My letter to Prof. Chomsky

[angrysoba]

Reply from Prof. Chomsky

He told me it is surely true that most people in the US do not know of JFK’s crimes, and that many of them who do know – like him – don’t think that the massive organizing required to change the name of an airport should displace other priorities.

He said that he don’t think it follows that those who do not know, or who do know but rank priorities differently from me, are “passive sheep,” and he also don’t see any point in pretending to stand on some high pedestal and condemning those who do not rise to our magnificence.

It seems then that the advice given was fairly practical.

There's no point:

a) making fairly meaningless gestures such as renaming an airport your top priority

b) using up energy denouncing everyone for being less informed than you, when, perhaps, you could be informing them

and I'll add:

c) getting out the flagellation rods and *thwack* *thwack* *thwack* *thwack* *thwack* "Oh, the shame!"

To which I have replied

Hi Prof. Chomsky,
I am not condemning anyone nor I am on any pedestal, just looking at people around me who, for the most part, do nothing to help Palestinian people and their struggle, virtually ignored by 99,9% of the people of US and Japan
(Just an example)
This is just a fact: the vast majority of the people just do not care and this is where the problem lies, not on Governments and Institutions, this is where the problem lies
I am in part guilty as well, as I could do more
And there is little excuse for "not knowing" in the era of internet

But do you not see that you are not proposing anything of practical value? If your only desired contribution is to posture about how rubbish everyone including yourself and Chomsky are then you have already thrown in the towel which can only lead to apathy which is probably what you found to denounce in others in the first place.

You may also want to have sympathy for people who lead busy lives and don't get the chance to educate themselves in the way that they may want to do. If, on top of that, they are struggling to feed their families, it shouldn't be too surprising that Palestine is far from their minds.

 

[Courier]

So in essense, Chomsky told you to go away and leave him alone.

 

[trustbutverify]

Reply from Prof. Chomsky

He told me it is surely true that most people in the US do not know of JFK’s crimes, and that many of them who do know – like him – don’t think that the massive organizing required to change the name of an airport should displace other priorities.

He said that he don’t think it follows that those who do not know, or who do know but rank priorities differently from me, are “passive sheep,” and he also don’t see any point in pretending to stand on some high pedestal and condemning those who do not rise to our magnificence.

Did you inform Prof. Chomsky that his opinions are irrelevant since China will overtake the US in GDP within 3-4 years? How did he respond to that?

 

[Hungry81]

Many people seem to think they are smarter, better and more educated than most others. It's a part of the delusion of self. For example you are carrying on about airports and Palestine and seem to be ignoring slave labour, the trade in sex slaves, child labour, people putting their religion before other people, the fact that technologies to colonize other planets are so far off and therefore not going to (humanely) help with overpopulation (any time soon). Sheep go back to sleep..

 

[Stereolab]

Noam Chomsky is a swell guy for reading and replying to his emails.

I received an email from Arianna Huffington years ago. It was awesome.

 

[Watanabe]

Chomsky` reply (the gist):

I haven’t done a study, but presume that most people care quite a lot about the suffering of others. We see that manifested dramatically when there is an earthquake, Tsunami, or other terrible event.
As to what you see around you, I have no comment – except that I find it very odd that you would even write one letter about it, let alone many. And even more odd that you think it is wrong for me not to write about your personal impressions – and your condemnation, much as you don’t like to face that simple fact.

 

[Watanabe]

It seems then that the advice given was fairly practical.

There's no point:

a) making fairly meaningless gestures such as renaming an airport your top priority

b) using up energy denouncing everyone for being less informed than you, when, perhaps, you could be informing them

and I'll add:

c) getting out the flagellation rods and *thwack* *thwack* *thwack* *thwack* *thwack* "Oh, the shame!"


But do you not see that you are not proposing anything of practical value? If your only desired contribution is to posture about how rubbish everyone including yourself and Chomsky are then you have already thrown in the towel which can only lead to apathy which is probably what you found to denounce in others in the first place.

You may also want to have sympathy for people who lead busy lives and don't get the chance to educate themselves in the way that they may want to do. If, on top of that, they are struggling to feed their families, it shouldn't be too surprising that Palestine is far from their minds.

