Chomsky: more from a conspiracy theorist

I commented on a review by Jonathan Rauch, published in the Washington Post this month, of a new book by Noam Chomsky called Interventions. It was an astute review. Rauch captures Chomsky's techniques thus: "This kind of tendentious whimsy is more peculiar than interesting; as the pages turn, one becomes inured to it and begins to yawn."

In a spirit of latitudinarianism, I refer you now to Chomsky's reply. It's interesting not for what it says - it merely reiterates the tendentious whimsies Rauch has identified - but for what it reveals of the way Chomsky perceives the world. Here is his introduction:

The letter to the Washington Post that follows was written as an experiment, to see just how low the editors would sink in their efforts to block a book containing evidence and analysis that they do not want to reach the public. The letter is a response to a crude and vulgar diatribe, in the form of a review of my collection Interventions. In response, I wrote a point-by-point refutation of each charge, a straightforward matter, as the editors doubtless understand. The letter was sent to the Post immediately, altogether four times, with a request for acknowledgment of receipt. Unpublished, no acknowledgment of receipt. Two weeks after the review appeared, Sept. 16, the Post did publish two letters responding to it. The letters were critical of the review, but acceptable by the standards of the editors, because they left the lies and slanders standing -- the authors could have had no way to refute them without a research project.

I think it is fair to take the editors' silence to demonstrate that they know precisely what they are doing, and are too cowardly even to acknowledge receipt.

- Noam Chomsky

If you doubt that Chomsky belongs in the ranks of conspiracy theorists, this tirade should convince you. To Chomsky, there are the acknowledged truths that he utters and that are tacitly recognised by his enemies; the editors of the principal newspapers consciously choose to suppress those truths sooner than allow their readers to learn of them. The fact that Chomsky's letter is appreciably longer than the review it purports to answer is, of course, of no significance in explaining the Post's decision not to publish it.

In short, Chomsky has no more idea how newspapers work than he has of the conventions of public debate. His premise that the letters pages of major newspapers should be open to him at any time did remind me of past form, however. In one of the numerous collections of "interviews" (they were not probing interrogations) published under his name in the 1990s, The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many, comes this singular exchange:

How many letters of yours have they [the newspapers] printed?

Occasionally, when an outlandish slander and lie about me has appeared there, I've written back to them. Sometimes they don't publish the letters. Once, maybe more, I was angry enough that I contacted a friend inside, who was able to put enough pressure on so they ran the letter.

The hold of the corporate media is so tight that it unravels as soon as Chomsky calls in a favour and pulls a few strings. Bear in mind, too, that - judging by his invocation of precisely these terms when applied to the Rauch review - Chomsky's notion of what constitutes lies and slander doesn't usually accord with commonsense definitions. A better descriptor for what he means would be "criticisms of me, Noam Chomsky, that I reject". Chomsky has no more right of access to the communications media to respond to every criticism than you and I do, and his treatment by the press strikes me as unreasonably respectful.