This work deals with the highly topical issue of multiculturalism and, as such, a warning is necessary. It is written for those who are, or aspire to be, members of the intellectual elite. These are the people who believe that knowledge is the product of hard labour; the people who believe that you need to do a great deal of time-consuming research, read a lot of books and reflect on many difficult philosophical, empirical and theoretical issues to produce intelligent knowledge.
In John HoWARd’s Australia, there seem to be many individuals who feel ‘relaxed and comfortable’ in talking about issues about which they haven’t bothered to read a single researched article, let alone a book. Apparently, ‘life taught them’. In fact, such people are so ‘relaxed and comfortable’ that they believe that the more someone works at trying to learn about an issue, the more they become part of an ignorant and arrogant lot: the intellectual elite. The role of this elite is apparently simply to put down naturally intelligent people and find ways to stop them from expressing the truth they capture so effortlessly by merely living.
When I used to visit my grandmother in Bathurst in the late 1970s, she would often make comments such as ‘You’ve been reading too much’ or, even more explicitly, ‘People who go to university become mad.’ Although such comments helped me reflect on how and why university knowledge clashed with everyday knowledge, I resented pronouncements such as ‘You have read books, but life has taught me.’ I used to say, ‘But Granny, I have a life as well you know, and it teaches me too. Can’t you see that books and research provide me with extra knowledge.’ I was naive even to try.
The so-called ‘intelligentsia’ always looks down with a really limitless condescension on anyone who has not been dragged through the obligatory schools and had the necessary knowledge pumped into him. The question has never been: ‘What are the man’s abilities?’ but ‘what has he learned?’ To these ‘educated’ people the biggest empty-head, if he is wrapped in enough diplomas, is worth more than the brightest boy who happens to lack these costly envelopes.
This is neither my granny, nor any of Australia’s anti-intellectual populists speaking, but Adolf Hitler. And I cannot help thinking of him when people start abusing intellectuals. Hitler was the classic anti-intellectual: a man who had enough intellect to be a mediocre intellectual and enough also to realise that he wasn’t a member of the intellectual elite. Like many mediocre intellectuals, he thought he had a natural talent for knowledge, rather than realising how much hard work is put into whatever knowledge people end up gathering.
Hitler was not, however, the sort of person who would just sit there and take it. He was too motivated by dreams of social, political and intellectual mobility to allow himself to just sulk and do nothing. So, he found the time-honoured way to ‘beat’ the intellectual elite. This is the road often chosen by people who want to be recognised as intellectuals, but who are either not socially equipped to be so or feel they have better things to do than putting in the hard labour necessary to achieve such a status. These people compensate for their lack of knowledge by speaking in the name of ‘the people’. ‘The people’ becomes such a formula of success for mediocre intellectuals that they make themselves — and some others, too — believe that they actually are ‘the people’.
The mechanism is very simple: 1) ‘The people’ already know everything there is to know: ‘life taught them’. 2) Consequently, anything that the ‘intellectual elite’ says which is not known by the people is superfluous knowledge, if not actively against the people. 3) Therefore, any attack on the knowledge of the intellectual elite is a defence of the knowledge of the people. And who else is better at defending the instinctive knowledge of the people if not the instinctively intelligent, mediocre intellectual? In reality, ‘the people’ are too busy living. In addition, one can be certain that anyone who uses the concept of ‘the people’ is already someone who distinguishes himself or herself from them…
Ghassan Hage, White Nation: Fantasies of White supremacy in a multicultural society, Pluto Press, 1998, Preface, pp.7–9.
Fantasies of JewHiss Supremacy in a Goyisch society.
“Arbeit macht Frei” in the intellectual sense ?
You Jews are fucking Nutz !
Let’s simplify what you have said:
Hitler was against the intellectual elite. People today who are against the intellectual elite are like Hitler. Therefore those same people must be Nazis.
Interesting issue: the role of academia and the intelligentsia more generally can be hard to pinpoint. In many cases it can seem as if they are truly agitating for fundamental social change, but often this is undermined by (subconsciously?) elitist positions in which the masses are seen to be too ignorant to control society.
