Chomsky & the 'Independence of Journalism'.

Chomsky's latest essay begins on a promising note-

Mark Twain famously said that “it is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.”

I suppose one might, with equal justice, credit not the Deity but Darwinian evolution for this happy circumstance.  A freedom is either a Hohfeldian immunity or a residuary control right which corresponds to a duty or obligation under a bond of law. Exercising a freedom imprudently can lead to its loss. Thus, the regret-minimizing course is to assert and exercise freedoms in a self-interested manner. Why? It is the self which is the holder of the freedom. That which kills the rights-holder extinguishes the right.

Of course, there will always be self-publicists who pretend not to care about themselves and gas on about how something very very stupid must be done to save the suffering masses who are too stupid to speak for themselves.

Chomsky picks upon an Old Etonian of this type.

In his unpublished introduction to Animal Farm, devoted to “literary censorship” in free England, George Orwell added a reason for this prudence: there is, he wrote, a “general tacit agreement that ‘it wouldn’t do’ to mention that particular fact.” The tacit agreement imposes a “veiled censorship” based on “an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question,” and “anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness” even without “any official ban.”

Chomsky knows that Orwell was writing about a very peculiar time in English history. Hitler had just attacked Stalin who thus became Churchill's ally. It was vital that the Soviets have faith in the Brits and not seek a separate peace with the Nazis.
It was in this context that the Ministry of Information advised that Animal Farm not be published.

However, Orwell himself says ' Any fairminded person with journalistic experience will admit that during this war official censorship has not been particularly irksome.'

Moreover, there was no 'tacit censorship'. Orwell's book was published and became a best-seller. The man would have looked an utter fool if this 'unpublished introduction' had in fact been allowed to stand.

Chomsky knows all this. Yet he quotes Orwell as if he were a Prophet rather than an Old Etonian silly-arse of a type we will always have with us.

Indeed, Chomsky- whose family background was quite modest- is now an ever sillier-arse of a patrician stripe who thinks that the opinions he hears at the dinner tables of the Great & Good represent the mind of the common man.

Evelyn Waugh, writing around the same time as Orwell, satirizes the Ministry of Information and, later on, in his 'Sword of Honor' trilogy, descries the shameless manner in which the British establishment kowtowed to the Soviets during this period. Waugh and Orwell, in polemical mood, might attribute this to some spiritual or ideological malaise. However, both knew the facts. Stalin was an ally. England was in dire peril. For God's sake, keep mum about Trotsky.

Orwell wrote-

The servility with which the greater part of the English intelligentsia have swallowed and repeated Russian propaganda from 1941 onwards would be quite astounding if it were not that they have behaved similarly on several earlier occasions. On one controversial issue after another the Russian viewpoint has been accepted without examination and then publicised with complete disregard to historical truth or intellectual decency. To name only one instance, the BBC celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Red Army without mentioning Trotsky. This was about as accurate as commemorating the battle of Trafalgar without mentioning Nelson, but it evoked no protest from the English intelligentsia. In the internal struggles in the various occupied countries, the British press has in almost all cases sided with the faction favoured by the Russians and libelled the opposing faction, sometimes suppressing material evidence in order to do so. A particularly glaring case was that of Colonel Mihailovich, the Jugoslav Chetnik leader.

In November 1941, the BBC called him the leader of the Yugoslav resistance though, the plain fact is, the guy didn't want to fight the Germans for fear of reprisals.  

The Russians, who had their own Jugoslav protege in Marshal Tito, accused Mihailovich of collaborating with the Germans.

Because, as the Brits well knew, Mihaliovich attacked Tito's Partisans and executed even the nurses he captured.  

This accusation was promptly taken up by the British press: Mihailovich’s supporters were given no chance of answering it, and facts contradicting it were simply kept out of print. In July of 1943 the Germans offered a reward of 100,000 gold crowns for the capture of Tito, and a similar reward for the capture of Mihailovich.

This had happened previously because the BBC had announced the latter's promotion to Brigadier General three days previously.  What did for Mihailovich was reports by Colonel Bailey who was fluent in Serbian. That's what soured the Brits on the Chetniks. The plain fact is, a Royalist like Mihaliovich knew the real enemy was the Communist- not to mention the Muslim and the Croat- and that either the Italians or the Germans could help them with weapons. 

