Why Noam Chomsky...

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

I don't think so. From the Wiki:

Actually, I think that paragraph validates my point. That's nothing more than his transparant attempt to minimize/overlook the impact of (predominantly liberal) academia because it doesn't fit with his overall thesis that propaganda comes from the dominant capitalistic moneyed interests. So, he just claims that academia really isn't that important, or has somehow been co-opted by the system.

[Guest Raidne]

I doubt most of anyone knows what anarcho-syndicalism is.

Zadok - This was a spin-off thread from the dealmaker thread. It was kind of a joke.

ETA: and thank you, right back at you.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

I doubt most of anyone knows what anarcho-syndicalism is.

I'd agree that most people don't. But there are some concepts and ideas inherent in anarcho-syndicalism that wouldn't go over well in this country even if people aren't well-versed in their Bakunin and Proudhon.

[Guest Raidne]

No, I mean, I think most people think of either state ownership or corporate ownership and aren't very familiar with other ideas. In that sense, Chomsky hasn't really done a great job of getting the message out, but I'm of the opinion that he probably doesn't care and likes being a professional radical who devotes his intellect to linguistics.

So I think maybe we agree about the guy? I just don't see anything wrong with that. Hell, I'd love to be a professional radical. Killer business cards.

[generic]

So, he just claims that academia really isn't that important, or has somehow been co-opted by the system.

I only disagreed with your first claim. "Co-opted" is probably a reasonable summery of Chomsky's view of academics.

[Shryke]

Actually, I think that paragraph validates my point. That's nothing more than his transparant attempt to minimize/overlook the impact of (predominantly liberal) academia because it doesn't fit with his overall thesis that propaganda comes from the dominant capitalistic moneyed interests. So, he just claims that academia really isn't that important, or has somehow been co-opted by the system.

The prevalence of "Zombie Ideas" (ie - ideas that are dead, dead, dead in academic circles but just keep coming back in public circles no matter how many times you shoot them in the head) pretty much shits all over this.

Ideas from academia work their way into the public discourse, but they don't do so in any rigorous or direct way. Ideas are coopted from academia. Things that don't fit with someones agenda are ignored and disproven ideas that do are embraced.

If academia had so much pull, we wouldn't be having arguments about creationism or global warming or the gold standard.

[The Progressive]

So seriously, any substantive evidence to show that Chomsky is a holocaust-denier?

C'mon chomsky-detractors, I know you're salivating to take him down ...... just back up your assertion, lol.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

Note: While I was sourcing something for my post I came across this article which sums up all of my criticisms of Chomsky far more eloquently and in far greater detail than I will lay out below. So feel free to read that article and just skip over my entire post).

I have a couple of problems with Chomsky, as someone who once considered himself an anarcho-syndicalists, and they all have to do with sloppy references:

(1) Chomsky loves to cite himself. I remember being in college and reading Deterring Democracy, and I was absolutely dumbstruck by how frequently (and misleadingly) he cites to his own prior works as iron-clad proofs of certain points. I've seen his citation method referred to before as a smokescreen, and I tend to agree. Often you'd have to skip back a dozen or so pages to find the source that any particular footnote was quoting, and more often it not that it seemed he was just quoting himself. It's problematic to a purported serious work of historical criticism to cite, with basically equal frequency, primary sources and secondary/tertiary sources, basically for the same purpose. You find him quoting himself with the same authority that he quotes an original document.

(2) Chomsky's citation of primary sources often reads more like a characterization of them. When I was in college and had oodles of free time and I was very into Chomsky, I would track down (to the extent you can with his some of his citations) the original foreign policy documents that he was referencing at the Rutgers University library. I remember being struck by how different the original documents read than he characterized them. I think Chomsky could have made plausible arguments that the documents in question SHOULD be characterized the way he wanted them to be, but that's not what he did. He cited them as saying things they just did not on their face say, and that I think is highly disingenuous.

I think Chomsky is a valuable gadfly that does have something to contribute to the national discourse, but his sloppiness with facts and his tendency to never, ever back down from a factual misstatement undermines a lot of his credibility. Shortly after 9-11, Chomsky went on the record comparing 9-11 to Clinton's bombing of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan after the bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Chomsky initially came out saying that the destruction of Al-Shifa killed tens of thousands of people in Sudan and was, in comparison to 9-11, a much more horrendous crime and also one perpetrated by the United States.

There's a kernel of a good argument here -- IF TRUE, I suspect that Chomsky would be right that most Americans would still consider 9-11 the worse crime against humanity, and feel that the bombing of Al-Shifa was justified, no matter what the cost. However, as it turns out, the source of Chomsky's citation was, basically, bullshit, and Chomsky and his critics (with a special guest appearance by Christopher Hitchens), were consumed for months with a nasty back and forth disputes, personal attacks, and hair-splitting over the incident. Chomsky, of course, refused to back down, making a sloppy series of equivocations (at one point alleging that the US blocked a international investigation into the effects of the bombings -- when in fact the US only blocked an investigation of the actual bombing site -- still objectionable, but hardly the same thing). At the end of the day, and ten years later, nobody has ever been able to substantiate the original claims of tens of thousands killed by the bombing.

