Beyond Against Chomsky - Hypocrisy on Israel

by Denis G. Rancourt


In two recent articles [1][2] I described Noam Chomsky as a service intellectual who serves to neutralize his readers by advancing intellectualization instead of concrete opposition to institutional controls.

Beyond this, especially Ghali Hassan has argued [3][4] that the intellectualization itself is US-Israel pro-establishment propaganda that serves to shield Israel and to cloud the mechanisms of power.

In his latest article Ghali Hassan quotes Chomsky from an Israeli TV media interview posted to youTube:



Hassan points out that Chomsky states "I don't regard myself as a critic of Israel. I regard myself a supporter of Israel." Hassan also quotes Chomsky as saying "I think the U.S. should continue to support Israel" [3]. However, I was not able to find the latter statement in the audio of the TV interview.

At 10:02 on the video Chomsky reaffirms his astonishing opposition to the academic boycott of Israel, consistent with his longstanding separation between radical "dissident" writing and reform by action [1][2]; and with his shielding of the Israeli state [3][4][5].

The truest statement in the video is uttered (in error) by the media host at 8:30 "[Israel's] right to exist is questionable."

In the video Chomsky goes to great lengths to explain that he is not a critic of Israel but is only trying to prevent Israel from hurting itself. Chomsky primarily wants to prevent Israel from hurting itself rather than primarily being concerned with stopping Israel's continuous barrage of war crimes against Palestinians.

Chomsky spends most of the 22-minute interview justifying himself and casting his benevolent role rather than explicitly describing and persistently denouncing Israel's murderous interventions and constant disregard for international law. His message is not intended to be effective using needed aggressor self-image leverage tactics [5] but is instead concerned with his own image and standing within the Israeli establishment.

His again expressed conflict with Alan Dershowitz is seen for what it is: Two service intellectuals vying for attention and favour with the US-Israel establishment, vying for preferred recognition of service.

Chomsky's paternalistic stance that he is trying to help Israel away from its most self-damaging behaviour is analogous to explaining to any oppressor that the oppression hurts the oppressor's public image and security. Obviously Israel puts significant resources in making this cost-benefit calculation [5] and does not need Chomsky's opinion in the matter. In my opinion Chomsky can't possibly believe that his explanation of his intentions will make any positive difference to the conditions for Palestinians and his spin must be understood as deference to the US-Israel establishment.

Chomsky states that he views himself as a dissident but I fail to see how he can be considered a dissident. He compares Cold War Russian state treatment of Russian dissidents to his own treatment by "irrational hysteria" from his co-citizens while maintaining his professorship and establishment status in the US.

It appears that with all his book knowledge, Noam Chomsky does not know himself.


Notes

[1] "Against Chomsky", July 2008;
http://activistteacher.blogspot.com/2008/07/against-chomsky.html

[2] "Data in the study 'Against Chomsky'", May 2009;
http://activistteacher.blogspot.com/2009/05/data-in-study-against-chomsky.html

[3] "Chomsky's Hypocracy", June 2010;
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_60367.shtml

[4] "Protecting Israel: Chomsky’s Way", April 2006;
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_60393.shtml

[5] "Psycho-biological basis for image leverage and the case of Israel", June 2010;
http://activistteacher.blogspot.com/2010/06/psycho-biological-basis-for-image.html

Data in the study “Against Chomsky”

