Thread: Noam Chomsky

Here's a thread to discuss the ideas and writings of Noam Chomsky. I'll add more of his articles, and some Youtube interviews later, if this thread gets going. The mainstream press ostracizes him, but millions read him. He's one of my intellectual heroes.

You and Butterflyer have something common then.

I've never read any of his books.

I've just heard him speak on NPR and wasn't very impressed.

If I was to read one of his books which would you recommend?

I hope this thread carries on, I'll post some of my thoughts later when I have more time - I'm particularly interested in his linguistic work and I've attended a few of his lectures in Europe. Just one question for now, in Europe I've noticed that the mainstream non-tabloid press tends to idolise Chomsky, MM when you say he is ostracized by the press are you talking about the US press?

The single most important author from the other side of the pond at present, well, at least that I have heard of...
He has his place amongst European critical thinkers, not sure about the mainstream media.

Originally Posted by stroller

The single most important author from the other side of the pond at present, well, at least that I have heard of...
He has his place amongst European critical thinkers, not sure about the mainstream media.

Chomsky, recently voted the world's top living intellectual, is virtually banned by the American mass media. Despite his vast knowledge of political issues and his great speaking ability, he is never seen on the numerous television talk shows. Those time slots are reserved for such mental giants as Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly. Many Americans haven't even heard of Noam Chomsky.

For what it is worth, here is my 2 cents. I hate venturing into the issues...

My masters in the university was in ESL. That is how Chomsky made his mark. One of my profs studied under Noam.

I soon noticed that with ESL work the teacher (Chomsky) was excellent. But as time continued more and more of his works held social beliefs.

The classroom discussions were often lively.

*now running out of the arena...*

Originally Posted by floorpotato

Chomsky, recently voted the world's top living intellectual...

The beauty is that he's easy to read, some German intellectuals bore me to sleep - literally.

Originally Posted by DrB0b

....MM when you say he is ostracized by the press are you talking about the US press?

Yes,

The US press, mass media, and all forms of info. dissemination have basically banned Chomsky.

Originally Posted by floorpotato

Many Americans haven't even heard of Noam Chomsky.

Never fear, we've heard of him too well.
Reason he's not on the talk shows is he's basically a Marxist who loathes his own country. He's too much for even CNN or Oberman on MSNBC.

p.s. this thread should engender some lively 'conversation', Milkman!

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Originally Posted by floorpotato

Many Americans haven't even heard of Noam Chomsky.

Never fear, we've heard of him too well.
Reason he's not on the talk shows is he's basically a Marxist who loathes his own country. He's too much for even CNN or Oberman on MSNBC.

p.s. this thread should engender some lively 'conversation', Milkman!

You state he's a Marxist.

Please cite your sources. I've never read nor him say this.

"Libertarian Socialist" is what he calls himself.

This is a deja vue! I am sure we had the same talk about him being Marxist and no he isn't before!

I don't agree with all of his viewpoints, of course.

But many of them, I do.

His early views on the Khmer Rouge were bonkers.

But Marxist - no.
As I said before, I think you are not too well informed about what Marxism entails, Booner. Of course he is influenced by Marxist thoughts, I would expect him to be familiar with it, that's a common feature of "the Left", specially his economic theories - no way around that, but I don't think he believes in dialectic materialism nor in a united working class revolution, in fact he has been very critical of Leninism - it's not empowering the people but replacing one structure of authority with another.

You'll get a better understanding of this if you look at the early 20th century and the dynamic between communists and anarchists. But that's moving away from Chomsky, just a sidenote...

A Chomsky interview:

Noam Chomsky on the origins of terrorism

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

This guy is beyond the pale.

No, he's not. Some of the things he says are crazy, agreed, but that doesn't mean that everything he says is crazy. Use your powers of discrimination rather than just rejecting everything because you don't like some part of it.

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum."
- Noam Chomsky


Chomsky thinks debate should be strictly limited, [within his limits of course]

"That's an internet theory and it's hopelessly implausible. Hopelessly implausible. So hopelessly implausible I don't see any point in talking about it."