Even in relatively extreme examples such as Chomsky (who has genuinely revolutionary politics), the separation of most academics from grassroots movements means that they are unresponsive to the issues facing the people being discussed, and can be unsure as to what needs to be said at any one time. Chomsky for instance shows his naivete when it comes to grass-roots organising and campaigning in his writing. This manifests itself in the fact that his followers who agree with some of his principles can come to wildly varying conclusions as to what actually needs to be done. For example there are MANY liberals in the US who are passionate supporters of the democrats who also claim to be Chomsky disciples…
I think that is a real indictment on his writings: he is simply not sharp enough, consistently enough. In contrast, there is no way you can read a decent Marxist analysis of the ALP or an anarchist analysis of property and be left unclear as to what needs to be done. Obviously, tactics are not discussed in such texts, but no anarchist or socialist would be espousing the greatness of the ALP’s ideas after reading those two texts (or any others); the broad case for revolution would have been made.
I think this difference between Chomsky and theorists who are part of revolutionary movements is a product of the nature of even left wing academics: being totally removed from the daily (often boring) reality of political organisation, his writing is almost exclusively analytical. He is unable to put forward a programme for change because he is not engaged in an ongoing, democratic relationship with that change.
Awesome.
Kinky: Yeah, Lebanese-Australian Anthropologists for Zion.
Dazza: You are beyond parody.
juancastro: No.
While the implications of his argument are fairly broad, Hage is addressing himself to a contemporary Australian audience, and in particular highlighting the role of ‘anti-intellectualism’ when employed by right-wing populists to suppress debate concerning issues surrounding multiculturalism. With regards Chomsky and the intelligentsia, he’s written a few pieces on the subject, the lengthiest of which concerns ‘Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship’, a rightly famous critique of liberal accounts of the Spanish Civil War (among other related matters). On the subject of the intelligentsia and socialism, ‘The Soviet Union Versus Socialism’ (below) is probably most germane. Beyond this, I think your account of the relationship between Chomsky’s political writing and movements for social change is completely inaccurate, for all sorts of reasons, including but not limited to:
1) It’s one of the more well-known facts concerning Chomsky that he constantly addresses assemblies and gatherings organised by grassroots movements. In fact, I’d hazard that he’s probably addressed a larger number of such audiences than any other intellectual alive;
2) Chomsky is hardly naive when it comes to grassroots organising; rather, he tends not to prescribe what this activism should consist of, believing — rightly, in my opinion — that there are numerous others who probably have a much better idea than he does what works best in any particular circumstance. To put it another way: his role is not to direct, but to inform. You see this as a weakness; many others see it as a strength;
3) What his ‘followers’ believe is hardly Chomsky’s responsibility. Further, if you examine his work, there’s little, if any, desire expressed to accumulate these, and to the extent such individuals do exist, they are obviously deluded. To put it another way: he advocates citizens take part in forms of intellectual self-defence.
4) As to what needs to be done, I think Chomsky makes himself fairly clear. In conversation (while wearing a suit) with Monsieur Foucault (while wearing a skivvy), Chomsky opines that:
“A federated, decentralized, system of free associations incorporating economic as well as social institutions would be what I refer to as anarcho-syndicalism. And it seems to me that it is the appropriate form of social organization for an advanced technological society in which human beings do not have to be forced into position of tools, of cogs in a machine, in which the creative urge, that I think is intrinsic to human nature will in effect be able to realize itself in whatever way it will. I don’t know all the ways in which it will…” blah blah blah.
5) “He is unable to put forward a programme for change because he is not engaged in an ongoing, democratic relationship with that change”; on the contrary, Chomsky is deeply embroiled in such processes, and has been for over 40 years, if not longer. In fact, this activity has consumed most of his life. He has the intellectual ability to be Bob Avakian, he chooses not to. The reasons why require further reflection on your part.
Noice cut’n’paste, @ndy, noice.
wtf
I’d get that seen to.
You didn’t actually address any of my points @ndy.
