File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_2000/anarchy-list.0004, message 430


Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 13:06:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Shawn P. Wilbur" <swilbur-AT-wcnet.org>
Subject: Re:  Re: Chomsky on A16 Anarchists...



On Wed, 12 Apr 2000, danceswithcarp wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Apr 2000 SReidTweed-AT-aol.com wrote:
> 
> > Yes, of course. Pilots are the intended audience for "Stick and Rudder." 
> > Linguists are the intended audience for "Syntactic
> > Structures." Children are 
> > the intended audience for "The Butter Battle Book." Etc. 
> > 
> > << weren't we only discussing one kind of writing? >>
> > 
> > Chomsky has written a *lot* of books on a variety of topics. Naturally the 
> > style varies from book to book.
> 
> Ah, but "Stick and Rudder" also applies to the *student* of flying, the
> admirer of flying, and the potential flyer.  That signifies, as dk notes,
> that the writers ARE getting their messages across to all levels of the
> target strata. I've got two degrees, one with an area of concentration in
> political science and the other a degree in teaching Social Studies to
> high school/middle school kids and I think Chomsky drives away the
> enquiring mind.  Hell, he bores me to tears and I am a voracious reader.
> So if his target is the academia, he succeeds, but he ain't winning no
> recruits to the revolution out on the street.

Curiously, since i find Chomsky a bit slow going much of the time - and a
little too focused to be inspiring much of the rest - "the kids just love
it," or at least some of them do. Chomsky is reaching a lot of folks
outside of academe, or on the edges of the institutions. His books are
among the few steady sellers among my radical stock at the shop. 

That said, there's certainly *lots* of room for more street-level
commentary on the kinds of issues Chomsky typically deals with - but not
many folks apparently able and willing to do the work. I wonder how closed
forums like _The Nation_, _Z_, and _The Progressive_ are to non-"stars" -
whether they depend on the same four or five voices because that's all
they figure will sell copies, or whether some of us more street-level
folks ought to be trying our hand at supplementing the Chomskys and
Alberts. I know that there are magazines like _Clamor_ that are trying to
work around the lefty star system a bit, and there are certainly plenty of
"internal" opportunities to sound off in the anarchist press (whether or
not much of anyone is "converted" by that kind of communication...)

Part of the problem with Chomsky as public intellectual is that he seems
spread a bit thinner and wider than he probably should be.

-shawn

> carp
> 
Shawn P. Wilbur, Bookseller    |   An Anarchist Bookstore:
Pauper's Books                 |   10,000s of Titles In All Categories
206 N. Main                    |   Home of AKA Bookish Publications
Bowling Green, OH 43402-2420   |   paupers-AT-wcnet.org
(419) 352-2163                 |   http://www.wcnet.org/~paupers


   

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