Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Doctor Who. And Noam Chomsky.
I saw Episode 6 of the new Doctor Who last night, Dalek, in which the last remaining Dalek, in the Doctor's words, "absorbed the entire internet!" The show doesn't explain, however, why the Dalek doesn't then convert to Pentacostalism, expose the Free Mason conspiracy and download Paris Hilton videos.
Book Review: Hegemony and Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, Noam Chomsky
Chomsky provides a straight-forward account of American foreign policy since WW2. In Latin America, Asia, the Middle East - the U.S. has gotten its hands dirty everywhere, all to protect its political hegemony and markets. Millions have died as a result.
If you've never read about the gruesome details of imperialism before, I highly recommend this book. There are many similar books, but Chomsky covers a lot of ground very quickly, a tremendous anger at injustice feeding his dry wit.
However, I had two problems with the book:
#1) Sectarianism
Chomsky is an anarchist. That means, in his majestic historical sweep, he leaves no room for Communists. In fact, he makes off-hand comments equating 'Leninism' with U.S. government policy, which is just the sort of facile, ahistorical comparisons he accuses the Right of. Of course, Communists and Marxist-inspired movements inspired most of the anti-imperialist struggles of the last century. But Chomsky can't acknowledge this. Describing the U.S.-sponsored genocide of Communists in Indonesia in 1965, he says the Right targeted "a mass party of poor peasants." In a footnote he calls that party "the PKI" without explanation. The PKI is the Indonesian Communist Party. Whatever their faults - and they were legion - they deserve to be named.
You could argue that Chomsky doesn't want to scare off his readers with much-maligned concepts like Communism. But this leaves him with no ideology whatsoever, and he falls back onto liberalism. To justify his opposition, he makes frequent appeals to 'morality', 'values' and other abstract, malleable concepts that don't explain why the U.S. government have been such bastards for so long.
He knows very well that the search for profit leads to battles over resources & political hegemony, and thence to occupation of Iraq, slaughter in Afghanistan, etc. When he refuses to name the system, he refuses to name an alternative, instead counting on the moral outrage of Americans to create change - presumably those Americans who read his book. As if ideology wasn't a system with its own material basis in the media, government and the workplace, each of those spheres requiring struggle.
Chomsky would agree, but he won't say it. This is opportunism: don't explain the system, don't present alternatives, just get people angry and something will happen. What, exactly?
#2) Doom n gloom
His call for moral pressure from the American people occupies two pages. After 318 pages of atrocities, right up to Chomsky predicting the human race will be destroyed by accidental nuclear war. I can understand the grim temptation to 'rip the veil from their eyes', show people precisely how bad the U.S. government is. But honestly, people feel powerless enough already. They need alternatives, to hear about other successes. Why was there no chapter on strikes against neoliberalism or popular resistance movements?
When I saw Chomsky speak, it was the same thing: people asked what they could do, and he derided them, saying "Workers in Turkey can figure it out, why can't you?" With apologies to anti-authoritarian readers, this is classic anarchism: don't provide leadership, because that's authoritarian, but do tell people the world is going to end. This becomes the ideological basis for small-group, elitist activism: only those lucky enough to get the facts can organize (people who read Chomsky's book, presumably.) Organize on the basis of moral outrage, not on your own interests. And be confined to the small group of counter-culturalists who can sustain that outrage.
Knowledge is fine, but how do you use it? It's irresponsible to depress the hell out of your readers, and then stand back saying "But it's not my job to tell people what to do." It is your job, and it's your readers' job to accept or reject that. Anything less is either cowardly (Chomsky is too scared to tell people about the history of mass alternatives) or elitist (he doesn't trust them.)
So. A good read. But to consider the question 'What must be done', I'd recommend Another World Is Possible, by David McNally. It has lots of sober analysis, with lots of uplifting lessons from the class struggle.
Resistance is not futile
Check out this interview with a member of the Iraqi Resistance. It confirms my impression that the resistance is largely secular, Iraqi and directed against the occupiers, not civilians.
Book Review: Hegemony and Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, Noam Chomsky
Chomsky provides a straight-forward account of American foreign policy since WW2. In Latin America, Asia, the Middle East - the U.S. has gotten its hands dirty everywhere, all to protect its political hegemony and markets. Millions have died as a result.
If you've never read about the gruesome details of imperialism before, I highly recommend this book. There are many similar books, but Chomsky covers a lot of ground very quickly, a tremendous anger at injustice feeding his dry wit.
However, I had two problems with the book:
#1) Sectarianism
Chomsky is an anarchist. That means, in his majestic historical sweep, he leaves no room for Communists. In fact, he makes off-hand comments equating 'Leninism' with U.S. government policy, which is just the sort of facile, ahistorical comparisons he accuses the Right of. Of course, Communists and Marxist-inspired movements inspired most of the anti-imperialist struggles of the last century. But Chomsky can't acknowledge this. Describing the U.S.-sponsored genocide of Communists in Indonesia in 1965, he says the Right targeted "a mass party of poor peasants." In a footnote he calls that party "the PKI" without explanation. The PKI is the Indonesian Communist Party. Whatever their faults - and they were legion - they deserve to be named.
You could argue that Chomsky doesn't want to scare off his readers with much-maligned concepts like Communism. But this leaves him with no ideology whatsoever, and he falls back onto liberalism. To justify his opposition, he makes frequent appeals to 'morality', 'values' and other abstract, malleable concepts that don't explain why the U.S. government have been such bastards for so long.
He knows very well that the search for profit leads to battles over resources & political hegemony, and thence to occupation of Iraq, slaughter in Afghanistan, etc. When he refuses to name the system, he refuses to name an alternative, instead counting on the moral outrage of Americans to create change - presumably those Americans who read his book. As if ideology wasn't a system with its own material basis in the media, government and the workplace, each of those spheres requiring struggle.
Chomsky would agree, but he won't say it. This is opportunism: don't explain the system, don't present alternatives, just get people angry and something will happen. What, exactly?
#2) Doom n gloom
His call for moral pressure from the American people occupies two pages. After 318 pages of atrocities, right up to Chomsky predicting the human race will be destroyed by accidental nuclear war. I can understand the grim temptation to 'rip the veil from their eyes', show people precisely how bad the U.S. government is. But honestly, people feel powerless enough already. They need alternatives, to hear about other successes. Why was there no chapter on strikes against neoliberalism or popular resistance movements?
When I saw Chomsky speak, it was the same thing: people asked what they could do, and he derided them, saying "Workers in Turkey can figure it out, why can't you?" With apologies to anti-authoritarian readers, this is classic anarchism: don't provide leadership, because that's authoritarian, but do tell people the world is going to end. This becomes the ideological basis for small-group, elitist activism: only those lucky enough to get the facts can organize (people who read Chomsky's book, presumably.) Organize on the basis of moral outrage, not on your own interests. And be confined to the small group of counter-culturalists who can sustain that outrage.
Knowledge is fine, but how do you use it? It's irresponsible to depress the hell out of your readers, and then stand back saying "But it's not my job to tell people what to do." It is your job, and it's your readers' job to accept or reject that. Anything less is either cowardly (Chomsky is too scared to tell people about the history of mass alternatives) or elitist (he doesn't trust them.)
So. A good read. But to consider the question 'What must be done', I'd recommend Another World Is Possible, by David McNally. It has lots of sober analysis, with lots of uplifting lessons from the class struggle.
Resistance is not futile
Check out this interview with a member of the Iraqi Resistance. It confirms my impression that the resistance is largely secular, Iraqi and directed against the occupiers, not civilians.
