As for the compulsive need of some self-styled progressives to attack Chomsky - well, here are a couple of guesses:
(1) Partly, it's craven pandering. Chomsky has been stigmatized for decades, so to publicly and violently dissociate oneself with Chomsky is to brand oneself as respectable.
(2) Partly it's a defense mechanism. The things that Chomsky gets indisputably right will force you to change your fundamental view of the world. How do you avoid thinking about that stuff? Find something, anything, that you think Chomsky got wrong, and fixate on that error as not just an error, but as evidence that Chomsky is a pathological liar, an apologist for criminals, a charlatan, etc.
(3) And quite possibly it's envy. Chomsky has remade his own discipline, while showing that a large part of mine (political science) is foolishness (to put the kindest face on it). Perhaps the small feel bigger when they proclaim that a man of genius is an idiot.
Michael McIntyre mcintyremichael at mac.com
http://morbidsymptoms.blogspot.com
On Jul 21, 2006, at 1:48 PM, ravi wrote:
>
> Today I came across two old bits on the net. One by some guy named
> Michael Berube at Penn State suggesting that Chomsky's words (on the
> invasion of Yugoslavia) a pack of lies (Berube doesn't offer much
> support for this claim) and then another by blogger Atrios (Duncan
> Black) who writes this:
>
>> In any case, Chomsky's problem is not that he's anti-War -- this
>> "war" is getting sillier by the minute - the problem is that he's an
>> idiot.
>
> Is this the face of the new left? I say that because Berube contrasts
> Chomsky to "real progressives" (I guess Berube's point being that
> he is
> part of the real progressives, while clearly Chomsky is some lone
> poser), and similarly from Atrios.
>
> This if bloody fucking depressing. Half-wit punks with a web site can
> actually suggest Chomsky, of all people, is an "idiot"?!!
>
> I wondered on Sivacracy whether words like 'nuts' were useful in such
> discussions, but I realize now I am pretty naive.
>
> --ravi
>
> --
> Support something better than yourself: ;-)
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> If you have nothing better to do: http://platosbeard.org/
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