Noam Chomsky is one of those people that some people will defend reflexively without even thinking.
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@artemis @shadowfals Yeah, this is right.
I find I'm often needing to point out that, until the early 2000s, popular discourse in the US was severely constricted and dominated by commercial media, which systematically censored any mention of leftist groups or ideas.
Chomsky was about at the limit of what they'd tolerate, in detailing US atrocities and malign foreign policy, based on public records and mainstream journalistic accounts. Significantly, Chomsky would always deflect any questions about what alternatives he'd support, rarely going further than supporting abstract resistance.
Near as I can tell, it was the 1980 Neoliberal coup that abruptly and ruthlessly shut down all anti-authoritarian populist discourse in the USA. The 60's and 70's were a lot more open and well connected. Before that of course, was The Red Scare...
I guess libraries might have been a good source. They were pretty fiesty until the year 2001, when Bush's PATRIOT act turned them by force into watered down daycare centers and government schills.
CC: @artemis@dice.camp @shadowfals@toot.cat -
@artemis @shadowfals Yep. To expand, he was famous for two academic fields: Initially as a linguist, famous for his work on the relationship between syntax and grammar for conveying meaning ("Colorful green ideas sleep furiously" is grammatically correct with no meaning — that's his — as is the claim that "cellar door" is the most beautiful phrase in English). And later for his far-left politics, specifically as a vocal proponent of anarchism and for calling out US imperialism before it was common to hear such things. He famously called out the US government for maintaining the dictatorship in East Timor over the will of its people. Which was my first awareness that the US did such things.
I wasn't a huge fan but I found his work thought-provoking. But I've gotten used to dumping figures if they're outed as abusers. There are so many people I've loved so much more that I've dumped over far less. He had his place in history, and that moment has moved on.
@corbden @artemis @shadowfals same. So many artists, scientists, actors, authors, friends, family…I cut them all out at first red flag.
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Noam Chomsky is one of those people that some people will defend reflexively without even thinking.
Try not to have powerful people that you defend reflexively without even thinking.
That's abuse culture.
@artemis honestly i’m not surprised at all, considering how i already knew he did genocide denial, another sign that he lacks any kind of moral compass that i can accept. I think that this culture of treating theorists as figures to be basically worshipped inevitably leads to this kind of shit and is irreconcilable with anarchism.
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@tryst @artemis @quinn kinda, but much like if Bernie was accused of similar it seems to get overshadowed by all the correct things. This is all I could find pre-2016, yet I heard mixed/creep opinions as early as 2013:
https://newsarchive.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2008/09/18_cambodia.shtml
https://theconversation.com/the-paradox-of-noam-chomsky-on-language-and-power-4174
https://bosniak.org/2009/10/31/open-letter-from-ed-vulliamy-to-amnesty-international/
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Why TF in the year 2026 is anyone who wants to be taken seriously saying "this man's work is too valuable for it to matter how he harmed women & girls"?
Another random slot along these lines is it it’s perhaps natural to valorize people of unusual achievement, but Isaac Newton had a secret hobby of alchemy, and Albert Einstein abused his wife when their marriage began to sour.
Achievement in one area is no guarantee of I guess achievement in others
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Noam Chomsky is one of those people that some people will defend reflexively without even thinking.
Try not to have powerful people that you defend reflexively without even thinking.
That's abuse culture.
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@artemis I don't know who Noam Chomsky and I am hoping someone offers a description of what type of work made him famous.
@shadowfals @artemis I know him from the book/concept Manufactured Consent, by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, describing "how mass media acts as a propaganda tool for elite interests to shape public opinion without coercion. It posits that media outlets, driven by profit and corporate links, filter news through five mechanisms—ownership, advertising, sourcing, "flak," and ideological, commonly anti-communist, filters—to manufacture public agreement on policies like war and corporate agendas. " (That's an AI summary in quotes btw)
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And let me just say this: we don't freaking need Chomsky.
Yes, I have read things he has written that seemed true & useful. You know where else you can find similar insights? In a million fucking other places from people who are NOT among the "intellectual elite" & who do not rub elbows with a whole community of abusive oppressors.
Read stuff written by Black people. By indigenous people. By people who are not in the power establishment.
I *promise you*, you don't need Chomsky.
@artemis People who cannot conceive of the possibility that Chomsky had a dark side don't give a shit about Chomsky. They are too in love with an image of themselves as a fan of Chomsky.
It has to do with their own identity. That is why any criticism of Chomsky feels like a personal attack on them.
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@artemis People who cannot conceive of the possibility that Chomsky had a dark side don't give a shit about Chomsky. They are too in love with an image of themselves as a fan of Chomsky.
It has to do with their own identity. That is why any criticism of Chomsky feels like a personal attack on them.
@Remittancegirl @artemis Redacting my extensive prior shouting but THANK YOU - that line about self-image is an idea I’ve been trying to land on forever.
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And let me just say this: we don't freaking need Chomsky.
Yes, I have read things he has written that seemed true & useful. You know where else you can find similar insights? In a million fucking other places from people who are NOT among the "intellectual elite" & who do not rub elbows with a whole community of abusive oppressors.
Read stuff written by Black people. By indigenous people. By people who are not in the power establishment.
I *promise you*, you don't need Chomsky.
@artemis I’m reminded of John Howard Yoder, the Mennonite theologian who was hugely influential among radical and progressive Christians – and who turned out to have been sexually abusing women for decades. A church investigation concluded that his reputation as a leading thinker had caused people to turn a blind eye to his abusive behaviour
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Noam Chomsky is one of those people that some people will defend reflexively without even thinking.
Try not to have powerful people that you defend reflexively without even thinking.
That's abuse culture.
@Artemis I've never liked Chomsky. I hate him as a linguist, he's a goofball demsoc that mainly functions to push the left away from real action. So I'm not at all surprised to find out he was in bed, possibly literally, with the abusive class. -
@artemis @shadowfals Yeah, this is right.
I find I'm often needing to point out that, until the early 2000s, popular discourse in the US was severely constricted and dominated by commercial media, which systematically censored any mention of leftist groups or ideas.
Chomsky was about at the limit of what they'd tolerate, in detailing US atrocities and malign foreign policy, based on public records and mainstream journalistic accounts. Significantly, Chomsky would always deflect any questions about what alternatives he'd support, rarely going further than supporting abstract resistance.
@foolishowl @artemis @shadowfals Until the early 2000s? It seems to me that the Overton window has been shifting to the right constantly since the Reagan era, and it has worsened in the latest two decades. There hasn't been a leftist on mainstream US TV for half a century. Printed media isn't much better, you have to look for very specific outlets like Jacobin in order to get anything left of billionaire bootlicking.
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Some people are absolutely refusing to understand the abuse culture that the Epstein files are pulling back the curtain on.
Epstein's "friends" were all accomplices. Stop making excuses. I don't need to establish whether Chomsky physically harmed a child himself to state with confidence that he was complicit as fuck.
If Chomsky is 1/3 as smart as some people think he is, then he understood just fine what was going on.
@artemis Sometimes, some people don't want to see. And there is no person more blind than the one who doesn't want to see. But, no, that doesn't excuse them.
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@aeva couldn't you just get to the shore and see if the shore was on your left or right while facing southish towards the sun if you wanted to know which side of the lake you were on? assuming it's a sunny day
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