

Noam Chomsky Has ‘Never Seen Anything Like This’ - limist
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/noam_chomsky_has_never_seen_anything_like_this_20100419/

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mark_l_watson
Although I am a bit sceptical of Chomsky's approach to linguistics (he seems
to leave out the messy human side of language, reducing it to something easier
to study), I think that his other life role as someone who deeply distrusts
power is useful to society. I am not saying that I agree with him most of the
time, but we need more people like him who have the courage to step outside
the box and take a cool hard look at what is happening in the world.

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Alex63
_Noam Chomsky is America’s greatest intellectual._

What is the point of this "article", or posting it on HN?

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xel02
See: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky>

Wikipedia says he's one of the most highly cited people in the world.

I 'know' him better through his ideas of grammars (Chomsky Normal Forms) and
their applications to bioinformatics.

The article itself is interesting, a bit wordy. Chomsky is a well known
academic in the sense that his work on linguistics is seen in many places from
Psychology to Computer science.

The fact that he's also anti-government is new. I liked one line from the
article (towards the end of page 1): What I talk about are the liberal
intellectuals, ... They tell us how far we can go. They say, ‘Look how
courageous I am.’ But do not go one millimeter beyond that. At least for the
educated sectors, they are the most dangerous in supporting power.

If nothing else the article is a bit thought provoking and I think most people
could use a bit more thinking in their daily lives.

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Alex63
When you say "The fact that he's also anti-government is new", I have to
assume you mean the fact that he's opposed to the current administration, as
Chomsky's opposition to the US government in general is long standing.

In my eyes, the article reads largely as a hagiography. The only "news" I see
in it is that Chomsky compares the current situation in the US to the Weimar
Republic. I am not an expert on either pre-WWII Germany, or modern US
politics, but it seems contradictory to me to compare the US today with the
effectively powerless Weimar government while simultaneously decrying the US
as the most powerful government in the world. While there may be some
parallels in terms of public attitudes, to me this seems like a more literate
example of Godwin's Law (except not on Usenet).

You mention that Wikipedia states that "According to the Arts and Humanities
Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any
other living scholar during the 1980–92 period, and was the eighth most-cited
source." This seems like an argument to authority. It occurs to me that the
period chosen ('80 - '92) corresponds to the Reagan and Bush administrations,
and that these citations may therefore reflect the amount of discourse among
administration opponents as much as they reflect Chomsky's intellectual
stature.

To be clear, I would be just as unhappy about someone posting an article on HN
reporting that Pat Robertson thinks that the Obama administration is massing
troops in Cuba for a "socialist" overthrow of the US government. That would be
"thought provoking" too. Of course, the bias among HN reviewers (and comments)
makes this pretty unlikely. My own preference would be that political stories
on HN have at least some technology angle, and a modicum of reporting, rather
than just editorializing (for example, the recent stories about Wikileaks have
both).

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azgolfer
Noam Chomsky is America’s greatest intellectual ????????

Never mind Richard Feynman, the guy who thinks socialism works and apologizes
for Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot's murdering tens of millions is America's greatest
intellectual.

~~~
SeamusBrady
I am not sure if your comment about apologising for Stalin / MAO etc is aimed
at Chomsky or not. But you should be aware that Chomsky is an anarchist
socialist and not a Marxist. He has written and spoken some of the most
illuminating and critical stuff I have read on the revolution in Russia.

Chomsky has never supported any Marxist dictator.