When did I claim to be propoposing anything of practical value?
That was not my idea

I wanted to ask Prof. Chomsky why in his books he never mentions the cowardy, the passivity of the vast majority of the people.
And the people who "are struggling to feed their families" have still hours of tme foo watch television, go shopping for stupid things, go to the movies and look at football match.
They put this over political activism.
Why should we care about such people?

 

[Watanabe]

Prof. Chomsky,
I respectfully disagree with you.
People care about the suffering of the others only when the others are members of their families, of their community, of their country.
If the "others" are members of another country or another religion, then people do not really care.
If the "others" are part of a group perceived as an "enemy", then people may actually enjoy the suffering of the others

There are multiple examples for that:
1) Most Americans were in horror when they saw the news of 9/11, but the vast majority of same people did not really care to protest when their own soldeirs dropped Agent Orange on Vietnamese communities in the 70s or when US soldiers committed atrocities in Falluja, Iraq a few years ago.
2) Most Japanese were in horror when a fanatical religious community used sarin gas in the Japanese metro in the 1995 killing tens of people, but the same Japanese people greatly respect Emperor Showa who led Japan into WWII and aggression of various countries in South East Asia.
Many Japanese people oppose the idea that Japan should apologize, for example, for the issue of confort women
3) I know few Catholic Christians. They are deeply involved in the Church. After the sex scandals when many priests were found guilty of abuses against children, and many Bishops and Cardinals were accused of obstruction of justice to protect the sex abusers, I asked my friends why they, and many other Christians , simply did not actively protest against all this.
They came out with a lot of excuses, but at the end did not do aything, no condemnation, same as the vast majority of Christians. They even accused me of being against the Church for just raising the issue!

This is where the knack of the problem is: we are good people, maybe, but only torwards our families, friends and fellow citizens.
We do not care much about the suffering of people of other communities countries or religious
Even less if they are part of a group perceived somehow as an "enemy"

This is the reason why wars happen, I believe: it is not a question of disinformation, oppressive institutions or anything else, it is the very essence of human nature

I would like to have read this conclusion in some of your books

Regards,

 

[Watanabe]

His final reply:

You’ve told me your speculations before. I’ve told you that I haven’t the slightest idea why you choose to obsess about your belief that that the human race doesn’t rise to your level of magnificence. Now that we’ve both made our positions clear, there is surely no more reason to continue repeating ourselves.

 

[Noztradamus]

His final reply:

You’ve told me your speculations before. I’ve told you that I haven’t the slightest idea why you choose to obsess about your belief that that the human race doesn’t rise to your level of magnificence. Now that we’ve both made our positions clear, there is surely no more reason to continue repeating ourselves.

Well played. You had me completely fooled. I was convinced your stance was serious

 

[carlitos]

His final reply:

You’ve told me your speculations before. I’ve told you that I haven’t the slightest idea why you choose to obsess about your belief that that the human race doesn’t rise to your level of magnificence. Now that we’ve both made our positions clear, there is surely no more reason to continue repeating ourselves.

Something that I have never, ever said before:

I agree with Professor Chomsky. He is right.

Your entire point, at least as it's been displayed on the JREF Forum in your short stay here, is succinctly captured in the words above. Bravo.

 

[trustbutverify]

His final reply:

You’ve told me your speculations before. I’ve told you that I haven’t the slightest idea why you choose to obsess about your belief that that the human race doesn’t rise to your level of magnificence. Now that we’ve both made our positions clear, there is surely no more reason to continue repeating ourselves.

I respect you for having the nuts to post his replies in full (I assume) here. It appears his replies are practically identical to many of the responses you get on JREF from people who disagree with you; who you then accuse of being mindless dupes of thegreatsatan, whose opinions are unimportant because of the impending downfall of the West after China overtakes the US in GDP.

Interesting.

 

[Courier]

His final reply:

You’ve told me your speculations before. I’ve told you that I haven’t the slightest idea why you choose to obsess about your belief that that the human race doesn’t rise to your level of magnificence. Now that we’ve both made our positions clear, there is surely no more reason to continue repeating ourselves.

