I am not buying or borrowing any more books until I read and review the 13 that I bought (for a grand total of £17.50) in London on Friday 10th October 2025. You can see the list and the rationale here.
Title: Chomsky: Oracle of the State. An assorted bo of anti-Chomsky sentiments
Author: Various
Year of publication: 2020
Publisher and location: xx
Total number of pages: 56
Why I bought it: Always in the mood for a take down of people I am probably/possibly too admiring of (it’s a relatively small category, that, btw)
Contents: xx
Fiction or non-fiction: Non-fiction
What I expected: Whiny, nuanced and a-historical attempted “take downs” of Chomsky from a “he’s not radical enough” perspective.
What I got (review, context etc):
This is mostly but NOT ENTIRELY whiny, nuanced and a-historical attempted “take downs” of Chomsky from a “he’s not radical enough” perspective.
It certainly was not deserving of being the most expensive of the 13 books I bought in London.
The premise of the book – that criticisms of Chomsky are rare – is laughable. There are plenty, from “left” and “right”. There ARE criticisms to be made of Chomsky, especially on the lack of detail in his published work on the “what is to be done?” question (Cynthia Peters has an excellent essay on this). Presumably Chomsky would say (well, before the stroke that has ended his public career) that it isn’t up to him – a self-described terrible activist – to tell those doing it how to do it better. He is an analyst.
Anyway, for the most part (especially in the terrible and laughable Zerzan piece) this is not a Chomsky I recognise (and for my sins I read a lot of his stuff), especially, for example, on technology as “neutral” – it’s right there in World Orders, Old and New, where he cites David F Noble’s work on the 1950s push for automation and how numerical control was pursued to weaken the power of skilled labour. Again and again there are sweeping statements, and strawmen.
The (ropily-translated) French thing isn’t much better. Things get a little more interesting when someone tries to apply the Herman and Chomsky Propaganda Model to nominally “left-wing” media outlets (Democracy Now).
The last section, on “Six Reasons why Chomsky is wrong about antifa” is – if not a saving grace for the book – then at least worth your time, and has useful things to say (though some of them are a little tendentious – there are opportunity costs etc). One is reminded of the great Woody Allen clip about bricks and book reviews.
WOODY ALLEN CLIP
There is also a nice line – “ignore fascists until they go away’ only works if you have the privilege of being ignored by them as well (p.54)
Was there any attempt at interrogating why people get set up as oracles? Or Chomsky’s reluctance with that? No
Was this worth my time? (I read it during a bath. I can’t imagine reading it again.) Mostly no.
“If you go to one demonstration and then go home, that’s something, but the people in power can live with that. What they can’t live with is sustained pressure that keeps building, organisations that keep doing things, people that keep learning lessons from the last time and doing it better the next time.”
marchudson.net 
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