Nedan följer några av de konversationer som jag hade med Noam Chomsky under åren 2008-2009 och som tidigare var publicerade på Armagideon Time.
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den 16 mars 2008:
Dry Humor and Mind as Machine
Noam,
Through the ten years or so that I've read your work two themes have been particularly persistent: I've always enjoyed your dry sense of humor and I've always steered well clear of anything to do linguistics, because I knew I wouldn't understand the first thing about it.
In reading your article for the Symposium on Margaret Boden I found my prediction to be correct -- I didn't understand half of it.
But then again, neither did Professor Boden.
The latter fact made for a very pleasurable read, during which I laughed so hard I nearly gave myself hiccups...
All jokes a side, though, it saddens me to know that there appears to be an Anti-Chomsky Reader within your original field of inquiry as well. In an Orwellian world you would expect nothing less for your critique of media performance and state power, but one would hope this madness wouldn't extend to the serious academic fields such as Cognitive Science, in which Boden is so well known.
All jokes a side, though, it saddens me to know that there appears to be an Anti-Chomsky Reader within your original field of inquiry as well. In an Orwellian world you would expect nothing less for your critique of media performance and state power, but one would hope this madness wouldn't extend to the serious academic fields such as Cognitive Science, in which Boden is so well known.
I find myself to be wrong all the time, however.
On another note: I finished Pirates and Emperors, which I enjoyed thoroughly. I particularly liked the 2002 Introduction, the narrative of which drives home the basic points about Terrorism in the Real World with striking clarity.
Also: I'm reading Ilan Pappe's The Etnic Cleansing of Palestine, which, if you haven't seen it, is well worth the time. Pappe is meticulous in describing both the events on the ground between 1947-1949 and in linking them to the developing discussion within what he calls the Consultancy.
Writing somewhere about Benny Morris, though, you preferred the term "ethnic purification" rather than "ethnic cleansing" to describe the same events and the ideology that laid behind them.
I'm curious as to the distinction.
Am I correct in assuming that "ethnic cleansing" is for brutes with nationalistic delusions of grandeur but with no well thought-out ideology underpinning it (as in the former Yugoslavia)? Does it follow then, that because such a component exists within Zionism, the forceful removal of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians served the particular end of making Israel 100% free of Arabs ("pure")?
In this perspective the distinction would be of some importance, as "ethnic purification" constitutes something far more vile and sinister than its ugly cousin.
/Tomas Pettersson
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Glad you enjoyed it. I refused several requests from the editor to respond, but finally agreed. Not that it makes any difference. It's an Artificial Intelligence/computer science journal, and most of the professionals wouldn't understand, or wouldn't allow themselves to.
If you trace these things to their sources, which are very clear, they turn out to be a combination of political fury and personal jealousies and silliness, rampant in the academic profession. Cognitive Science is a mixed bag. Have you ever noticed that the fields that call themselves "science" are usually anything but? Political Science, behavioral science,... -- but not chemical science, physical science (not physics, but just a general category as distinct from humanities and arts), etc.
The Reader, I'm told, is almost entirely political hysteria.
Noam
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That is an interesting observation that you make. Invariably all these "sciences" to which refer are also new, i.e. less than 50 years old.
It all seems -- and I seldom use term -- very post-modern. The more the merrier, apparently.
More importantly one has to wonder if the people within these new fields fulfill science's most important criterion: to expand human knowledge and understanding in a meaningful way.
When I first took History at the University in Kristianstad we got to study a short-story by one of Sweden's literary giants, August Strindberg, who wrote about a self-made professor within his own equally self-made field of Knappologi ("Buttonology"). In classifying his vast collection of buttons he fulfilled all the scientific criterion except for the most important one.
Alas, it was all useless.
It seems to me that people within the new fields are too much involved with Buttonology, which would also make me a conservative for thinking that they should leave well enough alone.
Withstanding the test of time, the "old" sciences should be plenty enough.
Tomas
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Actually, even the word "science" in its modern sense is fairly new. It wasn't until the mid-19th century that philosophy and science separated. Physics was natural philosophy. The human sciences were moral philosophy.