1) Addressing an assembly is irrelevant. How many meetings does he organise? Does he know the difficulties of building such a meeting? Does he know how to talk to the average person on the street and convince them of radical arguments? This is what grass-roots activism is all about. Speaking to rallies and assemblies is what politicians do all the time; that doesn’t mean they have any idea how to build either.
2) Choosing to inform is great, but by not explicitly and consistently mentioning revolution, he is allowing people who agree with him on all counts to continue to believe in figures like Obama and Kucinich. I think it should be impossible to agree with a Chomsky book and be unsure of the need for revolution. I think it should be impossible to read and agree with a Chomsky book and be unclear that the system is unable to be reformed from within. Yet it is patently NOT impossible, and that is deeply problematic IMO.
3) I think this is addressed above, but let me just say that I believe it IS his responsibility. AND also that these individuals are not deluded at all (what an elitist position!). Chomsky is an intelligent and articulate person, and his ideas make a lot of sense. The problem IMO is that his mainstream publications are not sharply anti-systemic and pro-revolution, and so supporters are not necessarily lead to this clear and essential conclusion. Again, one cannot read and agree with texts by Proudhon, Cliff, or Trotsky without being a revolutionary.
4) The fact that he stated his opinion that an anarchist revolution is necessary in one debate at some historical moment is hardly sufficient to counter my point. I’ve read many of his articles and one of his books, and the case for a revolution is rarely front and centre.
5) I would like to hear a bit more of an explanation of how [he] is engaged in a democratic relationship with contemporary social movements.
Also, I would like to hear how anarchists would have defended the revolution from invasion from the 14 (?) countries without some form of centralisation. I agree that the post-revolutionary era was abhorrent, but people in SAlt have convincingly argued that at the time the alternative to the “Red Bureaucracy” at the time was military fascism… hardly a good outcome. Lenin explicitly said that the RB was instituted as a holding measure while the country awaited the revolution in Germany amongst other places. What would anarchists have done? As much as I would like to (sincerely…), I personally can’t see much hope in democratically decentralised armies facing 14 invading military machines…
Dazzling Dazza: You are projecting something fierce.
“You didn’t actually address any of my points @ndy.”
I disagree, but in any case, I’ll try again.
According to you, Chomsky’s principal failings stem from the fact that, as an intellectual(?), he is separated (politically? socially? culturally?) from (progressive, presumably) grassroots political movements. As a result Chomsky, like most, if not all, members of the intelligentsia — and despite his genuinely revolutionary political agenda — is unresponsive to the needs of members of such movements; unsure of what needs to be said to its members and when; and naive regarding the issues facing those involved in such movements. These facts are somehow evident in his writing.
What evidence do you provide to support these claims?
According to you, some of his “followers”, despite agreeing with some of his “principles”, nevertheless come to wildly different conclusions “as to what actually needs to be done”. For example: US liberals, who are passionate supporters of the Democrats, also claim to be Chomsky’s disciples. According to you, this is a failure of Chomsky’s because, if he more clearly articulated his otherwise “genuinely” revolutionary politics, his “followers” and his “disciples” — including Democrat-voting US liberals(?!?) — would be compelled to come to conclusions much more closely in accord with Chomsky’s own regarding ‘what is to be done’. This failure is “a real indictment on his writings”, and may be usefully contrasted with the fact that “there is no way you can read a decent Marxist analysis of the ALP or an anarchist analysis of property and be left unclear” as to the answer to this question.
Which may, of course, be summarised in one word: ‘revolution’.
What accounts for this phenomenon?
According to you, it is “a product of… being totally removed from the daily (often boring) reality of political organisation”. Thus, Chomsky’s “writing is almost exclusively analytical” and he “is unable to put forward a programme for change because he is not engaged in an ongoing, democratic relationship with that change”.