- Noam Chomsky, at a FAIR event at New York's Town Hall, 22 January 2002, in response to a question from the audience about US government foreknowledge of 9/11. At that time, 9/11 investigators had already presented substantial documented evidence for: prior warnings, Air Force stand-down, anomalous insider trading connected to CIA, cover-up of the domestic anthrax attacks, inconsistencies in identities & timelines of "hijackers", US connections to al Qaeda in Balkans, a Pak ISI-al Qaeda funding connection, etc etc etc.

Chomsky thinks 9/11 as a USreali operation is "hopelessly implausible." So much so that he won't even talk about it.

Professor Noam Chomsky, one of the country's most famous dissidents, says that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman in Dallas. Anyone who still supports the Warren Commission hoax after forty years of countering proofs is either ill-informed, dumb, gullible, afraid to speak truths to power or a disinformation agent.

Chomsky thinks Oswald was the lone gunman in the JFK assassination.

Chomsky is an intellectual.

Where Noam will not roam - Chomsky's limited dissent on 9/11 and JFK

Originally Posted by DrB0b

By the way kerux, it's considered good form to point out when you're cutting and pasting from somebody else's writing

More than that, it is a requirement for Issues, as kerux well knows.
Thank Dr.BOb for adding a source and saving the post from deletion.

Originally Posted by kerux

Chomsky thinks debate should be strictly limited, [within his limits of course]

No, he doesn't. The quote is of Chomsky exposing the tactics of the authorities and the mass media.
Pity you are not intelligent enough to realise he's actually supporting your take on the mass media with this.

Originally Posted by kerux

Professor Noam Chomsky, one of the country's most famous dissidents, says that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman in Dallas. Anyone who still supports the Warren Commission hoax after forty years of countering proofs is either ill-informed, dumb, gullible, afraid to speak truths to power or a disinformation agent.

That's about the only thing he's been right about in his entire 'career'.
Oswald was the only gunman whether you conspiracy nutjobs believe it or not...

^So tell us how Chomsky got everything wrong in his career. You do know he's primarily a linguist, don't you? Looking forward to your analysis of Chomsky's linguistic errors. Here's something to start you off with, it's nothing to do with Oswald so it must be wrong. Tell us where Chomsky's screwed up here;

"Chomsky's system...has attracted the most attention and has received the most extensive exemplification and further development. As outlined in Syntactic Structures (1957), it comprised three sections, or components: the phrase-structure component, the transformational component, and the morphophonemic component. Each of these components consisted of a set of rules operating upon a certain "input" to yield a certain "output." The notion of phrase structure may be dealt with independently of its incorporation in the larger system. In the following system of rules, S stands for Sentence, NP for Noun Phrase, VP for Verb Phrase, Det for Determiner, Aux for Auxiliary (verb), N for Noun, and V for Verb stem.
This is a simple phrase-structure grammar. It generates and thereby defines as grammatical such sentences as "The man will hit the ball," and it assigns to each sentence that it generates a structural description. The kind of structural description assigned by a phrase-structure grammar is, in fact, a constituent structure analysis of the sentence." Linguistics: Methods of synchronic linguistic analysis: TRANSFORMATIONAL-GENERATIVE GRAMMAR: Chomsky's grammar.



Aside from the fact that you don't appear to know anything about Chomsky outside the political sphere I think you're right. He appears to be suffering form the "Bono effect". This effect states that anybody who's famed in one sphere must automatically know everything about everything, it's also known as the "celebrities talking crap syndrome".

Originally Posted by DrB0b

Looking forward to your analysis of Chomsky's linguistic errors.

Don't hold your breath...

^Damn! There's a big debate in the linguistic community at the moment about the errors in Chomsky's transformational grammars. I can't understand a word of it. I was hoping Booner could explain it to me.

Originally Posted by DrB0b

^Damn! There's a big debate in the linguistic community at the moment about the errors in Chomsky's transformational grammars. I can't understand a word of it. I was hoping Booner could explain it to me.

There always was and always will be debate in the linguistic community about this and that.

And Chomsky's linguistic work, while heuristic, is outdated.

But linguistics ain't the topic. If you want a linguistic forum PM me.