Chomsky, Criticism, & Costly Honesty
I watched the Noam Chomsky dvd last night, Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without A Pause. It is a documentary on the man. I found it quite awesome and inspiring. He is an American intellectual who is a dissident of profound proportions. Watch it if you can. Here are some quotes I wrote into my journal:
“If I’m a persona that attracts people, the world’s in real trouble. You know… if I had the capacity to be a good speaker, which I don’t, I wouldn’t use it. I mean, I’m a boring speaker and I like it that way. If people want to come and hear me, that’s fine. You know I don’t do a song and dance, and I don’t have fancy rhetoric. I doubt very much whether anybody is attracted by whatever the persona is. People are interested in the issues, and they’re interested in the issues because they’re important!”
This reminds me of the Puritan approach to preaching. They determined, in the face of the growing popularity of fanciful rhetoric in the pulpit, that they would preach with an unadorned style and allow the content of their preaching to carry it’s own weight. Like the theologian J. I. Packer notes:“ A crucified style best suits the preachers of the crucified Christ” (A Quest For Godliness, p. 73). Chomsky agrees with straightforward method.
Another Chomsky quote:
“That’s why fear is so prevalent in the United States: it’s not real; it’s manufactured.”
“The main task of intellectuals is to make sure people never look into the mirror.”
“Be cautious when you hear about intellectuals being fighters for justice.” (He is referring to some liberal intellectuals rewriting history to say that Kennedy wanted out of Vietnam, when all the original documents indicate that he had no intention of doing so.)
Anyway, fascinating stuff that not only applies to social criticism and politics, but to religion and the church. The level of Chomsky’s honesty, which has cost him a great deal, is something I aspire to as a pastor for the benefit of the church.
Share This
Well said. I don’t always agree with Chomsky, but have the greatest respect for the man. As an aside, his political stuff is really a sideline. He is in reality a language specialist and was the first one to offer a discrete and mathematical way of understanding language - which has become very important in Computer Science.
Chomsky is amazing! He basically revolutionized the field of linguistics and become a crucial part of psychology (for his work on language acquistion device). He disagreed with and proved some of the most respected psychologists of the time wrong -i.e. B.F. Skinner.
Not only that but he has become the most important intellectual of our time. I have to disagree with Jake. Chomsky’s political work is much more than a sideline. It has become his life’s work. If you don’t believe me take a look at his website - http://www.chomsky.info/
Most of the articles, debates, and interviews have to do with his political work rather than his research on linguistics.
Yes, Jake, I know. For others reading this, he’s been a Linguistics prof at MIT in Boston for years. During the dvd, one learns that he doesn’t respect the boundaries different disciplines surround their, well, disciplines with. If he wants to critique history, he reads it, studies up on it, and critiques it in spite of the fierce protectionism of the professionally trained historians. Interesting.
Good to hear from you Paula. You’re studying linguistics, aren’t you? Speech pathology? Or child psych? Something like that. Anyway, good insights. I intend to read more of Chomsky because I think the church has a lot to learn from people like him. It reminds me a little of Romeo Dallaire who critiques politics, but a little more at ground level.
Wow…my spirit jumps inside of me at the thought of pure unadulterated preaching! The word of God is so powerful as is…
I plan to check out Chomsky as I am a great admirer of Romeo Daillaire. Oddly enough, he is someone I have prayed for and think of with what is going on in Darfur.
Dave, you definitely would have people’s attention when you compare what you are suggesting to the typical…feel good, how ya doing kinda preaching that is the norm on this side of the world.
I’m studying school psychology and have come across Chomsky’s work in linguistics many times. Also, my boyfriend respects Chomsky’s political views and his work - and I end up seeing a lot of his debates, interviews, etc.. because of that.
I have lots of chomsky if you wish to borrow it, Dave.
i sure would. thanks jeff
What is pure, unadulterated preaching? That sounds like some kind of buzz word. What does it mean? I’m with you if you are looking for something substantive and freed from the “I’m OK, you’re OK” stuff.
What is an unadorned style? I find it ironic that an artist would hold up the Puritans as preachers to be emulated. I would think that an artist would be attracted to preachers who see their sermons as stories, poems and works of art that also bear the weight of communicating the truth. I would also think that an artist would find the sensuous (not sensual) worship of traditional Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, as well as Anglicanism, to be appropriate and cherished.
PS. Roger Scruton on Chomsky:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/forms/printThis.html?id=110008997&mod=RSS_Opinion_Journal&ojrss=frontpage
Axegrinder: I do appreciate higher church worship. The movement I am in now is more into “culture current” forms of worship, meaning the kind of music younger people appreciate in general. But I miss, sometimes, the other traditions. The kind fo music we worship to doesn’t ultimately matter, I don’t think. The Puritans get a bad rap. “Unadorned” means, basically, stripped of anything not essential to the communicating of the truth. You can read their sermons and see that they are works of art in their own sense, especially in their day when listening to speakers and preachers was a popular passtime.
Oh, and on Scruton’s Chomsky: Chomsky himself admitted that his purpose was to critique his own nation. To critique another nation when our own nation is culpable is cowardice, in his opinion. Chomsky wouldn’t assign innocence to every other nation, but when the America is guilty of something, it needs to be pointed out. I don’t 100% agree with Chomsky, but if his purpose is to focus on getting the log out of his own nation’s eye before getting the speck out of others’, then I think he’s doing a good job of it.