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Is Noam Chomsky really that great?
- Thread starter GenesisNemesis
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ideologyhunter
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I have limited knowledge of Chomsky...the only book I've read is American Power and the New Mandarins (I think that's the title)... I read it because it was cited in a book on the Kent State shootings as the favorite book of late 60s radicals. I found Chomsky to be as off-putting and absolute as the far right crazies I abhor. He micro-structures an argument with no allowance for any other plausible viewpoint. It's exhausting to read. Orthodoxy sucks.
pegasus8
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Do you know what really blows? People who have never read or only read a few works of the Great Noam Chomsky!
I can not believe some of these comments from some people here that I have always considered intellectually strong and well read. Dudes and dudettes me thinks that you need to check yourself before you wreck yourself.
Of a handful of intellectuals living today Noam Chomsky stands shoulders above the crowd for a couple of reasons. You have to read his shit to understand the man IMO. You know kind of like how some people having an aversion to Shakespeare, Marx, Hitchens, et al. You can not truly understand the impact of intellectual thought, discourse and dialogue till you read the many tomes of the great thinkers of Mankind. And I hate to point out the obvious but Chomsky is such one thinker.
Like SG I also had to study the wonderful world of linguistic theory which is similar to studying Heidegger and Neitzsche. It is fregin hard as is understanding Chomsky. But after a few readings you really start to see how brilliant the obvious positions that a person like NC claims. One does not just pick up a book by David Hume and just "roll with it." IMO NC is in this same kind of beacon of light in a dark consumer based closed system that we all live in. And the utter irony like some Greek tragedy is that most of us refuse to see or can not see it do to "conditioning," and or an ideologue of dichotomy. You know like us and them.
Some here have said that NC just rabbles on, holds little to no validity and so on and so forth. Try "Profits Before People," {?}, spelling that can open ones eyes to the system. How does one fully understand the concept of the " manufactured of the consent," and how it has been used and is being used. Even if we throw out NC's brilliant understanding of how language is an "innate" attribute of humans ,which I disagree with by the way, he takes America in the sphere of linguistic theory that was dominated by the French Structuralist and Post-Structualist of post WW2. Like Emerson did in the 19th century NC did, IMO, put America back on the map of post-modern intellectual theories in the 20th century.
NC was deeply disturbed at the end of WW2 when Truman decided to show the Soviets how an atom bomb worked in practice. While American was celebrating, and rightly so again disagreeing with NC, victory over Japan NC said that he cried as a young man. He did not want to accept the fact that the end of WW2 brought the ushering in of the nuclear age and the post-modern world with the horrors of nuclear weapons on civilians. This is how that man thinks. NC is a very complicate person unlike most of us that concern our lives with nary a whim of intellectual thought.
What has really pissed off the mainstream intellectual movement in America today is how NC has stepped up and pointed out the obvious crimes against humanity in the illegal occupation of lands in Palestine. And NC is an American Jew! He just points out the obvious that most people can not, will not and or refuse to see.
So for those of you, who I know are smart, try reading some of NC's concepts and theories. The guy has received many death threats for his so called " non patriotic," positions by simply pointing out how corporate America interest are not in line with the citizen's interest of our nation. In like manner NC simply points out that Israel's interest are not in line with the interests of most American citizens. Hence the ideal that the government is basically the shadow of the corporate interest. I mean come on people. Who do you think owns all the networks that streams the filtered news in America? If one needs to get some real news then one should try outside the various networks here.
Noam Chomsky is to the understanding of geo global systems of power as is Christopher Hitchens to how religion F's everything up. Both systems of power are structured as to most people can not understand that they are designed to screw us over. So maybe in street lingo if some need examples of why Noam Chomsky is important with intellectual concepts and theories then I got examples for days. Yet it is so much more erudite and enjoyable to just read them yourselves. The men is pretty straight forward and to the point.
Peace
Pegasus
I can not believe some of these comments from some people here that I have always considered intellectually strong and well read. Dudes and dudettes me thinks that you need to check yourself before you wreck yourself.
