Thread: Noam Chomsky: A Linguistic Genius

I must admit I didn't now much about the man, and despite reading a few articulate articles from him, I never gave him much interest.

That changed when I watched a documentary featuring him and his work, Manufacturing Consent. It turns out that Noam Chomsky is a Linguistic academic, his job is to study language structure, words meanings, and rethoric. That apparently lead him to understand the constitution of language and how we use it. From that point, he jumped to politics rethoric and message manipulation, understanding more deeply the political messages that politicians are trying to vehicle.

Some say he is a linguistic genius, a very talented academic who went beyond his role. Throughout the documentary, his speech is very articule, yet his ideas are very simple and easy to understand. He is apparently interested by the average man speeching ability and also his comprehension ability. He doesn't believe in mass stupidity, only in mass manipulation. As easily can the mass be manipulated, the mass is not stupid and will jump the gun if given an opportunity and prove itself to be smarter than the mass leaders. History has plenty of examples of such instances.

Manufacturing consent, one of his first book I believe, is to explain to the average man how the mass media is a cynical and evil machine that need to be combatted daily so we can be liberated in our mind and body. These are dangerous ideas in a world dominated by mass media corporations, and this is probably why he is often marginalized and demonized by both the liberal and conservative media, and portrayed as the Anti-Christ by religious fanatics and corporation alike.

more about the man here:
Noam Chomsky - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I would highly recommend reading, studying and following his work, his language is very accessible,

Manufacturing Consent should be required reading for any player in Issues, imho.

Chomsky himself is a bit of a conundrum- he looks far more comfortable on his sofa with a pipe and slippers than standing on a podium exposing hypocracy. He's the mild mannered academic type that wears a cardigan and tweed jackets. He fully admits, he is a poor public speaker and hence arguably a poor salesman- having thoroughly analysed the linguistic tricks and innuendo's interest groups use to manipulate opinion, he refuses to stoop to this sort of thing himself.

But he speaks with the credibility of the true Academic. He was demonised for his exposure of what was really happening in Nam, El Salvador, Guatamala and so on in the 60's and 70's this mild mannered academic, but he was speaking fact. The general public just did not know about it yet- because they had not been told. Time proved him right in every case.

So this made him a threat, and general public opinion towards him is still really shaped by those times. I would hazard a guess that most people would be surprised that the real Chomsky is no archetypal fire breathing radical, in fact very moderate and systematic in person. Many on the Left are disgruntled with him because he is not, well, radical enough for them.

^ that's exactly what I like about him, his non-violent, non-combative stand, and yet his message and articulate thinking blows away all his opponents if they care enough to listen to what he says.

Yes, he labels himself a "boring" speaker, but that's exactly why that makes him the perfect messenger for what he has to say.

He is a Libertarian Socialist, that's between Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism, but he prefers to be called a libertarian anarchist

Butterfly,

The documentary you mentioned, is that avaliable on torrents?

^ better than that, you can download it for free from his website, it's a 1992 documentary from Canada

About the movie:
Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Download here:
Index of /3/items/NoamChomskyNoamChomskyManufacturingConsent_0

^ Excellent! Thanks very much for the pointer, will definately do that when I get home tonight.

^ That avi file looks a little small for 3 hours.

^ could be only part 1 though, good point

I'm downloading it now, it's a 700Mb non compressed avi file.

Originally Posted by Butterfly

Noam Chomsky - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Even that relatively brief article paints a very interesting picture. Of particular interest to me was:

... His far-reaching criticisms of US foreign policy and the legitimacy of US power have made him a controversial figure: largely shunned by the mainstream media in the United States,[8][9][10][11] he is frequently sought out for his views by publications and news outlets worldwide.

Chomsky has in the past received death threats because of his criticisms of U.S foreign policy...

This whole notion of 'patriotism' (or the converse being 'Un-American' for daring to question/criticise in this case) is what I find most alien about the US. In New Zealand - or at least amongst the circle of my family and friends - it's considered somewhat of a national pastime to actively question and discuss the Govt., to ruthlessly bag it even.

I forget who said 'Patriotism is what we call it, nationalism is when foreigners do it' (paraphrased obviously) now but whoever it was nailed it totally. The whole concept of being unquestioningly loyal to a country purely because by accident of birth you were born there just seems so very, very strange.

Worse than that, when criticism can be stymied, shouted down or even silenced as 'unpatriotic' ("un-American") then it actually becomes totally at odds with the notions of freedom and democracy. It's most certainly at odds with the notion of personal freedom and thinking, patriotism is almost by definition the subjudgation of the individual in favour of the group.

In a nutshell everything about it, from the slogans and the symbolism to the hive-mindishness of it all, sends a shudder down my spine. Pride in who you are and where you come from, most certainly. But patriotism as an ideal, no thanks.

