[PEN-L:29465] re:Noam Chomsky and Hyperbolic comparisons

[Hari Kumar <hari.kumar@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A very useful review of some more recent stuff on Chomsky than in the
biographies. There is in my view, no doubt that Chomsky is a remarkable
and brave and decent person. Moreover - undoubtedly he has done a huge
amount to galvanise the progressives around - let us use the term given
- the 'activists'. But nonetheless, perhaps two or three caveats re the
article, some of which   might suggest him to be more a man than an
unmitigated paragon:
1) JD thinks the choice is between Hitchens & Chomsky. I doubt that.
What to say of Hitchens - though his Kissinger is pretty good isn't it?
The closing punch-lines are more indicative of the real comparison that
is being offered by Proyect - regarding the hyperbole of:
"Indeed, for all of Chomsky's frequent disparaging of Marxian socialism,
his uniquely prophetic voice reminds us of none other than Karl Marx's
own."
I find this emblematic of a strange ambivalence towards the organised
left movement that is discerned in the refusal to entertain party
building. In any case, speculation aside - as Proyect points out in his
piece, Chomsky does draw a discreet veil over certain key questions. In
my own view, this certainly does not allow such a comparison to Marx as
is claimed. His response in private correspondence to me on certain
historical matters (pertaining to Lysenko) smacks of a refusal to
grapple with some of the key aspects of history in the past.
2) Although Chomsky talks to 'activists' - it is interesting that
virtually all his venues are in that very base that he claims as the
refugee of "any" (??) thought/thinking- the University. How has Chomsky
connected to those that will make the revolution beyond the 'activists'
- but the working class? Has he? I freely admit I do not know enough to
say. Who does?
3) Another comparison is sort-of offered to us. Chomsky as an Orwell.
But, Chomsky is surely far, far superior to Orwell - Incomparable to
that turd really. For whatever 'errors' Chomsky makes/has made - his is
surely not the turncoat viciousness of a spying ideological thug as the
paid agent Orwell was? Gosh, I hope the archives of some future
"Encounter" magazine - or British Whitehall Files, do not prove me
wrong!
Hari Kumar