[lbo-talk] Prose Style, was Time to Get Religion

[Seth Ackerman]

Doug Henwood wrote:

> But almost everything Chomsky writes runs against the "common sense"  
> of Americans. [...] And you can't fight that ingrained common sense 
> through  repeated factchecking. It's great for the base, but beyond 
> that, you  might as well be speaking Frisian.
>

Chomsky doesn't claim that ingrained common sense can be fought through 
repeated factchecking. His answer isn't necessarily sufficient, but 
least he has an answer: He says common sense can only be changed through 
mass participation in social movements. Yeah, but isn't that hard? Sure, 
but you have to try. Usually you'll fail, but sometimes you'll succeed. 
I think that's the Chomsky prescription in a nutshell.

And at least he's got history on his side. The rare moments in history 
when mass common sense changed, it was usually through the work of mass 
social movements. I'm guessing your critique of Chomsky's factchecking 
is by way of a defense of Judith Butler-style work. It won't work to 
just expose the true facts, you have to figure out why people are so 
resistant to the facts. Sure, but however true and interesting Butler's 
insights are, they're not particularly novel. I suspect if you 
summarized them to an old CIO organizer, he or she would probably nod 
their head in agreement, and rattle off a bunch of anecdotes to prove 
the point.

Seth