The British press ‘splashed’ the reward for Tito, but only one paper mentioned (in small print) the reward for Mihailovich: and the charges of collaborating with the Germans continued. 

Because the dude had no interest in getting rid of the occupiers if this meant the victory of the Commies, not to mention Muslims and Catholics and other such scum.  

Orwell, as an Old Etonian, may not have known that England has never had an intelligentsia- its Universities produced 'flanneled fools' & 'muddied oafs'- but, surely, Chomsky grew up in a very different milieu- that of the immigrant Yiddish worker who debated Socialist or Anarchist ideologies with a Rabbinical passion. Thanks to the War, the children of these immigrants were lifted up into positions of power and influence thanks to their mathematical genius and skill at expounding complex ideas in an idiomatic and impassioned manner. However, by the mid Sixties, the Trotskyites were beginning their metamorphosis into neo-cons. Chomsky took a different tack- but, the truth is, his Research Project had crashed and burned and so his 'political' writings represented a jejune 'displacement activity'- like Cantor dashing off a monograph about who really wrote Shakespeare's plays.

Chomsky was right to be wrong about Language- thinkers should pursue a promising hypothesis if only to show why it is incoherent- but he was wrong to use an absurd theory of Language to write arrant nonsense about something ordinary people understand- viz Political rhetoric.

Consider the following-

We witness the exercise of this prudence constantly in free societies. Take the US-UK invasion of Iraq, a textbook case of aggression without credible pretext, the “supreme international crime” defined in the Nuremberg judgment. It is legitimate to say that it was a “dumb war,” a “strategic blunder,” even “the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy” in President Obama’s words, highly praised by liberal opinion. But “it wouldn’t do” to say what it was, the crime of the century, though there would be no such hesitancy if some official enemy had carried out even a much lesser crime.

Why do people not denounce themselves for crimes they have committed with the same alacrity and vehemence that they denounce crimes committed against themselves? Chomsky thinks it is because of some sinister 'orthodoxy' which casts a cloud over people's minds. Would it surprise him to learn that it is irrational to confess to things for which one could be punished? If the people of the US and the UK went around saying 'we committed the crime of the century', then they would be under pressure to pay vast sums in reparations. This would mean higher taxes.

The prevailing orthodoxy does not easily accommodate such a figure as General/President Ulysses S. Grant, who thought there never was “a more wicked war than that waged by the United States on Mexico,” taking over what is now the US Southwest and California, and who expressed his shame for lacking “the moral courage to resign” instead of taking part in the crime.

This is sheer nonsense.  Grant, a drunkard, was writing 30 years after the event. He was seeking to influence how history would view him. There was no chance that either he, or his country, would suffer any financial or other loss as a consequence of his admission. Indeed, confessing to crimes which aren't crimes at all is just a cheap form of hypocritical virtue signaling.

Subordination to the prevailing orthodoxy has consequences. The not-so-tacit message is that we should only fight smart wars that are not blunders, wars that succeed in their objectives – by definition just and right according to prevailing orthodoxy even if they are in reality “wicked wars,” major crimes. Illustrations are too numerous to mention. In some cases, like the crime of the century, the practice is virtually without exception in respectable circles.

It is rational to only do costly things- and war is a costly business- if one is likely to benefit or, at least, avoid a greater loss.
 No 'subordination to the prevailing orthodoxy' is required. The Iraq War was supposed to turn a profit and some influential people did make a lot of money. However, the occupation of Iraq was mismanaged so badly- partly because of the greed of vested interests- that the voters ended up having to pick up a hefty tab.

I don't know much about 'respectable circles' and their 'prevailing orthodoxy' but how important are they? Did they really put Trump in the White House? If not, why should we care about them?

Another familiar aspect of subordination to prevailing orthodoxy is the casual appropriation of orthodox demonization of official enemies.

WTF? Orthodox demonizations are part of 'prevailing orthodoxy'. Subordination to orthodoxy means being orthodox. It means you already subscribe to 'orthodox demonization'. There is no need to 'appropriate' it.

Chomsky may be senile but the stupidity he is displaying here has always been a feature of his oeuvre. He confuses a pompous circumlocution- 'subordination to orthodoxy'- for something concrete. The phrase means 'x is orthodox'. It does not mean that 'orthodoxy' has an independent existence and that x has become subordinate to it for some occult reason.