I think there's good work in these new fields, although they are often quite pretentious and highly self-protective, unlike the sciences and mathematics. I've had a lot of experience with that, because of my own curious career.
Wonderful idea, buttonology.
NC
Den 29 mars 2008
On CNN
Noam,
The performance of the corporate media in the West is by now well-documented, but even though I'm fairly familiar with a lot of it, actual media performance never seizes to amaze me.
Take today's CNN-story on Pakistan, for example. In the third paragraph it states, concerning two U.S. envoy's visit to the country, that "Some in Pakistan said the visit was an attempt by the Bush administration to gauge whether it could count on the same level of allegiance from the new government that it got from President Pervez Musharraf -- whose power has eroded since the February elections." The story goes on to explain that an "article in the Washington Post on Thursday further stoked suspicions. The report said that the United States has stepped up its air strikes against al Qaeda militants in Pakistan's tribal areas fearing that support from Islamabad might slip away."
These attacks did not sit well in Pakistan, apparently, as CNN tells us by way of quoting a Pakistani editorial: "'It is, after all, Pakistani men, women and children who die when bombs explode; it is their blood that stains roadsides; their screams that fill hospital emergency rooms,' the editorial said. 'The U.S.-directed policies of the past seven years have led only to an expansion in militancy, to more violence and to more hatred.'"
Strong stuff, indeed, and what was the CNN headline?
"Pakistanis lash out at U.S. 'meddling'."
Even for a media outlet firmly entrenched in what you call "doctrinal necessity", this is really something. One would think, at the very least, that CNN would label a story like that -- in accordance with the Post headline -- "U.S. Unilateral Bombings Causes Furor in Pakistan", or something similar.
Because ignorance is hardly the problem here. "Stoking suspicions" the Post article was referred to by CNN, although the interesting parts were left out. Quoting Daniel Markey, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Post staffers Robin Wright and Joby Warrick tell us that "'the new faces' in Pakistan's leadership 'are not certain how they want to manage their relationship with the United States. You can't blame them,' because they are pulled in opposite directions by their electorate and the Bush administration".
This is a concern, of course, causing U.S. military leadership -- in the words of Wright and Warrick -- to "question whether the strategy [the bombings] will be effective and worth its political costs," i.e. entailing the risk of Pakistan's new leaders listening to their own population rather than the Bush Administration.
A proper headline would thusly read: "U.S. Unilateral Bombings Causes Uproar in Pakistan -- U.S. Leaders Concerned Elected Pakistani Government Will Listen to Own People and Not Washington, the Post Says."
But I guess we'll read a headline like that when hell freezes over.
/Tomas
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Here's one that never made it to the US media at all, from an article by Pakistani physicist Pervez Hoodhboy, a courageous secular human rights activist:
Then, on Oct 30, 2006, a Hellfire missile hit a madressah in Bajaur killing between 80-85 people, mostly students. Even if those killed were allegedly training to become Al Qaeda militants, and even if a few key Al Qaeda leaders such as Abu Laith al-Libi have been eliminated, the more usual outcome has been flattened houses, dead and maimed children, and a growing local population that seeks revenge against Pakistan and the US.
It was reported all right, with acclaim, because they killed al-Libi, who was “believed to have plotted and executed attacks against U.S. and coalition forces," CNN reported. So therefore killing 80-85 people, mostly students, is to be celebrated -- unlike the killing of 8 students in Jerusalem.
You're quite right, unfortunately.
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There's something deeply sinister in all of this, Noam, and it even goes beyond the bombing of schools.
In the Post article there was this odd analysis by a research professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in California, a Thomas H. Johnson.
"U.S. strategy could backfire if missiles take innocent lives. 'The [tribal] Pashtuns have a saying: "Kill one person, make 10 enemies,"' Johnson said. 'You might take out a bad guy in one of these strikes, but you might also be creating more foot soldiers. This is a war in which the more people you kill, the faster you lose.'"
This is something commonly understood, as you have said repeatedly, among those who know anything about Islamic Jihadism. And it has been understood for a long time, even before 9/11.
