-
Preface and Acknowledgments
- Vanderbilt University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Preface and Acknowledgments Professor Noam Chomsky is a giant in the field of linguistics. This book is not about Chomsky the linguist. It is about Noam Chomsky the thinker-activist whose searing critiques of American foreign policy and politics have earned him a reputation as one of the world’s leading public intellectuals. I am interested in exploring and evaluating Chomsky’s writings on politics—“politics” understood broadly to mean the workings of government, and people’s efforts to influence government, in both foreign and domestic affairs. Since the great bulk of Chomsky ’s writings on politics have been about American foreign policy, that subject takes up most of the book. Whatever one thinks of Chomsky, no one can deny that during the course of his nearly fifty-year career as a public intellectual he has dealt provocatively with important issues worthy of the attention of informed citizens: the Vietnam War, America’s broader international role (especially its interventions in the Third World), the structure of power in American politics, the role of the media and of intellectuals in forming public opinion, and American foreign policy in the post–Cold War world. My decision to write about Chomsky was motivated by the simple fact that he has written about things that I care intensely about—things that I think other citizens should care about as well. Ultimately, my interest is not so much in Chomsky personally as it is in his contribution to our understanding of these issues. Accordingly, this book is as much about the issues as it is about Chomsky’s treatment of them. I see the reader as a partner in this search for understanding: when I use the word “we” I mean not the editorial “we” (I prefer the first person singular) but the author and the reader joined in a common effort. Chomsky is an unusually polarizing figure. His admirers tend to be fervent and his critics fierce. It is very hard to find perspectives on Chomsky between those poles. With this book I take up a spot on that lonely middle ground. I didn’t set out to arrive there—I don’t necessarily believe that the truth lies somewhere in the middle—but that is where I ended up. I believe that while much of Chomsky’s work on politics is insightful and important, it is marred by glaring defects. Unfortunately , the value of his work can easily be obscured in the glare of those defects . I hope that a careful, balanced analysis of Chomsky’s deficiencies as well as his merits will help to remove the glare and thus serve to reveal what is genuinely worthwhile. I expect that this book will displease Chomsky fans and foes alike, ix but my objective is to serve critical readers—readers seeking not confirmation of their biases, but genuine understanding. My aim is to help such readers to see patterns in Chomsky’s work—to see where his strengths lie, and where his reliability may be subject to doubt. Some aspects of Chomsky’s political writings will not be examined here. They fall into two categories: things that I think do not require serious attention, and things that are deserving of attention but that I simply don’t have room for in this book. To take the second category first: The author of dozens of books and countless articles, Chomsky has been an amazingly prolific writer on a tremendous range of topics in politics and world affairs. A careful and truly comprehensive assessment of this corpus of work would take volumes. It would require an interdisciplinary team of social scientists and historians with expertise in several world regions. No such team is at my disposal. I have therefore had to be selective. Chomsky has written on many topics that are not treated in this book. My most important omission is Israel and Palestine, a subject about which Chomsky has written extensively and repeatedly. Many books have dealt with the respective merits of the opposing narratives in the historic conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. I don’t see that I can add appreciable value to this literature in the context of this book. The major subject in the category of things I do not believe require serious attention is Chomsky’s political philosophy, the outlook that he sometimes calls anarchism, sometimes libertarian socialism. This omission may seem surprising: a book about a person’s analyses of politics should, presumably, include a discussion of the philosophic underpinnings...