The politics of unconscious knowledge

pp. 1-20

in: Christopher Wise, Chomsky and deconstruction, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011

Abstract

The following book on Noam Chomsky is written in response to my own situation as a professor of English and Comparative Literature in the United States. Before writing this book, I sometimes taught Chomsky's books on U.S. foreign policy but did not find his linguistic writings particularly compelling and so ignored them. Much of my previous research has been focused in Africa and the Middle East, including postcolonial studies. While a faculty member at the University of Jordan in Amman in 2001–2003, I taught Chomsky's books on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and also wrote op-ed pieces for the English-language newspaper, The Star (formerly The Jerusalem Star). The historical crises of that period—that is, from 9/11 through the outbreak of the U.S.-Iraq War—inspired me to read Chomsky in a more systematic manner, but also to more carefully investigate his idiosyncratic views about language. On the one hand, Chomsky seemed an exemplary oppositional figure in Edward W. Said's sense, one worthy of careful attention if not emulation. On the other hand, Chomsky's scornful attitude toward major theorists such as Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and others essential to the field of postcolonial studies left me somewhat bewildered. It also seemed paradoxical that, in his regular attacks upon philosophical rivals like Derrida, Foucault, and Julia Kristeva, Chomsky never included the name of Edward Said, although the latter's views about language are far closer to those whom Chomsky reviles than to his own.