From: ant.mcwatt@ntlworld.com
Date: Mon May 31 2004 - 04:26:13 BST
> I'd be interested in your analysis of Chomsky's worldview vis a vis the MOQ
> if you have time.
>
> Thanks and best regards,
> Platt
Dear Platt,
Thank you for your comments in regard to the Noam Chomsky transcript and your request of an analysis of Chomsky’s worldview i.c.w. the MOQ.
After giving the latter some thought, I think to fully justify this subject would entail a Ph.D. research project in its own right though I have provided some general thoughts/queries in the following.
Firstly, Chomsky only really came to my attention after I received an e-mail from my supervisor (Prof. Stephen Clark) who announced Chomsky’s visit to Liverpool in early April. If you examine Clark’s academic credentials (http://www.liv.ac.uk/~srlclark/srlc.html) I highly doubt that he would direct his faculty to make an effort to see a speaker such as Chomsky without good reason.
I’ve carried out a brief internet search for the academic credentials of the people who you noted (on May 5th) as believing Chomsky to be a ‘Communist flack’ (such as Anders G. Lewis, J.D. Cassidy, Keith Windschuttle, Nick Cohen and Pejman Yousefzadeh) and have had little luck. If you could provide these, this would certainly be helpful in assessing their credibility – at least, for anyone interested in following-up this line of research. Any information concerning the funding/financial backing of Lewis et al would also assist in judging their biases, if any.
Chomsky’s Liverpool talk lasted over an hour and a half and I didn’t detect any (theoretical) contradictions with the MOQ (I was listening for these pretty carefully) though I did note that the MOQ (namely its differentiation between intellectual and biological orientated rebels, its ontological recognition of social patterns and its Dynamic-static division) would have sharpened-up Chomsky's points.
Of course, much of Chomsky’s credibility comes down to the accuracy of his factual statements. Though no doubt it includes errors (as does all intellectual work), the majority of his statements concerning American Foreign policy chimed in with much of a close university friend of mine who has maintained a strong interest in this subject over the last twenty years or so. This is not to state that in order to make a fair assessment concerning Chomsky that I should not carry out my own research when time allows. Certainly, a proper academic assessment would require this. It’s just to state that out of the sources I have accessed in this regard, the information from my friend is presently the most trustworthy information I presently have.
Over the weekend, I did read some of the internet articles by Anders G. Lewis, J.D. Cassidy, Keith Windschuttle and Nick Cohen. As far as these stand, they seem to concentrate on the failings of so-called communist countries (such as China) as if this is an argument against the failings noted by Chomsky of so-called free market economies. As I sketch out in Chapter Seven of my Textbook, the MOQ appears to support the notion that both types of these systems have largely failed to provide general wealth or democracy. Moreover, it appears that the MOQ avoids the gumption trap of allying oneself too closely with the political left or right and hence blinding oneself from the wider picture (To quote Wim’s post of 29th May: “Quality can be presented as an alternative to... both material success and mere 'freedom from'” ideologies). From the MOQ point of view, I don’t think injustice or mass murder is made any more or less moral whatever political banner it’s carried out under.
If the MOQ can help introduce Buddhist principles in modern societies (what Ian Glendinning terms in his May 30th post as the “softly, softly approach”) on a wide scale then hopefully those who place primacy on material interests will eventually realise the low intellectual quality of their views and change their policies accordingly. I guess such a process will be difficult, have set backs (such as 9-11 and the Iraqi War) and take a long term on the human scale of things. However, from a cosmological viewpoint, I think the human race’s mass ‘therapy’ will be a relatively brief period and, hopefully such ideas such as the MOQ will act as a catalyst for positive change. As Bill Hicks states (more or less) in the context of over-population: Wouldn’t it be better if children were born in sorted out ‘neat’ world rather than the economic, social and environmental mess we presently live in?
As ever, best wishes,
Anthony.
P.S. Though Pirsig concludes that the positive changes that the Hippie movement of the 1960s strived for were often undermined by biological degeneracy, he is actually an original hippie (though maybe one rather of 1950s vintage). However, despite his hippy credentials, he later constructed a more substantial and refined version of the better intellectual elements of this movement.
Finally, I better mention that when you discuss Chomsky's attack on intellectuals (as being mere "acolytes of the systems of power") you are conflating the social status of being an “intellectual” with the intellectual status of intellectual patterns. Pirsig’s illuminating letter to Paul Turner of October 2003 clarifies this point:
“Like so many words, ‘intellectual’ has different meanings that are confused. The first confusion is between the social title, ‘Intellectual,’ and the intellectual level itself. The statement, ‘Some intellectuals are not intellectual at all,’ becomes meaningful when one recognizes this difference.”
---------------------------------------------------
E-mail formatting ruined by http://www.ntlhome.com/
-----------------------------------------
Email provided by http://www.ntlhome.com/
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon May 31 2004 - 04:29:53 BST