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December 4, 2003 Re: My review of Noam Chomsky's new book Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance I received an e-mail from Mike McVey of Kansas City, Missouri, critiquing my rather negative review of Noam Chomsky's latest book which appears HERE on The Radical Academy website and also on Amazon's website. Mr. McVey has responded paragraph by paragraph to my review, which appears below. My words are in black type and his are in red type and my replies to him are in blue type. Since his was the first critial e-mail I received, I am using it as a starting place for a discussion. The only thing I would like the reader to keep in mind is that I am limited to less than 1,000 words in writing my book reviews and this makes it difficult to be specific and provide much detail; one is virtually forced to generalize and, sadly in some cases, may even incline one to over-generalize. Be that as it may, I am publishing -- with Mr. McVey's permission -- his response to my review. Jonathan Dolhenty, Ph.D. |
Hegemony
or Survival: |
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So, let's begin -- Remember my words are in black type and Mr. McVey's are in red type and my replies to him are in blue type. Noam Chomsky, long-standing activist intellectual and spokesman for the so-called New Left, now graces us with his latest effort in anti-American rhetoric. Define "anti-American." This adjective has been so thoroughly abused since 9-11 that I can hardly expect it to have a technical meaning by which it can assert anything factual. If you choose to use this term, define what you mean by it. Anti-American, in my view at least, would be a term with a meaning somewhat similar to anti-Semitic, although I don't mean to equate the two terms as being exactly the same (anti-Semitism has caused much more harm than anti-Americanism, for instance). In general, however, anti-Semitism refers to (among other things) the denouncement in speech or writing of Jewish culture, traditions and attitudes as being inimicable to a nation's welfare. In this vein, anti-American would refer to denouncement in speech or writing of American culture, traditions and attitudes as being inimicable to the world's welfare. I find in Chomsky's book nothing said that is very positive about America, and a lot that is said about how terrible and dangerous America is. I would submit that this is indicative of an anti-American attitude. While many of the issues raised in this book are worthy of an objective investigation and evaluation, the work is hardly objective and, while it may present itself as a scholarly treatise, it rapidly deteriorates into nothing more than a propaganda screed for a narrow, one-sided, and simplistic point of view. Furthermore, Chomsky seems to lack any sense of historical perspective, fails to articulate any coherent political framework, and does not seem to understand the nuances of modern geopolitics. Whoa! You have yet to even explain what you construe the book to be about before you launch into an all-out assault on it for a wide range of serious defects. This is a risky way to posit an argument. Are you really trying to reach open-minded readers, or just joining the anti-Chomsky choir? This statement is a general introduction to the next paragraph which does posit what I perceive to be the main idea of the book. I would think that would be evident once the next paragraph was read. It is perfectly acceptable to open an argument with a generalization before stating any details in support of it. In fact, it's a common practice. What seems to be the main idea of the book? In brief, Chomsky apparently thinks that the United States is the most reprehensible of all the major powers in the world and its foreign policy is absolutely pernicious. It has become the most belligerent power in the world. It is the greatest menace to the national self-determination of other countries. It is the greatest threat to world peace and international cooperation. And, finally, the United States is a supporter of and a perpetrator of terrorism on a grand scale against those it perceives as its enemies. Ok, it looks like you are now moving past your conclusion to evidence to support it. And yet the evidence you offer, so far, is mostly not factual, but your own generalization about what Chomsky "apparently thinks." What, in the book, makes this thinking "apparent"? It seems, here, that you are summarizing the conclusions that Chomsky draws. But you have yet to actually deal with the existence of any factual basis for these conclusions. "Apparently" (to borrow your own term) you think there is none. "Apparently," Chomsky thinks there is. Why should the review be about construing some "apparent" set of beliefs held by the author? Why can't it, instead, be about what the author actually claims to believe? Or is such a task beyond the scope of a short review? I guess I'll find out if I keep reading. Unfortunately, the restraint placed on word-count makes it difficult to provide much detailed evidence and one is forced to summarize and generalize as best one can. I did cite one piece of detail later which I thought was important. Regarding the words "apparently" and "apparent," I am really trying to be fair to Chomsky. I cannot get inside his mind and read his thoughts, so I have to interpret his ideas as best I can from the outside. From what I read in the book, I am saying what he "apparently" thinks or, maybe better, what he "appears" to think. I will stand for correction if Chomsky thinks I have misinterpreted his ideas. But only he can really do that. In other words, I tried to read his mind from the outside and so can only say that, based on what I read, it "appears" he believes this or that but it is possible that I