You should leave him alone. He clearly doesn't have any respect for your ideas.

 

[Watanabe]

You should leave him alone. He clearly doesn't have any respect for your ideas.

You should leave me alone.
And go trolling somewhere else

 

[Watanabe]

My reply

Prof. Chomsky,
unfortunately, despite my efforts I failed to convince you that I have no interest whatsoever to be considered better than others nor that I even feel the need to discuss about being better or not.
My interest is only in how the world goes and why it goes like that, why wars happen and why people are many times passive: I was trying to do an analysis from a strictly practical point of view, not involving any moral discussion and hear your perspective as a person who knows way more than me.
I am also fully aware that anyone` s duties do not change even if the rest of the world apparently does not care about each other.
However, as said, on this point I am not being able to communicate apparently, so I will leave it to that.

Just one point: I am very impressed that you remembered our past conversations, considering the big amount of mails that you probably receive

Thank you again for taking your time in replying to my mails

Regards

 

[Virus]

I think the only "sheep" here is you and your collection of leftist clichés.

 

[Elizabeth I]

Prof. Chomsky,
I respectfully disagree with you.
People care about the suffering of the others only when the others are members of their families, of their community, of their country. If the "others" are members of another country or another religion, then people do not really care.If the "others" are part of a group perceived as an "enemy", then people may actually enjoy the suffering of the others

There are multiple examples for that:
1) Most Americans were in horror when they saw the news of 9/11, but the vast majority of same people did not really care to protest when their own soldeirs dropped Agent Orange on Vietnamese communities in the 70s or when US soldiers committed atrocities in Falluja, Iraq a few years ago.
2) Most Japanese were in horror when a fanatical religious community used sarin gas in the Japanese metro in the 1995 killing tens of people, but the same Japanese people greatly respect Emperor Showa who led Japan into WWII and aggression of various countries in South East Asia.
Many Japanese people oppose the idea that Japan should apologize, for example, for the issue of confort women
3) I know few Catholic Christians. They are deeply involved in the Church. After the sex scandals when many priests were found guilty of abuses against children, and many Bishops and Cardinals were accused of obstruction of justice to protect the sex abusers, I asked my friends why they, and many other Christians , simply did not actively protest against all this.
They came out with a lot of excuses, but at the end did not do aything, no condemnation, same as the vast majority of Christians. They even accused me of being against the Church for just raising the issue!

This is where the knack of the problem is: we are good people, maybe, but only torwards our families, friends and fellow citizens. We do not care much about the suffering of people of other communities countries or religiousEven less if they are part of a group perceived somehow as an "enemy"

This is the reason why wars happen, I believe: it is not a question of disinformation, oppressive institutions or anything else, it is the very essence of human nature

I would like to have read this conclusion in some of your books

Regards,

The highlighted sections are such ********. When there's a disaster, people from all over rush to help. When we had horrible grass fires in Texas a few years ago, firefighters came from as far away as Mexico and California. After 9/11 a village in Africa offered a herd of 120 cattle to the U.S. (which I think a truly touching gesture.) People from around the world went in to help after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The same thing happened after the Fukushima earthquake. People from all over the U.S. donated money to help Haiti after the earthquake. It's impossible to list all the disasters and the worldwide response to them.

As for no protests about Vietnam, have you read any American history? Why the hell do you think we are no longer fighting that pointless bloody war?

You have real tunnel vision and seem determined to keep yourself ignorant of anything that might be a reason to turn your attention elsewhere.

 

[A'isha]

You should leave me alone.

If you didn't want people commenting on your email conversation with Chomsky, perhaps posting the whole thing on a public message board was not the wisest choice.

 

[Courier]

You should leave me alone.
And go trolling somewhere else

I'm not trolling you.

Your emails to Mr. Chomsky appear to be trolling him. If you already talked to him months ago why did you choose to engage him again?

 

[Watanabe]

If you didn't want people commenting on your email conversation with Chomsky, perhaps posting the whole thing on a public message board was not the wisest choice.

Courier has been trolling and posting about cooking recipes in this thread.
Get informed.