Well, he also talks about “Anarcho-Syndicalism,” which worked well enough when tried on the ground very briefly during the Spanish Revolution, but who knows how viable it could have been in the long run?
But it’s not clear at all whether he’s using “libertarian socialism” and “anarcho-syndicalism” as synonyms.
I would say, personally, that political science and political philosophy are both extraordinarily complex and specialized fields. It strikes me as tragic, then, that the most intellectual of the public political commentators… has no academic background that I am aware of in political science, and has made no major contributions (again, that I am aware of) to the field. Surely Chomsky would see the ridiculousness of John Mearsheimer making grand and polemical pronouncements on the field of linguistics —why is the other direction not also obvious?
(ETA: N.B. I am not saying that people who don’t study politics shouldn’t talk about politics —after all, politics inherently involves everyone’s participation. Publishing books on politics, on the other hand…)
Waitaminnit, now. Chomsky is making no claim to be a political scientist – which, in fact, very few political commentators are. I can’t think of a single one at the moment.
I know. That was sort of my point.
ETA: putting it differently, it’s not exactly an attack on Noam Chomsky; just on his insistence on writing books about politics. Also, being fair to political commentators, they do tend to either have formal training in political science or long experience in the trenches, as it were. Certainly I know political scientists who have written OpEds for the NYT. And it’s annoying when the don’t have that training or experience. Also, I suppose you could argue that political scientists should shape up —but I think they tend to withdraw from publishing for popular consumption, simply because that discourse is so toxic.
Consensus seems to suggest Chomsky is some sort of well articulate quack. A seemingly well intentioned conspiracy theorist. That’s a shame. I really admire his manner of presentation and his obvious intelligence.
Not to sidetrack the thread, but anyone know of any sane political commentators? Ones that aren’t affiliated with a specific political ideology / bought by a corporation?
Ibn Warraq and Dissonance. Thanks for the extra info. I’ll go do some more reading about it. I have seen many silly criticisms about Chomsky but this may be a valid one.
Every political commentator has a definite political ideology – stated or not, conscious or not, coherent or not, but definitely definite, in the sense that once you are generally familiar with the commentator, you can probably reliably predict his/her reaction to this or that new event/issue.
But, check out Michael Lind. He’s a “recovering conservative,” an apostate from movement conservatism who has not done a David Horowitz and gone all the way to the other extreme. (Lind tells his side of that story in his book Up From Conservatism. In a nutshell, he got disgusted with a movement that pursued a “No Enemies To the Right” strategy and insisted on treating with respect the crypto-antisemitic (and that preposterous-seeming phrase applies perfectly here) conspiracy theories of Pat Robertson.) He settled on an ideological position which he has described variously as “liberal nationalism” (as explained in his book Hamilton’s Republic (spoiler: Jefferson was wrong, Hamilton was right)), or the “radical center” (see his book of that name co-authored with Ted Halstead). He is on the staff of the New America Foundation (a Washington, D.C. outfit known as the "Silicon Valley Think Tank), and frequently publishes articles in Salon. And one thing he definitely is, is sane. Maybe too sane. 
(Check out his newest article, calling human spaceflight a dead end.)
Unless I read too quickly, I don’t think that Chomsky was saying that there was no genocide in Cambodia. He was saying that too much about America’s participation in the deaths of Cambodians was left out of the histories:
We do not pretend to know where the truth lies amidst these sharply conflicting assessments; rather, we again want to emphasize some crucial points. What filters through to the American public is a seriously distorted version of the evidence available, emphasizing alleged Khmer Rouge atrocities and downplaying or ignoring the crucial U.S. role, direct and indirect, in the torment that Cambodia has suffered. Evidence that focuses on the American role, like the Hildebrand and Porter volume, is ignored, not on the basis of truthfulness or scholarship but because the message is unpalatable. – Chomsky
This was from one of your links, Ibn Warraq:
chomsky.info : The Noam Chomsky Website
Those of us who were adults at the time may not know the truth of what really happened (except that there was genocide), but we are very aware of how much we were lied to in those days by both parties.
Then you didn’t read it thoroughly.
Chomsky claimed that probably only a few thousand Cambodians were killed by the Khmer Rouge and accuses the Cambodian refugees of being liars.
He was ripped apart by the Nation readers for spreading such disgusting crap.
Frankly you could make a far, far stronger case that it’s more wrong to classify David Irving to be a genocide denier since he says the Holocaust really happened, just that probably no more than several hundred thousand Jews died and that the stories by Holocaust survivors are lies.