read him wrongly; based on this criterion I cannot say he "definitely" believes or means this or that, but only "appears," in my opinion, to mean this or that. Is it really necessary for me to belabor this point? Chomsky claims to base these assertions on "facts." But facts, as any historian or social scientist knows, must be interpreted and placed in a context. It is easy to twist facts, ignore incongruous facts, distort a context, or disregard a context. In the case that Chomsky is trying to make here, it appears that his choices regarding evidence and his analysis of that evidence is dominated by his overwhelming desire to put the worst possible interpretation on the "motives" of America in regard to its participation in world affairs. Political philosopher Hannah Arendt suggested that the great achievement of the 20th-century totalitarians was to turn questions of fact into questions of motive. Then you don't have to answer facts with facts; all you need to do is impugn the motives of the target you have selected for castigation and hurl the most damaging epithets at it. In short, the old pastime of name-calling or, for the more philosophically inclined, the ad hominem argument. One might suggest that it is precisely what the author of this book is doing. Ironically, you are imputing the worst possible motive on Chomsky to discredit him in the very same breath in which you condemn him for, allegedly, doing the same in his analysis of "America" (a vague word by which you may mean "federal government," I suppose.) So, lets see if you decide to "answer facts with facts" in the rest of the review, or continue on the ad hominem trajectory of your argument, in spite of your "apparent" (to borrow your term) condemnation of such (non)reasoning. Sentences two and three of that paragraph are fairly standard propositions in social science. I stand by what I perceive to be Chomsky's agenda: put America in the worst possible light and impute to it the worst possible motives. And, yes, I suppose that America in this specific situation could be equated with the federal government since it is that institution which conducts foreign affairs. Chomsky's response to the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center is illustrative. He claims that no matter how appalling the terrorists' actions were, the United States had done worse and he attempts to support this judgment with arguments and evidence. But his evidence is highly selective and his arguments suspect. In attempting to justify the attack, he refers, for instance, to the incident in Sudan where a pharmaceutical factory was assaulted by an American missile because the CIA suspected that Iraqi scientists were involved in making chemical or biological weapons. Chomsky fails, however, to note that the missile was fired at night so no workers would be present and that the factory was not located in or near a residential area; innocent lives would not be directly threatened. Whether one agrees or not with then-President Clinton's decision to order the assault, it hardly rises to the level, either in intent or actuality, to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. First, it is a pretty extreme claim of yours that Chomsky tried to "justify" the Sept. 11 attacks, when he has repeatedly condemned them. I infer that what you mean by "justify" is that Chomsky attempted to speculate on a rationale that the terrorists might have had for attacking. If that is what you mean, it would be wise to say it forthright, without the misleading implication that he somehow supported the attack. (This is a recurring slander against Chomsky from the nutcase (Ann Coulter style) right.) Of course, I am not so sure that others would agree that such an inquiry is wrong or involves "justifying" the terror. To the contrary, Chomsky has said that terror (the use of violence against innocent people for political purposes) is inherently unjust regardless of who commits it. Interestingly, Chomsky and Hitchens had an intense exchange in the pages of "The Nation" magazine about the plant bombing in Sudan, and in this exchange, Chomsky made it clear that he was concerned not merely with the immediate effect on human life of the bombing (which he acknowledges to have been minimal), but the secondary effect of destroying a nation's supply of certain critical drugs. Quoting the Boston Globe, Chomsky explained that the plant was utterly critical to providing lifesaving medicine to the Sudanese people. Without it to supply affordable drugs, people died. These are all factual claims Chomsky has made, none of which you reckon with in your characterization of his argument. Either he was too stupid to include them in his book, or you are being highly selective with your representation of Chomky's argument (which is ironic even by your own stated standards). Is it so "anti-American" if Chomsky happens to believe that the US be held accountable for such secondary effects of violence, especially when (as in the Sudan factory case) the ostensible primary objective was not even partially accomplished? Let's be clear here. I did not mean that Chomsky approved of the attack on 9-11 or thought it was a morally acceptable event. Indeed, he does refer in the book to 9-11 as an atrocity. The use of the word "justify" here was probably a poor choice on my part and I should have used the term "explain" or the phrase "give or provide reasons for." In law, "justify" can mean "to show an adequate reason for something done." It is in this context that I used the term "justify." However, I can see now how my meaning may be easily misconstrued by the average reader unfamiliar with all the uses of the word "justify." Mea culpa. Regarding the Sudan incident: My personal opinion at the time and now is that Clinton perpetrated it mainly to divert