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What are your opinions on Noam Chomsky?
- Thread starter Iloelemen
- Start date
Ah well, I definitely disagree with him there. Antifascist movements have their roots at least as far back as the 30s in Germany. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifaschistische_Aktion
Obviously I'm generally non-violence whenever possible and I do think you have to be very careful when crossing that line but at the same time I would think Chomsky would recognize that violence is not simply a physical act of hurting another person. When the government imposes apartheid, rounds Jewish people into ghettos or idk even if Trump were to do something like deport all DACA recipients, that would be considered state violence onto a group of people and I do sometimes think there can be a moral compulsion to respond in turn. But anyways, I don't believe there are many instances where antifa is actually harming someone.
He doesn't really consider them part of the same lineage because of the way class and political division are aligned now as opposed to inter-war Europe. It's very much not a principled stance on non-violence so much as it is concern over efficacy
Bit further than 30's Germany actually, 1920's anti-fascists in Italy fought against Blackshirts and Mussolini.
One of the last few great intellectuals. You don't have to agree with everything he says but you gotta admit that he's way better than most. His stuff on language though I never really was a fan of. Know of his linguistic research more because of his association with Hilary Putnam.
"He's just this guy, you know?"
He's successfully positioned himself as a political gadfly, but to the best of my knowledge has not seriously engaged in any major issue.
Perhaps this is his fate, to occupy such a rarified zone up there in the political stratosphere that his pronouncements go mostly unheard, or are mistaken for summer zephyrs when really they are attempts to thunder out a dire warning.
He's successfully positioned himself as a political gadfly, but to the best of my knowledge has not seriously engaged in any major issue.
Perhaps this is his fate, to occupy such a rarified zone up there in the political stratosphere that his pronouncements go mostly unheard, or are mistaken for summer zephyrs when really they are attempts to thunder out a dire warning.
He's a great communicator and is widely misunderstood or deliberately misconstrued by his opponents and his supporters and is also getting a bit dusty and out of touch with the speed things are moving at. A lot of his fundamental theories are now really outdated or have warped/evolved/collapsed into something else. But if you take a snapshot of twenty or thirty years of his best writing then he's the sort of intellectual America should be creating more of in every field from geopolitics to social science instead of sainting/boogeyman-ing. Also feel bad for his peers and rivals because he eats all the oxygen.
The only book of his that I have read is Understanding Power, which while a bit old, was a fantastic eye-opener to me.
I'll quote from this article because I feel it sums up my the main takeaway I got from that book:
I'll quote from this article because I feel it sums up my the main takeaway I got from that book:
Fantastic books about Manufacturered consent & Israeli government atrocities.
He's an exceptional academic and intellectual, he predicted someone like Trump was entirely possible regardless of how improbable it may have seemed back when it was absurd to even think this could possibly happen. Also bonus points to him for dismantling Sam Harris and exposing his hypocrisy. To add insult to injuiry, after he tore him apart he also dismissed him as a worthy opponent for debate. His repository of history is a wonder in itself. He;s a genius at deconstructing conservative thought.
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He's an exceptional academic and intellectual, he predicted someone like Trump was entirely possible regardless of how improbable it may have seemed back when it was absurd to even think this could possibly happen. Also bonus points to him for dismantling Sam Harris and exposing his hypocrisy. To add insult to injuiry, after he tore him apart he also dismissed him as a worthy opponent for debate. His repository of history is a wonder in itself. He;s a genius at deconstructing conservative thought.
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Chomsky is as close to the Frankfurt School as it gets in the US, I'll take that on most days of the week.
You have to be joking. Are you saying that imperialism and capitalism aren't major issues, or that Chomsky hasn't taken principled stances on them?
Chomsky is a GOAT. He will be remembered historically very fondly. Ironic because he has been marginalized andforced to the fringes of American society for his entire existence.
Here you have one of the most well read and intelligent man around; comparing him to the braindead commentators that thrive on TV, Radio, and even academic circles is insulting. It's really embarrassing that this man never got his "due".
Here you have one of the most well read and intelligent man around; comparing him to the braindead commentators that thrive on TV, Radio, and even academic circles is insulting. It's really embarrassing that this man never got his "due".
The problem with so vehemently criticizing American imperialism (and he also tends to ignore other imperialism and at times even defends authoritarianism), is that it's a system that's been in place for so long that breaking it doesn't necessarily result in a better outcome. So he can criticize all he wants but what's a realistic alternative with better outcomes?
