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/lit/ - Literature

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3322622 No.3322622 [Reply] [Original]

Why do I see so many /lit/ posters consider Chomsky a hack?

He's one of the few living intellectuals.

>> No.3322624

>>3322622
>Living
RIP Chomsky, you will be missed.

>> No.3322630

>>3322622
Because of his appalling work outside of his disciplinary speciality.

>> No.3322634

>>3322630
But that work is exemplary.

>> No.3322636

His reductive approach to human language borders on ideological dogma.

His politics are informed but his opinions often lack rigor.

Also, 'Oppan Chomsky Style'

>> No.3322639

>>3322630
I dare you to explain yourself with at least some depth. A large portion of posters on here, myself included, have very similar political views to Chomsky's.

>> No.3322646

>>3322639
>2013
>Having political views
How precious.

>> No.3322650

>>3322646
I don't know what this means.

>> No.3322651

>>3322646

I completely agree but that fact you had to use green text to express that is evidence that you are cancer.

>> No.3322652

>>3322639
>Human Nature

And getting his ass kicked by Foucault.

>> No.3322654

>>3322650

He means that we have zero influence on the decisions our countries make. So having an opinion on politics is extremely trivial.

>> No.3322655

>>3322634
Are you seriously suggesting that Chomsky's "histories" are exemplary?

That his political philosophy is anything more than a hack job popularisation and an exegesis of something even less well developed than Wobbly consciousness, harking back to the 1890s in its pathetic moralism and its taking the State's agency as something to attend to as if the State is not merely a paramilitary problem?

>> No.3322658

>>3322652

He asked you to explain yourself with some depth and you post green text and an incomplete sentence....

You're full of shit.

>> No.3322659

>>3322652
I guess we weren't watching the same debate.

>> No.3322663

>>3322652
>>3322659
Sometimes I read things on /lit/ that just make me want to pee on my computer.

>> No.3322660

>>3322639
>have very similar political views to Chomsky's.
And such views are laudable and commendable. But Chomsky's deployment of archaic and frankly harmful method to support them has retarded the intellectual capacity of the US left and has done nothing to popularise the real issues of libertarian organisation against capital and the state.

>> No.3322665

>>3322659
Probably.
Because he got his ass handed to him.

>> No.3322684

If nothing else, you cannot deny that as a linguist, Chomsky is a genius.

>> No.3322695

>>3322684
I'm okay with this claim, because I lack linguistic skill to verify it personally, and because the linguistic academics believe Chomsky's contribution to be important.

However, in the fields of libertarian political thought and 20th century history, where I claim expertise, Chomsky is a fucking retard who ought to have shut his gob long ago and left the field to people like Zinn who have a disciplinary capacity to comment.

>> No.3322707

>>3322684

Why?

>> No.3322711

>>3322622
Because it should be obvious to anyone who has read much politics, history and economics that his work on those subjects amounts to a caricature. Like a caricature, what's true is exaggerated and what's false takes it far from the truth of the matter. For example, Chomsky seems to live in a world where the ability of the United States to affect matter in developing countries looms comically large, where the politics and other dynamics internal to those countries seem to affect matters little, and where the complexity of the formation and implementation of foreign policy in the US is apparently absurdly simple interest calculation. Even if he's not actually wrong, he presents it so stupidly that it's hard to take him seriously.

>> No.3322713

>>3322695

>you have to be a leading expert on a field in order to discuss it
>you have to be a mechanical engineer in order to drive a car
>you have to be a world-class chef in order to cook food

>> No.3322716

>>3322713

>those analogies

>> No.3322717

>>3322711

>looms comically large

Are you claiming that the internal politics of Central American countries contributed to the massacres of civilians in those countries committed by the U.S. military?

>> No.3322720

>>3322716

It's a fair comment. That poster was suggesting that everybody should just believe whatever Howard Zinn shits out, instead of thinking for themselves and contributing to the debate themselves.

