
Noam Chomsky Joins Faculty at University of Arizona - incan1275
https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/worldrenowned-linguist-noam-chomsky-joins-faculty-university-arizona
======
otalp
He's 88, still mentally very sharp and probably moved there for the
weather(aside from the great department filled with old students).

His work ethic is incredible, he spends 5 hours a day responding to emails
from the public- I've received a detailed response every time I've sent one.
The amount of time he spends engaging with even terribly misinformed(but well
meaning) people is truly astounding, and unparalleled amongst public figures
as far as I can tell.

Here's an
example([https://www.reddit.com/r/chomsky/comments/6tz1xp/what_do_you...](https://www.reddit.com/r/chomsky/comments/6tz1xp/what_do_you_guys_think_about_ncs_argument_here/))
of some random kid badgering Chomsky with emails, and he still takes the time
out to respond to every one of his questions, even though he gets more than a
hundred mails a day.

~~~
cooper12
Holy shit that link you shared was so frustrating to read. To think of all the
productive things a great intellectual like Chomsky could be doing with his
time. Instead he generously chose to engage someone who had already made their
conclusion and just wanted to "debate" without actually ceding to any points
(take a shot any time OP says "liberal" or "PC"). He even hints at OP's
"intentional ignorance" many times too... What a patient soul to debate
someone whose entire education on race issues was some /pol/ infographic and
right-wing blogs. OP could have taken some time to read some pre-existing
literature, to learn the opposing side's arguments and especially when
corresponding with an academic, to read their prior writing. Instead we have
this..... the state of public discourse on the web 2.0.

~~~
thethirdone
> Instead he generously chose to engage someone who had already made their
> conclusion and just wanted to "debate" without actually ceding to any points
> (take a shot any time OP says "liberal" or "PC").

Chomsky was not prepared to cede any points either. In many places, he does
not respond to the probing questions asked of him at all (this is assuming the
poster didn't add them in afterwards) instead opting to insult the poster.

Poster:

    
    
        1: By what mechanism do white supremacist elements impose American black culture on the American black community today?
        2: For example, how is white supremacy responsible for single-parent families in the American black community? Allegedly single-parent rates have skyrocketed since the Civil Rights Movement.
    

Chomsky:

    
    
        Racism is quite extreme today, and by many measures increasing. I don’t know what cocoon you live in.
        Perhaps you are completely unfamiliar with racism and its impact, in particular, the extreme racism experienced constantly by African-Americans. If so, I would suggest that you learn something about the world, and then you will understand the mechanisms very well. If you don’t want to have direct experience – which is not that hard –then at least look at the literature.
        Again, try following your own logic. It’s not genes, so it is circumstances. Do you perceive any circumstances beyond the extreme white racism that it takes real effort to be oblivious to?
    

> He even hints at OP's "intentional ignorance" many times too.

Hinting at ignorance is not helpful unless you show a path away from
ignorance. Saying that something is obvious or trivial (as Mathematicians say)
is not helpful. If it is truly obvious, just provide evidence.

Now this is not to criticize Chomsky, he is still replying rather than
remaining silent. And with his limited time, it doesn't necessarily make sense
for him to give a solid argument in that case, but his argument in that link
wasn't convincing.

~~~
Stratoscope
Readable version...

Poster:

> 1: By what mechanism do white supremacist elements impose American black
> culture on the American black community today?

> 2: For example, how is white supremacy responsible for single-parent
> families in the American black community? Allegedly single-parent rates have
> skyrocketed since the Civil Rights Movement.

Chomsky:

> Racism is quite extreme today, and by many measures increasing. I don’t know
> what cocoon you live in.

> Perhaps you are completely unfamiliar with racism and its impact, in
> particular, the extreme racism experienced constantly by African-Americans.
> If so, I would suggest that you learn something about the world, and then
> you will understand the mechanisms very well. If you don’t want to have
> direct experience – which is not that hard –then at least look at the
> literature.

> Again, try following your own logic. It’s not genes, so it is circumstances.
> Do you perceive any circumstances beyond the extreme white racism that it
> takes real effort to be oblivious to?

~~~
chillwaves
More from Chomsky.

> Why were you and your friends raised in a different non-ghetto culture?
> Agreed, it has absolutely nothing to do with genes. Rather, it has
> everything to do with extreme white racism, which includes refusal to
> acknowledge what has been created by a history of 400 years of vicious slave
> labor camps which were the source of a large part of our wealth and
> privilege, a culture of white supremacy that is the most extreme in the
> world, beyond South Africa, as comparative studies have shown, and very
> powerful effects right to the present moment. Including what is sometimes
> called “intentional ignorance”.

