Did he even do anything?

he ruined linguistics thats what he did

>>8557856
of course, how do you think
he got a platform to speak from where no one cuts him off

same with Dawkins

>>8557856
He destroyed behaviorism as a tenable philosophy of psychology. I'd say that's pretty noteworthy

>>8557856
I don't know anything about linguistics so for all I know he's great in that, but he's simply moronic when it comes to politics.

>>8557856
He is the most cited academic in the world because of his linguistic work, so yes he does have merit. I know that may be hard to believe because he's not too fond of your favorite terrorist state, but he is considered a genius by many.

>>8557856
I know little about linguistics but I've heard that developments he made early in his career were extrapolated to the advancement of programming languages into the form we know today. He might be wrong about some things but he is extremely intelligent and is capable of reinforcing his opinions using very sophisticated and sometimes obscure points of view.

>>8558012
This probably. Take a psych class and you'll inevitably learn about how he took down behaviorism.

>>8557856
Anyone else here mostly agree with Chomsky's politics?

>>8558142
I haven't read his books but every once in a while I'll see something he wrote and I always agree with it.

>>8558142
Not really, I find it to be very moralistic

>>8558142

that makes you mostly a retard anon

>>8558142
I'm not a Chomsky fanboy but I really enjoy listening to him and reading his opinion on things. He is a very intelligent man and I end up being won over by him. He's also not just a standard leftist, he brings up some very good points not about which side we choose on political matters but on how we observe and categorize our these issues.

>>8558142
Yeah. Chomsky is like an uber-pragmatic, eminently readable leftist alternative to Zizek. He's a competent observer and critic of world events and his historical references usually direct me to a dozen other interesting articles.

Clinton's bombing of the Al Shifa medical facility in Sudan, for instance, is a great talking point that blows mainstream liberals out of the water simply because it's nothing they've ever heard of before or expected to have to counter.

>>8558186
No, it makes me critical of authority. I remember hearing a lot about Chomsky before I had ever read anything by him. People always said his political views were loony. Then I read his work for myself and realized he's simply a guy who brings attention to abuses of power.

>>8558142
Mostly, yes, there are some things he has said that I strongly appose, however.

>>8557856

His critique of the behaviourist school of psychology gave rise to cognitive psychology and cognitive science generally. This includes major contributions to the philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. He's also ruthlessly attacked a number of non-sense peddlers like Lacan and various other continental figures

He made lingustics into a academic field with scientific legitimacy. Prior to him linguistics was all either Saussurian structural lingustics, or historical lingustics that was just about classifying languages into a taxonomy essentially. He revolutionized the way we understand grammar, language acquisition. Etc.

Even if you reject the overal program of Chomsky's politics, he has produced substantial critiques on the nature of mass media, on US foreign policy, and on Israel. You don't have to be an anarchist or a socialist to take what he said seriously.

>>8558209
I agree with you, but damn near anything will blow mainstream liberals out of the water. Anybody from the radical Left can do it quite easily; Chomsky is very good at it himself, but that's mainly because he's one of the few who even get the opportunity to do so.

>>8558216
That's the same experience I've had with him. I was turned off by him because of the treatment he gets, even by "radical" leftists, but after listening to him and reading a few of his works I've realized that he is actually incredibly smart and nuanced.

>>8558216
It's hard for non-Americans (I speak as one) to appreciate the role the media ought to play for government to begin to function over there.

smart man but he thinks he knows everything spending all his time and millions on books.

when snowden was "recent" he talked to journalists as if he knew anything about infosec shit.

he didn't fight in vietnam nor did he undertake any sort of hardship in standing against it, and thus he is prof. emeritus & millionaire.

still he's better than most.

>>8558527
He was bitterly opposed to the Vietnam War, spoke out against it constantly, and was even jailed for protesting it.

>>8558541
such a sacrifice

>>8558546
Because that's so much more important that dong whatever is practical to stop a war, right? Effort only count if it costs you.

"muh don't believe in public personalities" "muh house in maine" "muh anarchist working for the state" "muh millions"

>>8558546
What would you have had him do? Assassinate an important political figure and get himself killed? What more could he have done? He stood very strongly against it before it was even a common thing to do.

>>8558551
it cost a lot of people their limbs and worse. chomsky's "speaking out" was of no significance to the horrors millions went through on both sides

>>8558560

he's not a flag bearer of reason for that horrible episode of world history

if he was an anarchist why did he leave the kibbutz to become a millionaire author working for the government?