>> No.3322723

>>3322717
Yes. Because they clearly did. The US military was supporting factions within the politics of those countries (almost always, the wealthy land-owners and capitalists and the army which backed them) over and against other factions (almost always, the poor peasants seeking agrarian reform, sometimes with a Socialist or Communist ideological form, sometimes with the aid of the Catholic Church). It's clearly true that the internal politics had something to do with it.

>> No.3322726

>one of the few living popular intellectuals

>> No.3322727

>>3322723

By your logic, I could blame the Holocaust on the British.

You're avoiding the question. The U.S. military massacred millions of innocent civilians. Is this the fault of anyone other than the U.S. military?

>> No.3322728

>>3322717
This:
>>3322723

Also, thanks for writing my response for me.

>> No.3322730

>>3322695

>Zinn

Get your anti-white kike bullshit out of here

>> No.3322732

>>3322728

See:

>>3322727

>> No.3322733

>>3322622

Chomsky set back American linguistics by 50 years. He is a fraud, a conman, an American version of Lysenko.

See some interesting links here: http://www.languagehat.com/archives/004864.php

>> No.3322737

>>3322727
>The U.S. military massacred millions of innocent civilians.
Oh? Let's see the US government try to do the same in a stable country that is relatively free internal conflict that existed well before the US threw a little money around. The US military undoubtedly has blood on its hands, but this claim hugely oversimplifies the case.

>> No.3322738

>>3322727
You're conflating causal analysis and moral analysis. Your original statement said "contributed", which is the first, and it's absolutely true that the internal politics of Central American states had something to do with that whole thing. That doesn't take away in any moral sense from the responsibility of the American military, but if we're going to analyze causes, we have to do that.

>> No.3322739

>>3322707

Do you know his idea of universal language?

>> No.3322742

>>3322739

grammar***

>> No.3322746

I used to be half in love with a girl who was way into Zizek and Chomsky. Sometimes I wonder how things would have worked out in the end.

To be fair, I was heavily into Maher and Dawkins and Hicks et al at at the time. So who knows.

>> No.3322747

Read this and tell me he is not a hack

The American version of "libertarianism" is an aberration, though—nobody really takes it seriously. I mean, everybody knows that a society that worked by American libertarian principles would self-destruct in three seconds. The only reason people pretend to take it seriously is because you can use it as a weapon. Like, when somebody comes out in favor of a tax, you can say: "No, I'm a libertarian, I'm against that tax"—but of course, I'm still in favor of the government building roads, and having schools, and killing Libyans, and all that sort of stuff.

Now, there are consistent libertarians, people like Murray Rothbard—and if you just read the world that they describe, it's a world so full of hate that no human being would want to live in it. This is a world where you don't have roads because you don't see any reason why you should cooperate in building a road that you're not going to use: if you want a road, you get together with a bunch of other people who are going to use that road and you build it, then you charge people to ride on it. If you don't like the pollution from somebody's automobile, you take them to court and you litigate it. Who would want to live in a world like that? It's a world built on hatred.

The whole thing's not even worth talking about, though. First of all, it couldn't function for a second—and if it could, all you'd want to do is get out, or commit suicide or something. But this is a special American aberration, it's not really serious.

>> No.3322749

>>3322739

I know about Chomsky's Universal Grammar, and I don't think it's enough to claim that he's a "genius" on its own.

>> No.3322751

>>3322747

He's clearly a hack, but he has a solid point.

>> No.3322754

>>3322738

You're using misusing language. Nobody contributes to massacres except for the perpetrators, in this case the U.S. military.

>> No.3322761

>>3322754
You're wrong in the same way Chomsky is frequently wrong. The US did a lot to create the conditions that resulted in a lot of violence, but your insistence that the US military was the sole (much less the most significant) perpetrated of that violence suggests that you, for whatever reason, can't accept that politics is a bit more complex than that.

