last thing you see on your way home. They are all neatly typed with two words: READ CHOMSKY. Most mornings I find myself wondering for an instant whether the words are an imperative ('If you do nothing else today...'), or a swaggering boast (along the lines of some of the station's other typical graffiti: 'Shagged Karen', say).

Anyone who has read Noam Chomsky will know that both interpretations are justified. His writings, in linguistics (a discipline which he effectively invented) and on the hypocrisy and warmongering of America (and its principal ally) are among the few essential documents of our times. They are also not designed for the intellectually faint-hearted. As the most unforgiving critic of the Washington-run world order, Chomsky is often caricatured as supplying more reality, and more guilt, than many of us care to handle. His books have the manner and certainty of gospels, and they work by accretion, stockpiling the remorseless fact of distant atrocity done in each of our names. They seem to demand not so much readers as disciples, (prominent among whom you would count John Pilger and Harold Pinter, Michael Moore and Naomi Klein). To judge by sales figures (his little pamphlet on 11 September has sold upwards of half a million copies) the faithful are an ever-growing number.

Chomsky's latest book, Hegemony or Survival - a devastating history of American foreign policy since 1945 ('No president in that time, judged on the principles of Nuremberg, would have escaped hanging') as well as a sustained dissection of the motivation and disastrous consequence of the current 'war on terror' - is the newest chapter of this lifetime of compulsive dissent. The transgressive thrill of Chomsky's world view, in which an American elite routinely bombs and terrorises in the name of 'freedom' and in defence of market share, has led fans such as Bono of U2 to describe the 73-year-old professor as the 'Elvis of academia'. In a recent profile in the New Yorker, Chomsky was identified, perhaps more accurately, as the 'Devil's accountant', totting up the foreign corpses sacrificed in America's 'quest for global dominance'.

The interviewer of Chomsky is faced with a series of anxieties. To anyone who has even dipped into his books, the idea of pinning him down or catching him out, or even directing his attention in the course of a truncated hour seems vaguely absurd. In reviewing a volume in which Chomsky debated some of his ideas with America's leading philosophers, one critic noted how the book was like 'watching a grandmaster play, blindfolded, 36 chess matches against the local worthies'.

[papau]

1. Great Article - but he is not that scary a mind! :-)

Although I am hard pressed to recall anyone doing a "conversation between equals of intellect" with him, he really has a rather non-offensive personality.

Sort of the opposite of the Fox News lack of smarts, big ego'd but fact challenged, obnoxious guru talk show hosts.

[NJCher]

2. I'm intrigued with the activism and appalled by Bono's analogy

Little white stickers, "Read Chomsky." Something similar goes up at my train station today.

I cringe when I think of the "Elvis" reference. Ugh.


Cher

[pnorman]

3. Initially (a long time back),

I used to find Chomsky 'dense', almost impenetrable, but kept slogging through until I finally "got it". It's a lot easier now. But I now realize that it was mainly because of his high standards of intellectual rigor, as well as of intellectual honesty. But the below, repeated almost identically in several other of his writings, should be accessable to all, and without any prior "training".

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"What the World is Really Like": Who Knows It -- and Why
Excerpts from a 1987 interview
Noam Chomsky interviewed by James Peck
Source: The Chomsky Reader (Pantheon, 1987)
>
>
CHOMSKY: Well, let me give an example. When I’m driving, I sometimes turn on the radio and I find very often that what I’m listening to is a discussion of sports. These are telephone conversations. People call in and have long and intricate discussions, and it’s plain that quite a high degree of thought and analysis is going into that. People know a tremendous amount. They know all sorts of complicated details and enter into far-reaching discussion about whether the coach made the right decision yesterday and so on. These are ordinary people, not professionals, who are applying their intelligence and analytic skills in these areas and accumulating quite a lot of knowledge and, for all I know, understanding. On the other hand, when I hear people talk about, say, international affairs or domestic problems, it’s at a level of superficiality that’s beyond belief.

In part, this reaction may be due to my own areas of interest, but I think it’s quite accurate, basically. And I think that this concentration on such topics as sports makes a certain degree of sense. The way the system is set up, there is virtually nothing people can do anyway, without a degree of organization that’s far beyond anything that exists now, to influence the real world. They might as well live in a fantasy world, and that’s in fact what they do. I’m sure they are using their common sense and intellectual skills, but in an area which has no meaning and probably thrives because it has no meaning, as a displacement from the serious problems which one cannot influence and affect because the power happens to lie elsewhere.

Now it seems to me that the same intellectual skill and capacity for understanding and for accumulating evidence and gaining information and thinking through problems could be used -- would be used -- under different systems of governance which involve popular participation in important decision-making, in areas that really matter to human life.

There are questions that are hard. There are areas where you need specialized knowledge. I’m not suggesting a kind of anti-intellectualism. But the point is that many things can be understood quite well without a very far-reaching, specialized knowledge. And in fact even a specialized knowledge in these areas is not beyond the reach of people who happen to be interested.
>
>
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"watching a grandmaster play, blindfolded, 36 chess matches against the local worthies" is a good description, nontheless there was no pretense at all in his putting himself on the same level as those phone-in people on the radio. Other "intellectuals" might sneer at them as "trailer-park trash", or even "ditto-heads". But not Chomsky. Encountering gems like the above, is what gives me hope for a better world.

[dwckabal]

5. Having never read Chomsky

except for excerpts, like the one above, what would be your recommendation for a first book?

