Noam Chomsky on Post-Modernism

http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html

by absconditus • 17 years ago

12 27 17 years ago

cscs.umich.edu

reyu• 17 years ago

The post begins -> "This text has circulated quite a number of times on Usenet, and so far as I know is authentic. This version (less, of course, the HTML airs and graces) was posted by one jenm289@aol.com to rec.arts.books, 13 Nov 1995 03:21:23 -0500, message-id 486v63$9an@newsbf02.news.aol.com. Jenm289 wrote: "The following was written several months ago by Noam Chomsky in a discussion about po-mo and its contribution to activism et al. The discussion took place on LBBS, Z-Magazine's Left On-Line Bulletin Board (contact sysop@lbbs.org to join)."

After reading only a few lines of this article it struck me as inconsistent in tone from other speeches and writings of Chomsky. So I would first like to get Chomsky's response on whether he authored this. Considering how many interviews and public speeches Chomsky gives, I find it hard to imagine him having the time to debate his ideas on Internet bulletin boards. Unless he was experimenting with the format back in 1995.

gruseom• 17 years ago

Heh. I had exactly the same response: it didn't sound like Chomsky to me. I even commented to that effect, but then had second thoughts and deleted it. It wouldn't be unnatural to use a different voice in a casual email than in a published article. Also, some of the things in there do sound distinctively like Chomsky (e.g. the second last paragraph).

I searched around for more on Chomsky and postmodernism and came up with http://archive.zcommunications.org/chomchatarch.htm, which includes quotes from the OP. So it seems it's at least partially authentic.

As for whether he would have had time, that's easy. It's already impossible to explain how he has time to do what he does.

Edit: I also ran across a clip of Chomsky's discussion with Foucault on Dutch TV from the early 70s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kawGakdNoT0), which was fun to take a look at. Can you imagine anything more un-TV-like? The very length of their sentences is unthinkable - I was going to say "nowadays" but I bet it was unthinkable on TV even then.

scott_s2• 17 years ago

I read the whole thing, and I thought it had Chomsky's voice. I've read a few of his books, and listened to him speak (not in person).

grandalf• 17 years ago

I agree, it reads like he talks. Could it be a transcript?

apu2• 17 years ago

I wonder what has caused the sudden influx of articles excoriating post-modernism/structuralism on HN? It's fun to read, of course, but the utter bullshit of these cults is so patently obvious (to everyone, I'd hope), and yet I find it to be a useless exercise to spend much time exposing it.

I agree with Chomsky here: there are far more poisonous and important targets to address than this cult, which thankfully remains quite insular and self-contained and, ultimately, of virtually no consequence to the world at large.

michael_dorfman• 17 years ago

I, too, am surprised (and disappointed) bu the sudden influx of articles attacking post-modernism. It should be clear enough that the authors of the articles (and a fair number of commentors) have not taken the time to actually read and understand the works they are attacking, and the whole business is an exercise in smug posturing and implied superiority.

Look: I've spent the better part of 30 years studying continental philosophy (and more specifically, the works of Derrida) and anyone who thinks that the field can be summarily dismissed by folks like Chomsky, Weinberg or Dawkins are sadly mistaken. Chomsky, Weinberg and Dawkins are all brilliant men in their own fields, but it takes some mighty big cojones, and a mighty parochial view of the world, if they think that this means that their judgments on matters outside their field are more important than any other amateur. And I'm sure they'd be the first to cry foul if some philosopher or other tried to dismiss their work on the basis of a few out-of-context quotes, without bothering to actually do the reading.

I'm not saying that the writers generally thought of as "post-modern" are above reproach; far from it. What I am saying is that if you want to attack them, for God's sakes read the texts.

apu2• 17 years ago

I just reread what I wrote and realize that I was rather ambiguous about my thoughts. I was completely agreeing with Chomsky et al. that post-modernism is complete bullshit.

To your point, if you read the linked article, you will note that Chomsky has indeed attempted to read the works of several post-modernists and found them to be totally devoid of meaning, wrong, imcomprehensible, and/or trite.

He shows absolutely no elitism or "smug posturing" or "implied superiority" in his critique -- on the contrary, he repeatedly stresses that he is perhaps not smart enough to understand these works, that he is perhaps missing the point. But if people as intelligent as Dawkins & Chomsky fail to understand these works, then it's highly unlikely they are capable of being understood by anyone.

endtime2• 17 years ago

Have you read the Dawkins and Chomsky articles? They clearly have read the texts, and spent a lot of time trying to understand them, before concluding that they are nonsense. Both also request that someone translate the allegedly profound concepts into comprehensible English, so that us commoners can appreciate the concepts in question - are you offering?

ThomPete7• 17 years ago

exaxtly!

akamaka• 17 years ago

Summary: "I don't get postmodernism, and I'm not capable of understanding it."

His attitude here reminds me of people who proudly say "I suck at math!"

