Noam who?

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Becouse of the current visit of Chomsky to Czechia and folowing hysterical discussion about it among local media and intellectuals I like to ask on here what are CFC thoughts on this gentlemen?


Link to video.

more recent:

Link to video.

 

[Arwon]

One of the most important figures in modern linguistics.

 

[Tahuti]

One of the most important figures in modern linguistics.

This and nothing more. There are far better and sharper political thinkers than Chomsky, who should be praised as a linguist.

 

[Borachio]

Given that 99.9% of human relationships are mediated through language, he's got the field of politics comprehensively covered, don't you think?

While not having devoted much time to what he's written (his output is quite large, and life is too short), I've always found him relatively easy to understand. And I quite like him.

 

[Tahuti]

I do strongly agree with the message of Manufacturing Consent though.

 

[Borachio]

Yes. That's one of my favourite insights, too!

 

[Formaldehyde]

This and nothing more. There are far better and sharper political thinkers than Chomsky, who should be praised as a linguist.

At least you didn't absurdly try to claim he is antisemitic like so many others.

Hundreds of thousands of people pay big bucks each year to hear his opinions about politics, and millions more read his books and watch videos of his seminars. They seem to disagree with your own personal opinion in this matter.

 

[Goodfella]

Becouse of the current visit of Chomsky to Czechia and folowing hysterical discussion about it among local media and intellectuals I like to ask on here what are CFC thoughts on this gentlemen?

The OP knows Chomsky is popular. He wants personal opinions in this matter.

 

[Borachio]

There may have been hysterical discussion and yet Chomsky could still be unpopular in Czechia.

As for the thread title, I keep wanting it to read "Noam Whom"?

 

[warpus]

I've read a couple of his books, and I enjoy his unique and uncensored views. He's not afraid to say what he thinks, and he's got interesting insights.. These insights seem to piss off a lot of people, but I couldn't really care less about that. It's the content that I find interesting, not how it makes people feel.

As for his linguistic stuff, I don't know about any of that, so I can't comment.

I tell people what my political views are on this and that, I don't see why he shouldn't be able to do the same, just because he's a linguist. People give him a lot of flak for that, but whatever. He's got views, let him express them, even if they're not in his field of expertise. He seems to know enough about things to formulate interesting and plausible ideas about how our world works.

 

[Azale]

He's not bad. A little unrefined on areas outside his expertise (I've seen a lot of pushback on his writings concerning East Timor), but it's always fun to see him take a sledgehammer to the stuff he feels especially passionate about; the liberal intellectual establishment, the implicit assumptions of American foreign policy, the Vietnam War, Israel-Palestine, and how awesome Pol Pot was

He's a fun read and helped pop the neocon bubble of my teenage years, though I can't say I've read much from him recently. Guess he was more of a gateway drug.

Can't comment much on his linguistics work.

 

[Winner]

One of the most important figures in modern linguistics.

Whose theories don't really get that much traction these days.

 

[Winston Hughes]

I've read a couple of his books, and I enjoy his unique and uncensored views. He's not afraid to say what he thinks, and he's got interesting insights.

He's also not afraid to stretch the truth beyond breaking point if it suits his agenda.

I used to have a lot of time for him, until I read 'NATO's War Over Kosovo' for an assignment on which I was doing a lot of other research. As I started cross checking the points which made his book stand out amongst the numerous examples of anti-intervention literature I had to read, it quickly became clear that - in contrast to those other authors, who were as scrupulous as they were unknown to the wider public - he was using sources in a manner so selective as to be downright dishonest.

It occurred to me then why it is that he's so popular: like Richard Dawkins, he's used the reputation gained through legitimate (and legitimately brilliant) work in his specialist subject as a springboard to success in the far more profitable arena of feeding people half-truths that support their existing political prejudices.

 

[Camikaze]

I've never read a word he's written, and have no idea why he's supposedly controversial, but the first video in the OP and the fact that he's a linguist makes me assume he must take a critical/discursive approach to politics, which sounds like a good thing to me. Can someone please fill in some gaps in relation to who he actually is for me?

 

[Leonel]

One of the most important figures in modern linguistics.

And most reviled by my dad who thinks Noam set back linguistics decades.

I don't know the specifics and I'm afraid to ask because I know I'll get a bunch of reasons that I myself have no understanding of.

 

[Borachio]

Something about transformational grammar, I bet.

 

[Light Cleric]

My opinion of him is colored a bit by some of the questionable claims he makes on some of his sources or attempts to say he didn't say what he said. My favorite was his spat with Oliver Kamm over "denazification", but there are other instances like the Al-Shifa factory bombing where cited Human Rights Watch, then they came out and rebutted him, then he tried to twist his own words to make himself still look right when he clearly was not. There are other instances where a weighty source will be cited but actual investigation of that source reveals a different story, either through different context or simple half-truths(citing a magazine as a source when the actual content of that magazine was a letter to the editor is a bit deceptive if you ask me). That kind of intellectual weaseling makes me quite skeptical.

 

[Bootstoots]

He has a number of very good speeches on Youtube as well - that's probably the first place to go to start understanding his opinions.

I find him quite interesting and agree with him more often than not. Some of his views have helped to shape my own.

 

[Leonel]

Something about transformational grammar, I bet.

That does sound familiar from one of my dad's rants against him, especially since my dad is a professional linguist.

 

[Narz]

He thinks porn & prostitution should be illegal. Otherwise I agree with most of his views.