From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Tue Dec 10 2002 - 21:59:10 MST
Lee Daniel Crocker writes
> > (Lee Corbin <lcorbin@tsoft.com>):
> >
> > Am I, or are we, really any different from Chomsky?
> > Well, it's easier for me to change my mind because
> > I don't have millions of fans around the world
> > depending on me to champion their indictment of
> > the West. So, *sometimes*, especially after the
> > passage of years, I can admit that I was wrong.
> > Noam Chomsky cannot.
>
> Admitting error is ... a fundamental basis of the real
> scientific method, and the inability to do so is a serious
> character flaw, not a mere reaction to circumstance.
I still don't believe in the highly touted "scientific
method", and I also think that "character flaw" is putting
it a bit too harshly. I will agree that those who can change
their minds about long-held beliefs are to be praised for
having the capability to do so.
> I have in the past argued for government funding of the
> space program, for patent laws, for privacy protections,
> and other things I now see I was wrong about. If I find
> arguments to change my positions on other things, I will
> change those too.
All you can claim is that you will try. Your brain
is composed of aging neurons, and your ability to
overcome ever more decades of belief will probably
continue to weaken. It's obviously an admirable goal,
however.
> If Noam Chomsky "cannot" change his mind, it's because he
> is a weak and immoral human being,
You were right to put quotes around "cannot". What do
we mean by that exactly? I'll agree with all your
extremely negative characterizations provided that the
subject in question has ADMITTED TO HIMSELF that he is
wrong, but for political or egotistical motives refuses
to publicly say so. Alger Hiss knew all along that
he had been a Soviet spy, and simply lied about it for
political reasons. Oliver North lied to congress. Hiss
is dead, but I hope that North can admit that without
going to jail.
But there is another, and much more important sense in
which one "cannot" change one's mind. It occurs when
one's facile intelligence, strongly influenced by emotion,
busily recasts and re-interprets what one has said and
believed in the past so that it can still be defended.
This is the speaking mode of an apologist.
I will assume that Chomsky's inability to recant about
the Nazi holocaust or about Pot Pol is of the second kind.
Lee Corbin
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