Noam Chomsky on French Intellectual Culture & Post-Modernism (3/8) 

Is the music at the beginning really necessary? Hahaha

"It's not easy to come up with exciting new ideas, so you have to come up with crazy ideas."

There are many obvious, well-known counterexamples to Chomsky's claim that French intellectual culture is too insular or Francocentric to incorporate work from other languages. Moreover, French intellectual culture is hardly exhausted by post-modern or post-structuralist currents, whatever one may make of those. Look at French phenomenology and existentialism, and the wider influence in France of non-francophone philosophers writing in those traditions. Husserl's phenomenology (German) had a huge impact in France, not only on Sartre, Beauvoir, and Merleau-Ponty but on Levinas, Derrida, and many others. And there are much more interesting things going on in Derrida than the sophomoric anti-realism and semantic nihilism that get attributed to him. The works of Levinas and Derrida have spiritual or quasi-religious dimensions that are incompatible with such a facile relativism. The phenomenological tradition continues in France today, most famously with Marion, Henry, Janicaud, and others associated with what's known as "the theological turn" in French phenomenology. What about Catholic philosophical traditions in France more generally? Do they not count? Heidegger (German), of course, had a huge influence on French philosophy in the areas of phenomenology, existentialism, and hermeneutics as well as in post-structuralism. One could obviously look, too, at the influence of Kierkegaard (Danish) or Jaspers (German). Nietzsche (German) is of course a major influence for Foucault and those who draw on him. Look at the oeuvre (yes, oeuvre) of the famous French hermeneutic philosopher Paul Ricoeur. His work engages Husserl, Dilthey, Schleiermacher, Gadamer, Heidegger, Habermas (Germans all) as well as Anglophone linguistic philosophy. Derrida had a series of productive, civil exchanges with analytical philosophers in English at a conference convened for that purpose. These were published as a special issue of the analytical journal Ratio in 2000 (Vol. XIII No. 4). There is also Derrida's engagement with Austin (British) and his response to the small-minded rebukes of John Searle (American). Let's not forget Hegel (German), as famously taught by Hyppolite and Kojeve. What about the influence of German sociology of knowledge on Bourdieu and friends? Chomsky has made a set of hasty generalizations that reflect philosophical and cultural prejudices of his own. Despite this, Chomsky is surely onto something when asserts that people often get diverted from public political engagement when engaging and applying recondite post-structuralist texts. Much the same point can be made in regard to most other academic pursuits, though. Serious political engagement entails serious risk, whereas the politics of getting and keeping a tenured position are about playing it safe. You can be openly politically active only in certain areas and within certain limits if you want to keep your job. You can be very radical in certain ways in your published work, but only if most people can't understand it well enough to know what you are up to.

I like this: "Rationality is a tool that you got to have if you're going to achieve anything."

0:18 History of French Culture since WWII 1:10 France is a cultural center, insular culture. 1:32 Logical Positivism did not reach France until the 1980’s 3:01 Many French Biologists were pre-Darwinian. Jacque Maneau 3:50 Collapse of Stalinism, Maoism 4:30 French Intellectuals Are Media Stars. Front page of the news. 5:03 Ran out of new ideas, start bringing up irrational ideas. 6:11 Russell tells us we should look for the truth but (French) Philosophers tell us there is no truth. 7:59 Rationality

Chomsky has written letters appealing to post modernists to answer simple questions about their philosophy; the questions remain un-answered. Post modernists don't tend to defend or explain their philosophy because a simple, clear explanation would reveal it to be trivial and facile; hence the endless word-salad

Thanks for uploading this. The lucidity of Chomsky is overwhelming.

and: "Michel, you’re so clear in conversation; why is your written work so obscure?" To which Foucault replied, "That’s because, in order to be taken seriously by French philosophers, twenty-five percent of what you write has to be impenetrable nonsense."

This makes _so_ much sense. I spent years studying French art and film theory, and the peculiar combination of parochialism and obscurantism was so pervasive you couldn't miss it...yet was strangely inexpressible.

Chomsky hits the nail on the head. Post-modernism does serve to kick the legs out from under the poor class' ability to rise, and some cynical people might say was designed for just that. I saw this being applied to young students in college (not just in comparative literature, but close) who were told that their personal ideas just did not matter in the big "scheme" of things.

