I really don't know. Maybe it's simply a penchant for hyperbole. Maybe he likes to shock and offend. Maybe he likes playing the iconoclast, "speaking truth to power". Hell, maybe he even honestly believes all his arguments.
But at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter to me why he does what he does, the relevant point is that he does it. He gets stuff wrong, really wrong, and in a consistent direction. Whatever the cause, that pattern remains.
I have to disagree with you that he speaks in a consistent direction. Just a few days ago, Chomsky wrote about Chavez thus:
Concentration of executive power, unless it's very temporary and for specific circumstances, such as fighting world war two, is an assault on democracy. You can debate whether [Venezuela's] circumstances require it: internal circumstances and the external threat of attack, that's a legitimate debate. But my own judgment in that debate is that it does not.
Less than two years ago, he wrote:
"I write about peace and criticize the barriers to peace; that's easy. What's harder is to create a better world... and what's so exciting about at last visiting Venezuela is that I can see how a better world is being created.
Now, I don't give a wet slap about Venezuela, except that I'm impressed that Chavez made good (a little bit anyway) on his offer of free heating oil for poor people in the US. I neither avoid nor am attracted to Citgo stations. I do think that Chavez could make a real sweetheart deal by offering some land to Disney to build up, but that's probably unrealistic.
Still, the two statements are contradictory. Which is it?
For normal people, there could be two answers.
One is that something in Chavez and/or Venezuela has changed in the past year and a half. Stranger things have happened. I have not seen an explication from Chomsky, and I predict that it is not forthcoming.
Another is that something has changed in Chomsky. That is, that he has changed his mind. A normal person would admit this.
My respect for Ronald Reagan asymptotically approaches zero. Yet, when questioned about the difference between his "evil empire" and being buddy-buddy with the Soviet Union, at least he attempted, flusteringly, to grapple with the discord in his own moronic way. I don't see Chomsky rising even to this rather low level.
Instead, Chomsky says a lot of stuff, a lot of it contradictory (which I haven't seen him ever admit). When questioned about contradictions, he inevitably gets aggressive and smarmy and lies about what he said. He has accreted fans who cherry-pick what he's said and say that's right (although they do get it wrong, since Chomsky makes false statements about sources). In that respect, they are different in no important way from the dittoheads with the "Rush is Right" bumper stickers.