That's just one particularly glaring example. I have a soft spot for Chomsky, much like Howard Zinn, who is an equally bad historian, but I just can't give his historical/political works any truly serious merit.

[sologdin]

Solo - Point well taken. Nevertheless, the fact that a lot of freshman have seen Manufacturing Consent doesn't mean that his ideas should not be taken seriously.

oh, goodness. i didn't mean to be dismissive, or get into some kind of leftwing sectarian fight. his critique of US policy is very sharp, and has the virtue of being based on published gubmint documents and news reports in the bourgeois press--he can't really be accused of being a tinfoil or being badly researched.

i love how the rightwing critique of noam comes back to the political economy of human rights essays on cambodia. i suspect those critiques have not read, or have not understood his position in that book about the khmer rouge.

thing is, even if dude got pol pot dead wrong, that doesn't invalidate anything else that he's written.

[Ealasaid]

Lol, I love it when Raidne called people out for their bullshit.

LOL

It is not Bull Shit.

Please see DVD "Ever Again."

[slim da reaper]

Raidne,

Put me down as liking the idea of anarcho-syndicalism too. Didn't know that about Robinson, I'm going have a look at his Martian trilogy.

The co-operative anarchist position is very very interesting.

Looking into this we start to get into those old questions of co-operation versus selfishness.

Richard Dawkins did a great documentary in this back in the 80s where he recounts an iterated scenario of Game Theory's prisoner's dilemma. What is found is that the very worst strategy is the ruthless, selfish ones as they cease co-operation when they meet each other. The too kind strategies do better but are victims to the selfish agents when they meet them, but the best strategy is the tit-for-tat one, which runs on these four principles:

1.Unless provoked, the agent will always cooperate

2.If provoked, the agent will retaliate

3.The agent is quick to forgive

4.The agent must have a good chance of competing against the opponent more than once.

The documentary Nice guys finish first with superiority of co-operation at around 29:45. With the power to retaliate and forgive that is the anarchist part of the equation. In a disempowered employee world, most people do not exercise much in the way of these powers. But how do we make people aware to the necessity of 1 and 2? Thus changing how society works.

Anyway Raidne, you are a professional radical, go get those business cards made haha :)

[Shryke]

Funny thing about the Prisoner's Dilemma:

As I read, back when they first developed it at RAND, they tested it out on the secrataries. They got rather annoyed when the secrataries wouldn't play "properly" (ie - they wouldn't sell each other out for personal gain).

[Shryke]

Sorry Raidne, but her lawyer cock is bigger then yours, so she's right by definition.

She's obviously higher on the "member" list then you. :P

[jurble]

So... having not any of this thread, I found http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13452711 interesting. It sorta relates to Chomsky, since, iirc, one of Chomsky's universal grammar hypothesis' foundations is that, I believe the term is, recursion occurs - you can nestle bits of information inside one sentence. Like "I am eating a hotdog at the beach.", but there's some Amazon tribe (not this tribe in this article I think) whose language lacks that capability like they have to say "I am eating a hotdog. I am at the beach." They can't do that.

So in conclusion, Amazonian tribes are weiiiiiiiiiird.

[Stubby]

[MOD]

Please keep personal attacks out of it.

Either resolve personal disputes via (non-abusive) pm exchange or (better yet) move on.

Thanks.

[/MOD]

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

As yet another lawyer in this thread, I'll admit that I've been on the losing end of a couple of trials. Anyway.....

Trials, like discussions about Chomsky, often don't turn as much on pure facts as on what reasonable inferences can be drawn from those facts. Chomsky is frustrating in that regard because he is the master of maintaining deniability through the use of weasel words.

He chooses his words carefully to maximize the emotional impact of what he says, but when you try to extract a direct quote as to his point, it's not there. And you're left just arguing about the reasonableness of inferences that can be drawn from his writings or statements. As someone who values clarity and directness in communication, I despise him for that reason alone. He knows how to communicate unambiguously, but usually chooses not to.

I don't think he's actually denied that the Holocaust exists. Even Dershowitz accuses him only of being "agnostic" on the Holocaust, and then of defending a true Holocaust denier.

But to end up actually proving that Chomsky said anything offensive is more work than it is worth.

[RWHamel]

Sorry Raidne, but her lawyer cock is bigger then yours, so she's right by definition.

She's obviously higher on the "member" list then you. :P

Are we back to penis pictures again? I think I'm missing some context. :rolleyes:

[RWHamel]

Well, it seems to me that Chomsky definitely likes to stir the pot. So, I think he would approve of this thread.

[Guest Raidne]

And I agree with that. I think he'd be all like, seriously? Fucking Dershowitz? Really??? Again??? Then he'd offer to give us his commentary in the thread for $500.

[The Progressive]

LOL

It is not Bull Shit.

Please see DVD "Ever Again."

So I talked to a friend who have seen this DVD. However, he does not agree that it proves what you claim.

So yeah, how about providing some actual citations and/or transcript?