Recent Chomsky

For the few thinkers at this forum:

"Noam Chomsky: You Ask The Questions
(Such as: is human survival really under serious threat? And how easy is it for you, as a linguist, to understand teenage slang?)
04 December 2003


Professor Noam Chomsky, 74, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, into the only Jewish family in a lower-middle-class neighbourhood. He took a degree and then a PhD in linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. At the age of 29, he published Syntactic Structures, which revolutionised the study of language. In 1964, he began openly resisting the Vietnam War, and published his first collection of political writings five years later. He has remained a major authority on both linguistics and political theory ever since. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with his wife, Carol, and has three children.

If you had only one question to ask the Presidentof the United States, what would it be?
Michael Kulas, by e-mail

Why doesn't he abdicate, thus doing the world a great favour?

What has been your biggest mistake, and would you make it again if you could relive your life?
Steve Womble, Sunderland

The failure to do anywhere near enough to try to put an end to suffering and crimes for which I share responsibility as a citizen of a free country, enjoying unusual privilege and opportunity. But that is a mistake I make every day."


The rest: news.independent.co.uk...

Chomsky is a thinker? Yes but I don't have a lot of faith in people that have a point of view and then construct an elaborate academic thesis around it to justify their original emotional belief.

That in itself is not a crime because everyone does it. It is when you take it to new heights and then pass it off as a higher form of the dialectic, which it isn't.

Originally posted by THENEO
Chomsky is a thinker? Yes but I don't have a lot of faith in people that have a point of view and then construct an elaborate academic thesis around it to justify their original emotional belief.

That in itself is not a crime because everyone does it. It is when you take it to new heights and then pass it off as a higher form of the dialectic, which it isn't.

Neo, Im stunned!! Pleasantly. As you so rightly said, "we all contruct a thesis around an origianl emotional belief" Im paraphrasing you a little.... I believe that you are right. Its called 'Emic Reality' or our reality as defined through our particular viewpoint or "reality" tunnel. This is to distiguish it from 'Etic Reality' or the reality that is supposed to exist apart from our perception of it.
The problem as you know Neo, is that modern science particularly Quantum theory, modern art; specifically post modernism and deconstructionism appear to be decimating the idea of an "Etic Reality" Or more pop-referencially, "there is no spoon". I knew you'd appreciate that one, Neo.
This is an interesting point you hit upon though. One more important than the relevant topic..but one Im glad to see you engaging. What is truth? What is real??? How would you define real?? Thought you'd appreciate that one too.
If we (people) are confined or limited to our 'emic' reality then we can never argue a "fact" or a "truth"...we can only give our reference to the idea...i.e it seems 'true' to me, or its a 'fact' for a sub-atomic instant in one or two dimensions of space-time.
Also, our perceptions can never fully be changed through discourse (sorry socrates) but only through emotional simulation. In fact only through proper stimulation that can be predicted to create certain outcomes. Such as saying that you would "always support our troops if you had ever been in combat" kind of argument. Well if we take the recipient and put them through that kind of emotional stimulation or "training and warfare" we can predict that he/she 'should' come out with a person who will support that statement.
Or perhaps a little closer to home. Say that an "undercover agent" named "Cypher" for instance had been trained to impersonate a "computer geek". Say his job was to infiltrate a "conspiracy" site and gather intelligence. What if he was to realize through intercourse with others (keep those bad thoughts out of your minds guys) and start questioning his purpose. What if he started realizing that there was no definite truth, no authority figure in the clouds, no CO to report to, that he was ABSOLUTELY FREE, and (worse) always had been. What if he was ready to repent and start over? How should he call out for help?

1. Well, he could raise his arms bent at the elbow and cry out, "will nobody help the widow's son!?"
2. He could realise that in order to receive light, one must be receptive.
3. Believe that when the student is ready the teacher will come.
Or realise simply that "nothing" is true, everything is permissable and you are loved by whatever you need.

Good luck.

Well, this kind of reasoning is not new, albeit interesting. But the fact remains that science has already dealt with the problem and come up with a solution. More on that later on...

To claim that "there is no absolute truth" is, in fact, to contradict it. It leads to a semantic problem, but also the fact that there is an absolute truth, which is that there is no absolute truth.

Moreover, the rationalists of the 17th century were convinced that there was objective truth. Descartes formulated a theorem that he claims proves this, "I think, therefore I am". His reasoning is based on that there has to be a subject that thinks (himself) or otherwise he is fooled by someone (the devil). But to be fooled, Descartes has to exist as a subject. This proves that we exist no matter what reality we perceive, which then is an undeniable truth.

Lastly, there are two major types of scientific reasoning, which deal with the problem. If there wasn't any way around the problem, science would be meaningless.

The first, and most important in this case, is positivism. This form of reasoning is based on postulating theories that are valid in all possible worlds. The experiments the theories are built upon should always produce the same results/outcome, given the same conditions, but independent from who performs them.

The second form is called hermeneutic reasoning and is more used in social sciences and liberal arts. It is designed to give more support to an idea, when positivism isn't applicable.

Off topic, I guess, but still....

Noam Chomsky IS a great thinker, and those who say he isn't either don't read his articles, or are dumb as dirt.

He is an incredible writer, he's fearless, and he tries to tell it "like it is". Whether you agree with his point of view or not, he is a very intelligent, insightful guy.

To totally discount his ideas because you don't agree with them shows ignorance.

