When Chomsky is wrong (or one thinks he is) it's quite easy simply to
> ignore him.
>
> To focus on any (real or alletged) error of his now is simply stupid.
>
> The man has done great services for left politics. What in the hell is
> gained by warring with him now!
>
> No one has to accept his theory or anti-theory, but neither is anything
> gained by making that an issue in itself.
>
Carrol, I've puzzled over this one for a few hours now, and I still can't make heads or tails of it. The reason to focus on Chomsky's errors (or, if you prefer, to "war" with him) is that his ideas have consequences for actual, real-world movements, the strategies they choose to pursue their goals, and their eventual successes or failures. This strikes me as so patently self-obvious, particularly in this case, I wonder if you or I are not missing some crucial element of the other's position.
Occasionally, I get the vague impression that you think of political struggle only in terms of the events that occur during occasional leftist upsurges, and that the gains and losses of the intervening periods - the fall of South African apartheid, the Iraq war, etc. - simply do not factor into your calculations.
Midgets taking potshots at a giant.
>
This, I think, is a straightforward generational difference. I'm from a political mileau that never had much use for giants. In this, our thinking was, and remains, far clearer than that of yours.
-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."