The Chomsky Effect: A Radical Works Beyond the Ivory Tower

by Robert F. Barsky

"People are dangerous. If they're able to involve themselves in issues that matter, they may change the distribution of power, to the detriment of those who are rich and privileged."--Noam Chomsky Noam Chomsky has been praised by the likes of Bono and Hugo Chávez and attacked by the likes of Tom Wolfe and Alan Dershowitz. Groundbreaking linguist and outspoken political dissenter--voted "most important public intellectual in the world today" in a 2005 magazine poll--Chomsky inspires fanatical devotion and fierce vituperation. In The Chomsky Effect , Chomsky biographer Robert Barsky examines Chomsky's positions on a number of highly charged issues--Chomsky's signature issues, including Vietnam, Israel, East Timor, and his work in linguistics---that illustrate not only "the Chomsky effect" but also "the Chomsky approach." Chomsky, writes Barsky, is an inspiration and a catalyst. Not just an analyst or advocate, he encourages people to become engaged--to be "dangerous" and challenge power and privilege. The actions and reactions of Chomsky supporters and detractors and the attending contentiousness can be thought of as "the Chomsky effect." Barsky discusses Chomsky's work in such areas as language studies, media, education, law, and politics, and identifies Chomsky's intellectual and political precursors. He charts anti-Chomsky sentiments as expressed from various standpoints, including contemporary Zionism, mainstream politics, and scholarly communities. He discusses Chomsky's popular appeal--his unlikely status as a punk and rock hero (Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam is one of many rock and roll Chomskyites)--and offers in-depth analyses of the controversies surrounding Chomsky's roles in the "Faurisson Affair" and the "Pol Pot Affair." Finally, Barsky considers the role of the public intellectual in order to assess why Noam Chomsky has come to mean so much to so many--and what he may mean to generations to come. Robert F. Barsky is Professor of English, Comparative Literature, French, and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of Noam A Life of Dissent (MIT Press), Constructing a Productive Other, Introduction à la théorie littéraire, and Arguing and Justifying. He is currently completing a book on Zellig Harris, for The MIT Press.

Genres: Politics, Philosophy, Biography, Nonfiction

381 pages, Hardcover

First published October 31, 2007

About the author

Robert F. Barsky is a Guggenheim Fellow (2023) and Professor of Humanities and of Law at Vanderbilt University. His multidisciplinary research combines social justice, human rights, border and refugee studies with literary and artistic insights into the plight of vulnerable migrants. He has published widely, and his books on undocumented migrants, refugees and the milieus of Noam Chomsky and Zellig Harris have been translated into 14 languages. He has also been actively involved in several national and international research projects, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the governments of Canada, Québec, Belgium, France, and the Dutch Royal Academy.

Reviews

[Mr. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chomsky's biographer Robert Barsky has compiled an extremely substantive volume about the wide variety of perspectives on Noam Chomsky's work, including all of the different areas that he has made an impact. Barsky discusses Chomsky's anarchist roots in fine detail, drawing on the writings of Rudolph Rocker (who comes off as Chomsky's greatest influence) extensively. There are also discussions of Chomsky's anti-Bolshevism, which Barsky loyally follows, as well as his meteoric rise to fame in the field of linguistics. I found the chapter on Chomsky's appeal on youth/counter-culture to be redundant and not particularly interesting, though it has clearly become an undeniable aspect of Chomsky's fame in the last ten years. Barsky also takes on the task of defending Chomsky at great length against his various detractors, including Zionists like Alan Dershowitz, and intellectuals like Christopher Hitchens. Barsky also details Chomsky's more controversial battles such as the Faurisson affair and the case of Cambodia (which is severely lacking in this account). There are a number of problems with this account of Chomsky, the most basic of which is how eager Barsky is to not only detail Chomsky's politics and intellectual commitments, but also to accept them himself. For instance, in the discussion on Chomsky's criticisms of the post-modern/post-structuralist movements in Europe, Barsky proceeds to accept even the most flippant of Chomsky's condemnations. Additionally, it is apparent from the text that Barsky does not have any real grasp of this material; he cites two peculiar examples of post modernity's decline: Victor Farias' book on Hediegger's Nazism and Paul De Man's anti-Semitic articles from the 1940s (pps. 242-243). Neither of which are credited as serious examples of 'post modernity's decline by serious scholars of the topic. To his credit, Barsky is not entirely complementary of Sokal and Bricmont's mediocre attacks on post modernity, but never the less it is clear that Barsky does not really know of what he speaks in this section. Two major surprises surface in 'The Chomsky Effect,' Barsky's periodic comparisons of Chomsky to the French anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu, and literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin, as well as the emphasis on Chomsky's apparent "humor" (chpt. 7).
All together, Chomsky comes off as an incredibly courageous and brilliant thinker, who has consistently committed himself to freeing others from the shackles of ideological and political power. Although not perfect, 'The Chomsky Effect' is one of the best books about Chomsky's prolific career as a public intellectual.