THENEO: "Yes but I don't have a lot of faith in people that have a point of view and then construct an elaborate academic thesis around it to justify their original emotional belief""

I know we've been through this before, and you've always chickened out, but:

EXPLAIN WHAT YOU MEAN... What is his "point of view" and how does he construct "an elaborate academic thesis" to justify it? Isn't his academia well researched and true?! Like I said, you never seem to like going into specifics (more fond of sweeping, vague generalities), but in this instance please indulge me.


jakomo

I can`t rate Chomsky highly enough, its just a shame there aren`t more people in the world like him, I`m sure if there were people like him in government we wouldn`t be killing people overseas.

If anyone wants to listen to him talk instead of all that hassle having to read this is a good place.

www.geocities.com... (it appears to be down at the moment )

also the Michael Parenti speaches are very interesting.

[Edited on 10-12-2003 by eRnie]

Originally posted by Jakomo

Noam Chomsky IS a great thinker, and those who say he isn't either don't read his articles, or are dumb as dirt.

He is an incredible writer, he's fearless, and he tries to tell it "like it is". Whether you agree with his point of view or not, he is a very intelligent, insightful guy.

To totally discount his ideas because you don't agree with them shows ignorance.

THENEO: "Yes but I don't have a lot of faith in people that have a point of view and then construct an elaborate academic thesis around it to justify their original emotional belief""

I know we've been through this before, and you've always chickened out, but:

EXPLAIN WHAT YOU MEAN... What is his "point of view" and how does he construct "an elaborate academic thesis" to justify it? Isn't his academia well researched and true?! Like I said, you never seem to like going into specifics (more fond of sweeping, vague generalities), but in this instance please indulge me.


jakomo

I agree Jakomo. I believe you everyonehas right to disagree with Choamsky, but I rarely see people actually dispute the facts and footnotes he provides. Instead they like to say, "well, hes a liberal or a communist, or a socialist" as if that somehow dismisses the conclusions he reaches through an examination of the facts he presents. (he's a self-proclaimed anarchist by the way)
Noam Chomsky, being that he is in a certain acedemic limelight, is forced to be as well defined and knowledgeable of the facts as he can be. He would not be allowed to stay on as professor of liguistics at MIT if he fabricated material.
I think that Noam attracks a lot of criticism because he forces people to see things they dont want to.
He says, that if the US is going to sign its name to the United NAtions treatise and expect countries to honor international law, then they had better do it themselves! The US has violated far more international laws than Saddam Hussein did. What they did in Central America in the 80's was in complete violation of international law. In fact, Nicaraqua went before the UN and pleaded its case based on (agreed upon) UN procedures. The US was found guilty by the international court of engaging in an illegal war with a soveriegn nation. The UN cowered before the US and dedided to pass a resolution instead forcing countries to 'respect the international laws' they all agreed to. Every single country voted for this resolution except two. The US and Isreal. How pathetic is that??!
The US knew that it would have to answer for the crimes against humanity it was inflicting in Nicaragua, Honduas and Guatamala if that resolution was allowed to pass. The American congress also condemed this illegal war and forbade the executive branch from continuing. This was also summilarilly dismissed by ' Reagan and Bush the first' who continued to overthrow a "DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED" government because they were a socialist organization that refused to allow American corporations to exploit their people and resources. What continued became one of the worst genocides and attrocites of the 1980's. far eclipsing what happened to the Kurds in Iraq. In fact a worse genocide happened to the Kurds at that same time in Turkey where estimates range from 300,000 to a million people were displaced and killed. And thats our Ally?!!!
This is a little of the topic, but these are FACTS that can be looked up and verified. Those who turn there backs and choose not to see the information, do it for whatever reason they want but its still denial. What it shows is that America pays only lip-service to democratic institutions like the UN and that only happens when they play ball with what we want. When they dont, we simply choose to ignore and violate the international treatise and laws we swore to uphold when we signed it and proceed on our own path.
America is by far the biggest 'Rogue Nation' on the planet. The most laughable part is that the one time in 60 years that the UN doesn't roll over for us (Iraq 2) we start calling for its destruction. In fact there was a rediculous thread started by Thomas Crown calling for the UN's destruction because the US was one of the biggest financial contributors. This, he claimed, allowed us to dictate UN policy and changes. Sounds real democratic doesn't it???

People dont want to know this stuff. They want to continue to buy the BS of an America, shining light to the world, exporting great ideas to the unwashed masses. The hard, bitter reality has been that we have rarely upheld our own virtues as we shove them down everyone elses throat. But what can they do..we have the biggest and best WMD in the whole world...and like a bully, we use it without much conscience.

And to finish, Ill refer to our 'dubious presidents' famous last lines. "And may god continue to bless america"

nice huh?


There is no friend anywhere - Lao Tse


[Edited on 11-12-2003 by Voice_of Doom]

Excellent post, Voice.

One of the things I like most about Chomsky is that even if I don't agree with what he says sometimes, his sources and his media-savvy are impeccable. He can actually get you to UNDERSTAND the other side of the argument even if you don't particularly agree with it 100%.

I guess people mostly like to read things that are safe and that jive with their particular narrow world view.

For me, that's slow death. I want someone who is engaging, who challenges my beliefs, and who has ideas of their OWN. Chomsky has em all.


j

I always liked this qoute from Chomsky:


"Personally, I'm in favor of democracy, which means that the central institutions of society have to be under popular control. Now, under capitalism, we can't have democracy by definition. Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control. Thus, a corporation or an industry is, if we were to think of it in political terms, fascist; that is, it has tight control at the top and strict obedience has to be establishedat every level--there's little bargaining, a little give and take,but the line of authority is perfectly straightforward. Just as I'm opposed to political fascism, I'm opposed to economic fascism. I think that until the major institutions of society are under the popular control of participants and communities, it's pointless to talk about democracy."


Sums up what I think about capitalism perfectly.