Not Crap, with a waffle factor of 9.

Manufacturing Consent is well worth seeing, not least for the clip of a 1960s debate with Foucault on Dutch TV in which Foucault PWNS THE HELL OUT OF Chomsky, which nobody ever seems to notice or mention. I have to assume that its inclusion in the film is due to the filmmakers' incomprehension of what had actually gone down.

Also, Chomsky is on record as an apologist for the Khmer Rouge, which I find unsupportable.

Steve wrote:

Slavoj Zizek wrote:The argument is that freedom of the press is freedom for all, even for those whom we find disgusting and totally unacceptable - otherwise, today it is then, tomorrow it is us. It sounds logical, but I think that it avoids the true paradox of freedom - that some limitations have to guarantee it.

This is an example of the duplicitous posture of a radical thinker: You only get freedom to say what you like if I agree with you. It's essentially an unenforceable fascism, unenforceable only because the power doesn't rest in Zizek's hands to enforce it, and if it did, it would ultimately strengthen his intellectual enemies. The moment speech (even reprehensible speech) is restricted, then the ideas in debate are immune from criticism or analysis, because they become invisible.

I think this response may arise from a misreading of Zizek's larger point. There are ALWAYS ALREADY restrictions on discourse, no matter what -- in any given context, there is ALWAYS stuff that is unsayable or unwritable or unpublishable, for reasons from the "purely practical" to the "blatantly ideological" to "personal taste" (and any understanding of these as necessarily separate from one another is questionable to begin with). Discourse cannot function without restrictions, just as humans cannot function without some forms of self-regulation. Of course it's crucial to find those limits, to learn about the ways they are enforced (and often self-enforced), and to constantly push them, debate them, etc., but the notion of an absolutely free and unrestricted realm of speech is, in the strictest sense, an ideal. Saying so is NOT AT ALL to devalue it; but to me the actual value lies in the workings of all of the processes by which we continually redefine what that realm is and should be.

[EDIT: This all connects to "noise" (as "unstructured, therefore unintelligible, signification") in music and in communication, but as I seem to be wandering far from the point I'll spare everyone. FOR NOW.]

I agree that trying to stifle controversial speech via externally imposed restrictions usually achieves the opposite of the desired effect.

xero wrote:Also, Chomsky is on record as an apologist for the Khmer Rouge, which I find unsupportable.

Please provide evidence. Not saying I know you're wrong, just please provide evidence.

Start here: http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/media1.htm

An excerpt from one of the articles:

Whatever one thinks of Chomsky in general, whatever one thinks of his theories of media manipulation and the mechanisms of state power, Chomsky's work with regard to Cambodia has been marred by omissions, dubious statistics, and, in some cases, outright misrepresentations. On top of this, Chomsky continues to deny that he was wrong about Cambodia. He responds to criticisms by misrepresenting his own positions, misrepresenting his critics' positions, and describing his detractors as morally lower than "neo-Nazis and neo-Stalinists."(2) Consequently, his refusal to reconsider his words has led to continued misinterpretations of what really happened in Cambodia.

Another excerpt:

Initially, I believed that he [Chomsky] simply did not understand the true nature of the Khmer Rouge regime. At this point, I don't think that is the case: I think he simply decided that the only way to combat propaganda was with counter-propaganda, and the nature of the Khmer Rouge was completely irrelevant to the point he was determined to make.

Revisiting this material, I have to increase my waffle factor to 9.99.

xero wrote:Also, Chomsky is on record as an apologist for the Khmer Rouge, which I find unsupportable.

But Bruce Sharp states in the reply to the rebuttal of his article that you have used as your source:

Bruce Sharp wrote:"None of this, I must stress, is meant to imply that Chomsky is or was a Khmer Rouge apologist. He isn't."

That is Bruce Sharp's opinion, not mine.

For me, to knowingly, deliberately, purposefully, and persistently misrepresent factual information about a genocide in a way that tends to lessen its perceived magnitude, in order to make an ideologically predetermined point about propaganda (or indeed for any reason at all), is ethically indistinguishable from being an apologist for same.

xero wrote:That is Bruce Sharp's opinion, not mine.

Excuse me if I've misunderstood xero.

But I thought you were using Bruce Sharps' article (http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/media1.htm) to support your belief that Naom Chomsky was an apologist for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge.

From what I can make out Bruce Sharp is merely saying that Chomsky misrepresented their actions at the time they occured. Which is different to being an apologist.

See above. I must have edited my post as you were adding yours. Again:

For me, to knowingly, deliberately, purposefully, and persistently misrepresent factual information about a genocide in a way that tends to lessen its perceived magnitude, in order to make an ideologically predetermined point about propaganda (or indeed for any reason at all), is ethically indistinguishable from being an apologist for same.

Contested definitions of "apologist" aside, I find Chomsky's position and actions on this matter, which to this day he has never abjured, repellent and indefensible. Bruce Sharp is free to draw the conclusions and use (or not use) the terms that he chooses, as are you.

xero wrote:See above. I must have edited my post as you were adding yours. Again:

For me, to knowingly, deliberately, purposefully, and persistently misrepresent factual information about a genocide in a way that tends to lessen its perceived magnitude, in order to make an ideologically predetermined point about propaganda (or indeed for any reason at all), is ethically indistinguishable from being an apologist for same.

Contested definitions of "apologist" aside, I find Chomsky's position and actions on this matter, which to this day he has never abjured, repellent and indefensible. Bruce Sharp is free to draw the conclusions and use (or not use) the terms that he chooses, as are you.

It's been ten years plus since I have done any research concerning the Khmer Rouge, but I believe Chomsky did not contest the magnitude of the genocide in Cambodia, but he did suggest the United States's bombing campaign from 1969-1975 and subsequent diplomatic support of the Khmer Rouge by the Carter Administration meant the United States was responsible for more deaths in Cambodia than the Khmer Rouge.

In 1989, Chomsky changed his position and claimed the Khmer Rouge and the United States were equally responsible.

Everything I have read by Chomsky suggests that he believes the Khmer Rouge's reign in Cambodia was an abomination.

Please refer to the chapter entitled "The Flight of Reason" in the British historian Paul Johnson's book "Intellectuals" for a very good synopsis of Chomsky.

matthew wrote:Please refer to the chapter entitled "The Flight of Reason" in the British historian Paul Johnson's book "Intellectuals" for a very good synopsis of Chomsky.

Is this the same book that discredited the work of Sartre because he was prone to shitting his pants at the end of his life?

I'll pass, thanks.