I was reading your fascinating discussion with Robert Trivers the other day, in which you talk about what Trivers calls the "instrumental phase" of reasoning as it pertained to the Iraq War build-up:
"RT: Yes, unless you refer to the 90s, when there were a couple of position papers by these same groups that said, 'Let's not go to war.'
But once 9/11 occurred, we know that within days, within hours, they were settling on Iraq and they went into the instrumental phase in a very major way. They didn't want to hear anything of the downside.
NC: That was dismissed.
RT: It was dismissed entirely. And these firewalls were set up so there was no communication. And if someone came into Rumsfeld's office and said, 'Well, gee...' Well, [General] Shinseki got an early retirement plan.
And Wolfowitz comes in the very next day and says, 'Hard to imagine that we'd need more troops to occupy than to knock over.' But that was established military doctrine; we'd known that for more than 50 years.
NC: Just didn't want to hear it."
In essence: they were going to war, come hell or high water.
But still, they knew, and even if they managed to convince themselves that the Earth was flat, you would've figured they'd caught on by now: Iraq and Afghanistan in shambles; the economy in dire straits; the threat of terror increased seven-fold; and the war not "winnable".
Yet, Iraq remains "a successful endeavor", in the words of VP Dick Cheney.
Disregarding the possibility that the Bush people actually might be grotesquely stupid, one has to understand what Cheney means. It's obvious that one million dead and perhaps five times as many on the run does not constitute a "successful endeavor". Instead there has to be a technical meaning to the phrase. It probably refers to three things: 1) the military budget is the largest in world history; 2) military control of the Middle East (and large parts of its valued resources) has been established; and 3) the ultimate Hobgoblin (faceless terror) has been created to use as a hammer over the heads of American people and states around the world susceptible to U.S. intimidation.
All the better, then, that war cannot be won and promises to go on forever. It's too useful a tool to be cast away, which probably even the Democrats realize.
Developments in Pakistan is therefore, I think, key to the near future. If the new Gilani goverment does not succumb to U.S. pressure, and, in the words of Pakistani daily The News as quoted on CNN, asks the United States to leave the country alone so that it can "chalk out a brighter future for everyone in the country," then that would certainly constitute a big step forward.
The price for such insubordination would, however, no doubt be high. According too CNN, Pakistan is set to receive $300 million in military aid this year, a number which is not expected to be cut (and we know what that means).
Do you think a coup to bring back Musharaf is out of the question?
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I don't think there's a chance of a Musharraf coup. The military, which largely runs the country, seems to have turned against him. Pakistan has been one of the most dangerous countries in the world every since Reagan's fostering of the extreme islamization here, and the Reaganite pretense that they did not know that Paks were developing nuclear weapons, so that aid could flow. The US might yet achieve its major goals in Iraq, even though Iraq will probably be destroyed in the process. Much as in Vietnam. It's not easy for a superpower with unparalleled means of violence at its command, and a subservient intellectual class/media, to fail at least to meet minimal goals.
Noam
den 10 april 2008:
Permissible Thought
Noam,
What passes for permissible thought in the corporate media we know fairly well by now. But what about periodicals like Foreign Affairs, what constitutes permissible thought in them?
Not that it matters much, but I still find the question interesting.
If you haven't seen it, there's this well written essay in the latest issue of FA by Larry Diamond entitled The Democratic Rollback; The Resurgence of the Predatory State.
Interestingly, Diamond is really sharp. The essay is not the hogwash you generally find in FA.
Take the following for example. Drawing on the works of North, Wallis, and Weingast, Diamond writes that "For thousands of years, the natural tendency of elites everywhere has been to monopolize power rather than to restrain it--through the development of transparent laws, strong institutions, and market competition. And once they have succeeded in restricting political access, these elites use their consolidated power to limit economic competition so as to generate profits that benefit themselves rather than society at large. The result is the predatory state."
The following paragraph begins with the words "In such states," (not "all" states) indicating that somewhere along the line "elites everywhere" have become "elites somewhere", despite the fact that the actual explanation contains no such change.
Our Martian friend would immediately wonder what he or she had missed and be forced to re-read the segment again.
The Martian's effort would no doubt end in frustration, however, as there still would be no answer as to why "elites everywhere" had become "elites somewhere", or, rather, "elites elsewhere".