In a previous post entitled “Against Chomsky”, I presented the thesis (developed by Foucault) that Chomsky has avoided significant risk by not taking on his own institution and that he has thereby effectively served power. >>>
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As Chomsky himself puts it, virtually all intellectuals serve power, including all the left liberal types that are not conscious of their servitude: video-LINK.
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Chomsky reacted to my thesis, as can be seen in the July 27, 2008, comment to the above post, by offering no counter arguments or supporting examples and stated only that I offered no facts that could be checked. (Is not the record of Chomsky’s actions and writings something that can be checked?)
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Below is some new data in relation to the thesis that Chomsky mostly serves power. It is an email exchange between physics student Joseph Hickey and Noam Chomsky. In this exchange, Chomsky contrasts my approach of “academic squatting” with how he viewed his own activism course at MIT.
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Chomsky states “But I did it on my own time, as it should be done. It would simply be kicking my colleagues in the face to insist on doing it within their department.” This position is aligned with that of Stanley Fish whose recent book against academic freedom is entitled “Save the World on Your Own Time.”
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On one hand Chomsky advances that economic resources and therefore institutions should be democratically controlled (e.g., in Understanding Power), but on the other hand Chomsky confuses academic normalcy and professional elitism with the collegial governance myth of that most hierarchical of corporations – the university.
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The university executive has complete legal authority on all maters. All committees and councils are purely consultative. Aided by the training that is the tenure track; ass kissing rules. There are no shareholders to contend with and government oversight is mitigated by corporate independence masquerading as “academic freedom.”
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Getting along with one’s colleagues, in a closed society where virtually no one uses one’s tenure, is what Chomsky advocates. How will the university become more democratic if it is not challenged at its economic heart – in the allocation of resources? How will the university serve people if it is not democratic?
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Chomsky sees the dissident only in terms of the dissident’s ideas and writes: “Still, in the universities or in any other institution, you can often find some dissidents hanging around in the woodwork—and they can survive in one fashion or another, particularly if they get community support. But if they become too disruptive or too obstreperous—or you know, too effective—they're likely to be kicked out. The standard thing, though, is that they won't make it within the institutions in the first place, particularly if they were that way when they were young—they'll simply be weeded out somewhere along the line. So in most cases, the people who make it through the institutions and are able to remain in them have already internalized the right kinds of beliefs: it's not a problem for them to be obedient, they already are obedient, that's how they got there. And that's pretty much how the ideological control system perpetuates itself in the schools—that's the basic story of how it operates, I think.” LINK
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Obedient radical professors serve power by making everything about ideas – nothing is occupation or defiance of the physical time-and-space (and grades-and-credits) curriculum. The student is exposed to radical analysis while being constrained in time and place; and the constraints extend into the future via monetary debt and ideological investment and isolation.
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Chomsky has the most power where he has the strongest tie with the economy, at MIT, in his position as Institute Professor. If you’re not resisting, chances are you’re serving power.
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Joseph Hickey
Date: Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 11:25 PM
Subject: Fwd: Academic Freedom in Ottawa, Canada (letter to Chomsky)
To:

Dear Prof. Chomsky,

Further to our correspondence of one month ago, Professor Rancourt has been fired by the University of Ottawa for the reason of giving high grades in one course he taught one year ago. He was fired on March 31, 2009, and now an on-line petition for his reinstatement has been created.

Rancourt has made a public statement regarding his dismissal at: http://rancourt.academicfreedom.ca/component/content/article/25.html

There is now an on-line petition at: http://rancourt.academicfreedom.ca/component/petitions/?view=petition&id=4

I'm sending you this e-mail in the hope that you will be able to add your name to this protest.

Sincerely,
Joseph Hickey

p.s: official University of Ottawa statements:

firing: http://www.media.uottawa.ca/mediaroom/news-details_1654.html
suspension: http://www.media.uottawa.ca/mediaroom/news-details_1610.html
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On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 11:16 PM, Noam Chomsky wrote: .. I've read the written material you sent. I don't have time to watch videos, I'm afraid. .. As far as I understand, Rancourt was suspended because of his grading decisions. If that is correct, then I would sign a statement protesting that. .. Much of the rest frankly seems to me childish posturing. For example, I taught courses for 25 years at MIT on activism, much of the course devoted to bringing in activists from the community to describe what they were doing. But I did it on my own time, as it should be done. It would simply be kicking my colleagues in the face to insist on doing it within their department. From what I've seen here, his "activism" is confined to the university. I'm afraid that doesn't impress me. Not only my own, but that of academic friends and colleagues, goes far beyond that, in character, risk, international scope, etc. .. As for Fish, I'm afraid that's not a recommendation. .. Noam Chomsky ..
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----- Original Message -----
From: Joseph Hickey
To: Noam Chomsky
Sent: Monday, March 09, 2009 10:55 PM
Subject: Re: Academic Freedom in Ottawa, Canada
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Hi again Prof. Chomsky,

Thanks for getting back to me. Let me make one more bid for your attention.

