I just watched a short and very interesting video of a discussion between Foucault and Chomsky, apparently from 1971, presumably somewhere in France.
As a former student of Art & Art History at Goldsmiths College, during the early 1990s, I was subjected to a veritable barrage of what might simplistically be called Postmodern propaganda: Foucault, Barthes, Derrida, etc.
My exposure to Chomsky ever so slightly predated all this, via a documentary called Manufacturing Consent. I loved that film so much that when at university I blagged an interview with Chomsky, for a putative ‘zine, or magazine.
Watching this now, many years later, I’m struck – as I was at the time, albeit perhaps with a little more clarity (if less energy) now – by a polarity. Chomsky is simpler, clearer, and more positive, than Foucault.
Chomsky’s essential MO is active and engaged. He mentions civil disobedience and its risks. Foucault, by contrast, is slightly more florid, verbose, and entirely negative. His is a position of critique and destruction.
At the time I was exposed to what I’m going to call, rather monolithically, postmodern discourse (eugh… involuntary shudder just using the verbiage!), I found it disturbing and destructive. Yes, there were/are important insights – Barthes essays were amongst the pithiest – but it seemed to lead into an academic navel-gazing echo-chamber.
Chomsky’s entire approach, in striking contrast – whilst undoubtedly having a foot firmly planted in academia – is far more future-building oriented, and active out there in the real (non university) world.