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Slinging the Mud: An "Elementary Moral Principle" This period was also marked by the appearance of many contentious reviews, which questioned (among other things) the scientific status of Chomsky's linguistic work. Christine Carling and Terence Moore, for example, argued in the 10 December 1982 issue of the Times Higher Education Supplement that Chomsky's theories had encouraged linguists to move "not closer to but further away from the fundamental issues in language acquisition, understanding and production they initially appeared to be confronting" ; they cited "Chomsky's own attempts to turn linguistics into a `hard' science" (13). Chomsky, these critics asserted, wanted to "introduce into linguistics a scientific method that was novel in the human sciences." His competence/performance distinction drew linguistics away from concerns with language and nudged them towards a "methodology of science." Carling and Moore concluded that Chomsky was on the wrong track, and should instead adopt a "problem based approach," which would make explanation in the field of linguistics "teleological" rather than "reductive" (14). Otero states that the review betrays its authors' "total inability to understand Chomsky's work ­ and much else" (5 Apr. 1995). Reading through journals such as the THES, one is struck by the number of rebuttals that Chomsky has made to those who quarrel with his approach. Is there a cut-off point? Chomsky has suggested in correspondence that the decision to respond depends not only upon time constraints but also upon the seriousness of the criticism and the competence of the reviewer. In this case, Otero's comments suggest one reason why Chomsky never rose to the challenge. In the political domain, Chomsky added substantially to his growing body of writing during this period, publishing Human Rights and American Foreign Policy (1978), Language and Responsibility (1979), and, with Edward S. Herman, The Political Economy of Human Rights (1979). There was ­ partly because his position was anathema to members of certain elites, who recognized that his popularity as a speaker among some segments of the disillusioned public was on the rise ­ an effort to find fault with Chomsky's work in the form of factual errors. But, aside from some trivial slips, Chomsky stood up to the test. Sometimes, however, support for fundamental principles can lead to conflict. And people who search for errors in order to discredit Chomsky's viewpoint play up these conflicts to their own advantage. Freedom of expression is extremely precious to Chomsky, and he upholds his commitment to preserving it, even in the face of provocation from the critics who seem bent on misrepresenting him. It is also an issue that has a complex aspect. Chomsky does not, of course, believe in despots, enlightened or otherwise, either for government or institutions. Ideas and possibilities should be uttered, and their net worth determined in the public domain or in the field to which they belong. Muffling arguments or gagging people simply because they say things somebody doesn't want to hear, or playing down certain kinds of knowledge due to their negative implications, is not an acceptable way of proceeding. At the same time, however, it is not merely a question of allowing people to speak their minds, though at first glance this appears to be a suitably benevolent approach. Chomsky explains:

"Manufacturing Dissent: Noam Chomsky on Journalism"

[N]o one should have the authority to "allow" anything, and ­ crucially ­ I don't at all argue that the reason for "allowing" free expression of thought is that things that work (or are valuable) might be suppressed otherwise. The right of freedom of thought is far more fundamental than that, and the right of free expression of what one thinks (however crazy) is also far beyond these pragmatic considerations. I simply do not agree that the state, or any other system of organized power and violence, should have the authority to determine what people think or say. If the state is granted the power to shut me up, my counterargument is not that what I am saying might be valuable. That would be a contemptible position, in my view (though I recognize that it is the standard one of the people called "libertarians," back very far). (31 Mar. 1995) This is the overriding principle. It does not, however, preclude moral judgments of human concerns; knowledge is value-ridden in this regard, and each individual must be responsible for identifying a focal point: "True, individuals have to make their own decisions about what to `play down' and what to `play up.' The marginal fringe of intellectuals who are more or less honest [will make] moral judgments as to human consequences" (15 Dec. 1992). Regrettably, this is seldom the case for what Chomsky calls "the general run of commissars." They make their decisions "on the basis of career and power interests" : Thus in every society that I know of, surely Stalinist Russia and the West, intellectuals feign great indignation over (often real) crimes of official enemies and are silent, dismissive, or apologetic about those of their own states, those for which they bear some responsibility and those they could help mitigate or overcome if they were honest (leading, as they know, to loss of respectability and privilege). The most elementary moral principles would lead to "playing up" the crimes of domestic origin in comparison to those of official enemies, that is, "playing up" the crimes that one can do something about. But that elementary moral principle is so utterly foreign to commissar culture that anyone who expresses it simply calls upon him/herself instant denunciation as an apologist for the enemy's crimes. That is a reflex of the commissar culture, in Stalinist Russia, in the United States and England, etc. For good, institutional reasons. (15 Dec. 1992) A great deal of the mudslinging that Chomsky has endured was prompted by the failure, in some quarters, of this "elementary moral principle." For taking issue with the American government, he has been accused of being pro-Soviet; for taking issue with Bolshevism and the Soviet government, he has been accused of being anti-Soviet; for taking issue with the Jews, he has been accused of being pro-Arab, and for applying similar principles to Arab actions, he has been accused of being anti-Arab; for taking issue with the Israelis, he has been accused of being anti-Semitic; for taking issue with the propaganda campaign in the West concerning Cambodia, he has been accused of being pro ­ Khmer Rouge; and for taking issue with those who would enforce censorship (against those, for example, who assert that the Holocaust never happened, rather than allowing the absurdity of their arguments to become self-evident), he has been accused of conspiring with the enemy (in this case the Nazis). The controveries that rage around him are invariably more complex than they are portrayed to be, and the facts are often difficult to procure. The Israeli situation is a good example: A personal friend, Edward Said, has also criticized me for not paying attention to Arab sources and looking at things always from the Jewish-Israeli-Western point of view, and there's a lot more. Last time I was in Israel, I gave a lot of political talks, very critical of Israel (in Tel Aviv) and including some criticism of the plo (for Bir Zeit, in the West Bank ­ the talk was in East Jerusalem because the college was closed). The only serious hassle developed with Palestinian intellectuals, because of my criticism of the plo. That was accurately reported by the Israeli press, which is much more honest that anything I know of in the West. (31 Mar. 1995) Chomsky was also attacked, at this time, for his views on the Faurisson affair and Cambodia's Pol Pot regime; on both occasions his detractors failed to come to terms with his message in their zeal to silence him.