The next time a Chomsky article shows up here, I really hope that it's in an area that he actually knows something about!

shellerik• 17 years ago

I thought he said "I don't get postmodernism, either because there's nothing to get or because I'm not capable of getting it, and I have my doubts that it is the latter."

strlen• 17 years ago

That's a wrong summary. He says:

1) "I can't read most academic po-mo papers (with exception of Foucault)"

2) "I also can't read some academic mathematics and physics paper"

3) "Physicists and mathematicians can readily explain their papers in terms that are understandable to me, no one seems to be able to do so for po-mo papers."

He then gives specific criticism of Foucault (whom he understood), and then makes a logical statement about po-mo:

1) Either po-mo is so incredibly advanced, it can't readily be explained by one academic to another academic (and while Chomsky is known in public for his political writings, his real contribution manifests itself every time you are using a parser, interpreter or compiler).

2) or.. po-mo is incomprehensible and can't be treated in a logically rigid manner, which means it would be pointless for Chomsky to speak more on the matter.

Both 1) and 2) are logically valid conclusions, but facts seem to align themselves closer to 2)

ThomPete7• 17 years ago

People who criticize Postmodernism, either don't understand it or do and is afraid of it.

dmm• 17 years ago

>> Anybody who criticizes <<idea>> is either stupid or afraid.

Even if it is true, do you really think that's a good argument?

Why don't you point out how this article shows Chomsky to be stupid or afraid.

ThomPete7• 17 years ago

First of don't strawman me. Don't write stuff I didn't write.

Second of all the attack on Post Modernism is what is wrong the entire thing. How can you attack Post Modernism for pointing out some obvious flaws in the way we approach frames of reference.

That's like blaming the compiler for giving you errors just because you would like what ever you write to be possible.

ThomPete7• 17 years ago

"As for the "deconstruction" that is carried out (also mentioned in the debate), I can't comment, because most of it seems to me gibberish. But if this is just another sign of my incapacity to recognize profundities, the course to follow is clear: just restate the results to me in plain words that I can understand, and show why they are different from, or better than, what others had been doing long before and and have continued to do since without three-syllable words, incoherent sentences, inflated rhetoric that (to me, at least) is largely meaningless, etc. That will cure my deficiencies --- of course, if they are curable; maybe they aren't, a possibility to which I'll return. "

This is the level of the writing. He don't understand deconstruction so he don't like it. That is what is wrong with most critique of postmodernism.

Further more it's not just french philosophers. Thomas Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyrabend are not exactly french.

All he do is showing how ignorant he is on what he speaks. But that do expalain the level of his other writing.

jsteele• 17 years ago

I think Noam is a pretty cool guy. eh kills pomo and doesnt afraid of anything.

grantmoney• 17 years ago

I try not to reply to these types of arguments, but two days in a row of dissing postmoderism is a bit much, and so I'll try to defend postmodernism, cause I do think it's worth defending.

The first problem with postmoderism is it exists across fields. There was a movement in architecture. There was a movement in theatre. If you listed all the fields, you'd notice that they're all creative. That's the other problem, and the one that creates so much confusion for non-creative people. I wouldn't say all scientifically minded (digital thinking) people are not creative, but I'd guess a majority probably aren't. It's those that have problems with it, and this is why people 'that get it' call them 'stupid'. I don't agree that they're stupid, but I do think it's to do with the lack of natural creativity.

From my interpretation, the thing about postmoderism is that it measures the field using what makes that field unique as the variable. Postmodern designers feared that 'creativity' in design was disappearing, as it was the 'creativity' that designers valued, so without it - there was no more design. The postmodern philosophers, who are mostly concerned with humans, came to the same conclusion - humans were disappearing. Without humans, there is no more philosophy.

You also have to remember that these are creative people asking the questions, and creative people cannot be tamed. They love a prank, and if they choose to write, their styles become poetic and humourous. They redefine words as that is what philosophy has been doing since the origins of it. A bunch of drunk greeks sitting around defining concepts like love. Hegel re-defined practically every stylistic word he could find - to be poetic. Philosophy may have branched out into fields like science, but its origins are in human creativity, and that can't be measured by rigorous scientific method. It's art for thinkers. It explores a world that 'does' exist, but science choses to ignore as it has no other option but to. Some people can't accept that, and in this modern culture with modern people on a postmodern trajectory, they lash out, which results in some ridiculous polemics against it.

The big point of postmodernism that needs to be understood is that it is the 'end' of something. The 'end' of design. The 'end' of humans. It doesn't mean those things will cease to exist, but that what made them worthy of our attention was going to 'end'. Tech fields haven't yet hit a point where new ideas stop coming, but there will come a time where the only things coming out are rehashes of twitter or myspace. That's when a genuine postmodernism movement will rise within technology.

The ultimate test of postmoderism is to hand a naturally creative human a book by Baudrillard, and see if they get it. I would guess at least half could interpret a bulk of it.

Noam Chomsky on Post-Modernism

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