1) Not many dissident tenured profs get fired for political reasons in North America. A strong supporter of Rancourt's case, who knows the background well, is your former MIT colleague David F. Noble. Here's a video of him and Rancourt giving a talk together at UofT in January, following Rancourt's suspension:
http://vimeo.com/3060115

Physicist and author of "Disciplined Minds", Jeff Schmidt, who I believe you supported, is also a strong supporter of Rancourt. His letter is not yet up on academicfreedom.ca, unfortunately, but I could send it to you.

2) Rancourt's case was on the front page of the Globe and Mail and has had ample media coverage:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090206.wprof06/BNStory/National/home

Stanley Fish's blog for the New York Times was about him 2 weeks in a row:
http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/the-two-languages-of-academic-freedom/

3) All the media, letters, links to video, and background information is very well organized on the website:
http://www.academicfreedom.ca/

4) You may have seen Rancourt's spirited critique of Noam Chomsky, in which he describes the well-known dissident writer as a "non-activist intellectual engaged in analytical penetration of the monster":
http://activistteacher.blogspot.com/2008/07/against-chomsky.html

Thanks for your time,
Sincerely,
Joseph Hickey
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On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 2:50 PM, Noam Chomsky wrote: .. It looks from your letter as though protest is in order, but to proceed I'd have to work through the background, and I'm afraid I'm just not in a position to do that. I'm deluged with similar requests. Each requires inquiry. Sometimes I've been able to work it into a very demanding schedule, but usually not, I'm afraid. I don't like to take a public stand on factual matters without serious investigation. And this case I never even heard of before you wrote. .. Noam Chomsky ..
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----- Original Message -----
From: Joseph Hickey (by way of Noam Chomsky )
To: Noam Chomsky
Sent: Monday, March 02, 2009 5:12 PM
Subject: Academic Freedom in Ottawa, Canada

Hi Professor Chomsky,

I'd like to let you know about a (in my opinion) riveting academic freedom struggle that's currently underway at the University of Ottawa. Tenured physics professor Denis Rancourt has worked at the university for 22 years, and is now about to be dismissed because of the way he graded a fourth-year quantum mechanics course that he taught one year ago. In the course, he gave all students the mark of A+ (highest possible mark) on the first day of class, so as to remove grades from the students' learning experience in that class. On Dec. 10, 2008, Rancourt was placed on academic suspension, and barred from coming onto campus. In January, he was arrested when he came to campus to host a weekly film night that he's been hosting for the past 3 years or so.

Of course there's a lot more to the story.. Rancourt runs a blog that is very critical of the UofO: www.uofowatch.blogspot.com and that has, among other things, exposed falsification of documents by the upper administration of the university.

Several of his students have become quite vocal in their criticism of the university, e.g. www.uofovoice.blogspot.com

Rancourt also voices his pro-Palestine anti-Israel views, and believes that new President Allan Rock (former Liberal star-politician and cabinet minister under Jean Chretien, ambassador to the U.N. under Paul Martin) has connections to the Israel lobby, and that this is one of the reasons he is being dismissed.

I'm telling you all this because Prof. Rancourt is collecting support letters from academics outside of the university. They letters collected so far have been posted here: http://www.academicfreedom.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=55&Itemid=62

This website, www.academicfreedom.ca contains much background information on the Rancourt saga.

I am one of Rancourt's physics graduate students. Upon Rancourt's suspension, all of his graduate students were told that they must find new supervisors. Two other students and I have pursued legal action against the university and the Dean of Science and the Dean of Graduate Studies over breach of contract and misfeasance in public office: http://www.vimeo.com/3372672 in this video, President Allan Rock evades justice for approx. 10 minutes as we follow him down Laurier street, attempting to serve him, as chief representative of the university, with our legal claim.

Thank you for reading this,
I hope you are well,
and I'd like to say thanks for all the precious reading material you've put out into this twisted world of ours!

