Thread by @DannyPostel

The other night @BillFletcherJr & Noam Chomsky had a critical dialogue on Ukraine in which Chomsky managed to pack multiple distortions into a set of passing comments on Syria. In this essay @Yassinhs details how Chomsky gets the Syrian story badly wrong.

newlinesmag.com/review/chomsky…

Chomsky's take on Ukraine was equally problematic. The US is to blame. Russia's assault, while criminal, is understandable. No mention of Ukraine's resistance to imperial aggression. Ukrainians barely appear in Chomsky's equation, which centers exclusively on Great Power politics

As David Ost notes:

[F]or leftists to be more concerned with the security interests of a great power—in this case, a right-wing militarist power—than with the desires of a small people hoping to secure their independence and not be invaded, is scandalous

commondreams.org/views/2022/04/…

The flaws & limitations of Chomsky's worldview—his tone-deafness to struggles from below that don't fit into a myopic US-centric equation—were on spectacular display in his exchange with @BillFletcherJr, who tried to push his interlocutor but to no avail.

Those flaws & limitations are also on excruciating display in this correspondence between Chomsky & the leftist journalist @GeorgeMonbiot on Bosnia & Rwanda, which also reveal a stubbornness bordering on pathological. It lays bare the problem at the core.

monbiot.com/2012/05/21/218…

It's instructive to contrast Chomsky's US-centric perspective & reluctance to discuss Putinism as an ideological project with the perspectives of leftist activists, writers & intellectuals in Russia & Ukraine, who see the situation very differently...

https://twitter.com/LeftEast1/status/1512024888852324352

This is not just a critique of Chomsky but of the myopic US-centric worldview of which he is a leading, hugely influential figure.

It's also a plea to listen to the voices of Ukrainian & Russian leftists, whose perspectives are *so* much more insightful.

https://twitter.com/NewPoliticsMag/status/1512926125412003844

Eastern European leftists have an apt term for what Chomsky did in the dialogue with @BillFletcherJr (and in general): Westplaining

Here's an excellent thread from @GeorgeMonbiot on this problematic tendency...

https://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/1503758826461409287

Another excellent thread on this nefarious phenomenon, from the Eastern European feminist scholar @TerezaHendl

https://twitter.com/TerezaHendl/status/1501856041734189059