CHOMSKY: THE HARD NOSED PRAGMATIST

The left has long been contemptuously described by the right as being so utopian as to be useless in as much as any real world discussions are concerned. Leaving aside for the moment hypocrisy and contradiction stemming from the right's much beloved free market utopian fantasies, let's take a look at a snippet of conversation between left-wing hero Noam Chomsky and leftist writer Micky Z.

From CounterPunch:

MZ: Which brings me back to my initial point about (industrial) downsizing. High-speed rail requires unsustainable and toxic practices like mining, etc. Solar energy is obviously better than fossil fuels but isn't truly sustainable if it's solely used to replace fossil fuels in the name of supporting an unsustainable industrial/technological culture. As for those beetles you mentioned earlier, surely you know that valuable insects like bees are being wiped out by this same human culture. So what I'm asking is for a clearer idea of what you see as the dramatic and far-reaching initiatives we need.

NC: Bees are being wiped out, but beetles aren't. The choice today is not between eliminating transportation and wasting fossil fuels, but between more and less wasteful forms of transportation. Same with regard to solar energy. There's no point discussing options that haven't even a remote chance of being implemented, and would be massively destructive if they were. What has to be done today is (1) large-scale conversion (weatherizing , etc.), (2) sharp change in transportation to greater efficiency, like high-speed rail, (3) serious efforts to move to sustainable energy, probably solar in the somewhat longer term, (4) other adjustments that are feasible. If done effectively, that might be enough to stave off disaster. If not, then we can give up the ghost, because there are no alternatives in this world, at least none that I've seen suggested.

Also, I do not see how we can rationally oppose high speed rail because of the environmental and other costs without considering the social and human consequences of the radical elimination of transportation that this entails.

More here.

Micky Z's challenge here reminds me of anarchist criticisms of Chomsky, a self-described anarcho-syndicalist himself: anarchists should not state what the government ought to do; real anarchists want all government to end right now. Chomsky has responded that it isn't very likely that government will end right now, and it is absurd to disengage from reality as it exists today in order to exclusively pursue goals that are decades if not centuries in the future.

That is, Chomsky is a pragmatist. I mean, he has a political vision for the future, but is not so single-minded about it that he insists on absolute radical change today or tomorrow. Instead, he looks at the way things are currently configured, and asserts incremental change that takes us, step by step, toward a more justice oriented, moral, and ethical civilization. After all, what are we supposed to do while we're waiting for utopia to happen? Micky Z, who I assume to be a more doctrinaire leftist than Chomsky, raises some good points that are well worth considering. But Chomsky, the genius who basks in simplicity, deftly observes that such discussion, in terms of plausible action at the moment, is entirely academic.

In short, there are, indeed, utopian types on the left, people who spend a lot of effort and energy essentially tilting at windmills. But there are also practical pragmatic types, and, fortunately for us, one of the very best leftists out there, Chomsky, is one of them.

Thank god there's nothing like the tea party on the left. I mean, I envy the energy and devotion these people seem to have. But the more doctrinaire you get, the closer you come to French Revolution territory, and that's a place where lots of people find their heads and bodies going in different directions.

If you know what I mean.

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