>> No.3322762
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3322762

Because he speaks the obvious truth.

>> No.3322763

>>3322754
Nah. That's not how the world works. That in no way diminishes their moral responsibility for their actions, of course. Nor does it diminish the moral responsibility of any other contributor.

>> No.3322764

>>3322751
There is no point in that entire passage.

There is absolutely no weight to his arguments.

He also has no understanding of economics. This can be seen in his opposition to free trade.

Comparative advantage is not that hard to understand. He goes out of his way to ignore the logic.

>> No.3322767
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3322767

>>3322761

u amerigan???? :DDDDDDDDD

>> No.3322769

>>3322747

>rustled libretardian detected

>> No.3322772

>>3322754
>You're using misusing language.

>Nobody contributes to massacres except for the perpetrators
>tautology

>> No.3322779

Libertarianism is a fairy tale hoisted on the greedy middle class and ignores the lessons of history.

US foreign policy has been the catalyst of much third-world strife.

Deal with it.

>> No.3322782

People in this thread really believe that social institutions as large as the US Army are monolithic?

>> No.3322785

>>3322779
I agree with that? I'm just saying that you shouldn't ignore internal politics and you shouldn't ignore the complexities of political reality and you shouldn't ignore other things in the causal interplay of what happened.

>> No.3322787

>>3322785
If any country was ever manipulated, it is only because a portion of it's own society WANTED to be manipulated. Pinochet was adored by part of Chile, so were the generals that governed Brazil at the time.

>> No.3322789

>>3322787
I think that's true. And I think we might be arguing at cross-purposes here.

>> No.3322798

>>3322720
I trust your capacity to comment on historiography less highly than I trust the capacity of my own shit to develop the capacity for speech and produce a cogent historical argument.

>> No.3322805

>>3322785

>catalyst

All political systems have an internal subversive element, take the USA and its large segments of libertarians and religious fundamentalists, for example. Now suppose space aliens armed these groups with laser guns and energy shields. This hypothetical scenario would be extremely disruptive to the USA, which may otherwise have remained in equilibrium.

>> No.3322811
File: 136 KB, 1920x1080, K-ON!_Ep07_Christmas!_[1080p,BluRay,x264]_-_THORA.mkv_snapshot_01.15_[2012.12.27_11.04.25].jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3322811

I can't stand Noam Chomsky's hand movements.

His views on pornography made me think less of him

>> No.3322814

Even Rand stated that american libertarians were retards.

>> No.3322818

>>3322747
Rustled as fuck

>> No.3322821

My linguistics teacher sucks his cock any chance he gets. Hurr, let me tell me how awesome it was to work with his team, durr.

>> No.3322826

>>3322821

That's because Chomsky is a leading scholar in the field.

>> No.3322832

>libertarians

Enjoy feeding feces burgers to your flipper-children, that's if your company scrip is any good at mcdonald/walmart burger.

>> No.3322849

>>3322814
What's humorous is that Rand diehards never mention her history.

There's a fucking reason why she was so averse to any form of regulation; her parents were middle class Jew merchants in the Soviet Union.

>> No.3322859

>>3322749
>I know about Chomsky's Universal Grammar, and I don't think it's enough to claim that he's a "genius" on its own.

'Universal Grammar' is discredited quack science.

>> No.3322863

>>3322849

What's really humorous is the liberetardian are even stupider than rand subscribers.

>> No.3322864

>>3322826
>>3322821

Fuck Chomsky. There is _zero_ evidence for UG, despite all the furious searching for it for 50 years. And still, Chomsky and his cocksucking sycophants pretend that his discredited unscientific theory is some sort of grand revelation about the nature of language.

Chomsky set back the science of linguistics for 50 years. :(

>> No.3322867

>>3322864

Put it this way, what else is a linguist going to do? Worst science ever.

>> No.3322874

>>3322867
>Put it this way, what else is a linguist going to do? Worst science ever.