The Martian's futile attempts of understanding aside, the analysis of the predatory state is solid, and, I think, by and large holds water as a description of states everywhere, including modern, western ones.
This is of course the crux of the matter: there is no need to explain the change, it's taken for granted that "we" have evolved to state were we not only can call ourselves democratic, but also construct a detailed analysis that apply almost perfectly to ourselves without knowing it.
Orwell would be impressed, don't you think?
So, then, as pertaining to what is permissible thought in Foreign Affairs, the answer would be "anything", as long as any analysis does not disrupt the basic assumptions. If we would substitute the words "In such states" with "In Sweden, for example" cognitive dissonance would hit the ordinary reader like a ton of bricks, which is why it would never had gone to print in the first place. The Martian would no doubt wonder why, as the second description would actually follow a train of logic he or she could understand.
Another thing is when making any historical analysis that involves the United States and/or other western states, it is absolutely essential to steer clear of actual fact, as it often collides with the basic assumptions of "our" benevolance.
If wrongs are committed, as you have often explained, it is because of mistakes or misunderstandings.
Small wonder then, that "Despite two decades of political scientists warning of 'the fallacy of electoralism,' the United States and many of its democratic allies have remained far too comfortable with this superficial form of democracy. Assessments often fail to apply exacting standards when it comes to defining what constitutes a democracy and what is necessary to sustain it."
In other words, despite what a) people like myself have told them for decades, the United States and its allies have b) continued to do what they always have because they c) fail to understand what everybody else knows.
Not very convincing, is it?
An explanation more in line would with historical fact would be something like this: a) despite nothing, the United States and its allies have b) continually deterred democracy because c) it is exactly what they intended to do.
It would be my guess, that Diamond actually knows this, but because it conflicts with the basic assumptions he waters it down so the alarm bells don't go of in the editor's office at Foreign Affairs.
A third thing has to do with Hugo Chávez. Without actually studying it closer, it would appear to me that ever since he brought Hegemony or Survival before the UN General Assembly two years ago, "that man", as Colin Powell once called him, has been subject to an ever increasing attack from everywhere on everything he does or fails to do.
Where once there was mild contempt, there is now raging hatred.
And its bordering on the ridiculous. The discrepancy between his status as a president of a South American country and the time and space afforded to his critics (there are, of course, no others allowed) is by now quite large. Wherever I look, Chávez's name pops up in a derogatory context or accompanied by a sly remark. FA, for instance, could have a recurring section entitled "This Issue's Chávez" or something like that.
And even if we for a moment assume that his critics are correct, the punishment certainly doesn't fit the crime.
Often enough they are incorrect, however. Even the otherwise sharp Larry Diamond succumbs and joins the posse. "In Venezuela President Hugo Chávez narrowly lost a December 2 referendum that would have given him virtually unlimited power, but he still does not allow the sort of free and fair political process that could turn him out of office."
Since there exists a "free and fair political process" in Venezuela, as evidenced by the December 2 referendum, the term must also have a technical, Orwellian meaning. Its not difficult to figure out what that is. "A free and fair political process" in Venezuela is when a) Chávez steps down by is own accord, or b) when he loses. "A" is the only option left, since Chávez can't run in the next presidential election.
That's some democratic process!
It would appear, then, that it not only suffices to not say anything nice about Venezuela's President in order to get published in FA, you also have to join the witch hunt.
In summation, it would be my conclusion that what passes for permissible thought in the corporate media and periodicals like Foreign Affairs is generally the same, or at least based on the same general assumptions. Because it seems to me, that the rules for the corporate media are even harsher than in Foreign Affairs. The latter appears to be a magazine for the Inner Party, the faith of whose members is not in question. They are allowed to delve into a wider range of thought without the risk of them drawing the wrong conclusions.
Would you agree with this assessment, Noam?
Kind Regards,
Tomas Pettersson
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Interesting ideas. I haven't read his article, so can't comment. FA certainly is for the "inner party." Much of it just consists of pronouncements. I'm not sure whether in general it goes beyond normal media bounds. That would take a closer investigation than I've ever undertaken.
