This is like voting for "best IQ."
Moronic.
Posted on 10/19/2005 12:56:32 AM PDT by F14 Pilot
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.
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.
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. 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."
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.
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.
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.
Top five
1 Noam Chomsky linguistics expert and critic of US foreign policy
2 Umberto Eco writer and academic
3 Richard Dawkins Oxford professor of public understanding of science
4 Vaclav Havel playwright and leader of Czech velvet revolution
5 Christopher Hitchens journalist, author, pro-Iraq war polemicist
More nonsense from the lunatic left.
By definition an intellectual cannot exhibit any common sense. :-)
6 billion people on the planet...and this moron gets 4800 votes. Yeah. Real tidal waive of support.
While I despise Chomsky's politics and cannot believe that he is really the "top public intellectual", credit must be given where credit is due.
His work on linguistics has had a profound impact on computer programming languages (look into context free grammars...).
Noam Chomsky is the world's greatest intellectual. Thank G-d, that contest is over. Now we know. Thank You Holy Guardian- you are truly the best, also.
"More than 20,000 voters from around the world took part in selecting the winners from a list of 100."
Bill and Hillary are not amused.
Better known as Nim Chimpsky. Oh, my bad, Chomsky is Chimpsky's sock-puppet. I wonder where Chimpsky must put his hand to make Chomsky speak - eeew.
Better known as Nim Chimpsky. Oh, my bad, Chomsky is Chimpsky's sock-puppet. I wonder where Chimpsky must put his hand to make Chomsky speak - eeew.
For as long as I can remember, which is over fifty years worth, most "intellectuals" have backed extreme left-wing regimes and theories. These people are supposed to be the guiding lights of humanity, but apparently they would like nothing more than to pack humanity away in prisons like the ex-communist regimes that were destroyed in the nineties. Chomsky is such an example of these deluded leftist intellectuals. He and Pinter are examples of the "geniuses" who know what's best for us. Of course people like Chomsky have already created the countries that they think are great for humanity. It's a pity that they don't go live in them.
It's a very white list, too. No Blacks, no Asians, no Hispanics, no Native Americans.
you are right that they overwhelmingly support holocausts of the left. this is no coincidence. the left puts these fools out there and with an efficient pr machine builds them into something of value, which is totally untrue. this whole intellectual crop of the 20th century is rigged.
he is a great linguistic! but an idiot thinker though ;-)
Top Intellectual Con Man. How pathetic.
For quite a while he denied the Cambodian genocide happened. Too bad he didn't check to see for himself like the late apologist for Pol Pot Gareth Porter, he of the infamous Institute for Policy Studies, who did stay in Cambodia a bit too long and who seems to have learned the truth the hard way. (Just Kidding, Noam.)
Chomsky.....BURB!!!
This is like voting for "best IQ."
Moronic.
I'm forced to conclude that at the core of every "great" thinker lies a totalitarian with the strong desire to rule the world. Why leftists think that socialism and communism are great things after what transpired in the twentieth century is a complete mystery to me.
Chimpsky is an intellectual? Gee I missed it. When did he say something even mildly bright?
Same way all leftists gain control,
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