attention away from his many personal problems here at home. And Chomsky may well be right about the secondary issues involved in that ill-considered action. But I still maintain that the incident does rise to the level of the 9-11 attack in its immediate effects. Moreover, Chomsky apparently judges the morality of actions executed by the United States using a rather direct and simple formula: If an action is right for us, it is right for others; and if it is wrong for others, it is wrong for us. This might be a nice moral principle in the abstract, but it can be dreadfully deceiving when attempting to apply it to the complex world of international politics. Furthermore, Chomsky gives the impression that he wants to apply this moral principle primarily to the actions of the Western liberal democracies, not to others, including the acts committed by the terrorists in September 2001. Even if you are right that Chomsky's moral formula is "simplistic" and "deceiving," it might be helpful to demonstrate its inadequacy in the Sudan factory case (the only place in the review where you even refer to a particular claim in Chomsky's book rather than his "apparent" motives or conclusions.) But you prefer, it seems, to baldly assert, in the abstract, this formula's inadequacy. To answer the second half of this paragraph: Chomsky has spoken repeatedly about his silence about "others." His answer is that he believes dissent against his own nation's policies and behavior (something which he can actually impact as a citizen) is more urgent and consequential than whatever condemnations he can issue about the conduct of other regimes. This is a standard which we understand well in the case of dissidents in other countries. It would probably take an entire book on ethical theory to deal with what I do consider to be the rather simplistic moral formula of "If it's right for us, it's right for them" or some similar formulation of that moral judgment. Sorry, I had to simply assert the inadequacy of that proposition, but I think most reasonable people have an idea regarding its insufficiency as a guide to conduct. (If you shoot my dog, I am morally "justified" in shooting yours -- this leads, of course, to the notion of "moral equivalency," an idea rejected by most people, I think.) OK, I can buy Chomsky's choice to dissent regarding his own nation's policies based on his conclusion of urgency, etc., and, like Voltaire, I would argue to the death for his right to dissent, but -- correctly or incorrectly -- the impression I get from reading this book is that America is the major cause of enmity in the world and that evil acts committed by "others" are somehow to be understood and dealt with sympathetically. Now I emphasize, that is my "impression" based on the book in general and not on any single specific statement made by Chomsky. In my opinion, then, Chomsky provides an "unbalanced" analysis of the world situation in this book, regardless of his motives or his overall agenda. Is America really an evil empire, as Chomsky apparently thinks? I think an objective look at the historical record will provide the evidence that America has done more good for more people than any country in the history of the world. The United States rebuilt Europe twice in the 20th century after two world wars. Europe was liberated from the Nazi menace primarily through the intervention of the United States. Eastern Europe was liberated from the tyranny of communism primarily because the United States was willing to take the leadership role in destroying it. It is good to know you have an opinion about the moral merits of US foreign policy. In fact, there is nothing inconsistent with thinking that and reading Chomsky profitably and with an open mind. One can praise the courage with which Americans defeated Germany and thwarted (ever so late) the holocaust, and still find something vicious, cowardly, and evil with how much elite opinion in the United States approvingly viewed Hitler and fascism. For example, think of ambassador Joseph Kennedy's sympathy for Nazi anti-Semitism. And contrary to your implication that there is absolutely nothing the US has done which Chomsky approves of, Chomsky, himself, has allowed that the bombing of Hiroshima might have been justified. Chomsky has never spoken against US involvement in World War II, even if he has criticized some of the specifics of how the US fought it. Chomsky has explicitly stated that is not a pacifist. I stand by everything I say in this paragraph after the first sentence. Regarding the first sentence, my "interpretation" of what he says in this book is that Chomsky considers America an evil empire. I included the word "apparently" to give him the benefit of the doubt. I might be wrong, but my conclusion (tentatively, if you will) is that he considers America an evil empire. I may have missed it, but I do not recall finding anything about Chomsky's thoughts about the bombing of Hiroshima in this book, which is what I am reviewing. I was not writing a critique on Chomsky himself (I am not that familiar with all his writings and speeches to do that); I was reviewing this single book. Regarding Chomsky's pacifism, as far as I am concerned, that is not relevant to me at this time. Now, if the United States is and has been such a terrible nation, responsible for the horrible repression that Chomsky alleges, then why, one must ask, is this country the first choice of refugees looking for a new home? Why do most people choose to flee to the United States, rather than from it? Why have so many other nations, many of them apparently admired by Chomsky, been forced to build walls and fences to keep their population captive? Why is Cuba under the Castro government a better place to live or, for that matter, Cambodia under Pol Pot or Vietnam