Noam
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You're probably right, and it's not that important either. The question might be interesting on an intellectual level, but hardly on an academic one.
There are more important things to study, for sure.
Tomas
den 4 mars 2009:
In the Age of Orwell
Noam,
With the U.S. seeking a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, the usual statements are to be found on, for instance, CNN:
"'Human rights are an essential element of American global foreign policy,' Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said."
Although I've read and heard hundreds such quotes from people like Secretary Clinton, I still can't help to be absolutely dumbfounded when I come across a new one.
Now I know that the U.S. have taken an active part in the development of human rights since 1945, but when did statements such as these become everyday fodder; when did they become commonplace? I'm asking you this because you have studied the media since well before I was born.
Kind Regards,
Tomas Pettersson
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The US played an important role in establishing the current human rights regime, including the UD. But since the 40s its record has been awful, and statements like these are standard for everyone, including the worst monsters. Statements by public officials are predictable, therefore carry little information.
Noam
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I know I shouldn't be surprised, Noam. I'm simply guilty of being terribly naive. I still expect people to tell the truth, even though I should know better.
While we're on the subject, I'm reading a book entitled The School of the Americas, in which there author, Lesley Gill, makes use of a "broad conceptualization of imperialism". This starts "with the intrusion of U.S. economic interests into other countries and extends to the multiple and varied practices of political, military, and cultural domination". Further, "[m]ilitary bases, weapons, and strategic alliances with local security forces constitute the cutting edge of the U.S. empire in which the American state rules less through the control of territory than through the penetration and manipulation of subordinate states that retain considerable political independence" (Gill, p. 3.) So far this is in line with what you have said, for instance in Failed States concerning Southcom's work in creating "strategic alliances with local security forces", to use Gill's phrasing. But this is where it gets interesting. Gill agrees with Panitch and Gindin (2003), who state that the goal of all this stems from "the need to try to refashion all of the states of the world so they become at least minimally adequate for the administration of global [capitalist] order ... [this] is now the central problem of the American state" (quoted in Gill, ibid.). This appears to be a rather sweeping conclusion, one which I myself would tend to agree with. Do you think it's viable to state that this is the "central problem" facing the "American state", Noam?
Finally, I would like to add that I've at last been reading Fateful Triangle. It is an impressive piece of work, one that I would rate as your finest alongside Deterring Democracy.
Tomas
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Talk about the "central problem" is, I think, a little inflated. But the general idea is sound, and shouldn't really be controversial. I've written about it many times. Here's one passage, from my Year 501:
The New World Order of 1945 is sometimes described with considerable candor in mainstream scholarship. A highly-regarded study of US-Brazilian relations by the senior historian of the CIA, Gerald Haines, opens frankly: "Following World War II the United States assumed, out of self-interest, responsibility for the welfare of the world capitalist system." He could have gone on to quote the 1948 CIA memorandum on "the colonial economic interests" of our Western European allies, or George Kennan's call for reopening Japan's "Empire toward the South," among other analyses reflecting real interests.
Policy conforms dramatically to real interests. It has to be denied by journalism, commentary, and most of scholarship, but the facts are quite clear.
It's also true that the US form of neo-colonialism relies typically on subordinates, not direct colonization as in traditional empires. The US is not alone in that respect. Russia in Chechnya is one current illustration. The Obama-Kerry plan for the Israeli occupied territories, insofar as it has been made at all clear, seems about the same. In fact it's close to the norm.
Noam
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Yes, if there is a "central problem" it follows that there is somebody sitting around trying to solve it -- preferably cigar-smoking gentlemen wearing expensive suits like you see on TV. Therefore the concept of "real interests" constitute a far better way of understanding how the world works. These interests are commonly understood by state managers and are in no need of having to be explained, much less solved as problems.
What's so fascinating about commentary and much of academia is that they often enough have no problem whatsoever exposing the real interests behind the pro-Moscow regime in Chechnya for instance, or, if we're talking about historians, have no illusions as to whose interests the communist regimes in Eastern Europe were serving. It must be different for us in the West. We appear to have no "real interests", only good intentions in our self-sacrifising endevour to cure the ills of this world...
Thanks for this, Noam. Always a pleasure.
Tomas
