Posted on 05/22/2023 3:06:59 PM PDT by Rummyfan
Edited on 05/22/2023 3:12:06 PM PDT by Sidebar Moderator. [history]
One of the main reasons Noam Chomsky’s political views are taken seriously in universities and the media is because he has an awesome reputation for scientific accomplishment in the field of linguistics. He is among the ten most cited authors in the humanities—trailing only Marx, Lenin, Shakespeare, the Bible, Aristotle, Plato, and Freud—and the only living member of the top ten. Last year The New Yorker called him “one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century.”
Were it not for this status, many of his obsessive and outlandish political ideas would by now have disqualified him from reasoned debate. He thinks every president of the United States since Franklin Roosevelt should have been impeached because “they’ve all been either outright war criminals or involved in serious war crimes.” He claims the United States actively collaborated with the Nazis against the Soviet Union in the latter stages of World War II. He once supported the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, claiming the genocidal evacuation of Phnom Penh in 1976 was due to a failed rice crop and “may actually have saved many lives.” He describes Israel as a terror state with “points of similarity” to the Third Reich. And he has defended an anti-Semitic French academic who claims the Holocaust was a “historical lie.” Chomsky describes him as nothing more than an “apolitical liberal” whose work is based on “extensive historical research.”
The more deranged, debauched and Stalinazi you are, the more lauded you are in academia (and in the media, Hollyweird, politics, today’s “Woke” Corporations, et al).
For good measure, he is also reportedly linked to payments from Jeffrey Epstein... ;-p
I read parts of his book, Psycho-Linguistics, back in my college days and found it intriguing. Was disappointed to learn later in life that he is a lefty, but what should I expect in a largely godless world?
University A-holes’ darling since the 60s.
He acts the part of the “brilliant MIT professor” better than anyone.
I don’t remember what his claim to fame originally was, but the thought occurs to me that my forgetting may not be entirely my own fault.
I seem to recall thinking ‘so what?’But like I say, it’s a faint recollection and may be my imagination.
All the same, I’ve gotten by well enough without it.
Is he the most cited because of the quality of his work, or because of his politics?
I read one of his books. Some of his stuff sounded pretty agreeable. Shows what we’re up against.
I thought most of his linguistic theories have been pretty well superseded by new work. In short very old hat! He’s gone the way of Freud, Mead, etc. more interesting for historical reasons then anything scientific.
One of my nephew’s favorites. Of course, he graduated from Evergreen University in WA.
There was a chimpanzee used in experiments to see how much of a vocabulary apes could acquire, which was named Nim Chimpsky in his honor. As far as I know, the chimpanzee never spouted any crackpot left-wing opinions.
I had to give this up at:
“failed principle as a genuine discovery to nonlinguist audiences unprepared to recognize the dishonesty involved.”
Fixed it for you…
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