Noam Chomsky, Intellectual Elitism, Po-Mo Gibberish, More Attacks on Deconstruction, and Bad Writing Revisited
While doing some background research for an upcoming Graduate Symposium I’ll be participating in later this month (more on that in the future), I somehow stumbled upon this post from Noam Chomsky in which the famous linguist/activist attacks post-modernism and its heroes. In this email/posting Chomsky criticizes what he views as “a huge explosion of self- and mutual-admiration among those who propound what they call “theory” and “philosophy,”" as little beyond “pseudo-scientific posturing.” Immediately, my thoughts jumped to the discussion of the Sokal Hoax I posted a few weeks back. Chomsky continues his affront to post-structuralism, arguing, much like Sokal, that the major figures of this movement–Derrida, Lacan, Foucault, Kristeva, etc.–obfuscate their arguments with an incoherent vocabulary rife with misused and misapplied scientific terminology. Chomsky on Derrida:
“So take Derrida, one of the grand old men. I thought I ought to at least be able to understand his Grammatology, so tried to read it. I could make out some of it, for example, the critical analysis of classical texts that I knew very well and had written about years before. I found the scholarship appalling, based on pathetic misreading; and the argument, such as it was, failed to come close to the kinds of standards I’ve been familiar with since virtually childhood. Well, maybe I missed something: could be, but suspicions remain [...]“
Ouch!
But Chomsky’s not done yet:
“Some of the people in these cults (which is what they look like to me) I’ve met: Foucault (we even have a several-hour discussion, which is in print, and spent quite a few hours in very pleasant conversation, on real issues, and using language that was perfectly comprehensible — he speaking French, me English); Lacan (who I met several times and considered an amusing and perfectly self-conscious charlatan, though his earlier work, pre-cult, was sensible and I’ve discussed it in print); Kristeva (who I met only briefly during the period when she was a fervent Maoist); and others. Many of them I haven’t met, because I am very remote from from these circles, by choice, preferring quite different and far broader ones [...] I’ve dipped into what they write out of curiosity, but not very far, for reasons already mentioned: what I find is extremely pretentious, but on examination, a lot of it is simply illiterate, based on extraordinary misreading of texts that I know well (sometimes, that I have written), argument that is appalling in its casual lack of elementary self-criticism, lots of statements that are trivial (though dressed up in complicated verbiage) or false; and a good deal of plain gibberish.”
Illiterate gibberish? Charlatan? Cults ? (This is a really common charge leveled at psychoanalysis in particular, and when one considers that both the work of Freud and Lacan was carried on by their respective daughters, there may be some validity to the claim. Still…)
Double-ouch!
Two things:
First, as a linguist, Chomsky is searching for an underlying, “universal grammar” or deep structure, a core pattern that underpins/organizes/generates all human languages. In this sense, Chomsky is searching for an ideal, a foundation. This method is in direct opposition to deconstruction, which as I understand it, seeks to decenter and disrupt all metaphysical anchors. I will never forget the class in transformational syntax I took at the University of Florida with Mohammed Mohammed (or MoMo, as we affectionately were permitted to call him). The class was a split grad/undergrad section, and MoMo scared away all of the undergrads in the first session, with the exception of myself and another student. After that point, he was always very kind to us (the undergrads) and cruel to the grads. MoMo was a Palestinian; he identified as a Jordanian refugee. He was a devout Chomskyian (cultishly so, perhaps). Derrida spoke at UF while I was in this class. I didn’t really understand what Derrida’s lecture was about, but it was very long and his English accent wasn’t so great. The next day in class, MoMo savaged Derrida for the entirety of the period on points both specific and general, most of it over our heads. It was a true rant, one of the best I’ve ever witnessed, culminating in (and I quote): “He’s full of shit!”
So Derrida certainly provoked MoMo, a strict Chomskyian–and why not? If you spend your academic career and your adult life searching for something that another person says you could never find, wouldn’t you be upset? (I believe that more than anything MoMo was upset over Derrida’s reception at UF, which was rock-starish to say the least). For MoMo, Derrida was a phony, a pied-piper misleading the children from the real issues.
