A spontaneous philosophy for scientists
There is an aspect of Chomsky’s work that I have not yet broached. It is not
the least important. As is well-known, Chomsky is an exemplary progressive
thinker and activist. He is one of the most effective critics of the ravages of
American imperialism. Certainly, he often says that he is not a Marxist; but
then no one is perfect. So I am in the process of criticising the philosophy of
language of someone whose political positions I fully endorse. It is also true
that, when Chomsky descends onto the terrain of political theory or philosophy,
the result is disappointing. The collective volume to which he contributed,
Liberating Theory,^15 will hardly impress a Marxist: the ecumenicism that leads
the text to treat all critical theories of society, whether based on economics,
ecology, gender, race or culture, on the same plane cannot replace political
analysis of the social totality (and, in passing, it reduces Marxism to its most
vulgar variant: economism). But the linguistic phenomena that I accuse him
of ignoring are not foreign to him. After all, he is the author of books with
promising titles like Propaganda and the Public Mind, Necessary Illusions, and
Class Warfare.^16 The following passage, taken from an interview with David
Barsamian, his privileged interlocutor, is typical (the passage in italics is
Barsamian’s contribution to the discussion):
Talk about the power of language to shape and control political discussion. For
example, the IMF’s much criticized ‘structural adjustment program’ has now been
renamed ‘poverty reduction and growth facility’. The School of Americas, the
notorious training facility for the Latin American military at Fort Benning, Georgia,
is now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.
Let me just make clear, this has absolutely nothing to do with linguistics.
There’s no insight into this topic that comes from having studied language.
This is all obvious on the face of it to anybody who looks. This is the topic
that Orwell satirized, and of course it goes way back. If you have a war
between two countries, they’re both fighting in self-defense. Nobody is ever
the aggressor. Furthermore, they’re both fighting for exalted humanitarian
objectives. To take some of Orwell’s examples, if you’re trying to control a
population by violence and terror, it’s ‘pacification’.^17Critique of Linguistics • 37(^15) See Albert et al.1986.
(^16) See Chomsky 1989, 1996 and 2001.
(^17) Chomsky 2001, p. 210.