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

[potlatch]

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Chomsky is voted world's top public intellectual

[/FONT][FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]· Missing from list: young, women, and the French
· Honour leaves linguistics professor underwhelmed


[/FONT][FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Duncan Campbell
[/FONT][FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Tuesday October 18, 2005
[/FONT][FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Guardian
[/FONT][FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]He is in his 70s and first became known for his theory of transformational grammar - and now he is top of the thinkers' hit parade. Noam Chomsky, the linguistics professor who has become one of the most outspoken critics of US foreign policy, has won a poll that names him as the world's top public intellectual.

[/FONT] [FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Chomsky, who was underwhelmed by the honour, beat off challenges from Umberto Eco, Richard Dawkins, Vaclav Havel and Christopher Hitchens to win the Prospect/Foreign Policy poll.

[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]More than 20,000 voters from around the world took part in selecting the winners from a list of 100. The most striking aspect of the list is the shortage of the young, the female and the French. Only two of the top 10, Hitchens and Salman Rushdie, were born after the war, and Naomi Klein is the highest placed woman, at 11. France provides one name in the top 40, fewer than Peru and Iran.

[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Since the poll was for the world's leading intellectuals, it should come as no surprise that websites manned by supporters of Chomsky, Hitchens and Abdolkarim Soroush were used to draw attention to the poll. Chomsky's supporters are clearly the most energetic: he took 4,800 votes to Eco's 2,500. Voters came mainly from Britain and the US. "I don't pay a lot of attention to them," said Chomsky of the poll last night. "It was probably padded by some friends of mine."

[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Pondering the absence of younger intellectuals from the list, David Herman asks in the new issue of Prospect: "Who are the younger equivalents to [Jürgen] Habermas, Chomsky and Havel? Great names are formed by great events. But there has been no shortage of terrible events in the last 10 years." Only two of the top 20 have yet to reach the age of 50.

[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]The choice of Chomsky will be welcomed and contested by many of the same names who responded delightedly or furiously to the award of the Nobel prize for literature to Harold Pinter last week.

[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]In recognition of this, Prospect offers alternative perspectives, with Robin Blackburn arguing for Chomsky's right to head the list as both a brilliant expositor of linguistics and a vital critic of the US abroad, while Oliver Kamm dismisses him as a kneejerk anti-American who is cavalier about his sources.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]

[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Top five

[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]1 Noam Chomsky linguistics expert and critic of US foreign policy[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]2 Umberto Eco writer and academic[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]3 Richard Dawkins Oxford professor of public understanding of science[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]4 Vaclav Havel playwright and leader of Czech velvet revolution[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]5 Christopher Hitchens journalist, author, pro-Iraq war polemicist[/FONT]

[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]
Who gives a shit anyway?

The longer list is worse.

[/FONT]Top 20 1 Noam Chomsky 2 Umberto Eco 3 Richard Dawkins 4 Václav Havel 5 Christopher Hitchens 6 Paul Krugman 7 Jürgen Habermas 8 Amartya Sen 9 Jared Diamond 10 Salman Rushdie 11 Naomi Klein 12 Shirin Ebadi 13 Hernando de Soto 14 Bjørn Lomborg 15 Abdolkarim Soroush 16 Thomas Friedman 17 Pope Benedict XVI 18 Eric Hobsbawm 19 Paul Wolfowitz 20 Camille Paglia

[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif] [/FONT]

 

[Bellatrix]

World :heart:s Chomsky (TLND)

I can see why he'd be underwhelmed. A popularity contest for intellectuals? What's that about?

Like, Havel is soo this year's Habermas.

Wha'eva.

 

[potlatch]

Habermas looks like one of those vegetables that look like celebrities.

This year's all about Ricoeur 'cos he died and stuff. He was the oldest man in the world or something until a few months ago.

 

[c0De_n1NjA]

did she win this for "no logo"?

 

[Bellatrix]

This year's all about Ricoeur 'cos he died and stuff. He was the oldest man in the world or something until a few months ago.

For me this year is the year of Derrida.

Who also bought the farm.

But could have kicked Ricoeur's ass if he had felt so inclined.

 

[ICUH8N]

Why in the inside of fuck is Hitchens on that list?

Also, I think it should be Zizek. Why, you ask?

- Permanent appearance of having been on a three-day bender
- Probably is permanently on a three-day bender
- Writes stuff called "Welcome to the Desert of the Real", and writes copy for Abercrombie and Fitch as well as about 50 other article titles, all hilarious.
- Married an Argentinean lingerie model, who's parents are Lacanian psychoanalysts, and got the Flaming Lips to play at the wedding
- Does not give a fuck

 

[pete]

- Writes stuff called "Welcome to the Desert of the Real",

i thought that was what morpheus said to neo after he took the red thingy?

 

[ICUH8N]

He did.

 

[pete]

He did.

i hope someone's getting sued

 

[potlatch]

Baudrillard said that first. I suppose Zizek is cashing in 'cos the man don't give a fuck.

Didn't know he's that cool, actually.

Zizek it is!

 

[Anne OMalley]

En garde, pedants! Even though Baudrillard first used the phrase "desert of the real", the sentence "Welcome to..." (etc.) is originally from "The Matrix" - one of its many cod-philosophical gambits. I believe Zizek was deliberately referencing "The Matrix" with that essay title, not the other way round.

Despite a weakness for glibly referencing American movies (e.g. "Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Lacan (But Were Afraid To Ask Hitchcock)"), Zizek is pretty much the Mark E. Smith of cultural studies. That's a good thing in a field largely dominated by Mike Oldfields.

Baudrillard said that first. I suppose Zizek is cashing in 'cos the man don't give a fuck.

Didn't know he's that cool, actually.

Zizek it is!

 

[Latex lizzie]

my brow burns where you speak.

lowly.

underfoot as t'were.

 

[hugh]

Hey has anyone actually read one of Chomsky's books and not felt they were about to enter a coma from boredom? Like, all the way through? Really??

ps. the interview ones don't count

 

[Bellatrix]

Hey has anyone actually read one of Chomsky's books and not felt they were about to enter a coma from boredom? Like, all the way through? Really??

ps. the interview ones don't count

Of all of the names mentioned on this thread so far, I would have thought that Chomsky was one of the most accessible.

Baudrillard on the other hand...

 

[hugh]

Of all of the names mentioned on this thread so far, I would have thought that Chomsky was one of the most accessible.

Baudrillard on the other hand...

Ah there is nothing innaccessible about him as there is nothing difficult to understand about what he is saying which is basically "American Foreign Policy=Bad". Once you have read the first page or two you get the point. Everything after that is masses and masses of evidence to support his point of view. Which is phenomenally boring (to me anyway)

 

[ICUH8N]

Some interesting stuff on his blog, hasn't been updated for ages though...

http://blog.zmag.org/ttt/

 

[Bellatrix]

Ah there is nothing innaccessible about him as there is nothing difficult to understand about what he is saying which is basically "American Foreign Policy=Bad". Once you have read the first page or two you get the point. Everything after that is masses and masses of evidence to support his point of view. Which is phenomenally boring (to me anyway)

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

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

 

[taubstumm]

Some interesting stuff on his blog, hasn't been updated for ages though...

http://blog.zmag.org/ttt/

that's because the dorks at zmag don't know how to put a redirect on their server. the (updated!) address is http://blog.zmag.org/bloggers/?blogger=chomsky

 

[taubstumm]

oh, and i think that the only chomsky stuff i've ever been bored reading is the linguistic stuff. but then i just adore footnotes.

 

[ICUH8N]

may choirs of angels sing thee to thy rest tonight.