[Dale · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading about Chomsky doesn't yield the same rewards as reading Chomsky.

This book was written by Robert Barsky, a long-time friend of Chomsky's. He spent a ridiculous amount of time researching and writing the book (10 years!), and the result is a long and mostly unnecessary explanation of Chomsky's impact on popular and radical culture, the sources of Chomsky's influence, coverage of the 'controversies' over Chomsky, and a review of Chomsky's positions on Zionism, liberty, etc. It seemed a bit rambling to me.

Chomsky is vilified by many on the right, but especially by the Israel lobby; Dershowitz and Horowitz in particular. Horowitz can be (and is) mostly ignored - the rantings of a former Marxist now right-wing idealogue don't carry much water with most people. Dershowitz is another matter. He seems to wield a tremendous amount of influence and splits his time between defending and justifying Israeli state terror on the one hand, and carrying out vendettas against opponents of Israeli policies on the other. And, of course, in his spare time he writes books and articles explaining why torture is justified. I suspect that Chomsky regards Dershowitz' hostility as an honor, one that we should all aspire to.

Chomsky actually supports (or at one time supported) the original vision of a Zionist state: socialist and secular in nature. For Dershowitz et al to accuse Chomsky of being a self-hating Jew, or of being ant-semitic (!) is simply absurd. Chomsky's views on Israel are quite clear and often stated: Israel has imposed a system of apartheid in some ways worse than that in South Africa; Israel has denied ordinary civil rights, and even the right to live decently, to Palestinians, based solely on their ethnicity; Israel has continuously violated international law and United Nations resolutions (voted for even by the US in a number of cases) by building 'settlements' outside its borders; Israel frequently commits war crimes in its indiscriminate targeting of civilians; Israel is, therefore, a sponsor of state terror; and Israel is a client state of the US government. He takes the trouble to back up these claims with documentation - a fact that undoubtedly enrages Dershowitz and his ilk.

Barsky expends an inordinate amount of ink explaining the so-called 'Faurisson Affair'. In brief: in 1980 Chomsky signed a petition urging the French government to protect the academic freedom of Faurisson, a historian. Faurisson was a nascent holocaust denier (later solidifying his position), and was being denied access to historical archives, and was finding official barriers to publication. Chomsky's (consistent) position has always been to allow the maximum of freedom of expression and academic freedom, and so he signed the petition, without in any way endorsing Faurisson's conclusions (of which Chomsky was apparently unaware). The result was to be expected: he has been condemned ever since as a holocaust denier, despite the fact that he has repeatedly said that he finds holocaust denial deeply offensive, and that his sole interest in the matter is one of liberty and freedom of expression.

So the Faurisson affair, despite its absurdity, is another bludgeon used by Chomsky's Israel-lobby enemies.

If you have a great interest in Chomsky and the influence he has had, this is the book for you. If not, not.

[Steven Monrad · Rating 3 out of 5]

An explanation of his interaction with the rest of the thinking world - love him or hate him.
Interesting but style is confusing.

[Megan]

Adorable caricature of Chomsky.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author gives some good stuff to ponder, but ultimately its more enlightening and enjoyable to read Chomsky than it is to read about him.