An Ode to Chomsky

One of the reasons for his sophistication is that he doesn't adopt a naà ¯ve idealism that tries to "explain" history using principles that aren't robust enough to really explain anything. He uses truly explanatory principles, which, like a scientist would, he tests by deeply exploring the past. These "principles" amount to the single, commonsense statement that Chomsky makes in the film Requiem for the American Dream: "The history of the United States is a constant struggle between these two tendencies: pressure for more freedom and democracy coming from below, and efforts at elite control and domination coming from above." It's a history of power struggles, which amounts to a history of class conflict (including racial and other forms of conflict, conditioned in myriad ways by class). This is a realistic and substantive hypothesis that provides a framework of understanding, and that is backed up by a colossal body of world historiography.[1]

Nathan Robinson of Current Affairs has devastatingly criticized Lepore's book, pointing out that it mostly ignores the history of working-class struggle, among other things that are central to the American story. But this is what happens when you don't have much of an overall point except to tell particular stories that you rather arbitrarily judge to be important. If you lack a weighty analytical anchor, you lose your way.

I've always found it ironic that the idealists, whether liberal, conservative, or postmodernist, are bad at ideas, far worse than the materialists.

The fact is that you don't need the endless verbiage of academics, the (usually hyper-specialized) books and articles ad infinitum, in order to understand the world. Essential truths can be expressed in a few words, as Chomsky shows. You state the hypotheses, and then you provide the factual documentation. Of course, we intellectuals have to get our paychecks, so it's necessary for us to constantly come up with new research proposals and new stories to tell for their own sake, and to discuss and discuss unendingly in conferences and so forth, repeating and slightly reformulating old insights or "problematizing" them for the sake of problematizing them, pompously "theorizing" and pontificating, but little of our activity has much of a 'scientific'--and certainly not a moral--payoff. It's just how the institutions work, and how the political economy keeps educated people occupied who might otherwise spend their time on dangerous pursuits like challenging power-structures.

This article has gotten longer than I anticipated, but there are a couple more points I want to make before putting an end to the "endless verbiage" to which I'm subjecting the reader.

When reading Chomsky's works or watching his interviews, I sometimes come across a startling statement that first elicits the reaction "What the"?", which is momentarily followed by "Hm, that makes sense." And then I envy the mind that was independent enough to have come up with the idea on its own.

I remember reading in Understanding Power that when some Vietnamese refugees in Canada had burned Chomsky's books he wasn't bothered by it. It's a reasonable form of protest, he said (as long as it isn't done by governments or corporations). Having been indoctrinated by writers of books into thinking that books are sacred, that book-burning is always a barbaric act, for a moment I was surprised. But then I thought, "Sure, why not? What's so terrible about burning a few copies of books if you think they're bad books? It's not like you're burning everycopy. It's just a symbolic statement. It's free expression!" Most other authors would have been outraged at a bonfire of their books, but Chomsky doesn't take things personally. Abstract principles are what matter.

More recently, I was struck by his statement in this video(at 31:44) that "the concept of debate is one of the most irrational inventions that human beings have come up with." Huh? "Just think about what a debate is. The ground rules for a debate are you're not allowed to change your mind. You're not allowed to say to the person you're talking to, 'oh, that was an interesting idea, why don't we pursue it?' It's just the height of irrationality-- As he elaborates, you realize he's basically right. Personally, I'm too much a product of my society, too groupthinking and conformist, to have had the thought on my own. I've always wished I were a better debater. But yes, surely the main reason debates happen at all is that ego and questions of power are involved. (Or the debate can be a game, a competition.) If it were only a question of reason, we would have open-minded conversations, not debates.

I now try never to automatically accept seemingly reasonable cultural 'constructs,' but instead to critically examine every value and idea I'm pressured to accept. It's a hard thing to do consistently. But even ideas I've come to on my own I try to periodically challenge yet again, to see if they still make sense in the light of new experiences.

In the end, it's this (relative) absence of ego that sets Chomsky (relatively) apart. He obsesses over politics not because he enjoys it--he surely finds it as dreary as I do--but because, given his abilities, he has a duty to. I think we all could be a little more conscious of our duties to each other, insofar as we subscribe to the Golden Rule (as we should). Duties to be kind, to answer emails, to not be too quick to judge harshly, to imagine ourselves in the other person's shoes, to give people the benefit of the doubt while yet taking a clear stand when certain moral lines have been crossed, and in general to strive for relative selflessness (because that is intellectually, aesthetically, and morally elevated).

It's easy to be misanthropic and nihilistic, but there's something a little self-indulgent, even decadent, about that. A more "clean" and virile response is to recognize the horrendous evils and absurdities of the world, indeed to take them for granted, but to imagine oneself as an objectively detached being who is committed, no matter what, to realizing certain universal values. Nothing can make you stray from your path. However stupidly and disgustingly people act, you continue to act kindly and respectfully because it's a principle you're committed to, your own categorical imperative. You keep working to improve the world in whatever small ways you can, because that's the law you've given yourself. You try not to emotionally dwell on the negative, since there's so much of the negative in the world that you'll end up in suicidal despair. You remember there is also plenty of the positive, and the only healthy thing is to increase the aggregate amount of the positive.

In a sense, don't take the world seriously. Don't take the farce, or the "freak show," as George Carlin called it, seriously. We're here for a few decades, can observe and try to mitigate the freak show for a few decades, and then vanish into the oblivion from whence we came. Nothing really makes sense, not our existence and, especially, not what we've collectively done with our existence. The brutal Chomskian irony/sarcasm is appropriate. But you still make of life what you can, do what you can to live in a healthy way, not being surprised or overly depressed by all the cruelty and absurdity but impressed by the many positive qualities you encounter.

Nietzsche's amor fati is perhaps unattainable, but Chomsky's stoicism and good humor are the next best thing.

In short: happy birthday, Noam, and may you have many more.

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