Noam Chomsky: 9-11: Institutional Analysis vs. Conspiracy Theory

[Jonti]

A little Learning is a dang'rous Thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring:
There shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.

Fir'd at first Sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless Youth we tempt the Heights of Arts, [220]
While from the bounded Level of our Mind,
Short Views we take, nor see the lengths behind,
But more advanc'd, behold with strange Surprize
New, distant Scenes of endless Science rise!
So pleas'd at first, the towring Alps we try,
Mount o'er the Vales, and seem to tread the Sky;
Th' Eternal Snows appear already past,
And the first Clouds and Mountains seem the last:
But those attain'd, we tremble to survey
The growing Labours of the lengthen'd Way, [230]
Th' increasing Prospect tires our wandering Eyes,
Hills peep o'er Hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

An Essay on Criticism
By Alexander Pope

 

[8den]

How do you know anything?

Look if it's on teh internet it must be true.

I'm not bothering responding to squeege he lives in a world when the laws of gravity were repealled the day Steven Hawkins wrote his first paper.

 

[Jazzz]

Donna Ferentes is a Cretan*.

* for the purposes of discussion only

This one doesn't cause any trouble though. Some Cretans may in fact lie some but not all of the time, therefore the statement 'all Cretans are liars' is a lie, and it's all hunky dory.

 

[Jazzz]

You're the only still going on about them, chum.

Oh good, we finally got off the subject!

 

[ZAMB]

I just posted this link on the documentary thread too - just in case this one goes the way of most 9/11 threads.

Ask All You Like about 9/11, But Just Don't Ask Why?
Robert Fisk
February 5, 2003

http://mitworld.mit.edu/play/107/

Towards the end of the lecture he does mention knowing and talking to the parents of one of the bombers afterwards, but I think it is a very good lecture to take you away from the 9/11 'event' conspiracy theories to the more important question, as I think Chomsky would agree, of the political conspiracies and really evil acts by the so called 'West' that made something like 9/11 inevitable.
IMO, of course.

 

[Jonti]

A Cretan says: All Cretans are liars*.

This one doesn't cause any trouble though. Some Cretans may in fact lie some but not all of the time, therefore the statement 'all Cretans are liars' is a lie, and it's all hunky dory.

Nah. Everyone lies at least occasionally, that's not the point at all.

There's no trouble with paradoxes except to recognise them. This one's pretty much the same paradox as "This sentence is false."

Bertrand Russell's "set of all sets" paradox is good too.


* They lie about everything, all of the time

 

[Jazzz]

A Cretan says: All Cretans are liars*.

* They lie about everything, all of the time

even if liars must lie about everything all of the time, you then still have the possibility that only SOME but not all cretans are liars, this statement is therefore a lie, which is again fine

 

[squeegee]

Alan Watts is like, everywhere and nowhere, man.

The paradoxical statement is "Anything is possible". The paragraph spells out why it is paradoxical.

More succinctly: If anything is possible, then it is possible that the statement "anything is possible" is untrue. So anything is not possible.

Semantics. Not truth. And Alan Watts describes spirituality as well as any western popular author, but like, hey man lots of people liked him so he isn't some obscure author read by five people, therefore he must be crap, right?. And anyway, I'm sure many of the cynics here would agree that spirituality in not "provable" so it can't be true, right?

The ability to hold contradictory thoughts simultaneously is not just the preserve of Ingsoc (Orwell did a disservice to that concept, but that's probably cos he came from the rationlist English Oxbridge class, so was having his dig at spirituality, consciously or unconsciously), It is, more pointedly, the basis of creativity.

It is the rationalists who get all confused when confronted with paradoxes. The (half) brain tries to work it out rationally. How can something be right and wrong and neither at the same time – meltdown! Inferior thought processes which rationalists have in common with religious fundamentalists who take holy books literally.

That's why we need both sides of the brain, and that's why asking for "proof" as the sole basis for truth regarding anything, not least what happened on 9/11, is a limiting way of perceiving the world.

And since all we have to use on message boards are words, then we are limiting ourselves to arguments over semantics, rather than truth.

Chomsky is of the atheist rationalist school as well, I believe. Which means his analyses, though useful in meeting fire with fire, are themselves limited, as is socialism, to being a critique of the material world, without ever being able to offer solutions to the actual world.

And the answers to who was responsible for 9/11 require not just logic, but, as I said, intuitive reasoning and creative thinking, since we are confronted by a machine with incredible financial resources fighting for its life to stay in control. You think such a machine (and its operators) would not do everything in its power to maintain control?

Fundamentalists of any description have always been the problem. Beyond reasonable doubt is the best we can hope for and indeed all our courts can ask us to be certain of.