Actually like his student Norman Finkelstein more. He brings the fire needed in Israeli discussions. Chosmky is more subdued.
Brilliant guy who identifies a lot of what's wrong with the US and its empire, but he's way too quick to throw out whataboutisms and play the useful idiot for 2nd and 3rd rate dictators.
So you've clearly no idea on what his contributions to linguistics are.
So you've clearly no idea on what his contributions to linguistics are.
I remember watching a documentary (Requiem, I think) and he actually fell into American exceptionalism traps saying it was the country with the most freedom and stuff like that. I get that he probably didn't want to come across as anti- American for the whole film but that just struck me as someone not as aware of the rest of the world as I thought he was.
I'm not quite sure what's the issue with that. I've first-hand experience with what he describes, although from outside the US, particularly with bit:
Exactly what happened here.
and the rebuttal... wow
bullshit. I know, it's not fair, but right wingers and left wingers are measured by different yard sticks. It's exactly like chomsky said. Nobody gives a shit when right wingers misbehave, it's almost expected. The first time anti-fa caused minor property damage here, they completely lost any backing in the population because the right got exactly what they needed to paint them as unruly anarchists. It's been like 10 years? and they still refer to it - and the public also still has those images in mind. It was a very concerning shift in public opinion, and it's still haunting leftists and their cause.
Just ask someone from hamburg what they think of Anti-fa since the last G-20 meeting...
I wish he didn't have such shitty views on the Cambodian genocide, because he also says some important things that people need to hear about the United States.
gonna need a ciitation on that one boss. Refusing to qualify american imperialism is not defense of other forms.
Hegemony and relations of power have existed before america became the hegemon and they will likely exist in some form after, the question is are we going to be honest and not rationalize the terrible actions taken in support of it.
what views? are you perhaps referring to one statement expressing skepticism that he later admitted being misguided on and apologized for?
I'm saying that these are abstract questions in a world where just about anybody can kill people in large numbers and the effects of global warming already locked in are going to be here for the next millennium, socialist paradise or not.
economic superstructures are never an abstract question, even if the externalities change.
Don't you think that responding to climate change is more then anything else a question of the allocation of resources, if not what else is it?
I'm mostly familiar with his work in linguistics, but I find him to be a deeply admirable person. He takes clear positions and argues his views forcefully, which I think comes across to some people as arrogance or ideological rigidness, but he has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to rethink his ideas and acknowledges when he has doubts about various issues.
I think his views across all the fields he's contributed to are routinely mischaracterized, and I have a suspicion that the number of people who have strong opinions about him (positive or negative) far outstrip the number of people who have actually engaged with his arguments in any meaningful way.
I think his views across all the fields he's contributed to are routinely mischaracterized, and I have a suspicion that the number of people who have strong opinions about him (positive or negative) far outstrip the number of people who have actually engaged with his arguments in any meaningful way.
I enjoy some of his work, I think he has a very interesting world perspective that challenges a lot of the mainstream
Whenever intellectual Americans do this I just assume they are doing it so they can't be easily dismissed as a traitor or whatever.
I know global warming is an immediate result of the industrial revolution. We started to burn fossil fuels very rapidly, releasing carbon into the atmosphere at a rate that is very noticeable in the history, trapping heat and changing climates in ways we aren't prepared for.
What does Noam Chomsky, the great intellectual of our age, have to say on this?
My answer is that I neither know nor care, and I don't expect that one person could make things better.
To fix our problems we must find quite ordinary political and engineering skills and put them to work. These are not complex problems. There is a certain determinable global average temperature at which the existence of people like Mr Chomsky becomes improbable.
I mean, Chomsky does talk about climate change - you can find numerous interviews and essays where he discusses the subject (there was a minor controversy when he called Republican party "the most dangerous organization in human history" owing to their neglect of climate change). However, he isn't a climate scientist or science journalist and writes primarily about the subjects he's written about for years. I have my own criticisms of Chomsky, but criticizing him for abstract rambling about the media, imperialism, or whatever, certainly isn't one of them.
And there's no link between climate change and capitalism at all. No sir. Definitely not.
Not saying that at all. The global spread of capital has coincided with considerable and harmful changes.
Read a lot of his stuff his stuff when I started getting into the humanities in university, along with stuff from Chris Hedges and Howard Zinn. Saw him speak once, glad he's still around.