So many People sleep thinking they are 'the best', UNTIL Chomsky comes along and ends that idea real quick and with facts! NOAM CHOMSKY is a Intellectual GAWD!

That kind of thoughts dissociate intellectuals (and those who are influenced by them) from popular struggle in the real world, especially in the third world where taking actions against repression is imminently important.. Chomsky's view is very penetrating and to the point: Without rationality all meaningful resistance to the repressive forces becomes simply impossible. That's why postmodernism is not only empty words but also harmful to those who desperately need useful guide to act. Ａ genuine Prometheus in our times. Here we have this old wiser passing the torch to our hands --a truly respectful man we should never forget.

I like Chomsky and I listen, watch and read him all the time. He is one of the best. But, my long time and many years of understanding have led me to being critical of his perspective. For example, in this short excerpt, he uses a broad brush to characterize French intellectuals. By asserting that the French were collaborationists, Stalinists and Maoists obviates critical views opposed to these perspectives by other French intelectuals and thereof the discussion in French society of the problematic of government. He minimized the French resistance. Chomsky mentions Malraux but not Merleau-Ponty. Chomsky depicts the French as insular, not as internationalist!! Chomsky is well aware of Heidegger's influence on French thought so why not mention the critics? The problem Chomsky has is that although he does criticize US foreign policy, and obliterates any functional or instrumental reasoning, he does not similarly take on Communist or theocratic regimes - the latter referring to every Middle Eastern nation! Just because France permitted leftist communist political parties does not mean that the dominant conservative political parties, or the right, are considered illegitimate, far from it. The privileged social fields in France, as in China, Russia or the US have sway which is only ever dissolved by the consequences of their decisions. Lastly, Chomsky must contend with the criticism that his dissent is valuable because it interests the intellectuals of the middle class in the US, not because it impacts on policy.

He nails it where he describes how postmodernism always comes back to the statement that there's no foundationalism, "well of course there's no foundationalism, we discovered that in the 17th century, but they had to dig it back up and make it fancy sounding" lol

I don't see how mostly student-produced home videos on RU-vid equates with being on the front page of Le Monde, myself. The critique is pretty good for a casual chat. Pomo basically displaced fight against real power in the real world onto fighting against hegemonic interpretation of texts. He's got a point, Chomsky.

I think you won't completely understand what's he's getting at unless you are part of a dedicated social/political activism instead of being stuck in university libraries getting your Ph.D in social/literary studies of some kind. For example, I'm a part of a peace movement opposing the militarism of East Asia (the Asia Pivot) on the front lines where a naval base is being constructed in the country of South Korea. None of the activists ever quote "radicals" like Zizek and Paris-influenced intellectuals for instruction and guidance (although Howard Zinn, Chomsky, and Hedges are welcomed, and Chomsky's family has been directly part of the struggle). It should also be mentioned that intellectual adherents of postmodern and post-whatever rhetorical nonsense (especially Korean ones) have not been seen in the front lines of our struggle, although universities are maybe 30 minutes away from our activist camp.

I was born and raised in France until I was 14 years old. I can attest that French is one of the hardest languages to master that's borne out of the Western World. Comparing a Latin-based language to Japanese/Arabic prose is the equivalent of comparing apples to oranges. Because of an almost insurmountable language barrier, there is syntactic elitism within France. This is seen at the collegiate and post-graduate level where if you don't write like Victor Hugo, people won't take you seriously.

I thought I had seen everything Noam has done but you have gem here! Thank you SO much! Amazing excerpt

The smugness and pretentiousness displayed by Chomsky and his chuckling listeners here is amazing. If French intellectual life is so insular and laughably backwards, why did a single school of French thought become the foundation of Postmodernism and the hegemonic school in the English-speaking world?

With the riots happening now in France, his words are on point even if this video is 7 years old.

Chomsky is a great man in many respects, a courageous & indpendent thinker. But, he doesn't know a damn thing about Post Modernism.

