Dave Pollard's environmental philosophy, creative works, business papers and essays.

trust your instincts

< £ Salon Bloggers & >

	March 26, 2003

CHOMSKY ON POLITICS AND LANGUAGE Since language and politics are two of the blogosphere's favourite topics, readers might like to know that there's a profile of Noam Chomsky that deals with both subjects in this week's New Yorker (not available, alas, in the online edition ). Chomsky has recently alienated many of his supporters on the political left. He refuses, for example, to talk about his opposition to war in terms of morality, and focuses purely on whether it is reasonable to achieve the intended result. His opposition to the war on Iraq is therefore predicated on these 'facts': (a) Few countries have ever (and America has never) successfully replaced a country's regime with one more acceptable to the people of that country. Only internal, civil revolutions have been successful in doing this (e.g. Marcos, Duvalier, Suharto, Ceausescu). (b) Iraq is an artificial construct imposed by the British, which means the only regimes likely to find enduring favour with the local populace are those that the U.S. could not tolerate (e.g. a Shiite muslim state closely allied with the similar state in Iran, and a Kurdish state allied with a break-away Turkish Kurdish state). Chomsky was recently in Turkey using his influence for the successful release of a Kurdish journalist charged with treason (for publishing Chomsky's articles condemning Turkey's treatment of the Kurds). Chomsky seems to be as inept in many of his actions as he is brilliant in his thoughts. He inadvertently lent his name and his credibility to an anti-Semitic tract when he defended the author's rights to free speech (his quote appeared as an 'endorsement' on the offensive book's cover). His book on 9/11 has been vilified for its moral indifference: He compared the 9/11 attacks to Clinton's bombing of a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant (the U.S. suspected it was a chemical weapons plant, and because of the error several thousand people died as a result of not getting their medicines). Regardless of intent or morality, he argued, neither attack could reasonably have been expected to have accomplished its objectives with minimal risk, so they were equally indefensible. He has alienated many people in his field of linguistics as well. He has radically changed his basic thinking on the subject three times, each time turning his back contemptuously on supporters of his previous theories. He still believes that language is hard-wired in the brain (which is why babies learn it so easily, and 'wild children' who don't learn language by adolescence spend the rest of their lives illiterate and culturally disconnected from the rest of the human race). He believes all human languages are intimately connected and remarkably and inevitably alike, although he has seemingly given up on the holy grail of a universal 'proto-language' or syntax. A passionate anti-behaviouralist, he thinks it possible that language could yet prove to be a Gouldian 'spandrel', an accident of human evolution that arose as a side-effect of some more  'purposeful' evolutionary development. The article left me with two unanswered questions: Is Chomsky's 'rational', morally neutral approach to looking at political events and public policy better or worse than approaches that invoke morality, humanity, and altruism? Is Chomsky a linguistic speciesist, blinded by his narrow study of human language to believe that only humans have sophisticated, 'hard-wired' innate language ability, and hence reasoning and cognition? If he studied dolphins or ravens would he really come to understand what language and consciousness and reason is, how and why they evolved and what they're for? Anyone have any thoughts on these two issues, or other thoughts about Chomsky? Seems to me this might be diablogue material. What do we make of his incredible worldwide popularity, everywhere except in the U.S.? And what should we make of his wife's weary comment that when he's asked what to do about everything that's wrong, he 'fakes' an answer rather than admit he has none? Post-script: Since I'm pimping the New Yorker, I should note that the magazine cover I reproduced on my To Be Nobody But Yourself post (also on Monday) was, by an amazing coincidence, featured in this week's New Yorker vintage cover collection ad. I now know the artist's name: Charles E. Martin, and the date of initial publication, 1971. You can buy it, as I'm going to do, from their Cartoon Bank . 4:01:36 PM  trackback []  comment []

MORE 'INCREDIBLE' I thought I'd said all I wanted or needed to say about propaganda in my ' Incredible ' post Monday, but the unfiltered misinformation and groupthink being proffered by virtually all the mainstream media about the war - the only 'information' most of the Western world is exposed to - just keeps flowing like a horrendously backed-up sewer. Latest installments: Civilian revolt in Basra: Turns out there really wasn't one, it was just a ruse by the U.K. propaganda machine to try to terrify Basra's civilians into a 'pre-emptive' strike on the Iraq army and local militias. Basra's citizens have been living without water, electricity, heat and medicines since the start of the war, and a humanitarian disaster of staggering proportions looms in that city, Iraq's second largest. When the people find out about this ruse, they are unlikely to be too partial to the conquering army for the rest of the war, nor to the greedy American corporate conglomerates that will be paid (with U.S. taxpayer dollars) to 'reconstruct' the city once the U.S./U.K. armies have destroyed it. Importance of Iraqi TV:  The U.S. military described the destruction of the main Iraqi TV transmitters as a "huge strategic success" . One can only conclude they have never watched Iraqi TV. The people of Iraq are not stupid - they know the main TV network is all lies and propaganda. And the suggestion that the national TV network was somehow important in communicating news to Iraqi troops is ludicrous - if the Iraq army was so backward that they needed to rely on TV news to plan their defence strategy, this war would have been over before it started. At any rate, the backup transmitters restored the meaningless signal within a few hours. CBC has been talking all day about the inanity of 'embedded' journalists' reports and the immense courage of those 'unembedded' journalists who chose instead to dare to report the truth, some of whom have paid for their bravery with their lives. I'm pleased to say that the CBC now precedes all 'embedded' journalists' reports with a warning that 'the following report was subject to prior review by allied military authorities'. $75 Billion just for the first phase of the war - that's $3,000 (a fortune) for every Iraqi man, woman and child. Think of what could have been done with that money. 2:29:33 PM  trackback []  comment []

U.S. 'DIPLOMACY' HITS CANADA U.S. Ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci managed to stir up virulent anti-Americanism in Canada today by claiming that Canadian officials who are critical of the U.S. president and its policies should be muzzled, and issuing veiled threats of recriminations for Canada's 'disappointing' lack of support for the war. He was speaking to a business group in Toronto and elaborated afterwards for the news media. It's hard to understand how an ambassador could commit such a colossal diplomatic blunder. The reaction to the threats and bullying was immediate, with call-in phone lines swamped with callers mostly suggesting he was way out of line, and some suggesting he be recalled or expelled. The House of Commons immediately overwhelmingly voted to reassert its opposition to the war, and Prime Minister Chretien defended the right of officials 'in an independent and free country' to express their opinions, and reminded everyone that Canada has been and is now very active in the fight against terrorism and programs to rebuild Afghanistan. If Cellucci was under orders from Bush to bully Canada into joining his tawdry list of half-secret 'coalition of the willing' countries, it backfired horrifically. What will these clowns do next to further alienate the rest of the world and isolate the U.S. completely? You can probably tell I'm p****d off. 1:02:14 AM  trackback []  comment []

© Copyright 2004 Dave Pollard. Last update: 19/02/2004; 2:41:14 PM.