[pnorman]

6. It's hard to say.

I've read so many by now, and not necessarily in their "proper" sequences. But that "Chomsky Reader" I quoted from, might be a good one to start with. It's still available at Amazon.com, and at comfortable "used" prices too. Also on that Amazon page is a recommended reading list by "libertarian socialist": http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/39RSV3YNOAPYT/qid=1070209136/sr=5-2/ref=sr_5_2/103-4718586-3751823

Check him out with a search engine, and you'll find plenty to get started with. That excerpt I had given, had stuck in my memory for several years, so I skim-read through over a dozen Chomsky books in search of it. No luck, but the rereading was worth the effort. Finally, a few keywords came to me, and a Google-search found it in short order. I now have a few copies, including one in my PDA.

[alarcojon]

9. A couple of suggestions

1. Stenographers to Power. David Barsamian interviews Chomsky

2. If you can find it, the movie "Manufacturing Consent" is an excellent introduction to his ideas.

B-)

[0rganism]

12. I recommend his recent short subject, "9-11"

"9-11" is a collection of interviews from the month after the tragic event which deal with current and recent issues of foreign policy in an easy-to-understand way.

"Acts of Agression" and "Media Control" are short pamphlets which cover a lot of ground very quickly. I put them in my bathroom as reading material.

Starting short is a good idea. Next up would be "Manufacturing Consent", or perhaps the infamous "Chomsky Reader". If you can get ahold of videos for either "Manufacturing Consent" or "The Myth of the Liberal Media", so much the better -- Chomsky, Herman, and Said are very easy to understand in a video format.

[IrateCitizen]

15. Start with the Noam Chomsky Archive on the internet

You can find it here: http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/index.cfm

That's where I first found Chomsky. Take a good look at his interviews first -- that is quite often where he is the most engaging (and easily understandible as an introduction). Through that site, you can actually access some of his books in their entirety -- Deterring Democracy and Year 501: The Conquest Continues immediately spring to mind.

A good book to start with is What Uncle Sam Really Wants. It's one of his shorter and more summary works, rather than the longer and more detailed ones. It helps provide a window into his perspective, something that is very important when reading Chomsky. His longer books can be someone long, dry and involved -- simply due to the amount of material he presents. If you're not somewhat familiar with him going in, you can find yourself a little overwhelmed and/or turned off.

[davekriss]

20. Read Manufacturing Consent

Then Necessary Illusions, followed by Deterring Democracy. But very definately read Manufacturing Consent; it'll create a paradign shift in your understanding of the news media and how information is selectively dessiminated that is increasingly relevant today (I think he and his coauthor, Herbert, published in 1981).

[jonoboy]

4. I find Comsky so easy to understand and wish

I had discovered him long before 2 years ago.

You have to really concentrate on his writing as every sentence is meaningful but he is very direct and puts his case very clearly. Love the man.

[Terwilliger]

7. kick

WWCD?

[alarcojon]

8. Has anyone here read Hegemony or Survival?

I have read a lot of Chomsky, so if it is just a repackaging of old ideas I'll wait for the paperback.

B-)

[whirlygigspin]

10. Chomsky the untouchable

It is unfortunate that Chomsky never gets on mainstream/corporate media in the USA for fear that republican's brains would spontanously explode at the sound of his voice?(a la Mars Attacks)

So much the more the pity because his arguments are based on fact and common sense.

[davekriss]

21. Phil Donahue interviewed Chomsky

When Phil Donahue had his show on MSNBC, he interviewed Donahue. It was hilarious, one of the funniest episodes I've ever seen on TV. Chomsky gave Phil answers that for Phil were incomprehensible, it was as if Noam was speaking Chinese. Phil would ask his question, and get the typical rich answer, and then pause, murmer something like "well" then launch a nother question that shows not a word Noam said sunk in. After a while Chomsky cracks this half grin and plays with Phil. Very fun to watch.

Anyway, closest I've seen the Chomster on mainstream TV, though I ubderstand he's been on the Sunday talk shows on the rare occassion.

[jbutsz]

11. "Understanding Power"

"The Indispensable Chomsky" (NY Press 2002) is the best collection of lectures/teach-ins, etc. I've ever read.

[Selwynn]

18. I agree - I consider that book an absolute treasure

[Stuckinthebush]

13. Chomsky is not a difficult read

if one is open to critically analyzing their world. Otherwise, I can see how reading Chomsky could cause serious brain burn in many Americans.

Now, Derrida...there is a hard read! But Chomsky is a liberating read.

[0rganism]

14. Chomsky requires that one accept a potentially difficult premise

namely, that the United States is one of many nations on the planet which is not gifted by some "manifest destiny" to rule over its peers. This really irritates the hell out of some people.

"But we're the United States, dammit! God's Gift to the World! They should be happy to grow bananas for us!"

[T_i_B]

16. Noam Chomsky: You Ask The Questions

http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/story.jsp?story=469811

(Such as: is human survival really under serious threat? And how easy is it for you, as a linguist, to understand teenage slang?)

[Selwynn]

17. Watching Chomsky on Charlie Rose really helped me out...

He can come of as very metalic and abrasive even while obviously being brilliant when just reading his words. Seeing him up close and personal discussing issues he cared about really helped me see a different side of him. I realize now that he is just brutally intelligent, but still - honestly also came of as just a gental old man in that interview.

I've always found Chomskys observations and isights to be some of the most worthwhile of anyone out there, in the same company as Howard Zinn in my book. No one is perfect, and I don't agree with every word that falls from his lips like a blind disciple. But there are some key areas in which I believe his insights have been invaluable for me.

[eridani]

19. Read Understanding Power

A series of talks with various groups of people. There are so many footnotes to it that they are not in the book, but online (available for extra money as a print copy.