I have never actually heard or read Chomsky, Daniel Dennett, and even John Searle for that matter aside from his most notable exchanges with Derrida, ever propose an actual argument against a post-structuralist aside from regurgitating the exact same buzzwords like "charlatan" ad nauseam, with Chomsky being the worst offender. It might come as a shock, but if you are at least reasonably versed in the continental tradition in philosophy and put honest effort into studying Hegel, phenomenology and hermeneutics, Marx, Freud, and structuralism, then thinkers like Derrida fall into a historical framework that makes sense, he is not that difficult to engage with and make sense of, and the same is true of Foucault, Althusser, Deleuze, Lacan, Laclau, and most of the other notable figures within and in reaction to this movement. Trying to make sense of it without that fundamental knowledge is no different than a literary theorist that is trying to read a scientific paper on string theory, a positivist social scientist trying to give an exposé on Finnegans Wake, or asking a linguist to spontaneously translate the Iliad with the assumption that they should be able to because they study language. None of the titans in continental tradition are arguing that there is not a place for analytic philosophy, and most of them attempt to adopt a more analytic presentation when they are speaking to non-specialists, but they are clearly arguing that the analytic approach along with the notions of truth, reason, and science as a whole are established on unstable foundations that can only be understood and function in some degree of relativity (with the relations depending on the thinker in question). That is not to say the those foundations should be discarded or that they are absolutely unsound, but it clearly means that they should be strengthened through a critical approach that is rigourously skeptical, open to both historic and contemporary challenges within and outside of the sciences, and to be any way otherwise is to be hopelessly dogmatic and authoritarian, buying into an incredibly superficial notion of what science and truth are. I fail to see how this could ever be controversial, it isn't throughout most of my own encounters in the European academy (even in the natural sciences for the most part), and it seems that the most authoritarian countries regardless of their prevailing economic system, are usually the ones that exhaust all efforts to suppress intellectual diversity and critical theory.

Noam Chomsky or good audio. Chose one.

"it's not easy to have new and exciting ideas, so you have to come up with crazy ideas. ". 😆😆

It's kinda ironic that he had to point out that some of em were maoists and stalinists, when chomsky denies genocides commited by regimes he sympathises with

I have always felt that vanity, rather than the love of money, is the root of much evil. Intellectual vanity is inevitable in a society where the common or garden variety of this unsavoury trait seems universal.

i always marvel at the breadth and depth of chomskys knowledge. thanks for all these posts..invaluable.

I need someone who can elaborate on this. PLEASE HELP ME l have difficulties listening English. I really wanna know about this video.

that's ok. we just have to live with them

Which references? In all these dismissals of postmodernism I've yet to hear him cite a single work or a single quote from any author or thinker. He vaguely refers to Sokal and takes it for granted that the premises of that work are sound and that they showed definitively what chomsky wants it to show, that poststruct is meaningless. Yet he himself says some of it isn't meaningless but the parts that arent are trivial. Hardly an illuminating critique.

Chomsky is not infallible. He denied the Khymer Rouge atrocities in their first few years of power. And, later on defended his earlier ignorance even he changed his views about the regime

Lol, I studied philosophy, nobody can make sense of Derrida. There are simplified interpretations around, but it is strange that his works provoke different opinions for different people. For instance, his deconstruction inspired me to develop a prose style for fiction and I branched off to comparative literature. I think Foucault is easy to get though, one of the easiest from that era actually. I also like the works of Deleuze & Guattari, even though they also get obscure (Not as obscure as D).

i sometimes regred not have studied science and instead going into humanities. there is NO way you can have an opinion opposed to french 20th century intellectualism without being accused for ignorance and conservatism. writers like derrida have dismissed every opportunity to critique on their works and completely isolated themselves. they will detect every argument that has a alien signature to them and denouncing it "ignorant". either you are with them or against them.

Madness is not only strange, It's dangerous as well.

Well it's hard to give a fair critique when you a) Haven't got a clear idea what it's even *about*, and b) If you criticize your interpretation you will be accused of attacking a straw man. So there's really no way to criticize it from their point of view, which is why I think a lot of analytic philosophers write it off as meaningless.