Historical and comparative linguistics is a thing, look it up.

It's only Chomsky who turned linguistics into shit.

>> No.3322929

Chomsky bases his support for the federal government on his contention that private power wielded by corporations is much more dangerous to people than state action, and that government can, and should, protect its defenseless citizens against the depredations of the capitalists. While the power of private corporations in the united states is truly awesome and oppressive, this power exists because these businesses are supported by the state, a point that Chomsky concedes. Anarchists have generally opposed the state for precisely this reason: that it protects the interests of some, primarily the wealthy exploiters, while preventing others, especially working people, from challenging this power on their own. But, because of poor and working people's movements, the state has instituted some social welfare programs and instituted some regulation of private business to ameliorate the conditions of those most harmed by state-supported capitalism. These and other alleged public services are the aspects of government power that Chomsky supports and would see expanded.

In other words, he's just another statist hack. He's just masquerading as something different...maybe for the anarchist student pussy, maybe because he's genuinely retarded, maybe because he's intentionally undermining AnSyns...who the fuck knows, really?

>> No.3322944

>>3322929
You're wrong though, he doesn't concede the fact that the businesses are powerful largely due to support from the state. The reason for this is because the US government is very much intertwined and controlled by big business. Chomsky supports a larger and more powerful government only if such a government is not influenced by private businesses as it is today.

He has said that in the end he would most likely prefer an anarchist approach, to put it simply, in the end there should not be a government, at least not one functioning as states do today. He does however realize that in the current world such a thing is not desirable seeing as large corporations hold so much power. Instead he thinks that a fully democratic and functioning democratic government is needed to combat the power of big business. He's not in favor of strengthening the current system, he want's to change it and make it more democratic and less influenced by large corporations. This really isn't that hard of concept to understand and you really should look further into his opinions before making such ridiculous claims.

>> No.3322951

>>3322747
What part is quotation? Does it have a quotation?

Also, Libertarianism is a mental sickness. I can relate to that text.

>> No.3322957

>>3322929
And how do you prevent monopoly from forming? Good-brother networks? It would take five seconds of free market to form a corporate government and then we'd be to square minus ten.

>> No.3322964
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3322964

Only four uses of the word 'hack' in a Chomsky thread? Holy shit, /lit/, I'm impressed.

>> No.3322970

>>3322944
>in the end

Oh it's just a transitional phase, right?

It's 2013 anon, you gotta stop falling for that one.

>> No.3322978

It's always interesting to see how people can disagree with one of the most vehement humanists of our time, who speaks almost nothing that isn't bound by reason and logic. It's good that you disagree with him on some things - I do too - but some of the criticism of him seems really unfounded, by people who hardly know his work nor his real thoughts.

>> No.3322991

>>3322978
>who speaks almost nothing that isn't bound by reason and logic

Everyone believes this about every thinker they respect.

>> No.3322993

>>3322991

That's a valid point.

>> No.3322997

>>3322659
Foucault had Derrida's number, there's no way he didn't hand Chomsky his ass. That said, plenty of people beat down Foucault, but none of them are ever discussed on /lit/ because this board is terrified of post modernisms that arose after 1980.

>> No.3323000

>>3322695
>on /lit/
>claiming expertise on any subject
Hoho, how rich.

>> No.3323106

>>3322970
When he's saying he would prefer it "in the end", he doesn't mean that strengthening the government and combat corporate influence is simply a, as you chose to put it, "transitional phase". What he's actually saying is that yes, he would prefer an "anarchist" world in which governments of the kind we're used to doesn't exist, however he doesn't see it as possible and therefore doesn't strife for it. You pointing out my way of wording it as "in the end" and calling it a transitional phase merely points to the fact that you have absolutely no idea of what Chomsky's positions are or how his reasoning goes. Instead you're just another moron on /lit/ jumping on the bandwagon of Chomsky-hate whilst knowing fuck all about any of this.