------
jtraffic
I suspect that when Chomsky dies, a burst of new and valuable linguistics
research will arrive. I'm _not_ saying I hope he dies soon. However, I think
his current impact on the field is probably negative.

My theory derives from these sources: [https://www.economist.com/news/books-
and-arts/21695371-theor...](https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-
arts/21695371-theories-worlds-best-known-linguist-have-become-rather-weird-
noam-chomsky) (Chomsky's recent theory of how language evolved has not been
accepted favorably), and

[http://www.nber.org/papers/w21788](http://www.nber.org/papers/w21788) (this
happens a lot)

~~~
foldr
Chomsky has far less of a grip on the field than people outside it imagine.
There are already lots of people doing research in linguistics that's
fundamentally different in its approach. So I would not expect any very sudden
sea change once Chomsky dies.

Note that the economist article is very badly informed. Since another poster
didn't link directly to the relevant article on the 'facultyoflanguage' blog,
here is a link:

[http://facultyoflanguage.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/it-never-
end...](http://facultyoflanguage.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/it-never-ends-
never.html)

------
justin66
I haven't read his political works but Noam Chomsky as a social phenomenon is
interesting. His subject matter is often media and political manipulation and
people who haven't read him often feel compelled by an entrenched, opposed
political view to voice extremely strong opinions about his work. And they're
doing this without any conscious irony.

------
BjoernKW
World-renowned linguist and all people are talking about is his political
views (mostly by his own design).

Make no mistake, Chomsky's work was significant to both linguistics proper
(X-bar theory, generative grammar, universal grammar) and computer science
(Chomsky hierarchy).

In recent years though he more often than not comes across as a grumpy old man
who can't seem to accept the fact that linguistic theory has moved on to often
simpler, more elegant approaches.

~~~
foldr
> linguistic theory has moved on to often simpler, more elegant approaches.

As a linguist, I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. There have always
been alternative approaches. But we have not recently been blessed with any
that are clear winners in terms of simplicity and elegance.

~~~
BjoernKW
HPSG or statistical approaches in computational linguistics, for instance.

Now, of course one can argue - as Chomsky himself has done - that statistical
approaches are not as elegant as rule-based ones but as human language faculty
quite likely behaves statistically to some degree, statistical methods for
describing language do have some merit.

~~~
foldr
Linguistic theory has not "moved on" to HPSG. HPSG originated in the early 90s
and remains a minority pursuit.

The term "statistical approaches" could mean almost anything. There have
always been people who are more interested in building, say, practical machine
translation systems than in figuring out how kids acquire grammatical
knowledge. But again, the field has not "moved on". There are just different
groups of researchers working on different problems.

~~~
indubitably
Could mean almost anything but what generativist linguistics (or whatever the
latest label for the Chomskyan school) does, which continues to promote the
notion that language is essentially algebraic, that "grammaticality" is
binary, and so forth. It's simply not the case that Chomsky is "okay" with
approaches to the study of language which are not in accord wiht his own. He
repeatedly dismisses whole subdisciplines as "uninteresting," but in context
those complaints don't mean "uninteresting to me," they mean "worthless."

~~~
foldr
>promote the notion [...] that "grammaticality" is binary

I don't know a single generative linguist who is committed to the claim that
grammaticality is binary. And there is lots of published work in generative
linguistics that explicitly does not assume this. Where are you getting this
idea from, exactly?

>language is essentially algebraic,

Not sure what this means. If it just means that sentences have structure, then
yes, generative linguistics is committed to this obviously true claim.

>He repeatedly dismisses whole subdisciplines as "uninteresting," but in
context those complaints don't mean "uninteresting to me," they mean
"worthless."

He's entitled to his opinion, no? It's not as if no-one ever criticizes his
work.

------
em3rgent0rdr
Chomsky is a great critic of social issues like imperialism, manufactured
consent, and state capitalism. However he has been proved devastatingly wrong
about Venezuela and as of today won't admit the problems with state socialism.
I hope his new students realize this.

~~~
eighthnate
> However he has been proved devastatingly wrong about Venezuela and as of
> today won't admit the problems with state socialism. I hope his new students
> realize this.

Doesn't the problems with state socialism result from being attack by state
capitalism which tend to be much stronger nations?

The US and europe attacking venezuela and blaming their failures on state
socialism is like blaming democracy for ukraine's loss of crimea. When larger
nations bully smaller nations, smaller nations suffer.

We can never truly ascertain the merits of socialism, capitalism or any other
ism really because it doesn't exist in a vacuum.

The chinese and their state socialism has been the most successful nation the
past 40 years after the US decided to play nice with them.