To take an almost random example, from the issue of the New York Times that happens to be in front of me right now, a highly competent economic journalist warns of the populism of the official demon Hugo Chavez, who, once elected in the late ‘90s, “proceeded to battle any democratic institution that stood in his way.”

What's wrong with that? Chavez fucked up Venezuela. Everyone admits it.  Also, it is obvious that 'Democratic institutions' could have pulled the country out of a tail spin. Anyway, 'a highly competent economic journalist' isn't going to say anything sensible- least of all in the pages of the New York Times- so why rake up the matter?

Turning to the real world, it was the US government, with the enthusiastic support of the New York Times, that (at the very least) fully supported the military coup that overthrew the Chavez government – briefly, before it was reversed by a popular uprising.

So, the US didn't really 'fully support' the coup. Otherwise Caracas would have a Green Zone like Baghdad.

As for Chavez, whatever one thinks of him, he won repeated elections certified as free and fair by international observers, including the Carter Foundation, whose founder, ex-President Jimmy Carter, said that “of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.” And Venezuela under Chavez regularly ranked very high in international polls on public support for the government, and for democracy (Chile-based Latinobarómetro).

Yes, but Chavez undermined democratic and other institutional checks and balances such that, when oil prices fell, his Nation suffered enormously. Seldom has a 'resource curse' proved so utterly venomous.

There were doubtless democratic deficits during the Chavez years, such as the repression of the RCTV channel, which elicited enormous condemnation. I joined, also agreeing that it couldn’t happen in our free society. If a prominent TV channel in the US had supported a military coup as RCTV did, then it wouldn’t be repressed a few years later, because it would not exist: the executives would be in jail, if they were still alive.

'if they were still alive'? What is Chomsky saying? Does he think the US Supreme Court would hang TV executives for treason? Or is he hinting that they would have been the victims of extra judicial killing?

But orthodoxy easily overcomes mere fact.

What fact is Chomsky talking about? That the American judiciary would consider a military coup to be an event which abrogates the fundamental right to free speech?
Does Chomsky really believe the Bench would permit a President to use his influence to cancel the licence of a TV Station which had been critical of him?

Failure to provide pertinent information also has consequences. Perhaps Americans should know that polls run by the leading US polling agency found that a decade after the crime of the century, world opinion regarded the United States as the greatest threat to world peace, no competitor even close; surely not Iran, which wins that prize in US commentary.

I didn't know about these polls. What pernicious consequence have I suffered as a result? None at all.

Perhaps instead of concealing the fact, the press might have performed its duty of bringing it to public attention, along with some consideration of what it means, what lessons it yields for policy.

The Press reported it but readers didn't find it interesting. It yielded no lesson for policy whatsoever. A recent poll shows that half of Americans believe in UFOs. So what? Neither US bellicosity not Alien anal probes matter to us in our daily lives. Sure, after a few drinks, we might be willing to wax eloquent on such subjects but only because they allow us a momentary escape from reality.

Again, dereliction of duty has consequences.

Very true! Chomsky's asshole is at risk of being probed by Extra Terrestrials- or so almost half the American population believes- and yet 'subordination to orthodoxy' is preventing the FBI from taking this threat seriously!

Examples such as these, which abound, are serious enough, but there are others that are far more momentous. Take the electoral campaign of 2016 in the most powerful country in world history. Coverage was massive, and instructive. Issues were almost entirely avoided by the candidates, and virtually ignored in commentary, in accord with the journalistic principle that “objectivity” means reporting accurately what the powerful do and say, not what they ignore.

Right! Important stuff like Alien anal probes is totally ignored! But, why blame the Press when it is the Judges- who focus only on what people say and do, not what they ignore or are ignorant of- who are more greatly at fault? Even worse than the Judiciary, are the great mass of ordinary people who ignore paranoid nutjobs who think 'orthodoxy' is making people so irrational that they refuse to confess to their own crimes while complaining about crimes committed against themselves.

The principle holds even if the fate of the species is at stake – as it is: both the rising danger of nuclear war and the dire threat of environmental catastrophe.

Where is there a 'rising danger' of nuclear war? Not even in the sub-continent. What about 'environmental catastrophe'? There is zero danger of any such thing wiping out the species or greatly altering our collective fate. The only question is, who can be persuaded to pay 'carbon taxes'. The French 'yellow vests' have shown Macron that the embattled middle class won't pay. But, economists had already observed that 'green taxes' are only politically feasible if there are compensating cash transfers.

