Zizek and Chomsky on Empirical Reality vs. Theory

      Tom Brown left me this link recently that touches on the perennial debate in econ between theory and empirical data. 

       http://informationtransfereconomics.blogspot.com/2014/07/a-challenge-to-macroeconomists.html

       In Macro, this has been a perennial problem: the divergence between theory and empirical data. As Jason Smith points out, Sumner has declared victory after victory-over Krugman, over 'Keynesians' for Market Monetarism, while proving nothing quantitative at all. 

        This is something that goes back to Friedman in the 50s arguing that far from being a problem, unrealistic assumptions is a great virtue in an economic model. Even in my recent reading of Kartik Athreya, what it seems to come down to is that 'all models are false but what counts is that they can help us do something useful'-presumably something more useful than what we could have done without a model in question. 

        Friedman seemed to almost argue that in a model you want assumptions as unrealistic as possible. What this might come down to is this: to make a model truly realistic you need lots of parameters, however, the more parameters your model has the lest interesting it will be-as what it will say is so broad or generalized to not really tell us anything useful at all. 

        In any case, I notice that debates over theory vs. empirical data is not just for macroecoomists. In fact some radical leftist philosophers also engage in the debate. I find it very interesting that Noam Chomsy and Slavov Zizek have also had this argument recently. 

        http://esjaybe.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/zizeks-response-to-chomsky/

       http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/19/noam-chomsky-slavoj-zizek-ding-dong

      Chomsky thinks theory is not important in politics-he thinks it matters in 'hard science' or 'real science' like his own field of linguistics but not for a political discussion where the ideas expressed are simply that any 12 year old can understand them.

        He thinks that Zizek-like Lacan before him-are charlatans who use fancy words to pretend they have a theory they don't have.

         So who is right? Here I have to defer to Geoff Waite who certainly would agree with Zizek here-that theory matters.

         http://www.amazon.com/Nietzsches-Corps-Technoculture-Post-Contemporary-Interventions/dp/0822317192/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404380621&sr=1-1&keywords=geoff+waite

         So Chomsky is mistaken in thinking that theory doesn't matter for what he calls political liberation. It seems to me that what Chomsky's political action amounts to is the child who called out to the world that the Emperor Has No Clothes. Interestingly, I recall Zizek speaking of the necessity of getting some new clothes for the Emperor.

         https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C1ASUT_enUS524US524&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=zizek%20emperor%20new%20clothes

          It seems to me that Chomsky's anarchist position-he never sounds so much like Bakunin as he does here-comes from his extreme egalitarianism. By the way Zizek-in theory at least- shares this with him as does Geoff Waite who would no doubt would not appreciate my appeal to his authority here.

         Still, even though Zizek's theory is radically egalitarian, on the individual level he's not so egalitarian. He too doesn't want crude egalitarianism. It's impossible that a man as intellectually gifted as him will be at least ambivalent about egalitarianism on some level even as he uses this intellect for radical egalitarian ends.  i

         Theory itself, is not egalitarian-our ability to understand theory is not equal. Bakunin was not just egalitarian he was actually very anti-intellectual as well. Perhaps nothing is more galling to a true egalitarian than the gross differences in people in terms of their ability to create, understand, and apply theory. 


       "What is that about, again, the academy and Chomsky and so on? Well with all deep respect that I do have for Chomsky, my first point is that Chomsky who always emphasises how one has to be empirical, accurate, not just some crazy Lacanian speculations and so on… well I don’t think I know a guy who was so often empirically wrong in his descriptions in his whatever! Let’s look… I remember when he defended this demonisation of Khmer Rouge. And he wrote a couple of texts claiming: “no this is western propaganda. Khmer Rouge are not as horrible as that.” And when later he was compelled to admit that Khmer Rouge were not the nicest guys in the universe and so on, his defence was quite shocking for me. It was that “no, with the data that we had at that point, I was right. At that point we didn’t yet know enough, so… you know” but I totally reject this line of reasoning."

       What if Chomsy's defense of the Khmer Rouge was not merely accidental? It's quite uncanny to recall that this was the signature anti-intellectual regime that went as far as shooting  people who wore glasses-presuming that they must where these glasses because they read.  That was radical egalitarianism in action. 

         "Ok, next point about Chomsky, you know the consequence of this attitude of his empirical and so on – and that’s my basic difference with him – and precisely Corey Robinson and some other people talking with him recently confirmed this to me. His idea is today that cynicism of those in power is so open that we dont need any critique of ideology, you read symptomatically between the lines, everything is cynically openly admitted, we just have to bring out the facts of people. Like ‘this company is profiting in Iraq’ and so on and so on. Here I violently disagree."

             http://esjaybe.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/zizeks-response-to-chomsky/

           Chomsky beleves it's a simple point to show people the facts. Yet here's the devi'ls advocate question: what makes him so sure they don't know the facts? That's what Zizek argues. Chomsky thinks its' enough to scream from the mountain tops a la Rousseau that 'Man if born free and is everywhere in chains!' and that's sufficient for his desired revolution. 

              Zizek takes a differnt tack. He asks why man is in chains-and his answer is that on some level he likes it. 

          This is what the real difference is between Chomsky and Zizek-and between Chomsky and Foucault back in the 70s:  Chomsky thinks that if he shouts loud enough for long enough that we are slaves we will realize that we're slaves and immediately end this state of affaris. 

             Zizek is about not 'we are slaves' but 'why we are slaves'-why is it that we know this and go about our business? Foucault in his unforgettable enthusiasm for the rise the Ayatollah's Iran back in 1980 made the point that man much prefers to obey-that to stop obeying is something that happens very seldom-such a moment for him is when people are involved in the violent overthrow of a regime like they were in Iran ejecting the Shah back in 1980. 

             Foucault looked at the moment of the process of revolution itself as that moment when man chooses not to obey. IN other words 99.99999 percent of the time we obey, If that's true, though, it might suggest a reason other than all these billions of people who live today and have lived simply hadn't read Noam Chomsky explain about U.S. foreign policy and its treachery. 

             Zizek assumes that the facts are already known. However, his point about Chomsky and the Khmer Rouge shows that even Chomsky himself is capable of 'repressing the facts.'

              P.S. You could see this divide between Chomsky and Zizek-and Waite-as representing the difference between Marxism and Anarchism. Marxism thinks you need theory, Anarchy thinks the act of revolution, or sometimes even just petty vandalism is sufficient in itself as a sort of 'cleansing.'

              On this the Marxists are right but the anarchists are probably right that the need for theory is a blow against radical egalitarianism as the ability to create or understand theories are not giving to us equally.