In response, and to begin with, your account begs all sorts of questions. For example: that the proper role of an intellectual is to spell out explicitly what is to be done; that ideally, the role of the intellectual is to cultivate followers; that revolutionary ideology derives its primary effect from its enunciation to the masses in the form of an easily-understood ‘programme’; that there is such a thing as “an ongoing, democratic relationship” between intellectuals and social movements, which may be expressed through the development of such a programme, and that such programmes and relationships are also easily-understood and recognised by all parties to them; that intellectual responses to social theory and to political speech may be easily determined if their content is determined with the same or similar precision…
Secondly, it fails to engage in any way with Chomsky’s history as an ‘activist’.
My impression is that you know next-to-nothing about this subject, which is not surprising, given that you’ve only read a handful of essays and one book, none of which appear to have revealed much of anything to you about it.
Leaving aside his childhood engagement with politics, and his early Zionism, Chomsky’s political activism really began in the 1960s, and in response to the US/Viet Nam War. Here’s how he puts it:
So, since the mid-1960s, Chomsky has been incredibly politically active, writing scores of books, hundreds of essays, giving thousands of speeches (to capacity audiences) and writing countless letters. He has been the subject of major films, appeared on many TV and radio shows, and featured in innumerable articles in the press. He has also lent his name to innumerable causes. If you want to find evidence of Chomsky’s ‘activism’, in other words, there is absolutely no shortage of it available. He is a phenomenally popular writer and speaker, having addressed literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people over the course of the last few decades.
Further, in doing all of these things, Chomsky is in part responding to the demands of other activists, activists deeply involved in all sorts of campaigns, projects and groups: the political grassroots, in other words, whether in North America, Australasia, Europe, Central and South America, or elsewhere in the world. For example, when Chomsky spoke at the Town Hall in Sydney in 1995, proceeds from one talk were given to local East Timorese groups; those from another talk, local anarchists, for whom his speech — on ‘Visions of Freedom’ — was one of the key events at a conference they’d organised (and which I also attended). There are, literally, countless other examples of Chomsky placing both himself and his work, both financial and political, at the disposal of ‘grassroots movements’, over a period of almost 50 years. That you should be unaware of this is perhaps unfortunate, but easily remedied. As an aside, it’s absurd to compare Chomsky’s speech-giving to that of a politician; unlike a politician, people are actually willing to pay to hear Chomsky speak, and these funds have been used by enormous numbers of groups to sustain their organising.
Regarding Chomsky’s political vision, I don’t know why you assume it was only articulated once, in a televised debate with Michel Foucault. A recent account of Chomsky’s political critique is available in Alison Edgley, ‘Chomsky’s Political Critique’, Contemporary Political Theory, 2005, pp.3–25 [PDF]. It concludes:
More sustained accounts are available in Milan Rai, Chomsky’s Politics, Verso, 1995, and Robert F. Barsky, Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent, MIT Press, 1997. An account of Chomsky’s anarchist politics is available in his essay ‘Notes on Anarchism’ (available in numerous editions), which was originally published as an introduction to the English translation of the libertarian Marxist Daniel Guerin’s Anarchism: From Theory to Practice (1970). More recently, AK Press has published Chomsky on Anarchism (edited by Barry Pateman, 2004). There are also numerous interviews with Chomsky in which he discusses the subject, available in audio, video and print formats.
Your argument concerning what people may or may not conclude upon having read some of Chomsky’s work is simply unreasonable, and merely reflects, I think, a very crude understanding, on your part, of the nature of political consciousness and the means by which it is shaped. Further, not only what a piece of writing consists of, but what the goals of writing are, can and should be. That the case for revolution is rarely front and centre may in fact be a virtue, not a vice, for example. Further, it may not always be appropriate. Perhaps this is one of the attractions of Chomsky’s works, and the reasons why, unlike say, the publications of the ISO, it has a mass audience?
In general, it appears you view writing and speech very much in terms of a conveyor belt (cf. Lenin, What Is To Be Done?). That is, developing ‘revolutionary consciousness’ in the masses is a question of substituting the right product — ‘revolution’ — for the wrong one. If the consumer ‘agrees’ and consumes the product, they have consumed the ‘revolutionary’ content of the message; if not, well, maybe if it was packaged differently…?
