The Chomsky Challenge

When I cite the work of Noam Chomsky, as I occasionally do, people often write to inform me that Chomsky is a crazed liar, a fanatic, an America-hating monster. This surprises me as I’ve read a bunch of Chomsky’s work and checked some of his most surprising claims and he invariably comes across as a very scholarly (sometimes to the point of absurdity) academic who typically presents a number of facts and then suggests some conclusions that follow from them.

Since the things I learn from Chomsky are drawn from his collection of the facts, the proper way to convince me that he’s wrong is to find a factual error in what he’s said.

I hereby offer $50 to anyone who can find an uncorrected material factual error in one of Chomsky’s published political works.

Some explanation:

uncorrected: No cheating. If Chomsky says “I made a mistake in X, it should have said Y”, you can’t just copy this and count it as an error. However, I don’t even know of many instances where Chomsky has done this (although I’m sure there are some), so I would appreciate it if you could send me some (although I will not necessarily pay for them). Similarly, people who repeat things submitted (or suggested for submission) by others will not receive the prize, only the original person will.

material: It has to be relevant to the point he’s making, not a typo or a misspelling, the kind we all make.

factual: The error has to be in some factual claim — a document said this, the government did that — not some broader conclusion drawn from a series of such claims.

error: It is not sufficient to cite Chomsky saying something you don’t like to hear and then say no, or to cite a newspaper article that says the thing that Chomsky is trying to refute. You have to at least find a source that investigates the question to a greater extent than Chomsky does.

published: Almost everyone makes minor errors in public conversation or off-the-cuff remarks. Chomsky’s error must be in a scholarly work (i.e. a work with footnotes) that he has written and published, not a transcript of an interview or talk. Chomsky has published numerous scholarly books, so this shouldn’t be too hard.

political: I am not interested in errors in Chomsky’s linguistic work — Chomsky himself frequently notes that all of his work is likely wrong and will be replaced with new ideas. Instead, I am looking for errors in Chomsky’s political writing.

If you would like to take up this challenge, you can send a comment as described below. Please include:

The full text of Chomsky’s comment. The citation for its source. A substantive refutation of this claim.

Please don’t include anything additional commentary.

I will post any claims that meet these requirements on this page. After each award of the prize I will decide whether to continue the program (thus, if someone finds 1000 falsehoods, I won’t necessarily pay out $50,000).

Admitted Errors

In the first book that I wrote, American Power and the New Mandarins, in the first edition there a slight error, namely that I attributed a quote to Truman which was in fact a very close paraphrase, almost verbatim paraphrase of what he said in a secondary source. I got a note mixed up and instead of citing the secondary source I cited Truman. It was corrected within about two months, in the second printing.

(Noam Chomsky, Chronicles of Dissent (David Barsamian, int.), 350)

(I’d read this quote before I started the challenge but didn’t recall it; thanks to Oliver Kamm for the reminder.)

Concluded Errors

Dismissed Errors

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October 22, 2005