Books in Brief: American Power and the New Mandarins

American Power and the New Mandarins, by Noam Chomsky (Pantheon, $7.95). When a reviewer takes up a book denouncing America’s Vietnam policy previously damned in public prints by Arthur Schlesinger, he has a right to expect the unusual. Indeed, for sheer hysterical irrationalism this volume is absolutely without peer among recent critiques of United States diplomacy. A few samples: our military effort in Vietnam is a “revolting and disgusting barbarism.” The Pentagon is “the most hideous institution on this earth,” and the United States stands convicted of “unconstrained viciousness” and “butchery.” Indeed, American imperialism is distinguishable from that of Japan, Germany and the Soviet Union only because the policies of the latter were related in some measure to their national interest. There is no legitimate interest of any kind justifying our presence in Asia; not only is the Communist threat a self-serving myth, but in fact the United States and the Soviet Union are united in opposition to “popular revolution” around the world. Here Chomsky’s own ideological predilections surface most directly: a self-professed admirer of Bakunin and of anarcho-syndicalism, he believes that all contemporary political institutions are evil, since they seek to maintain stability and protect the interests of elites, and thereby obstruct the effort of the “lower orders” to obtain social justice. In the course of his diatribe, Chomsky develops a cogent brief against the “new mandarins,” the behavioral scientists and technocrats of contemporary liberalism, noting at length the extent to which their gnostic expectations concerning the world’s future impede the formation of intelligent public policy. Fundamentally a romantic and a utopian, however, Chomsky has allowed his hatred for the evils of the world around him to destroy his capacity to draw relevant political and moral distinctions, and thus even his valid insights lose most of their force. But in the contest for The Most Alienated Intellectual of the Year Award, this book has done more than make Chomsky the winner: he must be judged the very apotheosis of the breed.

JD

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J. E. Dornan Jr.

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American Power and the New Mandarins, by Noam Chomsky (Pantheon, $7.95). When a reviewer takes up a book denouncing America’s Vietnam policy previously damned in public prints by Arthur Schlesinger, he has a right to expect the unusual. Indeed, for sheer hysterical irrationalism this volume is absolutely without peer among recent critiques of United States diplomacy. A few samples: our military effort in Vietnam is a “revolting and disgusting barbarism.” The Pentagon is “the most hideous institution on this earth,” and the United States stands convicted of “unconstrained viciousness” and “butchery.” Indeed, American imperialism is distinguishable from that of Japan, Germany and the Soviet Union only because the policies of the latter were related in some measure to their national interest. There is no legitimate interest of any kind justifying our presence in Asia; not only is the Communist threat a self-serving myth, but in fact the United States and the Soviet Union are united in opposition to “popular revolution” around the world. Here Chomsky’s own ideological predilections surface most directly: a self-professed admirer of Bakunin and of anarcho-syndicalism, he believes that all contemporary political institutions are evil, since they seek to maintain stability and protect the interests of elites, and thereby obstruct the effort of the “lower orders” to obtain social justice. In the course of his diatribe, Chomsky develops a cogent brief against the “new mandarins,” the behavioral scientists and technocrats of contemporary liberalism, noting at length the extent to which their gnostic expectations concerning the world’s future impede the formation of intelligent public policy. Fundamentally a romantic and a utopian, however, Chomsky has allowed his hatred for the evils of the world around him to destroy his capacity to draw relevant political and moral distinctions, and thus even his valid insights lose most of their force. But in the contest for The Most Alienated Intellectual of the Year Award, this book has done more than make Chomsky the winner: he must be judged the very apotheosis of the breed.