This approach is problematic, for all sorts of reasons. So are statements like “Again, one cannot read and agree with texts by Proudhon, Cliff, or Trotsky without being a revolutionary”, and again, for all sorts of reasons. An obvious question: is the definition of a revolutionary someone who ‘agrees’ with Proudhon, Cliff and/or Trotsky? And on what, precisely? I think the answer is ‘no’.
Personally, I first encountered Chomsky’s work in the late 1980s, when I was in high school. I heard him speak via local public radio station, 3RRR, on a current affairs program whose name I can’t remember. It played a speech Chomsky gave somewhere or other on the subject of US foreign policy in Central America. I listened to it and was immediately intrigued. A short time later, I bought a copy of Turning the Tide: U.S. Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace (South End Press, 1987) (from The International Bookshop, back when it was still in the city). It really didn’t take me all that much longer to discover his other political commitments; specifically, his commitment to anarchism.
On the subject of the orthodox Marxist account of the Russian Revolution, that’s a whole other question, as is the question of whether it was 14, 17, 18, 21 or 22 foreign armies that invaded Russian Bolshevik territory. But briefly:
The “Red bureaucracy” was “military fascism”. It was July 1918 when Trotsky re-introduced into the Red Army the same measures as had existed in the Tsarist Army. Thus the death penalty for disobedience under fire was reintroduced; as were saluting, special forms of address, separate living quarters and privileges for officers. Officers were appointed rather than elected. Trotsky argued that “the elective basis is politically pointless and technically inexpedient and has already been set aside by decree”;
“Centralisation” is a euphemism akin to the term “pacification” — it deliberately obscures real events, real history, and real suffering;
Rather than ask ‘What would anarchists do?’, why not examine what anarchists actually did?;
The 14 or 17 or 18 or 21 or 22 military machines largely consisted of veterans of WWI. The largest, the Czech contingent, numbered about 30,000. It had formerly constituted the Czech Legion, which had fought for the Tsar. As a consequence of the treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918), the Germans demanded that the Bolsheviks disarm the Legion and ensure its passage to Austria, where the Czechs were to become prisoners of war. Not surprisingly, the Legion was not especially cooperative. Mostly, they only wanted to go home, and did so in 1920, but not before handing over to the Red Army Kolchak, the White dicktator, and a shitload of gold.
More later, maybe.
Ya reckon Cammy?
More and later.
1) “How many meetings does he organise? Does he know the difficulties of building such a meeting? Does he know how to talk to the average person on the street and convince them of radical arguments? This is what grass-roots activism is all about. Speaking to rallies and assemblies is what politicians do all the time; that doesn’t mean they have any idea how to build either.”
How many meetings does Chomsky organise? I’ve no idea. Very few, I imagine, and for very good, and, I hope, obvious reasons. Rather, Chomsky responds to invitations to speak, of which there are many more than it is possible for him to accept.
Does he know the difficulties of building such a meeting? Probably. Well, depending on how you interpret that question. In reality, it’s not difficult to ‘build’ interest in an address by Chomsky: it’s already massive, and his speeches are, as far as I’m aware, always sold out. In terms of ‘building’ meetings in general, yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was aware of the difficulties in obtaining an audience for political issues generally. Why wouldn’t he be? He’s mentioned it on a number of occasions, and I believe it to otherwise be fairly common knowledge.
Does he know how to talk to the average person on the street and convince them of radical arguments? Again, probably. He’s a very smart bloke. Further, there’s all kindsa testimony to that effect. On the other hand, I already alluded to Chomsky’s support for the development of forms of intellectual self defence, and I believe he’s stated on more than one occasion that people generally convince themselves. Or as Eugene Debs put it: “I don’t want you to follow me or anyone else. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I could lead you in, somebody else would lead you out.”
Grass-roots activism is all about organising meetings, being aware of the difficulties encountered when trying to persuade people to attend them, and being able to talk to average people on the street in a way that convinces them of radical arguments? Maybe. I actually think this is a rather impoverished definition, which much better describes some of the main activities of a group like SAlt, especially if one adds an ability to convince average students on campus to buy the paper and to join the group.
