Students from ASU’s Students for Justice in Palestine and Muslim Law Students’ Association packed the law school’s Great Hall last week for an appearance by MIT professor and world-renowned foreign affairs commentator, Noam Chomsky.
At their request, he focused on the conflict between Israel and Palestine, outlining 50 years of international and sectarian violence. In doing so, he wove an unsettling story of American omnipotence, and focused, as he usually does, on the darker sides of U.S. foreign policy.
Calling the U.S., “the only country that matters” and an “international community,” he portrayed the Mideast conflict as one only we can resolve. By his count, every failure of negotiation has so far come down on us, implying that if we decide to fix things, we can do so – assumedly by getting tough on Israel.
That issue led him naturally, along the tangled paths of foreign policy, to other pressing conflicts like the escalating tensions with Iran. Reminding the audience that he possessed no special knowledge, Chomsky noted from “what’s out there” that there seems to be “a good chance” for a war.
And buried in that sentence was, perhaps, his most valuable point.
There are two things about Chomsky that set him among the best of modern scholars. The first thing is his intellectual honesty. When Chomsky thinks something, he says it outright, without tempering or tailoring his views to fit more comfortably within existing narratives. This honesty is what incites most of his fervent critics. His blunt distaste for mincing words leads to extreme and headline-grabbing statements, while his refusal to equivocate leads to a style that’s markedly one-sided.
The second somewhat extraordinary thing about Chomsky, though, is his normality. Quite obviously, the man is unusually intelligent. At 83, his wit is as impressive as his store of knowledge.
But while intelligent, Chomsky is otherwise a relatively common U.S. citizen. He’s not in politics or government, and foreign policy is not even his academic specialty. He’s paid to teach linguistics at a private university, where he has been for 55 years.
Which basically makes him a guy who reads the newspaper religiously.
Pick up a Chomsky book, and you will find a thorough, almost all-encompassing worldview that’s drawn entirely from public documents. News stories, government press releases and official publications lead him to conclusions that, while perhaps not unique, depart significantly from popular wisdom.
He made this point in his most simple and significant answer to an audience question. A young man asked what he could do, as a privileged member of our all-powerful nation, to fight injustice.
Chomsky responded, “Anything. Anything you want.”
There are a lot of things wrong with the U.S., as Chomsky has previously argued, but it is “nonetheless the freest country in the world.” Societal constraints, and the ability of governmental powers to coerce us, have shrunk rapidly in recent years. This puts us, he believes, in a new world of information and autonomy in which we can know and say and do unprecedented things. To be an “expert,” you just have to pay attention.
Reach the columnist at john.a.gaylord@asu.edu
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