>> No.3323118

http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/chomsky.htm

>> No.3323124

Noam Chomsky is a hack

>> No.3323138

>The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor led to many very good things. If you follow the trail, it led to kicking Europeans out of Asia - that saved tens of millions of lives in India alone.

>> No.3323146

>The Serbian concentration camp at Trnopolje "was a refugee camp, I mean, people could leave if they wanted."

>Serbian atrocities - ethnic cleansing, torture camps, mass executions: "a good deal of what has been charged has no basis in fact, and much of it is pure fabrication."

>[NATO's intervention in Kosovo] "was because Serbia was not carrying out the required social and economic reforms, meaning it was the last corner of Europe which had not subordinated itself to the US-run neo-liberal programs, so therefore it had to be eliminated."

>> No.3323156

>Of course, no one supposed that Mao literally murdered tens of millions of people, or that he "intended" that any die at all.

>> No.3323160

>>3323146
>>The Serbian concentration camp at Trnopolje "was a refugee camp, I mean, people could leave if they wanted."
This turned out to be the case though.

>> No.3323180

>>3323156

Are you saying Mao deliberately caused the famine? Why?

I mean I know he killed dissidents, but the famine is another thing entirely.

>> No.3323217

>>3323180
Mao and the top of the party knew very well what they were doing. I recommend Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–62 by Dikötter if you're interested in the matter.

>> No.3323227

>>3323217

At least answer the question of why they would deliberately cause a famine.

>> No.3323235

Like him or not, I'll throw this into the mix.

Alex Jones (the conspiracy theorist) interviewed him. The out come is fucking hilarious. You absolutely must watch this if you've never seen it before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwjK07gEpCM

>> No.3323237

Calling someone a hack is just a pretentious way of saying "I don't like him".

>> No.3323242

>>3323227
Resources were diverted away from farming and to steel/iron production, and there were increased quotas on agricultural produce from the countryside that was used to pay for imports.

>> No.3323250

>>3323242

That's an explanation for the cause of the famine. It doesn't explain why they would deliberately use a famine to murder millions of people.

There's a very important difference between:
1. They fucked up and a bunch of people died
And
2. They deliberately killed millions of people

>> No.3323260

>>3323250
It was more of a deliberate sacrifice than a fuckup.

>"Casualties have indeed appeared among workers, but it is not enough to stop us in our tracks. This is the price we have to pay, it's nothing to be afraid of. Who knows how many people have been sacrificed on the battlefields and in the prisons [for the revolutionary cause]? Now we have a few cases of illness and death: it's nothing!"

It was actually believed until very recently that it was a fucukup and that Mao didn't even know about it, but between Dikötter and Chang & Halliday's biography of Mao it's accepted that the deaths were known about and considered acceptable both by Mao and all the high ranking party people.

>> No.3323263

Any good books on Mao and the chinese revolution?

>> No.3323303

>>3323250
Not to the people who died, you twat

A supposedly humanist and socialist government should pay more fucking attention to beurocratic decisions that could harm and kill millions of the common people. The "oversight" argument makes then fucking worse in my mind.

>> No.3323317

>Why do I see so many /lit/ posters consider Chomsky a hack?

Because he is a hack. He croaks his way through semi-coherent arguments about 'social libertarianism' being the best economic system, spouting rhetoric, using fallacies, and ignoring his inconsistencies and contradictions.

>> No.3323362

>>3322733
Hahahahhahahahaa no

Even most analytic linguists(Devitt, Kripke, Kaplan, Donnellan, to name a few) respect him and his ideas on language.

>> No.3323363

>Living
I've got some bad news for you, OP.

>> No.3323371

>>3322622
>one of the few living intellectuals

ethnocentric much? even on Anglo world there's plenty of intellectuals... it's just Chomsky is an activist and gains media attention... most intellectuals don't exactly carry a celebrity lifestyle

>> No.3323374

You can consider Chomsky great just because of his influence on CS, seriously. Chomsky hierarchy is really useful

>> No.3323391

>>3323146
He's right, you fucking idiot.

