Conservative? and Chomsky

I think you've made my case for me, frankly. If Chomsky's positions are so far removed from the accepted definition of the word "conservative" that you (and he) has to explain that it's actually the "original" version of the term, or something, then you're just proving my point - according to the English language circa 2010, Chomsky isn't a conservative.The notion that somehow only Chomsky is the inheritor of the "true" definition of "conservativism", and all others are "fake" conservatives, is too stupid to even necessitate response. Chiomsky is a liberal regardless of what he calls himself.

Words mean things, Oni. We don't live in the world of Humpty Dumpty where when he uses a word, "it means exactly what he chooses it to mean, no more, no less." We don't live in a world where Chomsky can radically re-define, or de-define, the word "conservative" and expect to merely escape all the connotations of that description just because he says he means something else.Words mean things. The "media" hasn't done anything at all. That's what those words mean. When you take a word that has one meaning, and then use it like it means something else, all you're doing is risking unintelligibility.The only one re-defining terms, here, are you and Chomsky. "Liberal" and "conservative" are words that had a meaning long before either of you came around here, and to say "well, I use the term as they were used in 1776" is all very well and good, but you need to take responsibility for the fact that people are going to be constantly misunderstanding you if they interpret your remarks in the context of the English language, circa 2010. You know, which the rest of us are speaking. Maybe you and Chomsky would like to catch up? Chomsky claims this, and you did, too. You've shown the proof, Oni. I don't need to lift a finger, you've already proven my point.

Not at all. I am merely an observer of the meaning of English words, not the arbiter of them. Which is by definition pretty much the exact opposite of "conservative."I'm fine with Chomsky using obscure terms to classify his belief system, but Oni seems to feel there's absolutely nothing anyone can object to if Chomsky decides to use the wrong term. Chomsky is allowed to define himself any way he pleases. He simply doesn't get to define the words the rest of us may use.If Chomsky would like to define himself as "conservative", on the principle that when he uses a word it means exactly what he intends it to mean (no more and no less), then by the same principle I choose to define him as a "double-decker ham sandwich."

In the context of the politics of America - you know, where Chomsky lives and votes - he's using it according to an archaic definition - which, again, is totally fine except for the part where it's an obstacle to communication with people who use terms according to their modern, present meaning. "Neo-con" is something very different than "conservative", apparently you're not aware. No, I'm not conflating the terms - you are. Chomsky lives in the United States, where these terms have meaning. So? That doesn't justify Chomsky's attempts to re-define words wholesale for everybody else, eve if it's true. Just as "computer" had a well-established definition, at one time, as "a person hired to perform computations." But if you go around saying you had your computer look something up on the internet, people are going to assume that you sat down, used a mouse and keyboard and Firefox, not that you sent your manservant down to the library to Google something.Words mean things - usage is the arbiter, not any individual and not the dictionary. People use these terms in a radically different way than Chomsky does, and he's simply inviting confusion and misunderstanding when he insists "oh, no, I'm the one using the term the right way, not everybody else." They're not. They can't be, since no government has ever been socialist/libertarian - there's nothing to conserve. Sure: he's a socialist/libertarian, as you've demonstrated. QED.

Chomsky doesn't live in "the rest of the world", he lives in the United States and participates in US politics.Therefore US political definitions are most appropriate. And, sorry, but there's no place in the world where "conservative" means "anarcho-socialist." By definition. Which is where Chomsky lives, you live, and I live. So US definitions would seem apropos considering we're talking about US politics. Whoah, hold on a second. From what basis do you assert that "propaganda" is automatically an "incorrect" use of a word? Incorrect word use obscures meaning and makes communication more difficult. Wouldn't propaganda that was difficult to understand and failed to communicate ideas be ineffective? What would be the incentive by a propagandist to misuse a word, since that would only make his propaganda less effective?Propagandists still have to communicate clearly with their audience. More so than other writers, I would think, since the intent is to motivate and influence as many people as possible. I'm sorry, Oni, but no - there's nowhere in the world where "conservative" means "anarcho-socialist." "Conservative" means "resistant to change", but enacting the anarcho-socialist agenda would mean changing nearly everything. You can argue that it's conservative to radically undo modern changes, but no government has ever been anarcho-socialist, so there's no prior anarcho-socialist state to return to.Anarcho-socialism can never be conservative, by definition. Not by any definition of the term at use in the English-speaking world.In the US, of course, where you live, I live, and Chomsky lives, conservative means all of the above plus highly religious social policy, tax cuts for the rich, and interventionist foreign policy: none of which Chomsky supports. There's just no sense in which Chomsky can be described as a "conservative." Not in the US, not in the Burkean sense, not in the sense of any political environment anywhere in the English-speaking world. Sounds like I made a point you lack the capacity to refute. It can declare itself a double-ended dildo, for all I care. Self-declarations are meaningless, as I've shown. By any definition of "conservative" in use in the English-speaking world, socialist-libertarians are not conservatives. Conservativism is a political philosophy that resists radical societal change, but enacting the socialist-libertarian agenda would mandate enormous change at every level of society. Hence, the notion cannot be said to be "conservative."

