Comments on: God gave philosophers the easy problems

By: WTB

WTB — Fri, 12 Dec 2003 22:40:07 +0000

Leiter’s got a vested interest in arguing that established academics like Chomsky (and Brian Leiter) are, in virture of their scholarly eminence, smarter than everyone else. His “Philosophical Gourmet” is, among other things, an attempt to establish objective rankings of the quality of philosophy departments based on the most narrowly conventional measures of scholarly achievement. E.g. who says who’s hot right now and who’s being cited the most. It’s a very good resource if you want to understand the terms in which you must think in order to get a job as a philosophy professor, but not a good indicator of who’s the smartest philosopher of them all—much less who will be read 100 years from now. Apparently, Leiter thinks that if he admits that if someone without his eminent qualifications might be as smart as him, this would undermine the validity of the Gourmet Report. (Which, who knows, might the only philosophical contribution he’s remembered for 100 years from now.)

By: Jeffrey Kramer

Jeffrey Kramer — Fri, 12 Dec 2003 02:15:40 +0000

Peepak; I’m not particularly in a bashing mood, so let’s, as you suggest, just let it rest. :)

By: Mikhel

Mikhel — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 16:28:31 +0000

As in prior discussions, I find myself in agreement with Keith Ellis and, certainly, with Vinteuil. I must add, however, that if the Rand/Chomsky comparison is unfair, it is unfair to Rand. Not to the extent of a particular idealogical extremism; but, that I am not familar with comments by Ms. Rand that equate with comments like “By now Jews in the US are the most privileged and influential part of the population.” which is nearly laughable in its bias and falsity. It is true that I’m not as familiar with Rand’s biographical details, so I’ll caution my statement with a nod to my ignorance. What I’ve found to be interesting in interactions concerning Chomsky, is that one often defends his less savory statements and pronouncements so as to justify his political conclusions that one is in agreement with. This discussion—as interesting as it has been—seems to be another indication of such an opinion.

By: just someone

just someone — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 16:24:41 +0000

In support of my earlier comment that Chomsky’s West includes more than his little bit of earth, I have included a quote about France. I think we will all agree that France is in the West. “This anti-Semitism is real in our country,” commission secretary Remy Schwartz said. “We found children have to leave public schools in some areas because they are not physically secure… This has profoundly shocked the commission.” It may shock the commission and Chomsky, but it doesn’t shock me one bit. The aticle can be found at… http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=Q504RECJ1EYZMCRBAELCFEY?type=worldNews&storyID=3976524&pageNumber=1

By: Peepak

Peepak — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 14:18:40 +0000

Jeffrey: I see your point. And certainly one shouldn’t supply qualifiers in order to make the statement come out as your desire dictates.. all true, all true. However, the qualifiers are all there, in C.’s original statement. I have interpreted it thus (but I haven’t added any qualifiers, nor do I think I’ve departed from his meaning. If you think my interpretation is all off, feel free to bash it.): “Anti-semitism scarcely exists today, in the West, compared to the past, compared to anti-Arabism, which latter seems less prevalent than it really is, since it has the aura of legitimacy, granted by the power structures in our societies, and ourselves, while the former seems more prevalent than it really is, for much of that sentiment is actually disapproval of the state of Israel’s policies” In any case, this argument is getting really old, and I suggest we can it. It seems (as we knew anyway) that reasonable people may not agree on even interpreting a paragraph. It seems the liberals were wrong about the power of reason; our interpretation depends (as is obvious) on whether we agree with Chomsky in the first place.

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 06:09:15 +0000

Bruce Sharp has a very nice essay on Chomsky on the Khmer Rouge. He tries to offer a balanced and fair critique, but he has this to say in his introduction:

"If Chomsky was initially skeptical of the reports of Khmer Rouge atrocities, he was certainly not alone. Given that he now acknowledges the brutality of the Khmer Rouge regime, is it fair to continue to criticize him? A peculiar irony is at the heart of this controversy: Noam Chomsky, the man who has spent years analyzing propaganda, is himself a propagandist. Whatever one thinks of Chomsky in general, whatever one thinks of his theories of media manipulation and the mechanisms of state power, Chomsky's work with regard to Cambodia has been marred by omissions, dubious statistics, and, in some cases, outright misrepresentations. On top of this, Chomsky continues to deny that he was wrong about Cambodia. He responds to criticisms by misrepresenting his own positions, misrepresenting his critics' positions, and describing his detractors as morally lower than 'neo-Nazis and neo-Stalinists.' Consequently, his refusal to reconsider his words has led to continued misinterpretations of what really happened in Cambodia. Misconceptions, it seems, have a very long life."—Bruce Sharp, "Averaging Wrong Answers"

I read this essay last year. I think that Sharp does a very good job demonstrating, as he says, that Chomsky, the anti-propogandist, is himself a propogandist. Well-intentioned, perhaps. Closer to the truth than those he criticizes, maybe. But a propogandist who subordinates truth to spin, nevertheless.