If it’s wrong to piss on the graves of dead Jews then it’s also wrong to piss on the graves of dead Cambodians.
Really?
The key point, IMO, is that he was writing this at the time, and in the face of a pretty massive US propaganda effort to play up the perils of communism and play down the civilian deaths caused by the US. He didn’t trust official sources at all, and he thought that others shouldn’t trust them either, not until there was some time to sort through conflicting claims and gather additional evidence. I’m not sure whether that’s a reasonable position, since I just don’t know enough about what evidence was available then, but it’s far more reasonable than you’re making it out to be.
Your comparison to David Irving is ridiculous, because Irving refuses to recognize the Holocaust’s numbers in the face of overwhelming evidence that’s had more than six decades to be sorted through. It would only work as a comparison if Chomsky, three decades after the Khmer Rouge’s atrocities, continues to deny them. Does he? Or did he just question them at the time, and in the face of later evidence accepts them?
By your standards then we shouldn’t classify anyone who claimed the Holocaust was a hoax in 1948 a genocide denier or a Holocaust Denier.
Moreover, the Cambodian Holocaust at that time was extremely well documented by people who were not government stooges.
If you go through back issues of The Nation(which is probably the most leftist magazine in the country) you’ll notice that he was ripped apart for it.
As to if Chomsky accepts the reality or not of the Cambodian Holocaust or not, well he now denies that he ever denied it even though we can all read his denial.
To paraphrase another writer, it’s best with Chomsky to assume every word he writes is a lie including “and” and “the”.
Finally, I’m not sure Chomsky would be insulted by comparisons to Irving since he was a strong champion and admirer of Robert Faurison, a French Holocaust denier. Chomsky defended him, insisted he shouldn’t be condemned for publishing “his findings” and wrote an introduction to Faurison’s book praising the man.
Chomsky repeatedly insisted that not only was he certain that Faurison wasn’t an anti-Semite but that “I see no anti-Semitic IMPLICATIONS in denial of the Holocaust or denial of the existence of gas chambers.”
Chomsky appears to fetishize/romanticize popular resistance movements to such a degree that he’s gullably willing to overlook their faults, demonize their enemies, and overlook the evidence of their atrocities. The comparison of the Khmer Rouge with the French Resistence is telling. His point here is that the Khmer Rouge ought to be viewed though the same favourable lens as was accorded the French Resistance. He certainly does in that article.
Chomsky’s world-view is remarkably black and white. If Chomsky decides that a group or movement is struggling against imperialism in any of its forms, he’s willing to weigh, and often to deliberately distort, the evidence in their favour, often to an absurd and irrational extent. Hence his preference for apparently treating “equally” (actually, favouring) believing in Khmer Rouge sources over the actual accounts of Cambodian refugees.
These tactics ought to be obvious. But the fact is that many people share his essentially romantic view of popular resistance movements, and are willing, like him, to give them the benefit of the “doubt” - and if necessary to manufacture the “doubt” in the first place.
Yes, really. He wasn’t writing this in 1975, when it could be forgiven for having some ideological blinders on. He was writing this in June, 1977, after genocide had been going on for two years and the evidence that it was happening was overwhelming to everyone aside from him, Herman, Hildebrand and Porter.
Nonsense, and two years was far more than enough time to sift through the evidence. See my post 14 in this thread, he only regarded official US sources as worthless, and even non-US sources that arrived at similar figures to the US - “No source is given, but it is interesting that a 1.2 million estimate is attributed by Ponchaud to the American Embassy (Presumably Bangkok), a completely worthless source.” Official Khmer Rouge sources, on the other hand, are taken as coming from the mouth of god with not even the slightest hint of skepticism. The evidence of genocide included two years worth of refugees, which he also considers a worthless source of information “They also testify to the extreme unreliability of refugee reports, and the need to treat them with great caution, a fact that we and others have discussed elsewhere (cf. Chomsky: At War with Asia, on the problems of interpreting reports of refugees from American bombing in Laos). Refugees are frightened and defenseless, at the mercy of alien forces. They naturally tend to report what they believe their interlocuters wish to hear. While these reports must be considered seriously, care and caution are necessary. Specifically, refugees questioned by Westerners or Thais have a vested interest in reporting atrocities on the part of Cambodian revolutionaries, an obvious fact that no serious reporter will fail to take into account.” Now replace this with refugees from Serbia or Rwanda and how anything they say about genocide or ethnic cleansing happening in Serbia and Rwanda should be taken ‘seriously’ but with such care and caution that two years worth of such reports are just lies to please relief workers, and think of how you would feel about someone spouting that nonsense.
