--- steve <steve365@btinternet.com> wrote:
> Joe, the piece was in The Nation (there's an
> amazingly evasive response from
> Chomsky in the current issue).
Chomsky's response can be found at:
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=chomsky20011001
I have to disagree in the strongest possible terms to
the characterization of Chomsky's response as
"evasive". I have never seen him in better form.
Semantically precise, and scholastically rigorous.
The Pablo Casals of reasoned and ETHICAL discourse.
Whatever cultural myth I might adhere to, Chomsky is
its author. However, you must judge for yourself.
I like Christopher Hitchens' politics and his style.
His erudite acidity is delicious. Everything he
writes, that I find--and often I go looking--I read.
Of the piece where he spatters that acid in Noam's
direction however, Chomsky hits it right on the head
when he says Hitchens is "fulminating". Hitchens is
so possessed by his passion, that it often brings his
art to the edge of coherency, challenging the reader
to be smart enough to hold the thread. In this case,
the rage provoked by the events of 9/11 seem to have
pushed him past coherency. Understandable considering
the circumstances.
I have no problem with the dissonance between two of
my chief philosophical standard bearers. I guess that
Hitchen's problem with Chomsky is similar to my own.
Chomsky seems a cold fish. A pure dispassionte
intellectual--"lives there a man with soul so
dead...?"--who enumerates atrocities, but emotes not a
hint of outrage. One might guess that he has no
feelings at all. This has always bothered me, but
I've come to accept it. Part of the package. The
other part--the good part--is the purest of truth, all
signal, no noise.
Hitchens is his opposite in regard to evident passion.
A man whose rage must be contained, bounded, by his
erudition, or else lose its effect.
Hitchens piece can be got at:
www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?special&s=hitchens20010924
> see also
>
> www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20011008&s=hitchens
>
> Steve Davies
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Joe Dees" <joedees@addall.com>
> To: <extropians@extropy.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2001 2:25 AM
> Subject: Christopher Hitchens' Column
>
>
> > Can anyone furnish me with the post-WTC
> column in which Christopher
> Hitchens refers to Islamic nations as 'fascist'?
> > I'd greatly appreciate a link.
> >
> > Thanxabunch, Joe
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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