Is Noam Chomsky an Integral Thinker?

Noam Chomsky is undoubtedly one of the most prolific linguists and dissidents in the US, but is he an integral thinker? I argue that he is.

First and foremost we have to make sure that we are clear about what we mean by integral thinking. As far as I've understood Ken Wilber, the father of the integral theory, an integrally thinking theoretician is someone who analyzes the world from all four quadrants, that is, the subjective interior upper left quadrant, the objective exterior upper right quadrant, the intersubjective lower left quadrant, and the interobjective exterior lower right quadrant. So how does this apply to Noam Chomsky?

Chomsky's work in linguistics has to do with how human cognition is related to our inherent capacity for language, and therefore has to do with both epistemology as it relates to linguistics, but also to anthropology in that Chomsky's work on linguistics, his universal grammar theory, can be said to fit into the field of anthropology that deals with human universals. Of course this is done through extensive research into languages around the globe, so we might say that it is grounded in empirical research. Here we already have an example of integral thinking since epistemology is in the upper left, anthropology dealing with human universals is in the lower left, and the empirical studies on which the theorizing is based is in the upper and lower right quadrants. So far so good.

Chomsky's comprehensive and historically embedded critique of US foreign policy can be said to analytically pertain to the lower left quadrant in that is has to do with our collective history and is focused on investigating and criticizing the (postulated) value structures that are used to legitimize the policy in government propaganda, and how this propaganda is used as a tool to manufacture consent among the governed, so that there is widespread belief in the inherent evil of the enemy (evil doers, terrorists, axis of evil), and the inherent good in the governments foreign policy, which is sold to the public as an effort to promote safety, democracy and freedom and of course to combat the evil-doers and terrorists that are the enemies of progress, safety, democracy and freedom. The critique is also embedded in the lower right quadrant, when for example, Chomsky analyze the social structures that disseminate the propaganda i.e. the corporate media ownership and how the manufacturing of consent is done through these largely uncritical media institutions, such as in the case of General Electric where media organizations are owned by an even larger multinational company (GE) that also has a lot of interests in the military-industrial complex, and that therefore cannot be described as a watchdog, watching over the government on behalf of the people, but rather must be described as being an elitist institution itself with class interests pertaining to the upper socio-economic class. Of course there is also some class analysis to be found in Chomskys work as well, which again has to do with the lower left quadrant i.e. with institutional structures and the political and economic interests of the upper class. It is for example a chomskyan point that the upper class in the US is very class-conscious whereas the lower class is not, and therefore repression is quite easily maintained.

Chomsky's own political orientation is anarcho-syndicalist and as is the case with all agitators for a political ideology, the arguments for the ideology are based on ethics, which in Chomskys case means that governance should to the largest possible extent be self-governance, and that all politico-economic structures of power should be examined and held responsible, since all power structures can only be said to have a raison d´être and be legitimate insofar as they serve the interests of the governed lower and middle classes and are not repressive structures mainly serving the interests of the already rich and powerful. Ethics pertaining to the formation of society and ideas about justice and fairness are intersubjective values and therefore Chomskys case-building for anarcho-syndicalism, and against the current dominant, top-down political and economic structures, and the values and interest that according to Chomsky lies behind them, must be said to belong to the lower right quadrant.

Chomsky is also a self-proclaimed Deweyite, meaning that he is proponent of John Deweys philosophy of education, and here again we see how this incorporates both a philosophy about what constitutes a good learning/teaching environment that facilitates the best education, but also this view is inherently critical of the present dominant educational structures and policies, so here again we have Chomsky considering epistemology and ethics as it pertains to the education of children, and considering what a good learning environment is, while implicitly critizising the status quo, so this is again both a lower left and right view.

The conclusion must therefore be that Chomsky to a very large extent must be said to be an integral thinker who's theorizing is all over the integral map.