Chomsky is the smartest man in the universe (1 Viewer)

[hugh]

What I like about Chomsky is that he takes a clear point and argues it well. You might not agree with him. You might think he's a paranoid conspiracy-theorist with hegemony on the brain. But still, his style of social commentary is preferable to that of "theorists" like Baudrillard, whose (deliberately obtuse, no matter what language you read it in) body of work can be summed up with:

1. simulacra
2. simulation
3. Look folks, it's not going to fellate itself

Well I'll certainly give you that. I don't know really know all that much about the postmodernist gang like Baudrillard but what I do know I don't like much very much. Using language to obscure things rather than elucidate them is one of my pet hates. I'd sooner read Chomsky as at least I can understand what the hell he's talking about!

Chomsky does argue his points really really well. He puts forward his hypothesis and the presents the evidence to support it. I suppose that's the scientist in him. I can appreciate that. But ...

Firstly, reading masses and masses of supporting evidence is really not very interesting. Take a book like Turning The Tide for example. Most of it is detailed and documented accounts of various massacres/atrocities/covert activities that support his case about all the awful things the yanks got up to in Central America. It goes on and on and on. I'm not saying it is not right, or relevant, or important that someone is documenting this stuff to such a level of detail, but what I am saying is that it doesn't make very interesting reading, to me anyway.

Secondly, he just seems to have an incredibly blinkered view of how things are. Again I am not saying that he is not necessarily right a lot of the time but sometimes I wonder how anyone, even someone as intellectually great as Chomsky, can have such fixed views on things, to the extent that those views seem to never change and his writings never seem to question these views at all. It seems that his whole modus operandi is to collect information to support his view of the world. What does he do with the information that doesn't support this view? I suspect he ignores it. For example, I saw him speak in UCD a good many years ago. It was really interesting and compelling and as far as I remember mostly dealing with Central America and the Middle East. Both of these conflicts are obviously rich stuff for the America-as-bogeyman view of the world. It was around the time that the wars in the Balkans were breaking out and I remember someone in the audience asked him about this. I can't really remember what he said but he didn't say much and didn't seem all that interested as if he hadn't yet gotten around to fitting that situation into his spiel.

Man supports his argument well. And his arguments are pretty compelling. What's boring about that?

Well it is boring if it's an argument you have heard countless times before and the "support" drones on and on for years

People were slagging Chistopher Hitchens earlier on this thread which is good sport I agree. But, his book about Iraq, Regime Change, I found pretty interesting becuase at least if forced me to think hard about why he is wrong. At times it even hurt my head.

And Tom, I imagine his linguistics stuff is not boring at all if you are a linguist!

 

[Jerry Twig]

Chomsky is a gargantuan pain in the hole because he never actually offers ANY solutions to his critiques. He just bulldozes through every single decision ever made in American foreign policy and destroys them with very very selective, albeit exhaustive, evidence. The point is that you sense when you read Chomsky that, if in any situation the US had two choices, they would ALWAYS make the wrong one. I know this is a very simplistic explanation as to why he bugs me, but I think it is worthwhile reading him in this light. I think his writings on the media can be interesting, but sometimes I think that his political analysis is propagandistic waffle.
He is also a bit of a bully. And what in Allah's name is Rushdie doing on that list?

 

[taubstumm]

Chomsky is a gargantuan pain in the hole because he never actually offers ANY solutions to his critiques. He just bulldozes through every single decision ever made in American foreign policy and destroys them with very very selective, albeit exhaustive, evidence. The point is that you sense when you read Chomsky that, if in any situation the US had two choices, they would ALWAYS make the wrong one. I know this is a very simplistic explanation as to why he bugs me, but I think it is worthwhile reading him in this light. I think his writings on the media can be interesting, but sometimes I think that his political analysis is propagandistic waffle.
He is also a bit of a bully. And what in Allah's name is Rushdie doing on that list?

i always got the impression that the reason why he doesn't 'offer solutions' is because he doesn't presume that his answers would be any better or worse than any that any other person could offer. whenever people ask him what they 'should do', his answer is generally the same - whatever you feel would be best to make the world a better place. it's actually quite reassuring to realise that there's no 'absolute truth' being offered (like you'd get with marxists, trotskyists, parliamentarians, religious activists, etc., etc.).

and, as regards what you're saying about the u.s. 'always making the wrong choice', i suppose his argument would be that, from the point of view of u.s. state interests, they usually make the 'right' decision, but that this decision positively benefits an extremely small group, and negatively impacts on a much larger group - often the rest of the world population.