Of a handful of intellectuals living today Noam Chomsky stands shoulders above the crowd for a couple of reasons. You have to read his shit to understand the man IMO. You know kind of like how some people having an aversion to Shakespeare, Marx, Hitchens, et al. You can not truly understand the impact of intellectual thought, discourse and dialogue till you read the many tomes of the great thinkers of Mankind. And I hate to point out the obvious but Chomsky is such one thinker.
Like SG I also had to study the wonderful world of linguistic theory which is similar to studying Heidegger and Neitzsche. It is fregin hard as is understanding Chomsky. But after a few readings you really start to see how brilliant the obvious positions that a person like NC claims. One does not just pick up a book by David Hume and just "roll with it." IMO NC is in this same kind of beacon of light in a dark consumer based closed system that we all live in. And the utter irony like some Greek tragedy is that most of us refuse to see or can not see it do to "conditioning," and or an ideologue of dichotomy. You know like us and them.
Some here have said that NC just rabbles on, holds little to no validity and so on and so forth. Try "Profits Before People," {?}, spelling that can open ones eyes to the system. How does one fully understand the concept of the " manufactured of the consent," and how it has been used and is being used. Even if we throw out NC's brilliant understanding of how language is an "innate" attribute of humans ,which I disagree with by the way, he takes America in the sphere of linguistic theory that was dominated by the French Structuralist and Post-Structualist of post WW2. Like Emerson did in the 19th century NC did, IMO, put America back on the map of post-modern intellectual theories in the 20th century.
NC was deeply disturbed at the end of WW2 when Truman decided to show the Soviets how an atom bomb worked in practice. While American was celebrating, and rightly so again disagreeing with NC, victory over Japan NC said that he cried as a young man. He did not want to accept the fact that the end of WW2 brought the ushering in of the nuclear age and the post-modern world with the horrors of nuclear weapons on civilians. This is how that man thinks. NC is a very complicate person unlike most of us that concern our lives with nary a whim of intellectual thought.
What has really pissed off the mainstream intellectual movement in America today is how NC has stepped up and pointed out the obvious crimes against humanity in the illegal occupation of lands in Palestine. And NC is an American Jew! He just points out the obvious that most people can not, will not and or refuse to see.
So for those of you, who I know are smart, try reading some of NC's concepts and theories. The guy has received many death threats for his so called " non patriotic," positions by simply pointing out how corporate America interest are not in line with the citizen's interest of our nation. In like manner NC simply points out that Israel's interest are not in line with the interests of most American citizens. Hence the ideal that the government is basically the shadow of the corporate interest. I mean come on people. Who do you think owns all the networks that streams the filtered news in America? If one needs to get some real news then one should try outside the various networks here.
Noam Chomsky is to the understanding of geo global systems of power as is Christopher Hitchens to how religion F's everything up. Both systems of power are structured as to most people can not understand that they are designed to screw us over. So maybe in street lingo if some need examples of why Noam Chomsky is important with intellectual concepts and theories then I got examples for days. Yet it is so much more erudite and enjoyable to just read them yourselves. The men is pretty straight forward and to the point.
Peace
Pegasus
Pegasus,
Just because you agree with what he's saying doesn't make him a great thinker.
Just because you agree with what he's saying doesn't make him a great thinker.
bilby
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Indeed. I agree with most of his political position; it is his linguistic hypotheses that I am doubtful of.
The fact is, that regardless of a person's contribution to humanity in one or two fields, nobody deserves to be treated with the sycophantic reverence given to demagogues. Some are less deserving than others, and Chomsky is far from being the least deserving person ever to be recommended for the epithet 'great'; but then, nor is he the most deserving - and even the most deserving people are just people. Nobody is immune from error, and switching off one's brain when listening to somebody because the speaker is, apparently, 'great' is a big mistake.
Humans may or may not be hard-wired for language; but they do appear to be hard-wired for following a leader, to the extent that they are happy to abdicate all rationality and responsibility to those they perceive as 'great'.
untermensche
Contributor
Unless you have studied linguistics extensively I don't think you are qualified to speak on Chomsky's work in linguistics. It is highly technical and dense. And his major contributions occurred about 60 years ago. In science, generally, the great work is done by people in their 20's and 30's. It is young minds that transform and move the disciplines. How much important work did Einstein do after the age of 40? So to properly judge a person's contribution to science you judge them at their prime, and at his prime Chomsky transformed the field he was working in and moved it into another direction. A person can do no more. But modern linguistics only begins with Chomsky. It doesn't end with him. The field will move past Chomsky just as modern physics has moved beyond Newton.
