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phoenix.arts.uwo.ca>Paul M. Postal and Geoffrey K. Pullum raise issues which Pullum discussed in his review of my book for 'Nature', so I'll speak to both reviews. Feargal Murphy's review of my 'Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent' was a fair and accurate description of the book. For instance, he carefully noted that "The first section of the book - dealing with the milieu that formed Chomsky - covers Chomsky's family and his education (both formal and informal)." He then points out some of the central themes; for example, he accurately reports that: "A theme that runs through the book is that Chomsky's family was Zionist and that Chomsky has retained the Zionism of his youth -- the Zionism of Asher Ginsburg, pen name Ahad Ha-am -- but that this is quite a different kind of Zionism to the kind most often encountered today." He further notes that I devoted a lot of space to discussing the fact that Chomsky spends a lot of time working towards "improving and enhancing" the world, in part by "striving towards the creation of a 'good society'". And he accurately recalls that a significant amount of effort is made to describe the milieus that inform Chomsky's work, both politically and philosophically. In short, Murphy read statements of mine in the beginning of the book, statements such as: "My premise is that Chomsky's ideas, and in particular his political ideas, cannot be fully understood without some knowledge of the organizations, movements, groups, and individuals with whom he has had contact, either through study or discussion" (5). Or "But while his linguistic work has been reasonably well covered (despite the weaknesses of many historical studies), there is only a relatively small quantity of commentary available on Chomsky's political background and his contribution to political theory" (5-6). To put it another way, Murphy understood what the book was about. Pullum clearly did not. His diatribe in 'Nature', in which he notes with surprise that I didn't fully explore all of the avenues regarding Chomsky's linguistic work, reflects the fact that Pullum had decided in advance what the book was about and how it should be written, and then failed to face the challenge of actually reading it. For example, one would never have guessed from reading Pullum's review that the table of contents contains the following chapter titles: 1. Family, Hebrew School, Grade School 2. Zellig Harris, Avukah, and Hashomer Hatzair 3. Humboldt and the Cartesian Tradition 4. The Intellectual, the University, and the State 5. The Intellectual as Commissar. In the entire 'Nature' review Pullum never mentions Zellig Harris, Avukah or Hashomer Hatzair. Nor does he mention the discussion of the intellectual, the university and the state. He doesn't mention any of the names which are mentioned repeatedly throughout the book, such as Bertrand Russell, Rudolph Rocker, George Orwell, or Karl Korsch. He doesn't mention anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, council communism, soviets or the League for Arab-Jewish Cooperation. All he provides is the following glib paragraph on Chomsky's politics: "Chomsky's political life dominates Barsky's perspective. Vastly more is said about Chomsky's links to radical leftist groups and Jewish political organizations that about his academic work." Indeed. I had said from the beginning that the emphasis would be upon Chomsky's links to radical leftist groups and Jewish political organizations. So why was Pullum so surprised? It would appear as though he was hoping for a biography which centred on the linguistics, and when he didn't get one, he simply attacked what he did get. Evidence of this is in Pullum's critique of the political discussion in the book. He notes that I didn't mention Chomsky's visit to Hanoi, and I failed to mention whether Chomsky had ever been to Montreal. His choice of areas to critique speaks for itself. And then? It's back to the fact that the book doesn't adequately discuss the linguistics, and to major concerns such as questioning Chomsky's memory about when the department, which Chomsky himself co-founded, was started up. I have worked extensively in the field of refugee studies, and am always exasperated when decisions are rendered against claimants because they failed to mention, say, the fact that the organization to which they belong has an office in Washington. Some adjudicators don't listen to what the claimant has been through, they simply listen for whatever it is that they decided want to hear. And when they don't get it? They get even by discounting the credibility of the whole story. Pullum seems to want to tell all of us what to do and how to think. For instance, he begins a paragraph with the cryptic statement that "Chomsky omits mention of Joan Bresnan -- a major opponent of GS who was hired during 1974-75 with Chomsky's strong support". What does this mean? Chomsky never failed to mention her; on page 192 he is cited as recalling that "Joan Bresnan, who was brought in at my personal initiative, over lots of objections from younger faculty members who didn't agree), decided to leave for Stanford." What Pullum means is that Bresnan did not figure in Chomsky's discussion about GS. He must have noticed that the 'linguistics wars' discussion only goes on for a few pages, that I was really only interested in noting the broad contours of this discussion and then offering