I doubt it will be Chomsky uncovering the truth about 9/11. But someone will. Yes, you can fool some of the people all of the time...

 

[Bob_the_lost]

So much pop science/philosophy/logic it's painful.

 

[editor]

And the answers to who was responsible for 9/11 require, not just logic but, as I said, intuitive reasoning, and creative thinking, since we are confronted by a machine with incredible financial resources fighting for their lives to stay in control.

Utter drivel. Exactly what "intuitive reasoning" are you going to possess in relation to the events of 9/11?

You're just making piss-weak excuses for the total absence of anything remotely approaching credible proof for the various bonkers conspiracy theories that have been endlessly regurgitated here.

Mind you, there's been no shortage of 'creative thinking' going on, although I'd be more inclined to call it 'fantasy.'

 

[Roadkill]

Rationalists have and will contribute far more to finding out how the world works and doing something about it than the babbling flights of fancy of spiritualists, whose rejection of rationalism is simply an excuse for them to talk bollocks and not have to give a sensible answer when pulled up on it.

In other words, you're talking total crap, squeegee.

 

[Badger Kitten]

This sort of claptrap is why I think the 9/11 Truth thing is functions as a cult. You have to beleive. It's not about mere facts and evidence, pshaw. You have to be enlightened.


Filling a God-shaped hole.

 

[beeboo]

since we are confronted by a machine with incredible financial resources fighting for its life to stay in control. You think such a machine (and its operators) would not do everything in its power to maintain control?

Even if you accept that the US govnt. would have been willing to stage terrorist attack, you would have to question what possible rationale they would have for doing it in the way of 9/11. It would make absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Your envisaging a situation not unlike the parody conversation between Rumsfeld/Cheney/Bush that 8den posted up a while back.

I don't see quite where all this talk of paradoxes/nature of truth is taking us - may as well conclude that 9/11 didn't happen at all and it is just the lizards that have brainwashed us to believe it did

 

[axon]

That's why we need both sides of the brain, and that's why asking for "proof" as the sole basis for truth regarding anything, not least what happened on 9/11, is a limiting way of perceiving the world.

I'm not aware of anyone discussing 911 that is not using both sides of their brain (half brain jokes aside), I think you'll find that both sides are actually connected. Using a rational, evidence led argument is the only way to build up a coherent internally consistent model of anything. Otherwise you go down deadends such as I intuitively know that Squeegee was responsible for 911. You cannot refute this except by invoking rational argument, or by claiming your intuition tells you otherwise, at which point I claim my intuition is better than yours...and on and on and on.

And the answers to who was responsible for 9/11 require not just logic, but, as I said, intuitive reasoning and creative thinking, since we are confronted by a machine with incredible financial resources fighting for its life to stay in control.

Here you have already decided who was responsible for 911. How do you know we are being confronted by this machine?

 

[Jazzz]

Even if you accept that the US govnt. would have been willing to stage terrorist attack, you would have to question what possible rationale they would have for doing it in the way of 9/11. It would make absolutely no sense whatsoever.

err, they said they needed a 'new Pearl Harbour'. Their words, PNAC document from 2000. They got it only a year later.

 

[squeegee]

Rationalists have and will contribute far more to finding out how the world works and doing something about it than the babbling flights of fancy of spiritualists, whose rejection of rationalism is simply an excuse for them to talk bollocks and not have to give a sensible answer when pulled up on it.

In other words, you're talking total crap, squeegee.

Spiritualists don't reject rationalism. Rationalists reject spiritualism. So you, my ignorant friend, are the one talking crap.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

err, they said they needed a 'new Pearl Harbour'. Their words, PNAC document from 2000. They got it only a year later.

Selective reading again there Jazzz.

you would have to question what possible rationale they would have for doing it in the way of 9/11. It would make absolutely no sense whatsoever.

You have an amazing ability to read a paragraph and fail to grasp the salient points, i'm impressed.

 

[Jazzz]

This sort of claptrap is why I think the 9/11 Truth thing is functions as a cult. You have to beleive. It's not about mere facts and evidence, pshaw. You have to be enlightened.

No BK, you don't have to 'believe' - including the official theory. That's the tough thing. NOT believing, and instead of a nice ordered world where everyone knows what's going on, you have uncertainty and manipulation.

 

[Blagsta]

The thing that most pisses me off about the squeegee's, azrael23's etc of the world is their fucking arrogance. Their view that only they have access to truth, their thought processes are superior. They assume that us mere mortals need spiritual education to see the truth. They can't get their heads round the fact that we may have actually explored and understood all the stuff they're wanking on about and still rejected it as nonsense...

 

[Jazzz]

Selective reading again there Jazzz.

You have an amazing ability to read a paragraph and fail to grasp the salient points, i'm impressed.