One can quibble over the word "great", but Chomsky's work in linguistics was revolutionary, at a rare level, and very important.
Horatio Parker
Veteran Member
Yes, he is that great.
As an activist anyway, I'm in no position to judge him as a linguist.
This thread spurred me to review some of his stuff on YouTube, a pleasure.
As an activist anyway, I'm in no position to judge him as a linguist.
This thread spurred me to review some of his stuff on YouTube, a pleasure.
What does? Are you disagreeing with Chomsky as a great thinker, or with the concept of 'great thinker'
Pegasus' argument pretty much amounted to "he says what I want to hear, therefore he's a great thinker."
pegasus8
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Yeh right Loren, keep dreaming.
I did not understand how the world really works till I started to read intellectuals like Chomsky, Zinn, Hitchens, et al. We are taught in the Western World that America's interest are its citizen's interests. This can not be further from the truth.
How about a few tidbits Loren?
-Free markets are a complete myth. There are no such thing as a free market.
-The system is stacked in the favor of the corporate interests and the extreme wealthy over the everyday working class slobs like you and I.
-Capitalism socializes the costs and privatizes the profits.
-The government is nothing but the shadow of big business. You do not get pissed at Exxon you get pisses at your government.
-We have to maintain America's national defense-yet we have a bigger arm force then the next 8-10 nations's combined. We spend
more than the next 12-15 nations combined.
- American industrial arms complex needs nations, thugs and state sponsored terrorist to buy our stuff.
-Turkey was our biggest arms buyer yet Columbia has surpassed all other nations in American arms aid in the last 10 years.
-Most of the people killed in Central and South America have been killed by thugs trained in America and or by the CIA.
-Almost all Mid Eastern geo political/military polices are based on an Israel first and America second strategy with horrible results.
-Any nation that does not accept and go under the umbrella of American corporate hegemony is labeled a communist or terrorist state. Hence
the latest round of the manufacturing of the consent of the American people that America is that nation on the hill.
And on and on and on ad nauseam. And the ironic thing Loren is that Democrats like Obama and Clinton are actually bigger pro corporate/Wall St proponents then what they are made out to be in the 24/7 hate media.
So call me stupid Loren because I guess I am just wishing when a person like Chomsky points out the obvious or a Elizabeth Warren they are of course ostracized and or attacked as not being accepted for their unique inherent intellectual contributions to modern thought. And as an extra added fun bonus the intellectual conservative and liberal community just goes bonkers when Noam points out how Israel basically practices a modern day form of apartheid! And why? Well because Noam is an old Jew from the East who has dedicated his life to intellectual pursuits. I guess that is why American Zionist hate Chomsky with a passion. You can not spin the old cannon of anti-semistism.
People like me can only thank the heavens that we are able and privileged to read great modern day thinkers like a Chomsky or a Hitchens.
Maybe if Chomsky pulled historical facts out of his ass like some news outlets then he would be more accepted and mainstream.
Peace and thanks!
Pegasus
I did not understand how the world really works till I started to read intellectuals like Chomsky, Zinn, Hitchens, et al. We are taught in the Western World that America's interest are its citizen's interests. This can not be further from the truth.
How about a few tidbits Loren?
-Free markets are a complete myth. There are no such thing as a free market.
-The system is stacked in the favor of the corporate interests and the extreme wealthy over the everyday working class slobs like you and I.
-Capitalism socializes the costs and privatizes the profits.
-The government is nothing but the shadow of big business. You do not get pissed at Exxon you get pisses at your government.
-We have to maintain America's national defense-yet we have a bigger arm force then the next 8-10 nations's combined. We spend
more than the next 12-15 nations combined.
- American industrial arms complex needs nations, thugs and state sponsored terrorist to buy our stuff.
-Turkey was our biggest arms buyer yet Columbia has surpassed all other nations in American arms aid in the last 10 years.
-Most of the people killed in Central and South America have been killed by thugs trained in America and or by the CIA.
-Almost all Mid Eastern geo political/military polices are based on an Israel first and America second strategy with horrible results.