~~~
ant6n
China is not a socialist country.

~~~
eighthnate
They are more socialist than capitalist. Besides, there is no pure socialist
or capitalist society on earth.

Using that logic, the US isn't a capitalist nation and venezuela isn't a
socialist nation. And the guy's assertion that venezuela is suffereing because
of state socialism is pointless.

China and venezuela are both socialist countries. You can't just decide to
accept one because it fits into your worldview and reject the other because it
doesn't.

~~~
huac
"the US isn't a capitalist nation" \- ok buddy

~~~
valuearb
In 2017, 36% of the US GDP is government spending, including federal, state
and local governments. Of the remainder, most is highly regulated giving
government specific controls over how companies can speak, hire, employ,
operate, manufacture, and how their ownership is determined and profits
distributed.

At what level of government control over the economy do you draw the line
between socialism and capitalism? It can't be 100%, that's called communism.
If you draw it at 50% for socialism, a very good argument exists that we are
there right now, just establish that the government controls anywhere near 20%
of the decisions private businesses make.

~~~
etplayer
>At what level of government control over the economy do you draw the line
between socialism and capitalism?

No level, where do you get this idea that Socialism and capitalism exist on a
scale between government control over the economy and no control over the
economy? I can't imagine what would arouse such an opinion. Marx never said
"Socialism is when the government does stuff, and the more stuff it does, the
more Socialist it is". That's complete rubbish.

>It can't be 100%, that's called communism.

No, it's not. Communism, like other anarhcist ideologies, has no "government
control", and this is painfully obvious by reading Marx's discussion on the
self-regulating sphere of activity.

And this is of course ignoring the fact that in Marx's time, Socialism and
Communism had the same meaning. Their distinction is almost entirely a
Leninist one.

Here's the thing: Socialism isn't about government control over a capitalist
economy, and it's not about acting like a capitalist but on a global scale.
That's called _state capitalism_.

~~~
valuearb
I was talking about real world definitions of socialism, not fantasies Marx
used to trick people into buying into his concepts.

The real world definition of socialism is government control of economic
activities. And there has never been a "socialist" economy without
dictatorship and fascism. Socialism is a mandatory step on the road to
fascism.

------
swiftting
Congratulations to Noam Chomsky! I remember when he was giving a talk at
Columbia university and the line for entry was literally around the block !

Great man.

~~~
umanwizard
The redness of Arizona comes from the affluent suburbs of Phoenix; it doesn't
come from Tucson (where Chomsky is presumably moving).

If everywhere south of the Gila River (i.e., the Gadsden Purchase) became its
own state, it would be __deep __blue.

~~~
Glyptodon
If you exclude Cochise county anyway.

------
tlively
I just about died when I read, 'He formulated the algorithm "context-free
grammar"...'

------
EternalData
TIL that Noam Chomsky answers emails. It's always been my thing to reach out
to personal heroes of mine. What's the best way to reach out to him?

~~~
otalp
His public MIT email

------
notadoc
Interesting move given the hostile AZ political climate.

------
shkibb
Does anybody else find these sorts of discussions to be just fundamentally
_cringey_ as hell? On both sides. Stuff like "We agree mainstream black
culture is terrible."

Like I don't think either would have the guts to say that in front of a black
person.

~~~
sctb
We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15052145](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15052145)
and marked it off-topic.

------
klarrimore
As a UofA grad I can tell you the hippies down there are going to go
absolutely apeshit. The university is half Rob Gronkowski and half Cesar
Chavez. The Gronks all leave after school but the Cesar's all stick around the
university and think, act, and look like Noam. He'll fit right in.

~~~
Hasknewbie
>> and think, act, and look like Noam

So they are low-key, patient, and make thorough, very detailed responses when
debating?

~~~
klarrimore
I didn't say anything negative about him or his debating style. I'm just
saying I'm not so surprised he chose UofA. Tons of east coast aging hippies
fall in love with the desert, get a mansion in the foothills, then only come
down into the city for the university dressed like they're on a fucking
safari.