That music interrupting... Ennoying as hell

So glad to read this.

oh I forgot to add Bataille to the list of French intellectuals I enjoy reading

iteration/copying is a re-entry into difference. difference as indifferent as possible. we are talking about degrees, yes. and therefore: significance is an important missing link in difference-theory. it's the inner-subjective measure of a-/-/-[...]letheia. you are not "writing" your broken arm in a text, you "carry" it into a hospital. a-letheia is not shifting, if it appears. the regime doesn't start with processes of signification (semiosis) but with experience. the subject is re-appearing.

hilarious how Chomsky condemns the French intellectual culture even though he was utterly destroyed in a debate by postmodernist, Michel Foucault. He just has a lot of copium lol

I want to know more about how Chomsky talks about French intellectual culture in such a generalized way. What is responsible for the insular nature of its intellectual culture that he talks about?

If he had of shouted a little more and expressed its his views with some vitriol I could of swore I was listening to Jordan Peterson...

I don't know. I feel I have a pretty good grasp of Derrida. He's not as obscure as many people make him out to be.

Declared «either you are with them or against them» to understand both is a position, that is to say among or between ‘you’/‘them’; lethe flows through aletheia just as understanding in misunderstanding. To grasp, catch, is comprehend perhaps(peut-être) divergence of the prefixed mis(missa)-a slip unlike an other-positions among difference between. Declared absence inbetween or différance as mise en abyme, a central fixture-(mis)understanding between you/them, against/for-distance…hymen

Kinda ironic to hear one tenured academic intellectual bashing another for their 'rarified' status.

The only thing that has become transparent is your level of understanding. As Wittgenstein showed, the urge to build philosophical systems can do nothing but hold people back. In order to construct philosophical theory one must distort language, and this produces not new knowledge but empty constructions with no relation to the things philosophers purport to 'unveil'. It's not a matter of differing styles, but one seeing the quicksand the other is built on.

that is over simplified and reductive. pomo analysis of biopolitics and discursive power plus theory around disciplinary society and control society provides a useful analysis and rhizome theory/lines of flight/war machine theory provides an interesting model of attack. pomo theory has compensated for the shifting of post-capital.

It's disingenuous. I was surprised none of those graduate students called him out on some of this, but his rhetoric is a finely owned blade and he'd have found a way to humiliate and condescend on them as he usually does when challenged especially by one who doesn't have his prestige and authority.

Well, here I agree with Chomsky.

You just made my year with that comment, idedete91!

I am so sick and tired of people saying "the revolution will start in Paris" or "everything begins in Paris". the French and they're Bougie intellectuals

Yes, Chomsky brilliantly called out post-modernism. Maybe its time to revisit the founding philosopher (Foucault) and try to uncover the real agenda behind his social constructivist post-modern line of thought. Maybe it isn’t an innocent political philosophy he was striving to redefine but rather, once establishing credibility. exploring sexuality and the underlying power relationship. Perhaps its more about breaking social norms for Michel Foucault’s own purposes, Foucault did bring important focus on homosexuality but he also moved well beyond to push other boundaries that many would find repugnant but which he (Foucault) endorsed and seemed to celebrate.

People can badly hear what he says and in the beginning of this clip there is a very loud tune covering his words!

Not Chomsky at his best, sounds like a case of sour grapes. On the one hand, the French are insular; on the other hand, the spread of their ideas is harmful. I wonder if people like Derrida or Deleuze have appeared on TV and in the print media in France more than Chomsky has in the US. If you want to criticize, take an idea, say Derrida's "differance" and analyze it, point out is flaws. Telling anecdotes is cheap.

I understand that he thinks the deep meta of theory in postmodernism is counterproductive to political activism. That's fair. To say that French intellectualism is *prohibitive* for developing countries to participate in intellectualism seems like a stretch. It also seems like false equivocation to blame the output on the late adoption of scientific theories and the poor circulation of other modern thought inside of France because of Leninist ideologues. And it seems _super_ petty for a linguist to use the term "irrationalism" when he knows he's talking about metaphysics as a study. I like Chomsky, but this is one of those cases where he's made a boogeyman out of his own ambiguities. Leftist fundamentalist hates new-agey leftists. Whatever.