Here's a famous example of propaganda:Could you explain what terms are being used incorrectly, or are being "re-appropriated by subtle redefinition"? "Talked" had the colloquial definition of "revealed a secret" long before World War II.

You basically equated them, yes.Sorry, I would have thought that the most memorable and effective propaganda pieces would have been illuminating examples of "re-appropriation by subtle redefinition", but now you seem to be indicating the reverse. I wish you would make an effort to be clearer.Are you sure you're not just labelling it "propaganda" when someone uses a word in service of an ideology you don't agree with, and not actually talking about real propaganda? No, of course not. I just don't yet understand how gobbledygook, which is what you produce when you start using words completely at odds with their definitions, would be effective at emotionally manipulating an audience to support a political agenda. Can you elaborate? Be specific.

This should be your first clue that Chomsky is making up definitions to suit himself, in an attempt to re-appropriate the term "conservative" by subtle redefinition. (Hrm, I wonder what that makes him?)In point of fact approximately 140 million Americans describe themselves as "conservative." Noam Chomsky is just one guy. Isn't he kind of outvoted, here?

I'm not sure if I agree or not, since the only examples of "subtle re-definition of terms" shown so far has been Chomsky subtly re-defining words.And "prick"? I thought my messages to you were especially polite. Perhaps you'd be so kind as to quote exactly where you thought I was being a prick? I think what we don't agree on is that this would be a form of propaganda anybody would try to use, since it would render your point unintelligible to use terms radically at odds with their accepted definitions. If my propaganda posters say "Raspberry ideas, onion colorless gas", does that effectively communicate my political support for higher taxes on the rich and an expanded social safety net? I don't see how it could. Why do you think Chomsky has the "original meaning"? He's certainly not old enough to predate its modern use, and his formulation of it is radically at odds with the conservativism of Burke and Oakeshotte, the writers widely credited as the intellectual progenitors of conservativism. Can Chomsky be reconciled with Buckley, who defined conservativism for two generations? It's an impossibility.Chomsky isn't using the original definition. That's been my point throughout. He's re-defining the term to suit himself, to appropriate the positive connotations of conservativism. The links that Oni has put forward only prove that to be true.

Sure.By Chomsky, as I've proven.

What change, specifically? The notion of smaller government, lassez-faire attitudes towards markets, and deference to social tradition dates back to Edmund Burke, circa 1750 or so, when he debated in opposition to Dr. Richard Price's philosophy of the universal rights of man. Well, Chomsky and Oni are, when they try to define "anarcho-socialist" as a form of "conservativism." Burke expressed open horror at the notion that a people should dissolve the bonds that held them citizens to a nation. What would you call "socialism" if not a centralized, dictated, grand ideological project? What would you call "anarchy" except an absurd, utopian fantasy?I mean the idea that Chomsky is promoting a modest government is just absurd. Chomsky wants a government big enough to make sure nobody else tries to start one (anarchism), big enough to make sure nobody asserts ownership of any resource or means of production (socialism.)Nothing about Chomsky's notion to remake society is "conservative" - in any sense, most especially in the sense of intellectual conservativism as inherited from Burke and, later, Oakeshott. I really can't help it, Stragg, if you're determined to read every single post of mine in the same asshole voice.

So, David Cameron is more proof for the notion that libertarianism isn't conservativism. Check. They don't seem to be talking about the same thing at all. Did you notice that Chomsky was talking about the United States and that David Cameron is in the UK? Just wondering.

How does he "participate", as opposed to just "comments on"? Be specific. "Totally opposed"? Did you even read your own quote? Allow me to hoist you on your own petard:

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Communitarians believe that the value of community is not sufficiently recognized in liberal theories of justice.

