Chomsky's vision of colleges and universities is better than Proyect's, who
presents a distortion of scientific socialism in the name of "Marxism."
Higher education needs as much independence from the political powers as
possible, and thbis includes totalitarianism from the left or right. Critical
thinking is needed after a progressive revolution as much as before one. The
ideal of the "ivory tower" is that flexibility and creativity of research,
analysis and thought require such an institution.
Sokal's timely ventilation of the Critical Theory twaddle showed why. It's
rhetorical slanting to label Sokal's expose as "reactionary." In fact, Engels
earlier exposed the stupid and vain attempts to trick up the humanities in
pseudo-scientific jargon imported from the sciences by people who didn't
understand the scientific terms but figured they would impress readers and awe
critics.
Ken Eidel wrote:
> If there's one thing that will be the death of me and (is) the death of the
> progressive movement, it's the arrogance of the left.
> ***FLASH*** Noam Chomsky is not perfect!!
> ("Quick nurse, the morphine!").
> Lets see...humans are imperfect, Noam Chomsky is human (from Neptune, yes,
> but still human), ergo... Noam Chomsky is ??
> If I EVER meet a leftist who gives another credit I think I will S***!
> Constantly tearing down others of value is not how we will succeed.
> I don't know about you, but I have a young child at home.
> Succeed we must!
> Regards,
> Ken Eidel
>
> "the gratifying road up the mountain of justice is long, and the trip is not
> for the weary but for the long distance runners."
> Ralph Nader
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael Pugliese" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, June 07, 2002 5:12 PM
> Subject: [CHOMSKY] Fwd: Noam Chomsky in the Ivory Tower
>
> > ------- Start of forwarded message -------
> > From: Louis Proyect <[log in to unmask]>
> > To: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask], SCIENCE-FOR-THE-
> > [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Fwd: Noam Chomsky in the Ivory Tower
> > Date: 6/7/02 6:51:16 AM
> >
> > Although Noam Chomsky enjoys a well-deserved reputation as a tireless and
> > effective critic of US foreign policy, there is an unfortunate tendency on
> > the left to view him in saintly terms. Despite the fact that Robert
> > Barsky's biography (http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-books/chomsky/) is written
> > from the point of view of an unabashed admirer, there is troubling
> evidence
> > in it that Chomsky is far from perfect.
> >
> > In Chapter Four (The Intellectual, the University and the State), we learn
> > that Chomsky views the university as some kind of refuge from politics and
> > the class struggle. He also has a "hands off" attitude toward the hard
> > sciences that is reminiscent of the analysis put forward by social
> > democratic physicist Alan Sokal and his reactionary associate Norman
> > Levitt. As Chomsky would put it in 1996, "Nothing should be done to impede
> > people from teaching and doing their research even if at that very moment
> > it was being used to massacre and destroy."
> >
> > During the time Chomsky was involved with protests against the war in
> > Vietnam, he was always hostile--like Theodor Adorno--to on-campus protests
> > that got in the way of pursuing the Truth. It was one thing to march
> > against the war; it was another thing entirely to occupy a building that
> > was dedicated to counter-insurgency research. According to Barsky, Chomsky
> > admired "the challenge to the universities" but thought their rebellions
> > were "largely misguided," and he "criticized [them] as they were in
> > progress at Berkeley (1966) and Columbia (1968) particularly. This is
> > corroborated by Norman Mailer, who spent time with Chomsky in a jail cell
> > after being arrested at the Pentagon protest in 1969: "He had, in fact,
> > great reservations about the form that the 1968 student uprisings
> > ultimately took."
> >
> > To a large extent, Chomsky viewed student revolutionaries as foolish and
> > excessive. He admitted to Barsky that he took no interest in the 1968
> > May-June events in France. But more importantly, Chomsky was imbued with
> > the elitism that went with his professional territory. From the standpoint
> > of a neo-Cartesian linguist involved with cutting edge research, the
> > student 'enragés' were people from another planet. Barsky writes:
> >
> > "The fact that Chomsky was immersed, primarily, in a scientific
> environment
> > had a profound impact on his perception of the role of the intellectual,
> > the way that institutions in this society function, and the value to
> > society of science. His extremely well-developed, libertarian-inspired
> > political sensibilities, and his awareness of individuals and groups far
> > more radical than those of the late 1960s, was the source of his acute
> > skepticism about the ability of many high-profile contemporary activists
> to
> > contribute anything of lasting value."
> >
> > He quotes Chomsky: "Guevara was of no interest to me; this was mindless
> > romanticism, in my view."
> >
> > From this standpoint, Chomsky's life-long cozy association with a
> > militarist institution like MIT begins to make sense. In 1969, the
> Pentagon
> > and NASA were financing two MIT laboratories. One was working on inertial
> > guidance systems; the other was "engaged in some things that involved
> > ongoing counterinsurgency," according to Chomsky's best recollection in
> 1996.
> >
> > Chomsky *opposed* severing such ties to the military because it would
> > undercut the university's ability to function. Rather disingenuously he
> > proposed that such departments rename themselves the Department of Death,
> > etc. (From this rather hare-brained scheme, one can gather why so few
> > people have actually gone out and built organizations or developed
> > strategies based on Chomsky's writings.) When Chomsky has been challenged
> > for this posture, he offers a lame excuse: "Did you ever hear anyone
> > suggest that Marx shouldn't have worked in the British Museum, the very
> > symbol of British Imperialism?"
> >
> > Chomsky's tendency to reflexively defend the right of an institution like
> > MIT to do research unimpeded even if it is "used to massacre and destroy"
> > can best be explained by his blind spot with respect to the hard sciences.
> > Since his intellectual roots are in the Cartesian wing of the
> > Enlightenment, he is ill-equipped to understand the class nature of
> > scientific institutions. He states:
> >
> > "[T]here is a noticeable general difference between the sciences and
> > mathematics on the one hand, and the humanities and social sciences on the
> > other. It's a first approximation, but one that is real. In the former,
> the
> > factors of integrity tend to dominate more over the factors of ideology.
> > It's not that scientists are more honest people. It's just that nature is
> a
> > harsh taskmaster. You can lie or distort the story of the French
> Revolution
> > as long as you like, and nothing will happen. Propose a false theory in
> > chemistry, and it'll be refuted tomorrow."
> >
> > This, of course, is exactly the stance that Alan Sokal takes in the
> > "science wars" debate and it is obviously false. Nazi science was
> virtually
> > synonymous with false theories. US biology was characterized by racism
> > through the entire 19th century and much of the 20th century. Virtually
> the
> > entire scientific establishment was suckered into the "Star Wars" project
> > of the Reagan era, while any novice understood that not only was the
> > project based on unscientific assumptions, but that it might lead to
> > pre-emptive nuclear strikes against the USSR.
> >
> > Barsky tries to explain away Chomsky's rather naïve assumptions:
> >
> > "For example, although a government might decide to give massive funding
> to
> > a researcher who is working on a truth serum so that its agents can
> extract
> > information from captured spies, that researcher will be obliged, in
> > formulating the serum, to analyze how particular drugs affect the thinking
> > process, and thus be of use to the population at large in a variety of
> > crucial ways."
> >
> > Needless to say, this would have provided a comfortable rationale for a
> > Nazi scientist doing experiments on a Jewish inmate at Auschwitz.
> >
> >
> > Louis Proyect
> > Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
> >
> >
> >
> > -------- End of forwarded message --------
> >
> >
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