By: Joshua W. Burton

Joshua W. Burton — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 03:55:54 +0000

Poin D writes: The “proof of the pudding” in Chomsky’s political analysis lies in the overwhelming preponderance of historical fact that he marshalls to back up his claims. My response is now almost eight years old, and marred at its end by the poignant optimism of a lost moment in history. But I stand by the legwork, and it’s stood by me over the years. As I say in the posting, everyone should do this to Chomsky, once. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=4m5u69%24jpm%40news.acns.nwu.edu

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 03:39:33 +0000

“Chomsky is the Ayn Rand of the left.”—Vinteuil

Ooh, that’s really good. I wish I had said that. I think it’s very true, both in terms of the intellectual and his/her followers.

By: Jeffrey Kramer

Jeffrey Kramer — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 02:08:38 +0000

Peepak, I think the difference between “can’t sing at all” and “can’t sing” is far smaller than the difference between “can’t sing” and (say) “can’t sing in a large arena without lots of electronic assistance.” And that’s the rough equivalent of what Leiter is doing: producing ad lib qualifiers to an apparently unqualified statement. For any apparently silly, unqualified statement, there are a near-infinite number of qualifications which would turn it into a sensible statement. No reader should be expected to know just which of those is to be applied, and asking readers to keep trying until they find one that fits, because the speaker is a bright guy, strikes me as rather too close to fundamentalist hermeneutics as applied to Holy Scripture. (‘If it appears to say the earth is flat, but we know the earth is round, then we must assume it’s meant to be read allegorically.’) Whatever you think of this, I think the point remains: it is perfectly possible to make a categorical statement in response to a relative question; it is not always necessary or even reasonable to say ‘he was asked a question about whether it was more or less than the past, therefore his answer must be read with the silent ‘as compared to the past’ understood.”

By: Vinteuil

Vinteuil — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 23:50:19 +0000

alkali: if you believe that it was Pejman, and not Leiter, who was being too clever by half, then I doubt whether anything I might say could change your mind. I won’t try. Still, I hope you would agree with two points: (1) Pejman’s interpretation was not so egregious as to warrant throwing around words like “ignorant,” “inane,” “trivial,” “lightweight,” “stupidity,” etc. (2) Pejman’s interpretation was in fact entirely consonant with previous remarks that Chomsky has made on this topic (see my post above). What Leiter really needs to understand is that he simply cannot adopt a de haut en bas attitude when defending Chomsky and expect to convince anybody who doesn’t already agree with him. Chomsky is the Ayn Rand of the left. Always interesting, sometimes insightful, often totally loopy. If only someone could filter out the nonsense and save just the best bits. Leiter himself might be the man for the job. But not if he carries on like this.

By: John

John — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 22:14:32 +0000

Meanwhile, it was barely fifty years ago that the systemic extermination of those with Jewish blood was considered a debatable issue in the West. This is untrue, if by “debatable” we mean “something which was debated”. In fact, the Nazis seem to have been quite aware that, whatever they were actually doing to the Jews in Poland and the Soviet Union, the issue was absolutely undebatable – nothing could ever be said about it. Even to other people who knows exactly what is meant by the carefully chosen euphemisms the Nazis always used to discuss the “final solution to the Jewish question” (itself a euphemism, of course). Suggests that even the Nazis realized that what they were doing was rather horrendous, even though they (obviously) chose to do it anyway. Ah, semantics!

By: msg

msg — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 21:26:38 +0000

In the days, the late 60’s and early 70’s, when ‘civl rights’ was finally and permanently a publicly discussed subject, and the rationalizations for traditional bigotry were being dispensed with one after another, there was this cliche that people who weren’t really ‘getting it’ would use to lead off controversial statements: “Now, don’t get me wrong, some of my best friends are…” When the subject is anti-semitism, this seems impossible for some reason. I’m not anti-semitic. My position is that there is a distinct sub-group hiding behind the historical, factual, victimhood of Jews, using that victimhood as a shield whenever they’re accused or attacked. The refusal to allow that sub-group to be named further protects them, and also endangers the innocent, while the hysteria of many Jewish people around this topic means there is virtually no rational dialog in public about it. The idea that Chomsky is anti-semitic is tragically ludicrous. One of the vilest insults in the neo-nazi underground is ‘race-traitor’. The parallels are instructive.

By: alkali

alkali — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 20:16:56 +0000

Oh hell. I’ve been drawn into this stupid argument myself.

By: alkali

alkali — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 20:14:28 +0000

vinteuil: Chomsky answered a question. Leiter took his answer at face value. Pejman insisted that Chomsky was too anti-Semitic to mean anything so innocuous and came up with a subtler alternative interpretation. You agreed that his conclusion was reasonable. Sorry, but it is not Leiter who is “overreaching” here.

By: Vinteuil

Vinteuil — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 19:35:20 +0000

alkali: Chomsky answered a question. Pejman took his answer at face value. Leiter insisted that Chomsky was too smart to mean anything so stupid and came up with a subtler alternative interpretation. You agreed that his conclusion was reasonable. But a quick glance at Chomsky’s other writings reveals that he really does believe pretty much what Pejman took him to be saying in the first place. Sorry, but it is not Pejman who is “overreaching” here. (Hmmm… “overreaching”…who was the last person I saw making that charge against someone…?)