Chomsky's own reaction to it. I never pretended that this book was about the 'linguistic wars' and, once again, Pullum never sought to find out what the book was about (and of course he doesn't mention the fact that and that I did cite from R.A. Harris's book, and included another on the same 'wars' by Geoffrey Huck/John A. Goldsmith in my bibliography for those who were interested in looking further). Since it was a biography, most of the major events in Chomsky's life were at least mentioned; but the emphasis was upon the political and in particular the heretofore neglected early political milieus. I find the present reaction to the book, which includes the participation of Postal, an improvement over the 'Nature' review in that it at least offers some valuable information. They wish to question Chomsky's views about these wars which, they accurately note, are briefly set out in my book. But even here we find them both conjecturing about Chomsky's own description of his life when they suggest that "Chomsky did not let his anti-war speaking engagements crowd out the battle against GS" by noting that Chomsky sent (as is his custom) long and detailed replies "within the central period of the dispute." What does this prove? That Chomsky is extremely devoted and diligent. But it certainly doesn't disprove Murphy's statement, derived from Chomsky's own description of his own life, that "Chomsky was at this time simply very busy with other issues like the Vietnam War." Here again we see this strange tendency: Pullum wants the book to be written his way, and here Postal and Pullum want to tell Chomsky about his own thoughts. This is extremely unnerving. Postal and Pullum would have us read other books about GS and the 'linguistic wars'. So be it. Now they have Chomsky's views about one of the most well-known of the lot, 'The Linguistics Wars'. They also know that Chomsky considers that R.A. Harris's book often describes the relationship between the personalities involved with the debate, and the debate itself. I didn't try to mediate this discussion, or even cover all of the bases. But I did enjoy Harris's book, and the Huck/Goldsmith book as well, and I was anxious to learn the other side of the story. Reading these books, and the Otero volumes, and your own comments, provide many angles to complicated issues. Now readers can make up their own minds. But I'm certainly not going to chastize those interested in the linguistics wars because they don't mention Chomsky's early milieus, even though I think that these early milieus help us better understand something fundamental about the very decent and very serious thinker that is Noam Chomsky. My own question is, why would readers interested in the life of somebody as politically conscious and active wish to ignore his political work? Why would anyone even remotely familiar with Chomsky's work be so surprised by, and resistant to, the fact that I would concentrate more heavily upon his political approach and his values, rather than upon his academic work, especially in light of the volumes of work about Chomskyan linguistics that has been published previously? Sincerely, Robert F. Barsky >> Robert F. Barsky, Assistant Professor >> Department of English >> University of Western Ontario >> London (Ontario) >> Canada N6A 3K7 >> phone (519) 661-2111 extension 5825: fax (519) 661-3776Mail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue
phoenix.arts.uwo.ca>[Editor's note: the following is a letter from Robert Barsky to Feargal Murphy in response to his review of Barsky's biography of Chomsky. Prof. Barsky has asked us to post this message to the list, as it serves as a response to Murphy's review and makes a correction to some information contained in that review-- AC] Dear Feargal Murphy, I found your review of 'Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent' to be an extremely good description of the book, and also of the kinds of motivations I had in writing it. There is one error, which has also appeared in both the 'Manchester Guardian' and the 'Sunday Observer Review', which must be noted: the film 'Manufacting Consent' was produced by Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick (p. 70). You raise the issue of references, which is important. As you point out, the book was intended to be an accessible introduction to the complex work of a very complex individual. In the original version (which, incidentally, was called 'Noam Chomsky and His Milieus' and which concentrated solely upon the early political environment that influenced or 'formed' Chomsky) I had a multitude of footnotes and references. It was decided that the bibliographical and some of the contextual information was available elsewhere (esp. the Otero 4 volume collection), and that it would be better to concentrate upon introducing, or re-introducing, NC to people who may have very little knowledge of his many projects and, moreover, of his early milieus. As you suggest, the website version of the book, at http://www-mitpress.mit.edu/chomsky, is a remarkable place from which one can connect with the many worlds that inform, and are informed by, Chomsky's writings and actions. Again, I found your assessment most enjoyable. Sincerely, Robert Barsky Robert F. Barsky, Assistant Professor Department of English University of Western Ontario London (Ontario) Canada N6A 3K7 phone (519) 661-2111 extension 5825: fax (519) 661-3776Mail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue