Death of progressive movement , indeed; the reactionaries 'won' the last
election for the Bush by a coup--does this point to great support--a
looney idea.

>
> 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 --------
> >
> >
>