WHAT WE LEARN FROM CHOMSKY v. BUCKLEY

a LEFT hook
RIGHT to the face

The 1969 televised spectacle of debacle between Messrs. William F. Buckley and Noam Chomsky is widely available on the various free viewing “tubes” of the World Web. Mr. Buckley is a titan of neo-conservative punditry whose fabulously resonant simpering and hyper-articulate ejaculations helped shape a generation on the Right wing of American politics. His formidable opponent, Mr. Chomsky, holds a similar status on the Left and is renown for his bewilderingly competent grasp of the published facts and his arch-rational speaking style.

Left vs. Right. Morality vs. Ethics. The Intellectual Consensus of the Culture vs. the Critical Consensus of the International Arena.

This video is little gem whose flashiest facet is the unexpectedly REAL threat that Mr. Buckley makes re: punching Mr. Chomsky right in the face. Both men are used to dominating conversations, eluding questions, and talking over other people while maintaining a pose of righteous reasonableness. The tension runs high and we can delight in their nearly domestic refusal to fully listen to each other's comments. In some sense they cease to be mere historical men and become the avatars of twin tendencies within the cultural field of modern democratic capitalism, the White & Red dragons of myth... or the White & Red wings of one dragon.

When their frustration mutually peaks we see that Mr. Chomsky struggles to get “on top” of his anger and tries to confess it within the stream of social discourse. Mr. Buckley, on the other hand, embodies his rage in a quick flash that betrays more than a little of the narcissistic poseur. One climbs up out out his uncomfortable feelings, heading for the mind, while the other descends into physicality and general theatrics. Is this a key to the Left/Right split in social dynamics? It is the little known position of the Neo-Reichians that Conservative Emotional Pathology maintains a vital but perverted connection to the bodily core – the “gut” -- while the Liberal Emotional Pathology orbits up the surface of the body and replaces the gut with the mind. These are hardly firm divisions but they are endlessly suggestive... and fit very nicely with theories like the following:

Conservatives are interiorists, locating the source of social problems within the feelings, beliefs and choices of individuals while Liberals are exteriorists who locate the trouble in the actual conditions, materials and habits of the society.

(And if you are too frail for general categorizations please insert “tends to” wherever you like...)

Another gorgeous facet of the discussions dazzles out when they come upon the question of whether Imperialism totally or only partially characterizes any given political regime. Mr. Buckley leaps upon this point, calling it a clear “observable” difference. Mr. Chomsky blurts out a correction, saying it obviously a “conceptual” distinction. Each is citing his own medium when he tries to assert his message.

Even more wonderful! Mr. Chomsky denounces hypocrisy among rapacious and idealistic States... but he does admit “some exceptions.” Mr. Buckley naturally assumes this as a reference to the class of morally laudable exceptions who can truly “walk their talk.” He is quickly corrected by Mr. Chomsky who, it turns out, meant only to say that a few Nations are entirely rapacious and do not even bother with the rhetoric of virtue.

Our Leftist believes that the hidden, problematic motives in rational societies are revealed by a negative sub-class of pure maniacs. Our (curiously effeminate) Rightist assumes that a positive sub-class must be elevated over the obviously problematic nature of society. The former is illuminating the difficulties in the actual implementation of ethical agendas, while the latter is highlighting the ideals that must be incorporated at the site of the social dilemma being considered. I read these as complementary assignments, mutual functions – the healthy Left and Right wings of the same bird.

One group is built to locate the precise site of the antagonism by raising a flag of cultural ideals above this pit. It does this intuitively, by feeling out its own refined responses and filtering them through the matrix of traditionally-established popular concepts. In my mind the Right is the diagnostician and the Left is the giver of prescriptions. An adequate strategy cannot be produced by gut-feeling and idealism since, it is endless revealed through history, the best intentions lead straight to Hell. A decent program for action must bypass the specific cultural ideals and harness all the available data in an manner that is orchestrated by the ethical operating-instructions for beneficial engagements with Others.

Conservatives are not built for analysis or strategic implementation. Progressive Social-Liberals are not built to identify the actual sources of trouble.

We need Liberal Solutions to Conservative Problems. Not a third-way fusion but a re-engagement of the natural sociological function which both parties are already attempting to perform.

Among, say, the abortions, we might look to the Right to locate the fundamental question and mark it with an imperative ideal. So "We must not kill babies!" is read as meaning that the question of babyhood is THE essential site of the dilemma which assails us its pressurized moral potency. Yet the destruction, banning, etc. of abortion clinics is a feeble and barbaric solution. The Right is not solution oriented. There are too many ambiguities and troubling feelings among the facts upon which good, ethical strategy must be based -- they are too sensitive for that. They would rather reject the dissonance by turning it over to a God, Law or the motives of Heathens. The trend to seek solutions in ancient myth, gossip and popular emotionalism is quite obviously an abdecation of Implementation.

Or consider the right-wing instinct toward social hierarchy -- a fine idea, except... that conservative authoritarians do not occupy the upper levels.

The trend to It must be left to Liberals to make the fine distinctions between a mere fetal mass and a functional, anthropomorphic utero-person... taking their cue from the general (but demystified) Conservative estimation, marked by an absolute/ideal flag. Without such guidance, the Progressive sentiments may simply produce a suffocating mass of rules against offensiveness, set against a backdrop of paralyzing relativism.

In the matter of having a Left and Right hand we would be complete fools to fuse them, to cut one off, to deny their difference or to take turns – switching every four or eight years.

Our “permissive culture” is organically sensed by the Conservative as a problem of the absence of shared disciplinary virtues. When they propose virtues that are found in dusty tomes from ancient lands which they themselves pervert and deny in their “unwatched private spaces” we know simply that they are not in the business of providing those disciplinary virtues. The source of practical virtues must come from those variation-tolerating, fact-admitting, self-critical Liberal Progressives.

The last beautiful bit to mention is that Chomsky slips his tongue and refers to “The Greeks” simply as “Greek” -- mistaking the people for their language-category. Exquisite!