>> No.3323710

>>3322747
So because he pointed out some flaws in American "libertarianism" he's a hack?

>> No.3323827

>>3323363

And that is?

>> No.3323911

>>3322746
Spoiler. You're a tard for being into Dawkins at any point in your life. There is no cure.

>> No.3323922

>>3323911
>reddit.com/r/Agnostic

>> No.3323958

>>3322622
>He's one of the few living intellectuals.
I lol'd.

10/10

>> No.3323962

>>3322639
>large

I lol'd again.

10/10 op

>> No.3323965

>>3322639
half of the posters on /lit/ are Jews ? O.o

>> No.3323994

>>3323260

Isn't Chang & Halliday's biography largely discredited due to their political grudges?

>> No.3324493

>>3323965

Half or more of the people here are politically left.

>> No.3324986

>rustled ron paul liberetardians calling chomsky a poopoohead

Fucking gullible traitors.

>> No.3324993
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3324993

>>3322747
>muh roads
>muh roads muffuga

>> No.3325032

>>3323994
Yes, and Dikotter is worse: http://logosjournal.com/2011/fall_leonard/

>> No.3325042

>>3322695

>Zinn

Oh, I didn't know this thread was about hack historians who sacrifice historiographical integrity and scholarly rigor in order to advance a political agenda.

>> No.3325050

>>3325042
>Dingus

As advertised, so as consumed—last tuesday, when I checked, Zinn was still accepted in the literature reviews of peer reviewed journals dealing with survey histories of the United States.

>who sacrifice historiographical integrity and scholarly rigor in order to advance a political agenda.

That's strange, because I've not observed a literature review on the topic of survey histories of the United States that rejects Zinn's scholarship.

>> No.3325052
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3325052

>Every single Chomsky thread
>People post pictures of Richard Dawkins

why

>> No.3325055

>>3325050

http://hnn.us/articles/4370.html

This is Michael Kazin's take on A People's History.

>> No.3325059

>>3325055
>http://hnn.us/articles/4370.html
Submission Guidelines


We welcome submissions, both for the print magazine and for online. They may be sent to submissions@dissentmagazine.org. We do not consider pitches or simultaneous submissions.

The best way to learn what may suit Dissent is simply to read the magazine and the website. We accept writing on politics, economics, and culture. We discourage footnotes. Articles in print and online typically run from 2,500 to 4,000 words, book reviews around 3,000.

Dissent takes pride in cultivating talented new writers who now contribute to the New Yorker, the Nation, the New York Review, the London Review, and the New York Times. We read every submission and take pleasure in bringing new writers into the magazine. If you have any questions, please write to us at inquiries@dissentmagazine.org.

I'm not noticing peer review.

>> No.3325064

>>3325059

Just read the article. Kazin makes several very salient criticisms.

disclaimer: I'm a student of his

>> No.3325068

>>3322655
Yeah. So what?

>> No.3325071

I have a feeling that for most people here, whether you like or dislike Chomsky is really a matter of what you feel liking or disliking him says about you as a person.

>>>3322660

This is as close as we are ever going to get to an explanation, and it is barely intelligible.

>> No.3325078
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3325078

>>3325052
I donno man.

You'd think they'd post more Ian McKellen or something.

>> No.3325099

>>3325059
>We discourage footnotes.
I don't know exactly what this discussion is about, but this rustles my jimmies regardless.

>> No.3325151

>>3322747
you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBHicyqMML4

>> No.3325167

>>3325099

The magazine is edited by a collection of leftist professional historians.

>> No.3325192

>>3325167

>vast majority of intellectuals and scholars are leftist

>> No.3325194

>>3325167
And that still isn't the standard for knowledge in scholarly history. Peer review, or one of the UPs or the dwindling commercial houses that hire adequate readers.