under the current totalitarian regime? And lastly, why do so many other nations look to the United States for help when they need it? This is not to say that the United States is perfect. It is not. But it is definitely not the evil empire that Chomsky asserts. Chomsky, himself, has repeatedly said that internally, the US is among the freest societies in the world. He also has explained that the US is not the only state in history in which internal freedom coexists with a brutal foreign policy and totalitarian designs on other peoples. Athens is another example of this. In addition, it is not lost on him that one thing that makes this country desirable for immigrants (relative material prosperity) has been in part bolstered by a brutal foreign policy designed to transfer wealth into the US from elsewhere. To answer your question of why the US is looked to for assistance when help is needed: Where else is the needed surplus wealth available? Why the immigrants? In the case of Latin America's flood of economic refugees: They have to follow the wealth from its origin to its destination if they don't want to go hungry. The points made in your paragraph may be true and important but I don't think they impact on my review of his book. I have no immediate comment regarding these issues. In summary, I suspect that Chomsky's latest diatribe will have great appeal to his devoted followers. Those who dismiss his interpretations and analyses will simply say it is a repeat of his usual rantings against the United States. Nevertheless, I recommend this book to all readers; it is a good exemplar of pure political propaganda disguised as a serious work. In a different time and place, it would have made Dr. Joseph Goebbels proud. The "New York Times" apparently thinks, in its words, that "Noam Chomsky is arguably the most important intellectual alive." If this is really true, God help us all. Chomsky's diatribe? What about yours? Is there anything substantive that you have said about Chomsky's arguments in the book? I don't think much you said is. That your negative review is better than the others shows mostly just how incompetently Chomsky is dealt with by the average criticism. At the least, you do avoid the worst forms of slander that have befallen him. But I am just not satisfied with a negative review that deals in such slight detail with the actual facts Chomsky is allegedly misinterpreting. I know that would be a daunting task given the scope of an Amazon review. But based on the way you handled a single factual issue -- that is, Chomsky's comparison of 9/11 and the Sudan drug-factory bombing -- I don't have a lot of confidence with your handling of other cases. Again, I have to point out the limitations of a book review. I guess its a backhanded compliment to me on your part that my negative review is better than the others. Maybe I should thank you for that. And, no, I would not approve of slandering Chomsky in any personal way. Oddly enough, I suspect he and I could enjoy each others' company after a beer or two at the local pub. It is ideas, policies, analyses, interpretations, and so forth that would divide us, not any personal qualities. As far as I know, Chomsky is a nice guy. I simply don't agree with many of his opinions about politics in general (reading between the lines of his book) and many of his views regarding America in general (as stated in this book). I stand by my interpretation and analysis (what little there was) of the Sudan issue. So, I am sorry you may lack confidence in my handling of other cases. I have to call 'em as I see 'em, as they say. By the way, my next review for Amazon (at the request of the publicist) is of a book which argues in favor of gay-marriage. How do you think I'll review that? You may be surprised. This is not to say that I don't think there could be room to criticize Chomsky for taking an extreme view on American foreign policy. But I think it must start with a more precise accounting for what Chomsky has actually said. Although I am familiar with much of Chomsky's recent writings, I will have to get a copy of this book and read it for myself, since the negative reviews have done nothing to convince me that his writing is either a waste of time or full of misinformation. Ah, hah! "Room to criticize Chomsky"? "An extreme view"? Interesting. I agree with you that we must start with a more precise accounting for what Chomsky has actually said; that is, if this matter involved a critique of Chomsky and his views. I was not doing that; I was reviewing one book, his latest, and the first book of his that I've ever read. I notice you have not read this book. Are you then "presuming" what he said in this book in your criticism of my review? It "appears" to be such a case. How do you know I am not on the mark if you haven't read the book I reviewed? By the way, once you do read his book (assuming you do), I would be perfectly willing, in the interest of fairness, to publish your review of it on this website. Now, for the record, I never said that reading this book was a "waste of time"; in fact, I recommended it to all readers of all political stripes. The statement, however, that Chomsky "is arguably the most important intellectual alive" is rubbish; I can name a few other intellectuals of more consequence than Noam Chomsky, although I do recognize his status within the New Left community for which he allegedly is the commander-in-speak. And, also for the record, I admire any intellectual, whether I agree with that person or not, who has the "intestinal fortitude" to argue for what may generally be an unpopular position. I place Chomsky in that category. I can respect the man without agreeing with him. Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Book...
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