Which brings me to point two–Chomsky is primarily a political figure, and really a pragmatist at heart. The core of his argument is not so much that po-mo writing is high-falutin’ nonsense, but rather that it ultimately serves no practical purpose. Here is where I would strongly disagree. The people that Chomsky attacks and their followers are re-evaluating the canon and the very notion of received wisdom. Chomsky attacks them for “misreading the classics”–but just what are the classics, and whose value systems created the notion that the classics were indeed “classic”? If Derrida & co. appear to “misread,” it is because they seek to recover the marginalized knowledge that has been buried under a sediment of givens as “truth.” Yes, the post-modern movement might have elitist tendencies, and yes, the subjects and themes of their work might not have much to do on the surface with the plight of a refugee (cf. MoMo in Jordan in 1948)…but the goal is actually in line with Chomsky’s goal–to make people question the powers that structure their lives.
I do agree, as I’ve said before, that post-modern writing often comes off as so-much sophistry and hogwash (I admit to plenty of this myself), that in some sense it relies too heavily on a coded vocabulary that seems unaccessible to the untrained eye, and that all too often an air of self-congratulation, an atmosphere of winks and nods replaces an environment of real thinking and debate. But my real take is this: any philosophy that could shake MoMo into discomposure is good. MoMo is a brilliant man and his class was fascinating, but to have seen him that day–his feathers so ruffled, his foundations tested–so infuriated over ideas–that was a beautiful thing. Right then, I knew there must be something to Derrida, something I wanted to figure out. And that’s what the best of these writers do–they infuriate us by provoking the truths that we are so sure that we hold in ourselves. They destabilize our safe spaces. They don’t allow for easy answers; they rebuke tradition. And if this approach falls into the norm in academia, becomes lazy and sedimentary, undoubtedly someone will come along and call “bullshit” on it, thus reigniting debate, questions, language. Nietzsche speaks of language as a series of hardened metaphors, language as petrified lava, sedimentary givens. This is the goal of deconstruction: to get that lava flowing again.
I recall that Derrida visit well. Went to three of his lectures, didn’t understand a word. Well, except on the last day, when he spoke about capital punishment. It was to a relatively small audience on a Saturday morning. That lecture was good, and tangible (!). The rest of the time I was just happy to be in the presence of greatness. Well, since I didn’t understand anything I had read by him, or much of what he said, I just picked up on the greatness from things I had read by others. And just his general, legendary status was enough for me to be impressed by. I was easily impressionable in college. Wanted to be around all the smart things and people, even though I didn’t understand the first thing about thier philosophy.
So I haven’t thought about these sort of post-modern philosophy things in a while, but your post here has me wonder, from experience…
How can the goal “to make people question the powers that structure their lives,” be accomplished if it is written in “coded vocabulary that seems unaccessible to the untrained eye”? Is there really significant value in leading people to question power structures if they have to spend years learning how to read the texts that will tell them how to do it? Is the payoff worth it, and can it be transferred in to practical applications?
I’m not trying to be difficult, I just really want to know your take, since I never understood this stuff myself.
I think your question is fantastic and really gets to the heart of the problem–the same problem that both Chomsky and Sokal have with “coded vocabulary.” It seems to me that there’s a “trickle down” effect, to borrow a term from (ugh) Reaganomics…here goes…
1. As far as any immediate, practical payoff outside of the hallowed halls of academia–no–I don’t think post-modern philosophy, especially the “big dogs”–can really have that kind of effect. However:
2. I go back to the metaphor of sediment: we believe the foundations of our knowledge to be absolute, we think the ground we (intellectually) stand on is “true,” “real”; deconstruction stirs all of this up and displaces the truths that the Platonic traditions have been founded on (hence the constant attacks on this method, particularly from people who believe that there is “real,” “knowable,” empirically observable fact floating around out there). Now, take Derrida for example. I use a quote from my favorite teacher of all time, Dr. Sam Kimball: “Derrida is writing for the smartest 1% of the planet.” Dr. Kimball’s point is this: Derrida presents his ideas to an intellectual community, who then diffuses them through a long refining process. The result is the repetition of the major ideas: for example, Derrida’s claim that the Platonic approach is phallocentric and logocentric. Working from this idea, all sorts of previously marginalized writing and culture can be reappraised–or even appraised for the first time.
Concrete example:
Look at the stories and poems and novels that our parents’ generation were required to read and school. Then consider what we read. And now (I know I’m an English teacher, and thus exposed to this all the time, but bear with me) consider what lit you’ll find in a contemporary literature textbook. The canon is being re-appraised. The tradition of “the winners write the history” is being re-evaluated. Take a writer like Zora Neale Hurston, who went from utter obscurity–an unmarked grave in South Florida–to being a celebrated writer whose most famous book is now required reading for most high schoolers. Suddenly, previously marginalized identities and viewpoints are reconsidered.