It is perfectly rational, if you don't want to pay higher gas prices, to vote for a guy who claims not to believe in climate change. Chomsky must know that it was blue collar voters- of a type not subservient at all to the 'prevailing orthodoxy' of bien pensant 'respectable circles'- who put Trump in power and who have now given Macron a bloody nose. Yet, he accuses the Press of 'neglect'!

The neglect reached a dramatic peak on November 8, a truly historic day. On that day Donald Trump won two victories. The less important one received extraordinary media coverage: his electoral victory, with almost 3 million fewer votes than his opponent, thanks to regressive features of the US electoral system. The far important victory passed in virtual silence: Trump’s victory in Marrakech, Morocco, where some 200 nations were meeting to put some serious content into the Paris agreement on climate change a year earlier. On November 8, the proceedings halted. The remainder of the conference was largely devoted to trying to salvage some hope with the US not only withdrawing from the enterprise but dedicated to sabotaging it by sharply increasing the use of fossil fuels, dismantling regulations, and rejecting the pledge to assist developing countries shift to renewables.

Trump's victory was newsworthy. Marrakech wasn't. Chomsky writes as though Trump had some personal animus against the Paris agreement. He didn't gave a damn about it because his business is unaffected by gas prices. If anything, it stands to gain by killing off commuting and forcing people to abandon McMansions for inner city developments.

To get elected, Trump had to pretend to be a 'climate change denier' so as to deliver lower gas prices- which is what blue collar voters needed.

All that was at stake in Trump’s most important victory was the prospects for organized human life in any form that we know.

Sheer nonsense! 'Organized human life' is not under any threat from climate change. The quality of life of billions of people in less organized, or poorer, countries may be adversely affected. But they themselves will have to first become 'part of the problem' before they can be 'part of the solution'. Telling stupid lies helps nobody.

Accordingly, coverage was virtually zero, keeping to the same concept of “objectivity” as determined by the practices and doctrines of power.

Wow! The Press should have been in Marrakech listening to boring speeches instead of focusing on Trump having pulled off the most incredible upset in American politics since Franklin Delano Roosevelt tugged off Wendell's Willkie.

A truly independent press rejects the role of subordination to power and authority.

Nonsense! The press is subordinate to legitimate judicial power and authority. The fact that no Democratic country permits the press to flout a judicial injunction with impunity does not mean that no element of its Fourth Estate is not 'truly independent'. On the contrary, it is the Rule of Law which safeguards that independence and confers legitimacy on its operations.

Chomsky believes otherwise. He thinks the Judiciary is useless. Only 'orthodoxy' matters. It has occult power. It can brainwash people. That's why people don't confess to their own crimes and yet lodge complaints regarding crimes against themselves.

Chomsky's 'independent press' would not bother with the Law- nor with the facts that the Law insists upon- rather it would liberate ordinary people from the strange delusion that they should act in a rational, self-regarding, manner.

He dreams of a world where the Press

casts the orthodoxy to the winds, questions what “right-thinking people will accept without question,” tears aside the veil of tacit censorship, makes available to the general public the information and range of opinions and ideas that are a prerequisite for meaningful participation in social and political life, and beyond that, offers a platform for people to enter into debate and discussion about the issues that concern them. By doing so it serves its function as a foundation for a truly free and democratic society.

So, this means the Press should take as its model the National Enquirer and Fox News. Forget Murdoch, Berlusconi has shown the way forward. We must all have topless TV presenters interviewing alien abductees who personally witnessed George Soros turning into a Lizard Person.
But what difference would it make? None at all. In the short run, people may be taken in by virtue signalling windbags and vote against their own economic interest. Longer term, there is a backlash. Venezuela would be on the path to recovery if Chavez hadn't destroyed the foundations of its Democracy. America could go the same way if its Judiciary and Legislature are similarly subverted. The Press doesn't matter. Professors don't matter. The Law does. The Economy does. But only if people behave rationally and act in a self-regarding manner.

By contrast, what people pretend to believe, or pretend to find shocking, doesn't matter at all. Orthodoxy has no occult power. It is 'preference falsification' merely.