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Chumpsky…

By the dialectical playa on May 29, 2010

COMMENTARY

This sign greeted Noam Chomsky on his arrival in Israel.

The left – already reeling from watching European Social Democracy get exposed as a literally bankrupt ideology; Britain’s Labour Party suffer their worst defeat in over thirty years; rioting Greek leftists self-indulgently destroy the socialist brand; Iran now virtually assured of getting The Bomb as a result of the Obama Administration’s feckless foreign policy; and Our Dear Leader’s cratering poll numbers following the disastrous state visit by his new amigo, Mexican President Felipe Calderon – got another pimp slap after revered radical intellectual Noam Chomsky was denied entry into Israel recently. While Iran’s nuking of Tel Aviv will provide some degree of restitution to an indignant left insulted and outraged by Israel’s insolence, I ascribe this entire tempest-in-a-passport melodrama to the left’s recent – and reluctant – coming-of-age as the new global narrative emphasizing maturity and reality over Flower Power callowness and fantasy has finally forced them to grow up (see here and here). Chomsky’s own uncomfortable introduction to this new paradigm was the disconcerting realization that – at the tender age of 81 – his actions and comments actually have consequences, both to the detriment of himself as well as to others.

Despite the fact that Chomsky wasn’t lined up against a wall and shot – the usual end for “dissenters” of the totalitarian regimes he supports – Mr. Chomsky nevertheless found Israel’s restraint to be less than agreeable with his sanctimonious antiestablishmentarianism as he subsequently lashed out at Israeli authorities by comparing them to the former guardians of apartheid in South Africa and, even more ironically, a “Stalinist regime.” What a novel comparison by a vocal supporter of every groovy totalitarian monstrosity concocted by either the collectivist left or its Islamist imitators since the mid-20th century. Beginning in the 1960s, Chomsky has employed his prodigious reputation and boring commentary in the services of such leftist avatars as Mao, Ho Chi Minh and Pol Pot; the contemporary Thugocracies of Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; and such 21st century avant-garde terrorist groups as Hamas and Hezbollah.

Noam Chomsky – “The Role of the Radical Intellectual: Some Personal Reflections”:

Yet ignorant of such associations and basing one’s assumptions solely on the fawning, pseudo-religious accolades that Chomsky has received over the course of his career, a person could be forgiven for assuming that his veneration by the chattering classes is justly deserved. Part man and part socialist god, Chomsky’s life is presented by his admirers as a gospel story recounting the numerous humanitarian miracles he’s performed while chronicling his blameless life as a radical saint dedicated solely to the service and betterment of mankind. The truth, however, is not so prosaic. Instead, Chomsky’s sole contribution – intellectual or otherwise – to humanity has been his attempt to develop a set of rules that will “correctly predict which combinations of words will form grammatical sentences.” Really important stuff if you’re trying to change the world.

“If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.”

- Noam Chomsky

This lack of achievement could be the motivating factor behind his radical activism as the infamy of his political life compensates for the insignificance and mediocrity of his professional one. Yet for Chomsky, such paradoxes are not limited to mere existential irony as contradiction pervades everything associated with him in word and deed. As an atheist, he claims there are no innate, universal moral absolutes because such a hypothesis cannot be empirically proven, yet ironically his linguistic theories are derived from his belief that all language is derived from innate, universal principles that don’t require objective proof. Even more incredible is the fact that Chomsky the libertarian socialist completely contradicts Chomsky the M.I.T professor: By establishing a set of grammatical rules called “The Chomsky Hierarchy,” Chomsky has – through the inherent nature of rules and in the deconstructionist language of postmodernism – created an institution of “coercive hierarchy” whose intellectual domination is “antagonistic to individual freedom.”

Aside from this, it’s also amusing that Chomsky is a dedicated anarcho-syndicalist, committed to social justice and replacing capitalism and the state with an egalitarian society “democratically self-managed by workers.” As a real, bona-fide proletarian, I’ve always found it fascinating that intellectuals who have never worked a day in their life are so interested in the well-being of people like me who spend most of their life working. Their constant desire to eliminate “exploitation” and to give each worker the “full product of his labor” is easily solved in capitalism by starting your own company and exploiting others for the “full product of their labor.” This is what I hope to do, and soon.

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