-Any nation that does not accept and go under the umbrella of American corporate hegemony is labeled a communist or terrorist state. Hence
the latest round of the manufacturing of the consent of the American people that America is that nation on the hill.
And on and on and on ad nauseam. And the ironic thing Loren is that Democrats like Obama and Clinton are actually bigger pro corporate/Wall St proponents then what they are made out to be in the 24/7 hate media.
So call me stupid Loren because I guess I am just wishing when a person like Chomsky points out the obvious or a Elizabeth Warren they are of course ostracized and or attacked as not being accepted for their unique inherent intellectual contributions to modern thought. And as an extra added fun bonus the intellectual conservative and liberal community just goes bonkers when Noam points out how Israel basically practices a modern day form of apartheid! And why? Well because Noam is an old Jew from the East who has dedicated his life to intellectual pursuits. I guess that is why American Zionist hate Chomsky with a passion. You can not spin the old cannon of anti-semistism.
People like me can only thank the heavens that we are able and privileged to read great modern day thinkers like a Chomsky or a Hitchens.
Maybe if Chomsky pulled historical facts out of his ass like some news outlets then he would be more accepted and mainstream.
Peace and thanks!
Pegasus
That doesn't really answer my question. I'm asking you what you think a great thinker is.
While there's a grain of truth in what you're saying you're going *WAY* too far.
Huh?
Agreed.
And any other system does better???
Way too far.
False.
1) You need to figure the labor component of national defense at local wages, not simply in dollars.
2) Real military budgets are paid in dollars and lives. Our military spending is greatly tilted towards dollars. (Simple test: Take any modern aircraft or ship and attack it with it's price in crap. Unless it's in a position to successfully run away the crap wins every time although the death toll will be very much in our favor.) If you simply compare dollars you don't get an honest picture.
3) A better comparison is military spending as a percentage of GNP--and by that scale you'll find we aren't anything like #1.
Terrorists generally use Russian weapons, not US weapons.
It's called the drug war.
The states that don't accept capitalism are thieves. The standard tactic of the leftists is to nationalize and pay peanuts for what they take.
Repeating this apartheid fantasy doesn't make it so.
- - - Updated - - -
I would be inclined to list people like Einstein or Hawking as great thinkers.
However, in this case what I was saying is that the evidence did not support the conclusion--I wasn't addressing whether or not he was a great thinker, but saying that the argument that he was didn't hold water.
Is that because you've studied what they've written and found it personally compelling? (aka because you agree with them)
Sure, but if you reject claims of greatness on the grounds of personal conviction, what's left? If you base it simply on number of people influenced, then all great thinkers are religious figures, and con men score higher than professors. If you base it on consensus, then greatness = conformity, which isn't what people mean by the term either.
While I can see the pitfalls of relying on a personal subjective judgement, I feel you have a choice between admitting that Pegasus' argument does in fact make him a great thinker, or denying the term entirely. It's the only kind of argument that makes sense in the context.
Bacillus anthracis
Member
But do you understand the field of linguistics and why he's considered great in that field? You almost certainly don't. I think you have one legitimate point that touches on the seemingly purposeful shit-headed complexity found in academic writing. But his contributions to the field are undeniable. Linguistics are complicated--often overly complicated in the attempt to present itself as a complete hard science. Still though, it's an important field that touches on much more than just language.
Really though, there's no need to talk about Chomsky's background in linguistics if it's his political views that are up for discussion.
As for how great Chomsky is in terms of politics? He was one of the first who was able to crystallize the effects of U.S. foreign policy and the hard to face truths of history that led up to it. And in that regard he's been tremendously influential. And he did so by writing clearly, simply, and accurately about the subject(s).
The irony of a white tower academic actually writing something accessible to millions is not lost on me.
PyramidHead
Contributor
I'm just curious here, but I think Hitchens disagrees with Chomsky on pretty much every conceivable topic.
untermensche
Contributor
Late in his life Hitchens made a bizarre transformation.
While being a critic of Nixon's and Kissinger's war in Vietnam and Cambodia, he transformed into a big supporter of the invasion of Iraq. It really was inexplicable, and many relationships Hitchens developed over the years ended.
But early in his career he did a lot of important work and Chomsky was a big supporter.