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In other words - not at all "totally opposed", on the right track but not taken far enough. Of course we are. Don't be ridiculous. We're two US citizens discussing the perspective of a third US citizen named "Noam Chomsky", one of the nation's most famous liberals behind Saul Alinsky and Michael Moore. I didn't say you said "automatically", which is why I didn't put it in quotes. But you didn't answer the question. Why is propaganda automatically an incorrect use of the word? After all, you did say this:

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So, if the word is being used incorrectly for propaganda reasons, it is the US who has re-defined the word to mean whatever they want it to mean.

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Those are your words, are they not? So, answer the question - why is it automatically "incorrect" (your word) to use a word for "propaganda reasons" (your words)? No, but you said that:

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And by all definitions of this political philosophy, they are conservatives, so what, if anything, is your point?

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Are those your words, or aren't they? Is someone typing in words you didn't actually say? No. Declaring the US a double-ended dildo would not make it so. Declaring you a double-ended dildo wouldn't make you one. Declaring yourself "conservative" doesn't make you one, either, unless you hold to conservative positions and ideologies, because words mean things.Do words mean things, Oni, or don't they? I already had, and now I don't need to. You've already proven it. As I've shown, even the material you've put in support of your contentions proves you wrong - the philosophies are not "directly opposed" to classical liberalism. Socialist-libertarianism is a philosophy that believes that classical liberalism doesn't go far enough. That's not at all direct opposition, because, again, words mean things. At some point, Oni, you're going to have to admit that your own evidence has proved that Noam Chomsky is accurately regarded as "liberal". Don't worry; we can keep going with this as long as it takes for you to either drop it or admit that you're wrong. I wasn't even going to chase you down about it, but you just had to bump the thread at me, so that's how it's going to be.

So, he just comments then. Exactly what I thought. Right - "those grounds" being that classical liberals don't take collectivism far enough.It's not "total opposition," Oni, when your beef with the other team is that they're a lot like you, only not enough so. Right. Liberal theories of justice. Well, we're talking about Chomsky and his place in US politics. Don't you remember how all this got started, Oni? Don't tell me you've forgotten:

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But they still have a vote. I get what you mean by fuck 'em, but I think educating them and not allowing the media to control our every thought might be a better solution. How do we get control of our media again? I don't know. But "fuck 'em" is not the answer.

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One thing I counldn't agree more with Omni on was, there was once a time when even if they disagreed they would still work together for the greater good of the country.

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These days that's gone, because you say fuck 'em and they say fuck you.

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"The country." Our country, the United States. Remember? I was refuting your notion that neither conservatives nor liberals have the answers the American people want and need. But your only evidence that it's being used incorrectly - as opposed to just "being used differently than Chomsky uses it" - is that it's being used in propaganda. Remember? That's how we got on the propaganda thing - you asserted that my usage of the term was from propaganda, and therefore incorrect.So answer the question, for the third time: why is propaganda automatically an incorrect use of the word? No, he doesn't. He's opposed to American military adventurism. He's opposed to capitalism. He's opposed to social mores being informed by Christianity and especially opposed to the notion that the law should impose those Christian norms. He's opposed to reverence of tradition.He's a socialist-libertarian. That can't be squared with any definition of "conservativism", and especially not in the Burkean, Oakeshottean mold that predates Chomsky by more than 200 years. Can you show me where "directly opposed" appears in that material? Not just "opposed", but "directly" or "totally" "opposed", as you claimed.Be specific.

Incoherent because they don't take enough of a commitment to collectivism. Are you even reading your own links, Oni? US politics has always been the context, that's where we started and that's where we still are. Yeah? Did you read Burke and Oakeshott yet? Then, for the fourth time, please demonstrate that by recourse to something other than propaganda, or answer the question I originally posed: why is propaganda automatically an incorrect use of the word?Further - "their" propaganda? Whose? The United States? Like, you're saying the government is issuing propaganda about conservatives and liberals? Can you provide an example of this propaganda, please? I didn't say "the military", now did I? Are you going to respond to my points, ever, or just keep attacking things I never actually said? You have somewhat of an honesty problem in these discussions, Oni. It is a liberal position, yes. The separation of church and state is inherently liberal, and conservatives are opposed to it. Chomsky does not take that position, now does he? So you admit that they're not totally opposed, just opposed in ontological grounds. Progress.