Sincerely,
Joseph Hickey (M.Sc. student, physics, University of Ottawa, Canada)

AGAINST CHOMSKY

AGAINST CHOMSKY
by Denis G. Rancourt
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Chomsky invites us to peer into the functioning of the superpower and provides analyses and predictive descriptions of complex societal phenomena such as war, the US military economy, and continental-scale corporate predation. Using institutional and media and geopolitical analyses, Chomsky illustrates golden rules such as that an organization will never work against itself and unravels relationships between domestic interests, class divisions, and global pillaging.
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As a professor at MIT, is Chomsky an exception to the rule or does Chomsky work for the man?
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Chomsky once challenged the US war machine at its root and went to jail for his activism, an activism tied to a strong campus anti-war movement. But after jail and after Vietnam, Chomsky became a non-activist intellectual engaged in analytical penetration of the monster.
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In debating Chomsky in 1971, Foucault stated [1]:
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“One knows … that the university and in a general way, all teaching systems, which appear simply to disseminate knowledge, are made to maintain a certain social class in power; and to exclude the instruments of power of another social class. … It seems to me that the real political task in a society such as ours is to criticise the workings of institutions, which appear to be both neutral and independent; to criticise and attack them in such a manner that the political violence which has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight against them.”
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Chomsky, from his position of power within MIT, has not done this. One can say that that is a question of personal choice; that one needs to “choose one’s battles”. But is this choice informed, in terms of action that creates justice – which liberates, rather than reinforces the murderous machine that Chomsky describes?
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No, it is not. Chomsky feeds our need for truth by providing analysis, an intellectual framework that resides in inaction. Chomsky appeases First World cerebral wanderers by giving them their fix, thereby locking them into either cynicism or a non-ending quest to mentalize it all while being disconnected from any real battle. Chomsky feeds the false notion that one can understand the world and one’s place in it and oneself by reading books.
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While this may not be Chomsky’s intent, it is clear that the great majority of Chomsky readers have never put themselves at significant risk by confronting the madness that rules our lives and that is destroying every region of the planet. It is clear that most Chomsky readers don’t read Chomsky as part of a necessary reflection within a high-risk activist battle, within a praxis of change [2, 3, 4].
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Among activist readers Chomsky mainly serves to deepen the pathological pacifism of neutralized mainstream movements. This is mainly because almost all First World activists are of the latter variety [4] but Chomsky does not challenge us to step out. Instead, Chomsky feeds the disconnected and ailing trapped intellectual, the lost soul who has been socialized to study as a “first step” rather than to first feel and stand based on primordial impulse.
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Education as a “first step” constrains us to study and precludes action until an “understanding” is sufficiently complete, in a manner not unlike compulsory and self-imposed schooling as a holding pattern. When one cannot perceive or will not fight one’s own oppression [5] and when the problem is taken to be the intractable entire planet and the systems of exploitation that occupy it, the “first step” is a non-ending self-trapped cycle of intellectual isolation in which the brain is severed from the heart; the heart that is defined by solidarity in battle and in shared risk and shared consequences, and by inter-dependence.
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The same scientific method that has alienated us from nature and from our own selves also defines the framework in which we interpret the new world and our place in it [6]. It is a cold framework of measured consequences, weighed counter pressures, and legalistic morality, without the liberating impulse.
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Chomsky is very careful to not provide any examples of how individuals can free themselves. At most, the prescription is to “organize” [7]: Organizing as a “first step”, leaving out the individual’s primordial quest for freedom to influence. The individual’s impulse to free herself must be constrained behind organizing and education, to the extent that the realities of “survival” permit. Anarchy as anarchism, not anarchy from anarchy [8].
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In reality, one must first act. The world cannot be correctly perceived from involuntary observation and thought. Only knowledge from action allows one to realistically evaluate the proposals of others. Action, reaction, communication, reflection, action… There is a natural sequence that cannot be adulterated without separating us from ourselves.
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The intellectual as mentalizer is a service intellectual [2, 9], just as surely as cerebral wanderers are trapped intellectuals. Only through action have I come to understand Chomsky and his place in the world. Let’s move on.
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References cited:
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[1] Chomsky-Foucault debate, 1971.
[2] Gradual Change is Not Progress.
[3] Activism and Risk.
[4] Churchill, Ward. Pacifism as Pathology. 1998.
[5] Friere, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 1970.
[6] Marcuse, Herbert. One Dimensional Man. 1964.
[7] Chomsky, Noam. Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky. 2002. (P.R. Mitchell and J. Schoeffel, eds.)
[8] Chomsky, Noam. Chomsky on Anarchism. 1969. (2005, AK Press)
[9] Said, Edward. Representations of the Intellectual. 1994.

Follow Up and Supporting Post:
Data in the study "Against Chomsky"