Again, it helps to have some background on the piece. Ponchaud’s book and Lacouture’s review of it are skewered since they send the wrong message, that being the truth that genocide was happening in Cambodia and had been going on for two years. Jean Lacouture was far to the left himself, and had been pro-Khmer Rouge before they took power, but wasn’t willfully blind to the horrors that happened when they took power. Hildebrand and Porter’s book, which was frankly a propaganda tract, is lamented as only reaching a small audience since it presented a positive review of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, not because it was a barely readable work of propaganda dreck. Chomsky says they “present a carefully documented study of the destructive American impact on Cambodia and the success of the Cambodian revolutionaries in overcoming it, giving a very favorable picture of their programs and policies, based on a wide range of sources,” which is only true if careful documentation by the Khmer Rouge about what a worker’s paradise Cambodia was now is considered careful documentation from a wide range of sources. The only sources they use that aren’t Khmer Rouge pre-date the Khmer Rouge’s seizing power in April 1975. Gareth Porter’s claim to fame prior to this book was denying or minimizing that the communists had a list of people they collected when they seized Hue during the Tet offensive that they murdered and dumped into mass graves.
Also noteworthy are the contortions that Chomsky, Herman, Gareth and Hildebrand bend to trying to explain why it was perfectly natural for the Khmer Rouge to empty the entire city of Phnom Pehn upon taking it in April 1975. Try naming one other city in all of the history of warfare that was emptied of people after being taken to send the city dwellers to the fields to “prevent starvation.”
Ah, but you were aware that genocide was going on, and that both parties lied.
Chomsky uses flowery wording in “not pretending to know where the truth lies,” but it is clear that he doesn’t believe genocide was happening, just distorted allegations of Khmer Rouge atrocities. Then there is this, same article
Chomsky believes the suggestion that just a little righteous revenge killing happened “is more nearly correct” than the fact that genocide was happening.
As I’ve said before, he doesn’t think we were being lied to by both sides, a valid position. Rather the US position was so tainted as to be “completely worthless,” while Hildebrand and Porter’s book which relied on Khmer Rouge sources was lauded and praised for its scholarly value, and they blame its failure to reach mass circulation on the unpalatable message and focusing on the American role in Cambodia’s torment rather than it being barely readable and barely regurgitated Khmer Rouge propaganda.
No, because the war was ongoing. Someone who denied the Holocaust in 1942 would be more analogous, especially if their denial wasn’t so much a denial as saying, “I don’t trust what I’m hearing about this, let’s find out if it’s really happening.”
Which sounds appropriate: he didn’t deny it was happening. Look at what I quoted: he denied that we had good enough information to say it was happening. That’s extremely different, and he’d be right to say he never denied it. It may be execrable for him to say we didn’t have enough information at the time, but it’s dishonest to equate that with denying it altogether.
This is a mix of truths, half-truths, and outright falsehoods. Faurison was to be imprisoned for denying the Holocaust. Chomsky signed a petition, along with a lot of other academics, defending Faurison’s right to say whatever he wanted. Chomsky wrote an essay about freedom of speech, including the line, “it is precisely in the case of horrendous ideas that the right of free expression must be most vigorously defended; it is easy enough to defend free expression for those who require no such defense.” He allowed Faurrison to do as he wanted with this essay; Faurisson chose to use it as the preface to his book. [edit: cite]
Calling him a “strong champion and admirer” of the man is nowhere close to the truth; Chomsky takes pains to emphasize that he knows next to nothing about Faurisson, and that knowing anything about him is totally irrelevant to Chomsky’s defense of the man’s freedom of speech.
This is, I think, a misunderstanding of Chomsky. A comparison to the revenge killings in liberated France wouldn’t excuse the Khmer Rouge; given Chomsky’s hatred for government in all its forms, it would condemn liberated France. Note his use of the word “massacres” to describe what happened in France; do you think he uses that word approvingly?
That said, I’m not a fan of Chomsky. As others have pointed out, he has a pathological hatred of the United States, and he is willing to distort the record in order to build conspiracy theories against the US. Some of his criticisms are valid, but it’s like looking to the Republican party to figure out what’s wrong with unions: according to them, EVERYTHING is wrong with unions, so their analysis of particular ills is pretty much useless. Chomsky’s analysis of US evils is useless for the same reason.
Sorry, but such a statement, saying that denying the Cambodian Holocaust in 1977 was no different than denying the Shoah in 1942, shows an extreme amount of ignorance about the subject.
By 1977, the Cambodian Holocaust was extremely well-known, whereas in 1942, most people didn’t know about the Shoah.