To me, the stakes are huge here, and go beyond ideas like gender and race and economics, and into subjective experience and what it means to have an identity (thrust upon you).
Sure, Judith Butler is difficult to read. So is the Bible. You have to think. Sometimes your headaches. And yeah, a lot of the time, no matter how hard you apply yourself, you won’t get what she’s saying unless you’ve read Kristeva. Who’s read Lacan. Who’s read Freud. Who’s read Hegel. And so on, back through Aquinas, Aristotle, Plato, etc. But there is a trickle down here (I think that was my point, somewhere above, excuse the ranting). What happens in cultural studies departments and English departments and history departments today will have a profound effect on how the students of tomorrow are educated. Most of the students in my grad classes are also educators; the hope is to get some kernel of the method, the deconstructive approach into the classroom.
Really at stake here is the answer “because.”
“Because it’s always been that way,” “Because my parents did it that way”– to me that’s the risk of *not* taking a deconstructive approach. These are the answers that were given to explain slavery, women not being allowed to vote; these are the answers being given today to defend women having no rights in many parts of the world.
Really great point, wonderful response. I think at heart I always knew this, but could never articulate. Thank you. My faith restored.
If all the arguments praising and welcoming Derrida’s work can be expressed in clear, plain language, then why can’t we also hear about the work itself in clear, plain language?
Derrida’s evaded all requests to pin down what deconstructivism is. So how do his advocates know what it is?
(and if they cannot know what deconstructivism is, then how can they evaluate it?)
I don’t know much about deconstructivism, which is a term stemming from Derrida’s criticisms of architecture. Like deconstruction in cultural theory/philosophy, deconstructivism in architecture emphasizes a multiplicity of openings/starting points, a de-systematizing of traditional or accepted order.
Deconstruction seeks to de-center, to call into question the Platonic precepts in philosophy that are often assumed as “givens” or “truths.” A deconstructive method values fluidity of meaning, recognizing the citational possibilities inherent in any text.
The need to “pin down” what something is, to nail it to the floor, to center it, to assume an object of study–this is exactly what Derrida doesn’t want, hence his reticence to define deconstruction (he does write frequently about what deconstruction is not, however).
In this sense, I think it’s beneficial to think of deconstruction as an approach or method of evaluation, rather than an object of study unto itself.
As far as the complexity of Derrida’s actual writing–well, it’s purposefully experimental, often calling into question the way Western thought has privileged certain ideas and methods over others. Like Nietzsche, Derrida can be awfully cryptic; I don’t make any claims to fully understand everything I’ve read by D. I think it really helps though to start with Nietzsche if you want to better understand Derrida–his essay “On Truth and Lie in an Extra-moral Sense” is the best starting place I can think of (it’s widely available on the web). The Portable Nietzsche is one of the best books I own. You can read it at random or study it intensively; also it will make you look smart.
chomsky’s piece is really kind of underhanded. he wants postmodern thought to be made simple, reduced to clear propositions which anyone can understand. then he dismisses it when someone does so with regard to foucault, as trivial and truism, which fits his initial assumptions. he tricks an interlocutor (some hapless blogger who responds to his challenge) into reducing foucault to a sentence, then declares that the formula amounts to a truism, one that forms the basis of what he has been doing (only better, with more relevant, current examples) for years. classic catch-22. his assumption is that po-mo thought is verbiage covering banality, so someone should make it simple (banal) so that he can dismiss it. if you refuse his “simple” request and make it complex, you lose, it’s supposed to be made simple — hence banal, or “uninteresting” as foucault turns out to be. ugh.
nicely done, tom…foucault is anything but boring…my concern with all of this is the number of kids who follow chomsky as a political leader/activist…are they dismissive of figures like foucault, derrida, etc.?
I know I am replying to this over a year later, so you may or may not see it. But ed as a college student myself who follows Chomsky on political issues I can tell you that me and the friends that I have who are also interested in this stuff do not dismiss Foucault, Derrida, etc.
hey, chris,
thanks for the reply. i think that a lot of these figures are/were on the same “side,” politically, that is, they just had different philosophical justifications for how to get to that point.