 

[Jerry Twig]

I know exactly what you mean about not spoon feeding answers to people, and I don't expect that. Yet other authors of the same ilk (!) such as George Monbiot provide what they themselves perceive to be a generally preferable alternative to that which already exists, and leave scope for further discussion of alternatives and the means of implementation. If Chomsky is so assured about whats bad, then he must also have some idea of what he himself thinks is good. If he is reticent about putting that to paper, it is an insult to his readership to assume that they would follow his word like the gospel. In fact, my inkling is that he couldn't handle the criticism!! This "let the people decide" is horseshit if you are are not willing to throw out a few ideas yourself and have them held up to the light.

Your statement about the minority interest of US foreign policy is fair, except that I don't subscribe to the argument that every decision ever taken in US foreign policy is motivated by that. In those (admittedly rare) instances where the US has nothing to lose economically or otherwise in the international sphere, they have on occasion acted rationally. As in, (see earlier post) when faced with a vote on say a particular resolution, has made the right decision. Chomsky doesn't think so. For him, it ALWAYS seems to be the wrong decision. In fact, it always strikes as remarkable how consistently wrong they always are!!!

 

[ICUH8N]

Naughty Guardian.

Tsk Tsk. I suspect it was more a case of sloppy journalism and inexcusable stupidity than deliberate smearing. Now, where's my tinfoil hat..?

 

[potlatch]

Word on the street is this Chompy thing is already sold out. Dunno how that can happen. But it's meant to be really, actually, definitely going ahead.

 

[taubstumm]

Naughty Guardian.

Tsk Tsk. I suspect it was more a case of sloppy journalism and inexcusable stupidity than deliberate smearing. Now, where's my tinfoil hat..?

'sorry about that, noam'

"The Guardian has no evidence whatsoever to the contrary, and retracts the statement with an unreserved apology to Professor Chomsky."

 

[Bellatrix]

So now that Baudrillard, in my 2005 parlance, has bought the farm, let's resurrect this thread and have some incediary debate.

I'll start:

Zizek's a 'tard.

 

[Bellatrix]

incediary: marked or categorised by the instigation of food fights

 

[avernus]

incediary: marked or categorised by the instigation of food fights

you've brought great shame on yourself.

 

[Bellatrix]

you've brought great shame on yourself.

You're right. My bad spelling has brought shame on us all. Why don't you run up an illustratory flow-chart by close of business?

I won't be able to read it, unfortunately. I have to go eat ice-cream in the sunshine.

 

[avernus]

You're right. My bad spelling has brought shame on us all. Why don't you run up an illustratory flow-chart by close of business?

way ahead of you.

 

[Bellatrix]

way ahead of you.

.|..|

 

[Mormon Nailer]

I dont know anything about linguistics but when Chimsky starts pontificating about world events her does spout some serious shite. He constanty (and says as much in his books) infers the intentions of actions from their results. This is complete nonsense, cargo cult science of the highest order.

Dawkins is interesting but much of what he says is misguided. He conflates Religion and God. His arguements which are supposed to be aboout aethism are actually about religion - the man isnt really an aethist at all. And once you read more into evolution than a mechanism to explain the variety of life on earth you essentially make a new reigion evolutionism.

 

[avernus]

a new reigion evolutionism.

this sounds like the religion I've been seeking my whole life. when do I get my powers?

 

[Mormon Nailer]

this sounds like the religion I've been seeking my whole life. when do I get my powers?

You need to send me a cheque and I will send you my 10 cd set Selfolution

 

[avernus]

You need to send me a cheque and I will send you my 10 cd set Selfolution

the money is in the post!

 

[Mormon Nailer]

the money is in the post!

Your evolutionary journey has begun.

If you wish to speed up the process you need to also send me any attractive female relatives so they can be inseminaed with my highly evolved genes.

 

[hugh]

Man, I just re-read that post I wrote 2 years ago about Chomsky. I was so smart back then. What happened? And I now can't imagine a time when I would have actually had the time to write that ...

 

[potlatch]

So now that Baudrillard, in my 2005 parlance, has bought the farm, let's resurrect this thread and have some incediary debate.

I'll start:

Zizek's a 'tard.

Zizek's cuddly, you cunt.