In fact the term “Holocaust” wasn’t even used to describe those events until after the war.
William Shirer, the author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, who knew more about Nazi Germany than any other American was genuinely shocked to find out about the death camps. Similarly, American soldiers who found out about them in 1945 were also shocked.
By contrast in 1977 EVERYONE knew about the Cambodian Holocaust.
If you’re going to accuse me of such a thing then you better have far more knowledge of a subject than is gleaned from a badly sourced wikipedia article.
That statement is utterly moronic and complete bullshit.
Faurison was not imprisoned for denying the Holocaust.
He was disciplined by the university because he falsified research which is dramatically different than saying he was fired.
Furthermore even that asinine wikipedia article you sourced doesn’t say he was imprisoned. It merely links to a claim by “the Institute for Historical Review” which said he was given a suspended sentence for doing so.
For those not familiar with it, the Institute for Historical Review is a think tank specializing in proving that the Holocaust is a hoax.
The fact that wikipedia links to such a site should tell one how utterly stupid it is to use wikipedia as a source on any controversial topic.
Moreover, if you’re going to attack Holocaust deniers(as you seem to do) it makes you look more than a little foolish to use Holocaust deniers as a source.
I’m sorry, but either you’re being intellectually dishonest or you didn’t bother reading the petition.
Here’s what it said.
Sorry dude, but people who sign a petition who use the word “Holocaust” in quotes and defend a person’s right to present his “findings” and claim that Holocaust deniers are doing “extensive historical research” are doing far more than defending free speech.
Furthermore, Faurisson was not disciplined by the University for denying the Holocaust but for falsifying data which is certainly not protected by academic freedom.
You have rather foolishly chosen to believe only one of Chomsky’s versions as to what happened. That is his most recent. In prior years, he’s denied that he ever gave Faurisson permission to do so.
Furthermore, when you allow someone to use an essay of your’s as the preface to their books you clearly somewhat agree with them and to deny this is ridiculous.
Leaving aside the fact that people who’s knowledge of an event is gleaned from one embarrassingly bad wikipedia article are in no position to make such judgements, you clearly aren’t familiar with the fact that Chomsky has repeatedly defended Faurisson for years and repeatedly insisted for decades that he sees no signs of anti-Semitism in either Faurisson’s work or Holocaust denial.
Like I said, he himself has stated that not only does he think it’s not anti-Semitic to deny the Holocaust, but that he sees no “anti-Semitic implications” in denying the Holocaust.
Those of you who are attacking Chomsky are terribly lacking in full, direct quotations with links to the context to back up your accusations about what he claimed. A snippet here and there can be easily twisted. Your claims are unsupported.
And I am curious if any of you were adults in the mid-Seventies. One of you claimed that a couple of years was plenty of time to research information on the subject. That really gave me pause considering that we are talking about the Killing Fields and Southeast Asia.
You’ve never heard of Sidney Schanberg?
Incidentally, you’re making defenses that Chomsky himself doesn’t make.
He simply denies that ever denied the Cambodian Holocaust.
Utterly complete and unmitigated nonsense. The context of the quotes is readily available for you, the entire article was linked by Ibn. The quotes are full, direct quotes from what Chomsky and Herman wrote in Distortions at Fourth Hand. You in fact linked to the article yourself. How you can now claim that those attacking Chomsky are terribly lacking in full, direct quotations with links to the context and hold straight face is beyond me.
I guess you missed out on the Khmer Rouge forcibly removing everyone from Phnom Pehn? The two years worth of refugee reports of the kinds of horrors going on in Cambodia?
Not really, it would be more like someone in 1996 saying we don’t have enough information to really know what’s going on or has happened in Rwanda, not trusting anything from Western news sources, and trusting the Rwandan Patriotic Front as a reliable source of information, taking everything they say at face value. Then saying that we can’t pretend to know where the truth lies in all of this, but the situation was more likely to have been a few revenge killings such as happened in France after the Nazis were defeated than genocide. It was clear and accepted by everyone other than Chomsky in 1977 that an estimated 1.2 million Cambodians had been murdered, the evidence of it was plentiful. Chomsky only arrives at the conclusion that we can’t reach a conclusion by the most willful blindness and denial. The evidence was there from the very first day; the Khmer Rouge had the entire city of 2.5 million people emptied upon capturing Phnom Pehn in April 1975. No exceptions, even the hospitals were emptied. Chomsky willingly accepts this was done to avoid starvation, a ridiculous premise. I challenge you again to find even one example in all of history of a city being emptied of its population upon its capture being done for something other than nefarious purposes.