He really hasn't. Postmodernism, while difficult, is not impossible to understand. Chomsky's criticism is very much the same as all modernist's criticisms; either it is incoherent, tautological, or anti-reason/anti-science. While postmodernism is many things to many different people, to any properly well-read academic philosopher, it is none of those. I love Chomsky on most any issue and don't really care for postmodernism, but he's simply wrong on this issue and attacking a strawman.

There's a lot of truth to what Chomsky is saying here. I think French intellectuals contributed much to philosophy, even if that means reiterating points discovered centuries before but in a different way. But the negative impacts they have had as Chomsky brings up here is something that we should take into consideration, if at least to temper our assessment of French intellectualism and post-structuralism.

Fine, but the issue of Noam's humility is, of course, primarily an issue of tone and interpretation and a pretty nebulous one at that. After all, most of what we say in matters of human affairs, we say with the awareness that we could be wrong, thus making it gratuitous to explicitly add that caveat every time you make a claim. And as an American, I don't begrudge the right of intellectuals from any country to savage the intellectual climate in my country, with or without that caveat.

BTW, I think Foucault has some meaningful stuff, and is kind of relevant, although not really that interesting. I have two of his books, Discipline and Punih and Power/Knowledge, they're not bad, but not really that amazing.

7:56

if you read french foucault is more accessible. the english translation of d and p is fairly weak. his style takes a little bit of getting used to. having a familiarity with his genealogical method and nietzsche helps. you mention you do not know philosophy and perhaps that is why you find foucault difficult; he references a lot of french thinkers.

Where can I find these letters?

In France, the intellectual socialist party members are referred to as gauche caviar - meaning a privileged group of champagne socialists. However, one after another, they have, like a house of cards, started to fall from their pedestal.

lmao he is still upset that Foucault kicked his ass back in the 70s in that debate

There is an old term for deconstruct, it is 'examine skeptically'. Science has been doing this for a few centuries, though most scientists who came up with famous criticisms we now remember in the body of science, didn't drink a vase of LSD before doing the examination. If the post structuralists wrote a catchy song or painted a nice painting or put up a shelf, perhaps we would have a reason to remember them

I think it comes down to some feature of the French language... namely that grammar has changed somewhat since the written language became ossified... This makes written French somewhat less natural than written English, and it makes it easy to write incomprehensible, smart sounding text... I remember having a grammar class in linguistics, and the teacher would use example sentences, and students would feel they were incorrect, even though it was quite clear that this is how people actually spoke...

You misread my comment. There's a semicolon after the word criticisms, implying that the following list are examples of arguments that modernists make about postmodernism. I'm not saying that he's is incoherent, I'm saying that he is saying that postmodernism is incoherent.

He's merely making a pragmatic observation. I think he is talking about others, not specifically Foucault. Foucault is one of the only good things to come out of that movement.

Chomsky dislikes the French..maybe something to do with the Faurisson affair?

Though Chomsky is amazing in his analysis as always - Yet, in this case, how are people like Jaques Derrida or Lacan be termed as "Stalinists" or "Maoists" ?! Rather bizarre unwarranted generalisation...

What would be patronizing would be to hold back his own genuine opinions on what is politically important about the "Third World" situation out of a neurotic and petty fear of seeming patronizing.

Given that he relays information given to him by an actual winner of the Nobel Prize in Phys-Med, I'm pretty sure he knows what he's talking about.

To say the French are insular just because everything is in French is not true. Many 20th century French philosophers were responding to /exploring German ideology.. As far as activism goes, Foucault’s work in the 70s/80s has given rise to activism big time!! So is Bourdieu no less Structural!! It is only Derrida who is (obscure ) a true Post Modernist and out of the reach of activism(for good)!! To bracket them as Stalinists/Maoists is tantamount to advancing your(own) marketing interests!!

I think "analytical philosophers" just dont want to learn French that's their big idea

This interview must’ve been held in a library. I barely hear him.

(1) "Touting Chomsky's ideas as superior because they seem self-evident, is ironic." didnt do that. (2) "Chomsky himself has pointed out the obstacle every non-mainstream thinker must confront" that's exactly what i said.

