The Stonybrook Interviews Part I

Jewish background; immersed in Hebrew literature early; political education from uncles news
stand in 1930s and 40s; mostly leftist intellectual cultures
o There was much psychoanalytical and leftist talk there
o Through politics he discovered linguistics; when 18 he was bored with school and met a
linguist Zellig Harris in Philadelphia
o Harris was a Zionist looking for a bi-national Arab-Jewish state, but this is now called
anti-Zionism
Views on Israeli politics
o Everything changed when the Israeli state was established in 1948; he thinks the Jewish
state was a bad idea and we need a democratic state (for example, the US is a
democratic state, but symbolically a Christian state and does not legislate against non-
Christians)
o The reason he was against the Jewish state is that it was only a Jewish state which was
why they had to militarily occupy Palestine; in 1971 Israel rejected an offer from Egypt
to have a full peace treaty b/c they would have had to withdraw from only Egyptian
territory and nothing about the West Bank; it was discussed internally, but they did not
want to integrate into the region, but wanted to expand and so needed to depend on
the US
Is there an end to the Israeli problem?
o Yes, a political settlement on the pre-1967 border and arrangements; the crucial issue is
territorial and the US unilaterally blocks this
o Jerusalem under the original UN resolutions is supposed to be an international city, but
this wont happen; we need to make two capitals side by side, but the Palestinian one
would have to have access to the Palestenian state
What was the war in Iraq about?
o The US contradicted itself, b/c it said it was about WMDs, but then when these were
gone, they still were at war; then we said it was about Saddam, etc.
o The best speculation is that Iraq was about oil reserves and the US wanted control on
these; why the timing then? Because it was midterm elections and it would be better to
have safety an issue and also, there was a new policy for our intention to rule the world
by force and to have pre-emptive war doctrine of anyone against us; the best target is
weak and defenseless like Iraq
What will follow in Iraq?
o A special type of democracy like in central America which is a democracy on the
condition that they are for US policy or they will be overthrown
o Ex. In Cuba, the US terrorist attack happened months after Castro took over; it is the
same in Guatemala, Iran, etc.
o The wars in Central America in the 1980s were to impose a form of democracy which
traditional elites would retain power; this will happen in Iraq
Are politics driven by the economic interests of the elite?
o This is the opinion of everyone who works on foreign affairs, but this is true of every
country since in every country not everyone is equal and the rich are powerful and they
make the decisions
o Ex. If there is a powerful union, then labor will make a contribution to politics, but the
US does not have this, they have business parties and there is a corporate sector linked
close to government and they set government policy choices
o The media does not even talk about this and there are many issues where there is a
huge split between elite and popular opinion, but these issues do not even come up in
elections (ex. international economic arrangements, international politics, etc.)
Is this the old cabal theory?
o If it is crazy to think that people with wealth and power will use their influence, then this
is crazy
Quotes from Chomsky
o The bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese saved millions of lives.
o The bombing in Afghanistan was silent genocide.
o If the Nuremberg mandates were upheld, all post-WWII presidents would be
indictable.
Eisenhower overthrew the conservative nationalist party in Iran with a coup
which led to a dictatorship which only ended in 1979; overthrew the last
democratic party in Guatemala which led to massive atrocities still going on; in
Indonesia he tried to break up the island where most of the resources were
Kennedy invaded South Vietnam in 1962 and used chemical weapons to
destroy food crops; in Cuba as said before
Johnson expanded the war in Indo-China which led to 3-4 million people being
dead; supported the Israeli occupation
Nixon
Ford endorsed the Indonesian invasion in East Timor where hundreds of
thousands were killed; they gave weapons
Carter gave more weapons to Indonesia and when it was blocked by Congress,
he had Israel give them weapons; he won the Nobel Prize in the Middle East
with the Camp David prize for accepting the Egypt 1971 offer
Reagan condemned by the national court of justice for the war against
Nicuragua
Bush invaded Panama which killed about 3000 people to kidnap Noreaga for
crimes that he committed which on the CIA notebook
Clinton set a couple cruise missles in the Sudan to destroy a pharmaceudical
plant which k
Killed 10s of thousands of people; he declared past UN resolutions in the middle
east worthless
Newsday went off the reservation and started reporting everything that was happening, but NC
guess is that he was reporting leaks from the government saying that Iraq was making offers
which were negotiable
o No one in the state department leaks things to such a small paper, but what happened
is that they were leaking them to the NY Times who refused to print them and then they
leaked them to Newsday
Since WWII, we are edging very close to destroying everything, and if the people do not take
control, then everything might be gone
o The preventive war doctrine of the US is really just saying that people better become
terrorists to go against the US
o For hundreds of years in the 1800s Europe slaughtered everyone until 1945 when they
all called it off since if they kept at this, they could end the world; unless this idea
extends to the world, this will end the world
The Stony Brook Interview Part II
NC is most famous for his international politics and media theory; he is also important in
linguistics and analytic philosophy
Why arent scientists engaged with the philosophical community?
o They are involved in technical problems and dont think what it is about; he has students
read papers from Quine which says that some of what science does is folly, but then
they go back doing what they are doing
o The problem is we should be thinking about what we are up to
Hilary Putnum wrote The Meaning of Meaning which says that meaning is not in the head
o NC says that this is incoherent since before we decide whether meanings are in the head
or not, we need to know what they are; if by meaning we have in mind what people
normally say, then they are all over the place, the meaning of life is not in the head
o If we define meaning technically so that it is in the head, then it should not surprise us
that we find that meaning is in the head; the way it is done in the sciences and should
be done in philosophy, is that we define a technical notion in the area of a technical
theory (so, we should say Is this theory a good one and where does it place meaning?)
What about taking the pre-theoretical notion of meaning and we want to elucidate it in some
way?
o We could do this, but what do we do with the pre-theoretical idea of the meaning of
life?
o Some pre-theoretical meaning is about saying what do you mean by so and so which
means that it deals with our intentions. When we talk about the meaning of a word, this
is a specific English locution that we can clarify, but this only makes sense in light of a
framework of a theory to understand our intentions and our terms should be defined in
light of this theory
What about the content of a mental state?
o No, since this is a technical notion that is not being used as the ordinary concept of
content
o Since Putnum and Kripke it is used as something out in the world, and this is just
because we have decided to define it as out in the world and not in the head
What if we thought about this way if we were to study primates, we can be interested in
anatomy or ecology (the relations btw primate and its environment) and what these
philosophers are saying is that talk of meaning has to be the human in relations to its
environment
o NC yes, we have to study the relation of the human to its environment if this is what
we decide to study, but if we wanted to do this seriously, then we need to pay attention
to the anatomy, physiology, mental processes, their perceptual abilities, etc.
o 8:00