Vive Le Canada - Noam Chomsky and Maude Barlow: Elective Affinities

NOAM CHOMSKY AND MAUDE BARLOW:
ELECTIVE AFFINITIES
by Ron Dart

A few weeks ago (November 2005), 77-year-old Noam Chomsky was voted by the British monthly, Prospect, and Washington based, Foreign Policy, as the most important public intellectual alive today.

Maude Barlow, chairwoman of the Council of Canadians, received the prestigious alternate Nobel Prize (Right Livelihood Award) December 8, 2005, in Sweden.

There is no doubt that both Noam Chomsky and Maude Barlow have dared to raise (and done so for many a decade) hard and difficult questions about both globalization and the American empire. Chomsky has been active longer than Barlow, but many of their concerns are one and the same. Both Chomsky and Barlow publish in a prolific manner, and both have spent many a long and demanding hour on the lecture circuit. Chomsky and Barlow have their following and fans, and both cut to the core and centre of many of the troubling issues in our global economic, political, military and ecological order.

Those who have had the courage to see beneath the thin surface of American foreign policy cannot help but see its rapacious and duplicitous nature. The many overt and covert CIA operations (and the millions of deaths as a result) cannot go unnoticed. The fact that our global liberal international order tends to fawn on the wealthy and ever weaken the poor is there for one and all to see. It does not take a great deal of thought or research to realize that the Bretton Woods organizations beat the drums of a market economy, and punish those who will not goose step to such an ideological beat. The UN is often powerless to oppose both the aggressive nature of the American empire and the capitalist bent of both the USA and laissez-faire capitalism. Noam Chomsky and Maude Barlow have been at the forefront in the USA, Canada and the larger global stage in offering a significant minority report. Their voices have not gone unheard, hence the many kudos offered them in the past and in the final few months of 2005.

It is one thing to agree with Chomsky, Barlow and tribe about some of their legitimate criticisms of the world order and how it operates and is structured. The much more difficult question to answer is this: what is the best and wisest way to oppose such an order, and, equally important, how do we create a just and equitable world order and standards that serve a nation well?

Chomsky, Barlow and disciples tend to, for the most part, hold high the role of non-government Organizations (NGOs), protest and advocacy politics, Government-assisted Organizations, soft left networks, and local and regional politics as the best way to resist and oppose globalization and US imperialism. The turn to the voluntary sector, society and the people (this can be defined in many ways) should be applauded and welcomed. It is interesting to note that both the anarchist left and the libertarian right share a certain suspicion of the state and formal party politics. And this is where it is essential to question both the anarchist and advocacy left of Chomsky, Barlow and tribe and the libertarian right.

We should never pit society against the state. The state can distort its high calling, and it must be criticized when it does so. This does not mean the role of the state should be minimized. Society can and does play an important gadfly role, but anarchist and social groups are notorious for fragmenting and splintering for a variety of relational and ideological reasons. Both the state and society have much to offer, and both have demons they must face. It is simplistic and silly to romanticize the people and society while demonizing the state and formal party politics. Such a mentality and ideology thwarts and undermines the very possibility of bringing about national standards for health care, education, culture, pensions, employment insurance and other important public goods.

Noam Chomsky and Maude Barlow have strong and committed anarchist and advocacy approaches to dealing with American foreign policy and globalization. Both tend to be converts and committed to such a way. This means that the state is often seen as suspect and mostly seen in a negative manner. Is this dualism, though, a mature way to do politics? And, more importantly, is it likely to bring about the desired end that Chomsky and Barlow long to attain? I doubt it. Those who dare to raise questions about the politics of Chomsky and Barlow need not be seen as right of centre or standing in the sensible centre. There are other ways of challenging the menace of globalization and US imperialism than hiking too far down the Chomsky and Barlow path and trail.

It is essential to realize that the protest and advocacy approach to politics often turns to political parties and the state to realize their goals and aims, and yet they constantly keep a safe distance from such a means to actualize their ideals. Political parties are like boats that carry the cargo of ideas across the water from one shore to another. Those who only stand on the shoreline and complain about the crew, captain and boat without getting on any of the boats doom themselves to a life of perpetual criticism and protest. It is the boat of political parties that carries the larger public issues in an imperfect way from one shore to another. Needless to say, these boats can be seen as various political parties that ferry the passengers to different places, but to seriously refuse to get on any boat is silly posturing and can be quite indulgent.

Noam Chomsky and Maude Barlow have never really engaged, in an ongoing and serious way (Barlow flirted with the Liberal party in the 1980s), what it means to work within a political party to ferry a vision from one shoreline to another. Politics is often about a search for the possible and the good, and when the ideal and the perfect becomes an enemy of the imperfect good, the ideal becomes subverted and minimized. The boat, in short, never leaves the shoreline, and those whose eyes see a better country never reach such a destination for the simple reason they refuse to get on the craft that can take them there.

There is no doubt that in Canada society has played an important role in bringing about a better country to live in, but it is political parties and the state that bring about the larger goods in a public way. If, as Canadians, we ever hope to oppose American expansionism, we need a strong state to say a firm NO to the USA. If we ever hope to have public policies that ensure that one and all have access to a variety of necessary services, we need a strong state. Those who neither think seriously nor deeply about the needful role of the state, and those who badmouth political parties without getting involved in them, might just be creating the conditions for the very thing they oppose the most. The real irony is this. It is often the anarchist and advocacy idealists, by their inability to understand the positive role of the state in thought and deed, that might just be facilitating and lubricating the very thing they fear the most. In short, unless the anarchist and advocacy left can see the limitations and shortcomings of their approach to politics, they might just be the very agents of undermining their highest ideals and serving the power elite they so oppose.

We do need to ask, even in a minimally critical way, the appeal and limitations, strengths and limitations of anarchist and advocacy politics. Those who cannot question their deepest commitments are no different from the fundamentalists they often oppose and turn their backs on. Fundamentalism does come in various shapes, sizes and colours. It can be crude and it can be subtle, and it is the more subtle forms that are the more
dangerous.

Noam Chomsky was voted the most important public intellectual alive today. Maude Barlow was offered the Right Livelihood Award. What do such kudos say about those who did the voting, and are there other public intellectuals who see things in a broader way than Chomsky? And, are there others whose understanding of living rightly might go deeper than Barlow’s and the Council of Canadians?

RSD

[Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on April 5, 2006]