Chomsky, Chomsky, Chomsky…

Psst!

Guess what? I’ve got a secret to tell you, and it’s something that, judging from current discourse, I ought to be ashamed of.

I kinda like Noam Chomsky.

I think he’s a damn smart writer.

Unlike countless writers who conveniently forget to include a citation, I’ve never once seen him write "America deserved it" about September 11th.

But even if you dislike Chomsky, using lies to disparage him should be out of bounds.

Which brings me to the usually-admirable blog The Poor Man, which tells us "if Noam Chomsky said the sun would rise in the morning, it probably would, but I’d still prefer to hear about it from someone who doesn’t admire Pol Pot quite so much…" (But see the updates below.)

This is a common lie about Chomsky, and I assume The Poor Man wrote it in good faith. But it’s still a lie. As far as I know, the lie originated in criticism of Chomsky’s 1979 book (co-written with Edward Herman) After the Cataclysm: Postwar Indochina and the Reconstruction of Imperial Ideology. In that book, Chomsky compares the slaughters in Cambodia and East Timor. In 1980, Steven Lukes accused Chomsky of understating the Cambodian massacres and thus adding to "deceit and distortion surrounding Pol Pot’s regime in Cambodia." Over the years, Likes’ critique (aided by such notable writers as David Horowitz) has warped into the lie that Chomsky is an admirer of Pol Pot.

But this critique makes no sense. As Robert Barsky points out, Chomsky’s book makes

I wonder how many of the bloggers who have bashed Chomsky have read any of his books?

UPDATE: I got into a mini-debate with Andrew Northrup in his comments section, a debate which Andrew did not wish to have. I got snarky, which I shouldn’t have.

(Update to the update: Andrewhas more-or-less said the comment I was objecting to was a joke, and he and I pretty much agree on a compromise criticismof Chomsky. So, thanks, Andrew.) Andrew also posted a brief follow-up postdirecting readers to a good post on The Rittenhouse Review..