Derrida’s language – something “new” to make “the lava flow again”? Don’t make me laugh! Derrida’s writing is as darn dead and hard as it could be. It’s precisely the kind of jargon most scholars in Europe employ. It is considered “chic” and “a sign of great learning” to express the simplest things in the most complicated way possible – after all, this kind of jargon helps to sustain the scholarly ivory tower and keeps out those too “common” and thus unworthy of climbing it. Plus, it is a great means to disguise what poor content you have with tons of impenetrable constructions, up to the point where those too vain to admit that they haven’t got a clue what the complicator meant just give him a pat on the shoulder and say, “well done!”
This is the rusty old writing tradition Derrida follows (so much for breaking up traditions, huh?). And I’m sick of it. For if there’s one thing I admire in (most of) the English-speaking scholarly discourse, it’s the language. Somehow the English-speaking world has come to an agreement that /what/ you want to say may already be mind-bending enough, so it needn’t be wrapped in cryptic wording to complicate matters even further. It’s a very pragmatic approach; some might even want to call it egalitarian or democratic, since it tries to avoid unneccesary obstacles that might block access to knowledge. This is precisely what Chomsky is aiming at. And he’s right on that.
Hans, I agree that Derrida’s writing is “hard”–as in, it’s often hard to read or cipher. And yes, there’s something positive to be said about clarity and lucidity. But what, exactly is Derrida’s “poor content” that his complex style takes such pains to “disguise”? I think that Derrida has made a number of major contributions to philosophy, in a number of areas: his ideas about undecidiability and differentiation are obviously of great interest to literary critics, but they also have applications in math, architecture, social sciences, etc.
I could make a list here but I’m honestly kinda apathetic about it right now (the post is over two years old; I’m not as passionate about theory and philosophy as I used to be, etc. etc. etc.). I would say, finally, at the risk of sounding like a total jerk, that the “ivory tower” argument is both familiar and nonsensical. If much of continental philosophy–and much English language philosophy, for that matter–seems to be insular, solipsistic, and resistant to simple reading, that’s because philosophers are in a long dialog with each other. To read Derrida one must be willing to engage Plato, Rousseau, Husserl, etc. It can be exhausting, and it certainly doesn’t lend itself to egalitarian or democratic ideals (it’s pretty hard to engage thousands of years of philosophy when you have to work 9 to 5). As far as Chomsky’s work in linguistics: I can’t imagine that his ramblings on x-bar theory are that coherent to anyone without some significant background in transformational grammar. It’s not light reading, but that doesn’t mean that it’s pure sophistry, a hollow nothing wrapped in erudite diction. As far as Chomsky the political theorist, well, I guess he’s comfortable enough to get to be an anarchist (must be nice!), but I really don’t think his contributions amount to much more than a form of left wing populism (so beloved by rich angry college sophomores in this country). Again, I get Chomsky’s complaint–I just think it amounts to intellectual laziness coupled with idealistic guilt.
Thank you so much for this input. I like how you treated the subtle differences between Chomsky and Derrida, and how you were able in the end, amidst all the distracting mumbo jumbo, to find a common ground; Chomsky is a pragmatist at heart, and Derrida challenges structures of domination.
Well done!
I think that labelling Chomsky a “pragmatist” and saying that this explains his anger at Derrida is totally reductive. In Chomsky’s piece on po-mo, he makes no complaints about the lack of pragmatic value of the movement. He criticizes the incoherent writing of its foremost advocates. By the way, a lot of Chomsky’s work (his linguistic work) is highly theoretical and of little practical value to most people. Yet he IS able to state his central theses in the field with clarity, something apparent if you’ve ever watched any of his interviews on his linguistic work.
I think the post-modernists have a uniquely unfalsifiable philosophical position: if our very modes of rationality are inherently corrupted, then you cannot and should not ask for a rational explanation for why this is the case. Perfectly convenient for Derrida, who can just go ahead and deconstruct (i.e. poorly misinterpret) previous philosophical works. You can’t accuse him of going too far, not on his terms. If there is no set meaning behind the texts (not even a discernable range of possible meanings), how can you say that he is simply wrong?
Some claim that Chomsky is being unfair to Derrida. I think that Derrida is being unfair to the large majority of the academic community that still has some form of evidentiary standards. It is possible to “de-center” a text while still adhering to some kind of explanation. Certainly the Freudian reading of Oedipus, to use an obvious example, profoundly undermines the way that many academics regarded that text in the past. But the arguments behind this interpretation were still basically coherent.