Hear, hear.
Who said- "The best safeguard for Democracy is eternal vigilence"?
FDR I think.

I've read several of his "interview with" books.

The amazing thing about Choamsky is that he delivers orally a single answer that can go on for 5 or more pages better than most commentators could write with weeks of thought.

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

This whole notion of 'patriotism' (or the converse being 'Un-American' for daring to question/criticise in this case) is what I find most alien about the US. In New Zealand - or at least amongst the circle of my family and friends - it's considered somewhat of a national pastime to actively question and discuss the Govt., to ruthlessly bag it even.

I forget who said 'Patriotism is what we call it, nationalism is when foreigners do it' (paraphrased obviously) now but whoever it was nailed it totally. The whole concept of being unquestioningly loyal to a country purely because by accident of birth you were born there just seems so very, very strange.

I think Patriotism is very strong in countries with very little culture or history, and where ignorance dominate the collective memory, the US fits that profile perfectly. Incidently Thailand does also, and the two countries are very much the same collectively, the people are dumb, incurious, uneducated, and gullible (policially and socially), easy to manipulate and are prone to frutile obsessions (cars, entertainment, mobiles, consumer gagdets).

The American model of society is probably the worst model in the world and would bring the human race to extinction eventually.

Index of /3/items/NoamChomskyNoamChomskyManufacturingConsent_0

Crickey, as keen as I am to watch this I'm not sure it's worth the 16hr 30min wait and my present download speed

I'll see if I can't find a torrent version, it's bound to be much faster.

Yep, bless those Pirate Bay lads and their flaunting of copyright. 'Tis here if anyone else is interested:

Manufacturing Consent - Noam Chomsky and the Media avi (download torrent) - TPB

^
cheers Ant.

^^ I'm DLing that one too, but my internet is seriously shite at the moment. I think I'm gonna have words tomorrow.

^ No probs

^^ Mine started with a hiss and a roar but it has dropped off all of a sudden. Down to 12kB/s on that particular torrent just now

I read Manufacturing Consent. It's one of his many books, and is considered one of his most heuristic. The book also did studies on the media. How often did story X appear on the front page of the NY Times? How many words were in the article?

Compare this to story Y? How many times was story Y on the front page, versus page 17B? And the length of story Y, was an average of how many words per article?

Chomsky has written a lot of books. Manufacturing Consent is considered to be pretty ground breaking. I believe it was published in 1988.

Chomsky is basically blacklisted from the American mainsream media.

Not only because of his views, and criticism of the Establishment, but because of his criticism of Zionism and Israeli policies.

Many Jewish folks I know consider Chomsky, basically a traitor for criticizing Israeli policies.

I got halfway through the avi file first posted, but my DSL stalled and I gave up. I'll have to try the torrent tomorrow maybe.

Originally Posted by Milkman

Many Jewish folks I know consider Chomsky, basically a traitor for criticizing Israeli policies.

and that despite being jewish,

his parents were ancient hebrew teachers, conservatives, he has an interesting piece about his teenage years when he was among jewish intellectuals, revolutionaries, Israel and Palestine enthusiats and the middle class workers of NYC.

Originally Posted by Butterfly

Originally Posted by Milkman

Many Jewish folks I know consider Chomsky, basically a traitor for criticizing Israeli policies.

and that despite being jewish,

his parents were ancient hebrew teachers, conservatives, he has an interesting piece about his teenage years when he was among jewish intellectuals, revolutionaries, Israel and Palestine enthusiats and the middle class workers of NYC.

To clarify for those unfamiliar, Chomsky is of Jewish heritage.


(He is one of my intellectual heroes.)

Ok could a mod trash the off topic comments from CMN and friends, this is Issues, not MKP

Keep the thread clean and on topics, thank you

ok finished watching it all, great, but need to be watched in 45 min episode, otherwise your mind can't keep up with the many diverse political messages,

after focusing on political manipulation, Chomsky attack the issue of mass murdering, genocide and state violence and terrorism.

A country with a history of Genocide support
Basically the US is guilty like everyone else of genocide by direct or indirect actions. Between the direct massive killing of native Indians (population of 10 millions), the financing of East Timor killings by Indonesia, Vietnam, Iraq and a few others we are missing, the US is as dirty as anyone else and has NO moral high ground. This why political and media manipulation is so important for the government, because they need to hide those facts to the American public who are still living in an american wet dream, full of illusions and dillusions, while the reality of the world is escaping them.

State Violence and Terrorism
The US is a powerful country because of its wealth and military toys, and that makes it a very violent country that will invade and kill just because it can. The USA is the biggest state terror in this world, a rogue state by definition that do not comply with the rest of the world, a very violent country that is not afraid to invade innocent countries for its resources like Oil and Gas.

Originally Posted by Butterfly

ok finished watching it all, great, but need to be watched in 45 min episode,

agree with that.
I had to watch the entire thing three times.