“Speaking to rallies and assemblies is what politicians do all the time; that doesn’t mean they have any idea how to build either.” Uh-huh. Actually, I think most politicians are the product of long-standing political processes. In the Australian context, this means precisely having demonstrated an ability to organise meetings, to convince people to attend them, and to construct a persuasive argument. Where do you think Peter Costello cut his teeth? Alternatively, which union did the Deputy Prime Minister once lead? There are many, many other examples.
2) “Choosing to inform is great, but by not explicitly and consistently mentioning revolution, he is allowing people who agree with him on all counts to continue to believe in figures like Obama and Kucinich. I think it should be impossible to agree with a Chomsky book and be unsure of the need for revolution. I think it should be impossible to read and agree with a Chomsky book and be unclear that the system is unable to be reformed from within. Yet it is patently NOT impossible, and that is deeply problematic IMO.”
I think you want Chomsky to perform rather like a magic wand, or perhaps a magic bullet, striking counter-revolutionary heresies dead. “Y’know, I used to think changing the system meant voting for Obama or some guy called Kucinich, but after I read Chomsky’s latest title, I now know that there’s only one solution: revolution!” I find such reasoning to be utterly fatuous. Further, in a Marxist context, idealist. (As mentioned previously, however, it does reflect the ‘propagandistic’ approach of groups such as SAlt.) That is, it fails to recognise that the ideas in people’s heads aren’t merely the product of conscious, disinterested, ‘objective’ reflection, but overdetermined by a range of factors, including but not limited to position in the social hierarchy — class, gender, race, ethnicity, ability, sexuality and so on — personal history, psychology, unconscious motivations, material interests, and so on. Individuals are not blank canvasses upon which it’s possible to simply throw new coats of (red or even black) paint, in other words, and their opinions, and the reasons for them (including the seemingly irrational ones) the subject of multiple causes.
Regarding Chomsky’s own work, here’s a quote:
Alternatively, here’s some other quotes:
3) “I think this is addressed above, but let me just say that I believe it IS his responsibility. AND also that these individuals are not deluded at all (what an elitist position!). Chomsky is an intelligent and articulate person, and his ideas make a lot of sense. The problem IMO is that his mainstream publications are not sharply anti-systemic and pro-revolution, and so supporters are not necessarily lead to this clear and essential conclusion. Again, one cannot read and agree with texts by Proudhon, Cliff, or Trotsky without being a revolutionary.”
OK. So you believe it’s Chomsky’s responsibility to somehow ensure that, upon having read something he’s written — a book, an essay — and irrespective of its subject matter, but presumably in reference to his writings on US foreign and domestic policy, the inescapable conclusion the reader is forced to arrive at is that ‘revolution’ is the ‘answer’ to whatever ‘problem’ he happens to be discussing.
Uh-huh.
Further, to suggest that individuals who support Obama or Kucinich who read Chomsky and who, upon having done so, continue to support Obama or Kucinich, are somehow delusional, is an extraordinarily “elitist” position to take.
Uh-huh.
Perhaps you could elaborate on this point, because I don’t understand it. It also appears to be a question-begging exercise. Readers “agree”, in toto, apparently, but escape coming to revolutionary conclusions?
And:
Do you ‘agree’? Or do you ‘disagree’? Are these indeed your only options in response? Says who? And what has this to do with ‘revolution’? If someone read this, and upon having done so, declared, ‘I am a revolutionary’, what would it mean?
4) “The fact that he stated his opinion that an anarchist revolution is necessary in one debate at some historical moment is hardly sufficient to counter my point. I’ve read many of his articles and one of his books, and the case for a revolution is rarely front and centre.”
Chomsky’s views on social change are fairly clear. Certainly, they’re not hard to find, and I’ve already provided you some references, which are not exhaustive. Feel free to discuss them. Alternatively, feel free to discuss any of Chomsky’s work. I think his thoughts on Leninism are germane.