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June 14, 2010

Noam Chomsky and Forgotten Holocaust-Deniers

 

 

Noam Chomsky is a bit of a tragic figure. Perhaps once a young promising fellow, as indeed was the young Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars saga, his denial of reality and aimless hatred have seemingly taken him over to the Dark Side. His rather imposing presence on the stage today will but likely leave him scarcely remembered, and if at all merely an infamous footnote to history following our time.

 

That Chomsky would seek to mute the meaning of the genocide of scores of millions by Communism – as he did with his various comments about the Black Book of Communism and in countless other instances – at once renders him an invalid participant in the discussion over the future of human civilization and removes from him privilege to be taken seriously as a leading thinker.

 

Chomsky has even compared flaws in the Indian healthcare system to the deliberate extermination of a hundred million by bloodthirsty tyrants and terrorists who happen to have regimes to run. Despite the fact Chomsky might have very little to say about the 2,000 women recently condemned to death by the British socialist healthcare system that has decided their breast cancer treatment was too expensive (or countless similar accounts), and that the greater the socialism, the greater the poverty and higher the body count, Chomsky cannot see any of it. For he is not thinking but emoting; he is not leading but following. He is not a shepherd but a sheep. We learn that Darth Vader answers to an emperor, be that emperor hatred, fear or both.

 

There were, no doubt, many potentially great minds in Germany and Europe during the 1930s. Unfortunately, they chose to toss aside thinking in favor of either the genocidal hatred espoused by Adolf Hitler or fear of it. History can no longer view them as important thinkers, but as those whose missed potential has made them merely an insignificant tragic sideshow to the fruit of their shallow ideas: a far greater tragedy.

 

Today we see the leaders of Europe's fashionable society in the 1930s who seemed so preeminent in their time are no longer remembered favorably, if they are remembered at all. While those perhaps less gifted and less fashionable, the Martin Niemöllers, the Corrie Ten Booms, and the Paul Scheffers history remembers quite favorably as those who stood on the side of what's right. It’s something for Dr. Chomsky to remember if he wishes to have anything of meaning survive him past the grave or even these times.

 

Perhaps, to be fair, it is not hatred that moves Dr. Chomsky. It may well indeed be that he is moved by something else. The need to fit in, to be popular are powerful motivators, particularly among those who may in other ways through no fault of their own, due to intellect and so forth, feel a bit of an outcast. Indeed, even the most anti-social desires to be loved, and many equate being loved for who we are with being in good favor for what we’re good at.

 

Chomsky’s choice to simply live like a girl in love with the idea of love rather than someone who understands un-superficially what it daily means to love would be fine had his chosen vocation been that of crooning songbird. That he instead fancies himself a man who should be taken seriously in matters of great import to humankind makes him a bit like the only person in the room who doesn’t know the joke’s on him.

 

Those who seek to mute the meaning of the worst atrocities in human history find that they themselves are eventually muted by history itself. Far from thinkers, such who do so can only be seen as those whose emotion, either for power, prestige or fear, guided them to keep the peace with those within their social circles. And as is the case throughout history, with very few notable exceptions as Norway’s Vidkun Quisling, cowards are quickly forgotten.

 

 

 

Martin recently completed an internship with the London-based Henry Jackson Society and is presently working on his Master's in National Security Studies. He holds a BA in International Relations. Prior to his time in London, he spent several months in Washington, D.C., where he attended several events, toured the White House, Capitol, and Pentagon. He is a member of Young Professionals in Foreign Policy, the World Affairs Council, and United Nations Association.

Posted by Martin at June 14, 2010 04:55 PM

Comments

Posted by: Tony_42 at June 14, 2010 11:29 PM