Well I don't see what's un-Pearl Harbour like about 9/11, which is what they wanted, where's the distinction?

 

[beeboo]

err, they said they needed a 'new Pearl Harbour'. Their words, PNAC document from 2000. They got it only a year later.

That wasn't my point - my point was if you accept that USG would have been willing to do something like 'a new pearl harbour', it still doesn't mean you accept they would have gone about it in the way of 9/11 - it's just, far, far, too high risk.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

Well I don't see what's un-Pearl Harbour like about 9/11, which is what they wanted, where's the distinction?

The methodology, see the spoof 8ball posted earlier. Third time lucky?

 

[Jazzz]

If methodology is to be considered, would you care to explain why the hijackers allowed flight 77 to fly away from Washington for 40 minutes before hijacking it and flying back, knowing full well that every extra minute would increase the chances of being intercepted?

That spoof is silly - had the towers just been blown up, it wouldn't have been the same at all - for a start, you would only have one collapse happening live on television, instead of one plane impact and two collapses, secondly we wouldn't all have this associated fear of aeroplanes, it would nothing like the same.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

No, you're missing the point again.

If you're going to use it as an excuse to invade a nation then you would damn well ensure there was a link to iraq in the backgrounds of the hijackers. As for blowing them up it'd increase the fear. A press release saying "Yaaa, we're doing the same next friday unless you all send Saddam a birthday card" and a few follow up blasts would do the trick nicely.

 

[Jazzz]

No, you're missing the point again.

If you're going to use it as an excuse to invade a nation then you would damn well ensure there was a link to iraq in the backgrounds of the hijackers. As for blowing them up it'd increase the fear. A press release saying "Yaaa, we're doing the same next friday unless you all send Saddam a birthday card" and a few follow up blasts would do the trick nicely.

I've addressed this point already. 9/11 is not simply to invade Iraq, or even Afghanistan and Iraq (remember Afghanistan? We still have troops there dying) - read the PNAC document. It's to create a phoney war against terrorism which can be used to invade a whole load of countries, and not only that, but to deconstruct our most basic freedoms. You can see it justifying a police state
daily.

Besides which, it worked perfectly well to invade Iraq, we're there aren't we? Or am I mistaken and did our troops stay at home?

edited to add - and isn't it so much easier to recruit patsies from a friendly country rather than a hostile one? How many Iraqis get granted visas to the US?

 

[Jonti]

Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?

They said they needed a 'new Pearl Harbour'. Their words, PNAC document from 2000. They got it only a year later.

Kind of asking for it, really.

 

[Jonti]

even if liars must lie about everything all of the time, you then still have the possibility that only SOME but not all cretans are liars, this statement is therefore a lie, which is again fine

No. Consider your two possibilities represented by the truthful and liar Cretans.

a) the person saying "All Cretans are liars" is truthful.
Then he has lied, which is a contradiction.

b) the person saying "All Cretans are liars" is a liar
Then he has told the truth, which is a contradiction.

QED

 

[editor]

I've addressed this point already. 9/11 is not simply to invade Iraq, or even Afghanistan and Iraq (remember Afghanistan?

It's to create a phoney war against terrorism which can be used to invade a whole load of countries, and not only that, but to deconstruct our most basic freedoms. You can see it justifying a police state
daily

I can only be amazed and gasp at your hindsight-assisted, highly selectively reading of events that you've managed to shoehorn into an elaborate conspiracy theory that would involve the willing assistance of tens of thousands of perpetually-silent accomplices scattered all over the globe.

edited to add - and isn't it so much easier to recruit patsies from a friendly country rather than a hostile one?

FFS. Not this 'patsie' bollocks again. According to you, just about every major news incident that catches the comaspiraloons fancy can only have been accomplished by these ever-willing patsies (9/11, Huntley, 7/7 etc etc). Naturally, you've yet to muster up an ounce of credible evidence to support your claims.

 

[Jonti]

Semantics. Not truth.

The bit about Watts was a joke. I suspect many readers took it as a quip about how consciousness is not a spatial sort of thing. And I was thinking the lyrics "You're everywhere and nowhere ... I see your sun is shining ... I won't make a fuss, it's obvious".

The distinction between semantic or propositional truth, and truth as such, is the subject of On the Truth-Process. The philosopher Alain Badiou is dreadfully obscure, but parts of what he says can be made sense of, I think.

 

[slaar]

No. Consider your two possibilities represented by the truthful and liar Cretans.

a) the person saying "All Cretans are liars" is truthful.
Then he has lied, which is a contradiction.

b) the person saying "All Cretans are liars" is a liar
Then he has told the truth, which is a contradiction.

QED

What if he's not a Cretan?