Interesting OP and thread Gary. From where I sit it is interesting, if a little frightening, to observe some of the contributors to your thread more or less barfing up half-baked, prejudiced, defamatory statements and imagining that this constitutes good argument. Honestly, I don't get it.
Of Chomsky's works I have read: American Power & The New Mandarins; Year 501: The Conquest Continues; On Power & Ideology; Manufacturing Consent; Turning the Tide; The Washington Connection; Necessary Illusions; The Fateful Triangle; The Chomsky Reader and possibly a couple of shorter works. There is a
channel on YouTube which is dedicated to his philosophical talks. Chomsky certainly is an intellectual and he is also an accomplished philosophy-reader. It is also true, because he says it, that he is an 'Anarcho-Sydicalist' which, prior to the Second War was synonymous with Communist. It seems to me that his political stance, and what he advocates for, would be and could only be a communistic federation.
I came to realize that when attempting to understand Chomsky that he might best be understood as a sort of Machiavellian, an Anti-Machiavellian as the case seems to be. Specifically I mean the 'doctrine' if it can be called such that is presented in The Prince. It is a simple notion: those who have and hold power must disguise what power requires to have and hold it. While at a basic level a state can be said only to be its interests, persons have to represent diplomatically those interests. This always seems to involve dissimulation. So, politics is intimately involved in dissimulation. It should be obvious that power functions in this way. A given State must also 'justify' itself to its own people, and this becomes required proportionally to the degree that a State allows free-association and free-speech, and when these are part-and-parcel of the doctrines of 'democracy', it is inevitable that people will inquire into the nature and compass of 'power' on all levels. A State therefor must become expert at dissimulation. It has to represent itself to its population as 'just' and 'good' and this is where the Machiavellian art enters in. I would suggest that nearly the entirety of Chomsky's work revolves around this theme, and definitely his ideas about 'the manufacture of consent'.
In my experience, the most direct, the most forceful, the most concise expression of Chomsky's 'doctrine' is to be found in 'On Power & Ideology: The Managua Lectures'. It is not long and is comprised of the transcritpion of 4 talks given in Managua during the Sandinista revolution.
Chomsky does, indeed he does! tell the truth about 'how power functions'. His position is intensely critical and analytical in the original sense of the words. He exposes the underlying facts related to power-structures and systems-of-power. But what is his political position? I mean, from what tangible position is he himself viewing from? His position is abstract, academic and intellectual. His 'position' is one of idealism. But it does seem to me a good question to ask: What is the State that Chomsky envisions? And who has come close to it? He does give answers: The Republicans and the Anarchists of the Spanish Civil War (contrasted internally with the Francoist conservative block). There, for a mere historical moment, there existed people who determined their own affairs according to their own lights. On each side of that was the Soviet totalitarian power-block and the Western-capitalist power-block, each doing everything possible to assert their own power-system. If I understand correctly, and when Chomsky speaks to people, especially youth, he sees himself speaking to those who could be such 'Republicans'.
I think the problem, if I can put it like this, is just that he speaks to people who do not have tangible 'ownership interest'. In a power-system when you have a tangible ownership interest you are, in essence, 'complicit' in the system. But youth at university are free, largely, of such complicity. Therefor, Chomsky's message is very interesting to them. They see themselves as outside of power-politics, have limited ownership-interest, and are naturally idealistic. It becomes in a significant sense 'seductive' to be offered the Cat Bird's Seat from which to judge a) one's own 'fathers', b) one's own State and its power-systems, and c) the entire world with its labyrinthian power-dynamics, its war-machines (politics by other means), and the ever-shifting dynamics of domination and control.
I would suggest that Chomsky is not 'wrong' in respect to analysis of power-dynamics. He does explain it quite well. But he does also seem to cobble together narratives which are made to seem as clearly and incontrovertably supporting his base-position. He is indeed hated by those who are heavily invested in their own power-system, and I mean this especially in the sense of heading-up the power-block that is represented by a) business and industry, b) the political and diplomatic class, c) the ideological class and the intellectual class who construct defenses for the State, and d) the military and inteligence class who stand behind the general system, and, naturally, intervene in it to direct it toward outcomes that accord with the will of its power-engineers and power-holders themselves. I do not think this is hard to underdstand. Nor is it 'evil' it apply such reductions. But what is questionable then? I think that it could be said to be 'unreal' and 'idealistic' to see oneself as non-complicit. I also think that when a youth internalizes these perspectives he sees himself as non-complicit and, therefor, it follows that he must adopt, at one level of another, a political philosophy and a 'praxis' that supports his ideology and idealism. What would that be? Well, if one is already a subject in a socialist state or a semi-socialized state, one is in a real sense absolved of ownership-interest! The 'subject' will then come out in support of his 'subjection' if you catch my drift.
This is where things get weird and murky. Because everyone is 'complicit' in these systems. Ownership is complicity. Having the privelage of education is complicity. Analytical skill is a result of complicity insofar as it is taught. But if one is taught to turn against one's complicity one will 1) avoid ownership and remain disconnected, and 2) develop an unreal idealism which cannot be supported as one moves into ownership relationship. This leads to a strange form of hypocricy which, as an example, I notice our own dear VeggieTaxidermy speaking of frequently. It will lead to a class of persons who are, excuse the term, gripped by a rebellious and critical stance, but who yet participate in the System directly.
When one considers postwar politics and ideology, the American scene, 'the 'American Century', the lies and obfuscations about the European Wars, the Frankfurt School, Sixties politics, the emotionalism and the dripping sentimentalism of this era (excuse me, you know where I stand!), and all of this in the context of interconnected propaganda and public relations machines, and
then consider the 'sort of person' who emerges from this, I think one arrives at an interesting subject for observation and study. As you know: I think we have to
DECONSTRUCT* all of this, and that it is inner, intellectual and also spiritual work.
I also see Chomsky as working in that peculiar area of Thracymachus. Idealism cannot accept that Thracymachus makes a case that appears to sustain itself through time, and yet can be represented as 'false'. It seems to me that Chomsky shows Thracymachus as he morphs into Machiavelli and then into the modern State.
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* Capitials used without permission of Lacewing. Italics
mine...