Sunday, February 05, 2006

An open(ed) letter.

What follows below is an email I sent to a student in response to a conversation he initiated with me this past Friday. The conversation concerned a quotation that has been posted on my classroom bulletin board since August, but which has only recently been noticed by most students. The quotation is as follows, attributed to Noam Chomsky: "If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all." The recent spate of attention was prompted by an anonymous student's covering the quotation with a piece of paper reading "CENSORED." The piece of paper was moved from elsewhere on the bulletin board -- a board denouncing censorship, which includes a handful of other quotations in addition to the one in question.

I left the board in its modified state, and pointed out the obvious irony of the anonymous act to my classes. One student approached me to discuss the issue further. We did so; and upon further reflection, I sent this email.

*****

~~~~~,

Our conversation on Friday morning remained in the back of my mind through this weekend, until this afternoon when it erupted once more into my conscious and deliberate thoughts.

What troubled me was twofold: one, your characterization of Chomsky and his views; and two, your assertion that his very name in attribution has no place on the wall of a Jewish school with a mission that explicitly supports the state of Israel.

You characterized Chomsky as a man who supported an outspoken Holocaust denier and who denies that the state of Israel should exist. As I suspected at the time (but did not vocalize, for lack of readily available evidence), I think both your claims about Chomsky's opinions are false.

With regard to your first claim about Chomsky, the affair to which I assume you were referring (and if I'm wrong, please tell me) is that in which Chomsky (in 1979) signed a petition supporting Robert Faurisson's rights of freedom of speech and expression. Faurisson is, you would very fairly say, in compiling his views, a Holocaust denier. Chomsky, however, is not. As Chomsky wrote in 1981, in response to this affair:

Faurisson's conclusions are diametrically opposed to views I hold and have frequently expressed in print (for example, in my book Peace in the Middle East?, where I describe the holocaust as ‘the most fantastic outburst of collective insanity in human history’). [1]

To say that Chomsky “supports a Holocaust denier” suggests that he supports the content of that denier’s denial. But that is simply to skew the facts — or, more accurately and more semantically, to stop too soon. That is, Chomsky does not support a Holocaust denier. Rather, Chomsky supports a Holocaust denier’s right to deny the Holocaust — and to do so vocally and in the public sphere. Chomsky does not support the content of the denial; he supports the existence of denial as a form. He supports the existence of speech, and specifically of dissent, even when he vehemently disapproves of what is being said. As he wrote (the sentence that follows the quoted sentence above):

[I]t is elementary that freedom of expression (including academic freedom) is not to be restricted to views of which one approves, and that it is precisely in the case of views that are almost universally despised and condemned that this right must be most vigorously defended. [2]

Similarly, in response to your second claim about Chomsky (that he asserts the state of Israel should not exist), I urge you to look more closely at Chomsky’s views. His views are quite nuanced, and both practical and theoretical. He wrote in 2003 (a statement that seems, in my admittedly brief research, to be representative):

On the matter of legitimacy and recognition, once the State of Israel was established in 1948, my feeling has been that it should have the rights of any state in the international system: no more, no less. [3]

Granted, he qualifies this view with specific opinions on the particulars of international border recognition. But with respect to Israel’s existence as a state, he does not hem or haw. That said (to head off a possible objection), Chomsky does not acknowledge the state of Israel’s “right to exist.” But that is an objection stemming from political theory: he does not acknowledge that any state has a right to exist. That right, he suggests, is limited to human beings.

All that is to say: I think your characterization of Chomsky is erroneous.

But ultimately that is not what most troubled me about our conversation. What has kept our conversation in my mind these last few days was your suggestion that Chomsky’s name has no place on the wall of a classroom in a Jewish school. Chomsky, though, is one of the most well-known Jews in the world today. His work has revolutionized thinking (and spawned counter-revolutions) in the fields of linguistics and psychology. He is an outspoken and important political, social, and cultural critic. And yes, he says some things and holds some views you disagree with (though perhaps, as described above, fewer than you may have thought).

But we need to acknowledge people we disagree with; we need to confront their ideas, not ignore them. And we need to accept—and further, we need to embrace—their right to shout their ideas from streetcorners and op-ed pages. The quote on the wall of our classroom does not support the content of any of Chomsky’s views (whether you agree with them or not) except his re-formulation of Voltaire’s famous aphorism: “I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.” With that in mind, you’ll note the parallel between the wall of quotes in our classroom and the list of signatures on the petition signed by Chomsky in support of Robert Faurisson’s rights.

But beyond the abstract reasoning for allowing the quote to adorn the wall of our classroom, note the practical consequences. Are you not taught in our Jewish school to question dogma, to investigate meaning, to parse texts, to converse with peers and teachers and the writings of your ancestors? Well, Chomsky’s name on the wall of our classroom has created conversation. It has led to discussion and argument. It has led people to speak and act in support of their values and opinions (some anonymously, and some—more courageously—in person). And that is the value I support most vigorously: the preservation of the marketplace of ideas, through which civil discourse will travel slowly but surely toward something like Truth.

That, to me, is education. If that is not Jewish education, I say to you that that is a shame.

So, should Chomsky’s quotation be on the wall in a classroom of a Jewish school? I should hope so.

---------------------------------------------
[1] http://www.chomsky.info/articles/19810228.htm
[2] Ibid.
[3] http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/200309--.htm
**Another, uncited, reference on the “Faurisson Affair”: http://www.chomsky.info/letters/1989----.htm
**You will, no doubt, notice that these references are articles cited on Chomsky’s official homepage. Still, in my admittedly limited research, these articles seem to be reliable artifacts of Chomsky’s words and views.