I wrote:
Of course Noam Chomsky is optimistic - he favors limitless and absolute state power and the forcible and violent silencing of all those who deviate from political correctness.
"L. Todd Masco" <cactus@bb.com> quotes one of Chomksy's pious platitudes on freedom of speech:
In my opinion, not only mainstream intellectuals but also others who produce a constant stream of lies, distortion, racist screeds, etc., should be permitted freedom of speech.
To put this in its proper context, Chomsky also believes in socialism, in the sense of the "people" controlling the means of production, distribution, and supply, and in particular, the "people" running the mass media. Does Chomsky really believe that such a society can operate without its Gulag? Is he a fool, or is he a monster? In my previous writings on this thread I have shown examples where Chomsky carefully chooses words so as to convince us that freedom of speech is not freedom, and that control of speech is freedom. Let us examine the above quote from Chomsky. You will notice that Chomsky has carefully expressed himself in the manner that is least likely to make us feel favorable to freedom of speech. He piously declares himself in favor of it, but expresses himself in such a manner as to make an argument against freedom of speech. The intended effect is to make us feel that such "extreme" freedom of speech is a bit excessive and not really necessary or desirable. In the above quote Chomsky implies that freedom of speech is divisible -- he implies that we can suppress wicked, obnoxious, and obviously false ideas, without closing down everyone's ability to communicate political thought. Thus he is actually making a misleading and spurious argument *against* freedom of speech at the same time as he is piously declaring himself to be in favor of freedom of speech. Let us also look at the examples he gives of people abusing freedom of speech. Notice that every example that he gives are powerful and priviledged people who plainly need no protection, never the weak and vulnerable silenced by the powerful and arrogant:
hypocrites, like faculty senates who choose one particularly and usually quite marginal example because career and power interests are served thereby, while ignoring vastly more significant and awful cases because the opposite is true. And Congress, of which the same is correct.
Let me give a counter example to Chomksy's implied argument that it is safe to silence dissidents, and that dissidents are powerful and priviledged servants of capitalism. Edward O Wilson. Back in the late seventies, when political correctness was so powerful that we did *not* see two dozen books protesting about how powerful it was, Edward O. Wilson was silenced by threats and violence. Among other things he was accused of emitting "a constant stream of lies, distortion, racist screeds, etc." In fact he his heresy had nothing whatsoever to do with race -- indeed he was a political innocent with no particular political ideas, who was largely unaware that his work had political implications, unaware that his work would be used by other people to make the argument that property was a result of the nature of man, and that socialism was contrary to the nature of man. Because many of the thugs sent against him were black, the totally false claim was made, that he continually insulted black people with racist fighting words. Suddenly people realized, that just as in the market every thing is connected to everything else, so that one state intervention necessarily requires further state intervention in order to achieve the desired effect, in the same fashion, every idea is connected to every other idea, so silencing some ideas necessarily requires silencing other ideas. In the end the only way to coercively suppress ideas is to ensure that only a single voice is heard. Thus the backlash against political correctness started. What happened to Edward Wilson then, could not happen today, which is why it is now safe for academics to write books on how powerful political correctness is, something they would not have dared to do seven years ago. The full quote by Chomsky in all its pious hypocricy.
Noam Chomsky, in a 4/16/94 e-mail response to a question from Steve Shalom, says:
In my opinion, not only mainstream intellectuals but also others who produce a constant stream of lies, distortion, racist screeds, etc., should be permitted freedom of speech. The state should not have the power to stop them. The same freedom extends to hypocrites, like faculty senates who choose one particularly and usually quite marginal example because career and power interests are served thereby, while ignoring vastly more significant and awful cases because the opposite is true. And Congress, of which the same is correct.
I did not see this quote: I am relying on Todd for the accuracy of this quote, but I have seen plenty of similar hypocritical smears against liberty by Chomsky. The above piece of catty nastiness is classic Chomsky, and I could easily dig up a dozen similar examples of the kind of support that he gives liberty. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because of the kind of animals that we James A. Donald are. True law derives from this right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state. jamesd@netcom.com