Chavez loves Chomsky
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I was quite amused by this little news item but then again not entirely surprised.
I like Noam Chomsky’s work, I may disagree with his views quite a lot but then there is no challenge in embracing only those who share your world-view. Chomsky can be considered a man who although terribly wrong as much as he is spot-on in equal measure has at least the distinction of being a perennial catalyst of ideas throughout his lifetime. For example his work on linguistics may not be widely accepted but it nevertheless helped the field move forward at a time when thinking in this field was moribund, and I think a similar thing can be said of his political views.
So its not entirely surprising that he is adored by Hugo Chavez, after all I can see they have a great deal in common. They both cling to an idealised pseudo-socialism replete with hypocrisy and inconsistencies. They both are vain, sloppy intellectuals who seem quite unable to ever admit they were wrong about anything - even in the face of overwhelming evidence and most importantly they love to blame the American political and financial elite for all the world’s woes (while making a little money on the side and in Chavez’ case being quite a ruthless dictator).
A marriage made in heaven… but still they are sometimes right, which makes the world an ever-more interesting place does it not?
I have more mixed feelings about the two men. In Linguistics, Chomsky challenged the field with his theory of generative grammar structure and he still have ardent followers, however he seemed unable to integrate new discoveries in the filed into his own theory and transform it. In this regard, his theory stays at an abstract level like philosophical theories. In Politics, I consider ‘Manufacturing consent’ as his major work. In which he explains very clearly how our democracies silence dissent and manufacture consent via the control of the media, becoming in the process totalitarian and authoritarian democracies. His position on the Isareli-Palestinian conflict was always puzzling to me and really ambiguous until I disovered that this was specific to all western leftists intellectuals having pinned many hopes on the state of Israel as an example of the realisation and the success of socialism. I like his way of building an argument and he is very talented in that, impeccable logical coherence. But an intellectual is a product of his time and we have to see Chomsky this way. He was a marginal in Politics not a long ago. September 11th, before Chavez, brought him fame because the space for debate in our global society was becoming virtually null.
As for Chavez, I don’t charcterise him as a dictator. He is a populist and he is the product of the US policies in latin America, so much criticized by Chomsky. You cannot blame the US for everything but you certainly can blame them for what they have done to Latin America and to what they are doing to the Middle East.
I was going to rant on my blog the other week about Livinsgstone selling security know how to a ruthless dictator but when I came to search for a bit of background did not find anything about Chavez to really back up the idea. In a few respects,if you look on Wilkepedia, he could teach our government a thing or two about democracy.
You’re quite right. I recall reading an unsavoury article in one of the Sunday-glossies some time ago which detailed corruption and intimidation of opponents but following Sophia’s comments I did a bit of research on the internet and in all honestly I couldn’t find much of any substance. So I’ll admit that maybe I’ve been guilty of a little sloppy scholarship myself there, at least I’ll put that thought to one side for now. Perhaps he has been slightly unfairly smeared? Sticking your thumb to the USA makes you enemies.
Absolutely agree Sophia, an excellent synopsis. Some will reap what they sow.