Good lord. It took Chomsky 10 minutes to respond to my email (see previous post) – and substantively too, not just with a brush-off. Alas, he doesn’t like people sharing the contents of his emails – which I will respect, as painful as that is to do. But I can say that he has apparently addressed this issue at some length in his book Hegemony or Survival.
I found the email itself thoroughly unconvincing, and I doubt the longer version in his book will help matters, though I would be curious to check it out. But I imagine I’ve already written enough on this subject to frighten away most of my readers. So I’ll stop now.
UPDATE: No, I lied about stopping. I went for a walk and communed with nature a little bit. That led to the desire to round things out with a concluding paragraph. Here goes:
The story of Iraq’s drive to develop nuclear weapons is an extremely complicated one, involving all kinds of regional, international, domestic and psychological causes. The remark of Chomsky’s which touched off this little debate was only an aside, but that aside was an allusion to a well-considered view. That view attempts to reduce this complicated story to a single cause: Israel’s strike on Osirak (and to perhaps Israel more generally). That’s really simplistic, and – worse – simplistic about an extremely important subject. So, in my view, we have an example of a very prominent spokesperson for the left making a serious error of historical analysis. If that isn’t an occasion for criticism and debate, then we should just give up on the entire notion of self-scrutiny and substantive debate altogether.
DC | 01-Aug-04 at 8:05 pm | Permalink
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of Chomsky giving substantial responses to email criticisms yet refusing to allow them be published. Fair play to him for taking the time to respond at all, and I can see the pitfalls of a public figure with lots of people out to get him (politically speaking) allowing private correspondance be published – fear of distortion etc. – but it seems strange to do both, doesn’t it? (I mean to bother responding, but only privately).
On the point itself, it’s a relatively minor part of the whole Iraq issue, and it is only an aside (and overanalysing asides takes us perilously close to the dubious practice of “fisking” – or at any rate often dubiously practised). But Chomsky ranges over a very wide range of issues in his writings (and purportedly with great authority, which is supposed to be the consolation for his, ahem, empirical prose-style), and sloppiness on this point (sloppiness convenient to his broader viewpoint, of course) betrays the somewhat formulaic approach which Chomsky often seems to be guilty of.
Chris | 01-Aug-04 at 8:18 pm | Permalink
Ah, but I disagree about the importance of the point: It’s crucial to your view of the spread of nuclear material and technology in the middle east. Your view of the causes is bound to influence your view of moral responsibility attaching to each of the actors and also to your view of what to do about it.
I really do like reading Chomsky. I’ll keep doing it. I don’t understand the knee-jerk rejection that goes “Oh, well, that’s Chomsky,” as if that were good enough to reject it. But criticism is perfectly appropriate here.
Anyway, isn’t it, like, 2am over there? Don’t you Irish ever sleep?
DC | 02-Aug-04 at 9:35 am | Permalink
Sleep is for the weak, and those who are tired.
5 hours difference with East Coast USA I think, so that was about 1. Bank holiday today though, so no need for sleep ye see?
Plus, much easier to slum it in comments boxes than post something myself.
Chris | 02-Aug-04 at 11:04 am | Permalink
Slum? Slum?!?!? This is no place for anyone to slum! You’re in a very classy (virtual) place, my good man. No one is doing any slumming here.
Still in formal wear,
cy
DC | 02-Aug-04 at 1:30 pm | Permalink
Hey buddy, a comments box is a comments box, don’t get airs with me.
Chris | 02-Aug-04 at 1:40 pm | Permalink
Heh.
Spaz | 03-Aug-04 at 9:46 am | Permalink
An oldy but a goodie if you can find it on-line:
Sober, E. (1988), “Apportioning Causal Responsibility”, Journal of Philosophy 85: 303-318.
Enjoy!