(1) Chomsky has the "right" to say any bloody thing he wants. That Vidal-Naquet is casting this in terms of what Chomsky does and does not have the "right" to say shows that Chomsky was thoroughly on-target in his claims that many French intellectuals had forgotten this elemental Voltairean point.
(2) My enemy has the right to be free even if he calls for my death, assuming that he is making no efforts to carry out the threat.
(3) Chomsky did not call Faurisson a comrade, or anything close to it.
(4) Chomsky also has the right to stupidly call Faurisson a "relatively apolitical liberal" and to excessive pride in refusing to back off from any bit of what he said. I agree with Chip that he ought to have said that he was wrong about Faurisson, that Faurisson is an anti-semite, and that Thion et al. had rolled him. But NC almost never backs off from anything, and if a condemnation of Faurisson and Thion in any terms might have been interpreted as a relaxation of NC's defense of free speech - the main point at issue - then maybe NC was right to give no ground at all.
(5) And finally, NC did not "recast [Faurisson] in the colors of truth".
You're too smart to endorse this piece of tripe. What's up?
MM
>>> delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU 06/20/02 01:00 AM >>>
>What is there to apologize about?
>Did you not read this article?
>
>His Right to Say It
>Noam Chomsky
>The Nation, February 28, 1981
I think Pierre Vidal-Naquet got it right when he wrote:
"The simple truth, Noam Chomsky, is that you were unable to abide by the ethical maxim you had imposed. You had the right to say: my worst enemy has the right to be free, on condition that he not ask for my death or that of m brothers. You did not have the right to say: my worst enemy is a comrade, or a 'relatively apolitical sort of liberal'. You did not have the right to take a falsifier of history and recast him in the colors of truth.
"There was once, not so long ago, a man who uttered theis simple and powerful principle: 'It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies.' But perhaps you know him?"
Brad DeLong