He's not entirely correct on the French biologist's attitude to natural selection. They specifically didn't identify with Darwinianism because in the opinion of French intelligentsia it was discovered by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

he did not and he was by no means able to anyway for reasons you could even learn about reading chomsky's work. because of time constraints foucault couldn't elaborate on his thoughts and he didn't talk much anyway, whereas chomsky's ideas weren't as "far out" so he didn't even had to elaborate on them to be understood perfectly fine. chomsky clearly and indisputably won this one. but he isn't even referring to foucault - whom he liked and always thought of as different from the rest - here.

true true. and I agree with him.. Foucault style of thought fits more with the Frankfort School... it just seems to me that his name goes better with Adorno/Horkheimer... and I would put Bataille in there as well, as he had early connections with them. Now Derrida is somewhere in between Foucault and these other French authors... there is useful information in Derrida, but he seems to completely overlook that and focus on whatever it was he was doing lol. still way better than say Baudrillard

but lol the kicked ass comment was just a fan rooting for an individual like in sports... from what i've seen I left thinking Foucault absolutely did win the debate, or at least convinced me, eventhough he couldn't go into detail... but he brought up very important points that Chomsky could only say "i disagree here" to. I understood what Foucault was saying perfectly though

What is the music?

And he's fighting to grant that possibility to everyone... What's your point?...

I don't even know what he talks about, neither Derrida or Foucault have been taken that seriously in France. Derrida, as Barry Smith noted, was seen as an embarassement by most french academics. The so-called "french theory" (which is really more an american theory) has always been bigger outside of France and was pretty much discarded in the academic world. The french intellectual life isn't limited to parisianism and shallow iconoclasm. Maybe that was partly true in the 70s but the years of "post-modernism" are far behind, and there is no intellectual or scholar that I can think of that would have any interest to be seen as a "star" defending "crazy new ideas". That's ridiculous. The "media stars" he refers to are self-proclaimed "philosophers" who appear on television to promote their last book, but most of them aren't read or taken seriously at the academic level.

He gets the history completely wrong he's simply talking in cliches. Part of his problem is his sense of cultural history is informed largely by his own work and his own fairly limited philosophical worldview. He accuses the French of parochialism without understanding anything of French cultural history or the philosophers he simply dismisses through prejudice, and without bothering to read them

i wonder did you respond to the right poster ?

There is an essay where he SPECIFICALLY attacks Derrida, so maybe you should read that?

I don't think it's BS at all. He's not the only person by far to criticize continental philosophy for lacking meaningful assertions. Have you read John Searle's critiques of Foucault and Derrida? What about the stuff from the Vienna circle (which Chomsky has clearly read)?

Fortunately I saw this clip before Deleuze make me hate philosophy.

Does he memorize his answers? I can say that he has used almost the exact same quotes to start the utterance.

No

Found it! Calle 13 - La vuelta al mundo

Intro music gave me cringe

Three French philosophers/writers who are more convincing than Noam Chomsky: -Albert Camus: "The Stranger", his most popular work, is as relevant today as it was when first published. -Michel Foucault: Any of his works, but "Madness and Civilization" is a good starting point to understanding deconstructionism. -Jean-Paul Sartre: "Being and Nothingness", which is a refutation, of sorts, to Heidegger's "Being and Time". Really heavy reading though. Once you grasp Sartre's overall premise, it opens your eyes to the basis of what your individuality/consciousness may be/is. Chomsky is great at putting down the works of others, but what has he contributed to philosophy/critical thinking which isn't already obvious to those interested in the subjects some regard Chomsky as an expert in?

chomsky cannot escape of his analytical philosophy bubble. what a hypocrite

"Rather than attacking the principles/foundational claims of p-m" If anyone finds one of these that is rem,otely intrigeuing, they probably would. The only foundational principles that seem to be on offer from proponents of pm are worn-out truisms with no explanatory power

My god, please, quit it with the music. This is incredibly distracting.

This is loosely connected to the disconnect he described earlier. In the time it takes to understand Derrida you could simply learn things more vital and important. What is the purpose of intellectuals? Someone ought to say it: French philosophy hasn't contributed anything after Descartes. YES, I am aware of the metaphysical language game assumptions and unmentioned exceptions to this fascist sexist nationalist sentence. They are all implied in the first place and don't lead to human progress.

Exact french attitude

Maybe he is just very precise

NOAM THE KING OF PROMOTING IDENTITY POLITICS