IMO all the effort he spent arguing against the existence of gods, while interesting, wasn't worth very much.
pegasus8
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The irony is that I can not agree with all of Chomsky's and Hitchen's positions.
Is not the juxtaposition of Chomsky and Hitchens fascinating PyramidHead and untermensche?
I can not agree with Hitchen's geo-political positions concerning the Levant and the larger Middle East. You know like Iraq and Israel. What I have tried to explain to Loren is that as much as I admire Chomsky and having to study linguistics I strongly disagree with his position of Mankind having this "innate" ability to language. If I remember correctly it is the "Continentalist" versus the "Empiricalist." For me Man teaches himself speech. This is a whole another ball game.
So one need not fully agree with a thinker to admire them for their intellectual "Greatness." One hears that after Plato it is all footnotes. Well some of us to not agree with Platonic philosophy and logic. Yet Plato is a great thinker. So the crux of the thread goes back to the position of how a man like Chomsky can be considered a great thinker. And my point is that, as some here have pointed out the obvious by the way, you need to expose yourself and read some of the many short books and ponderous tomes of Chomsky to get a sense of his position in the world of intellectual discourse and dialogue.
And like I have shared with you all he changed how I was programed to think and see the world. Hence the term of the "manufactured of the consent." We think that we are so smart and in reality we know so very little, IMO. Yet reading and hearing that old dude in Woody Allen glasses and wearing some old sweater pissing a butt load of academics off is priceless.
Terrorism? Try state sponsored terrorism. Just scratch the patina of jingoism and the gold reveals the lead underneath.
Peace and cool thread.
Pegasus
Is not the juxtaposition of Chomsky and Hitchens fascinating PyramidHead and untermensche?
I can not agree with Hitchen's geo-political positions concerning the Levant and the larger Middle East. You know like Iraq and Israel. What I have tried to explain to Loren is that as much as I admire Chomsky and having to study linguistics I strongly disagree with his position of Mankind having this "innate" ability to language. If I remember correctly it is the "Continentalist" versus the "Empiricalist." For me Man teaches himself speech. This is a whole another ball game.
So one need not fully agree with a thinker to admire them for their intellectual "Greatness." One hears that after Plato it is all footnotes. Well some of us to not agree with Platonic philosophy and logic. Yet Plato is a great thinker. So the crux of the thread goes back to the position of how a man like Chomsky can be considered a great thinker. And my point is that, as some here have pointed out the obvious by the way, you need to expose yourself and read some of the many short books and ponderous tomes of Chomsky to get a sense of his position in the world of intellectual discourse and dialogue.
And like I have shared with you all he changed how I was programed to think and see the world. Hence the term of the "manufactured of the consent." We think that we are so smart and in reality we know so very little, IMO. Yet reading and hearing that old dude in Woody Allen glasses and wearing some old sweater pissing a butt load of academics off is priceless.
Terrorism? Try state sponsored terrorism. Just scratch the patina of jingoism and the gold reveals the lead underneath.
Peace and cool thread.
Pegasus
untermensche
Contributor
Prior to Chomsky linguistics was mainly data collection. There was no overall coherent theory of language. Linguistics was not really much of a science.
In 1957 Chomsky releases "Syntactic Structures", and modern linguistics begins. Now almost sixty years later linguistics is not where it was when Chomsky began.
The question is not was Chomsky right or wrong. He is the beginning, not the final word. The question is how many ideas did his ideas stimulate? And much of modern linguistics exists because of his ideas. Even if some of it is to refute his ideas.
First, Chomksy is the person who give cognitive science is sea legs and his ideas has transformed everything from artificial intelligence to theories about the mind. His principal idea is easily proved. It states that the basic design of language is innate, ie it is an instinct. At its source is the self evident fact that every culture that ever lived developed language and every language ever developed is translatable. Chomsky deduced that an inherent brain architecture contains the superstructure that is the same in all humans and it is the bony framework from which humans hang words and phrases in whatever language. The existence of this universal "mentalese" overthrew previous ideas that language was primarily a cultural artifact. He showed that there are universal constraints on language formation an that this iwas predictable. Chomsky is not only smart, he is very smart. I have not read any of his political writings because I was never interested in that part of his creativity You should read his work before deciding he was a pedestrian thinker.