>>8558564
Your comments only bespeak an ignorance of his involvement in the antiwar protests of the time. He was among the most vocal and influential opponents. That he wasn't injured or killed shouldn't detract from that. I don't think you know what you're talking about.

>>8558575
>so thats why we have noam chomsky day and not martin luther king jr day?

>>8558583
If you keep shitposting this much you are going to have to start eating more lad.

Chomsky, you mean the man that straight up denied Khmer Rouge

ok yeah he is a man of "reason"?

>>8558570
A lot of left wingers left the kibbutzes when they became more like businesses. Like they're now mostly libertarian havens if they're still running. Most have failed.

There's no problem with an anarchist making money in a capitalist society either. Hell, Nozick was an anarchist.

In linguistics he has a lot of merits. On politics a good amount as well, although less than linguistics. Only contrarians hate him because he's popular as a intellectual.

Noam "If it ain't West, then it's the Best" Chomsky?

No thanks. Anyone arrogant enough to entitle one of their books "How the World Works" is not worth my time.

>>8558645
And like always, his opponents insult him without actually arguing against anything he has to say.

>>8558735
That anon is right in some ways though.

Chomsky is king of linguistics. He has a lot of interesting and insightful things to say about politics, but he is also prone to arrogance, which often leads him to consider his views right even in the face of evidence, or consider his views right while not actually considering his opposition's view.

The time he responded to Zizek, writing him off as wrong, while clearly not even understanding what Zizek was saying is just one example among many of Chomsky doing this.

The problem with he and the Khmer Rouge is another instance.

>>8557856
I am a linguistics major and I have not spent an hour in a class that he didn't get mentioned or read a linguistics book he wasn't referred to repeatedly.

Lmao watch the vid where he talks about postmodernists being female minority professional victims who deny science. Killer anecdote about a frenchman who said a pharoah couldnt have died of x disease because we hadnt discovered it yet

>>8558763
Can I go one thread about Chomsky without having to read about this Khmer Rouge shit. You KNOW it's false. All the information is there. But you people Insist on sticking to your interpretation of events. I don't even particularly like this old faggot but Jesus Christ.

>>8558763
>>8558621
If anyone actually bothered to learn about it rather than just memeing you would know that a) he didn't say they weren't doing anything wrong, only that he thought they weren't, that b) he only made that statement at a time when it was very hard to have accurate information about what was going on and c) he later retracted that statement when it became clear they were doing it.

>>8558814
>Killer anecdote about a frenchman who said a pharoah couldnt have died of x disease because we hadnt discovered it yet

Bruno Latour, and that wasn't his actual argument

>>8558822
>>8558826

Don't you have a Skype interview with a hipster lined up, Chomsky? What are you doing here.

>>8558850
Don't you have an anal battering by your bull tonight anon?

>>8558850
I've been in the call for awhile. Just waiting on you now.

>>8558142
I did until I saw his letters to Sam Harris. He's just an arrogant douchebag.

>>8559143
I haven't read the letters you refer to but just because you don't like how someone presents themselves or their views doesn't mean you can't agree with them

>>8558142
Chomsky is my dude

>>8559197
I had only heard him have monologues on topics before and he sound kind of reasonable then but when he's against someone of the same intellect, like Sam Harris in this case, his ideas don't seem that strong. His ideas came off as dogmatic and couldn't be scrutinized with reason and logic.

What you want to read is Chomsky's review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior
https://chomsky.info/1967____/

>>8558814
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjQA0e0UYzI

>>8559228
Interestingly enough now that I think about it I've only heard him giving lectures or monologues as well. I'll check out the correspondence.

>>8559228
>Chomsky
>One of the most important linguists ever who radically changed the whole field
>Harris
>Has a BA in philosophy and a somewhat dodgy looking Ph.D in neuroscience
>Avoids peer review like it's the plauge
>The same intellect

I don't care how much you hate Chomsky it's just stupid to say they are of the same intelligence. Chomsky BTFO Harris so hard it stopped being funny. He probably just seemed arrogant because he was doing everything he could to stay out of that argument which Harris was forcing on him. He mostly just shut Harris down when he claimed Chomsky said or meant things he never did.

>>8558826
Clearly you aren't very read up on the issue yourself.

>>8560449
>a somewhat dodgy looking Ph.D in neuroscience
Considering even normal looking PhDs in Neuroscience are likely dodgy, I think its safe to call Harris' expensive toilet paper.

>>8558142
He's an entry level anarchist but he's good anyway. I wish he was a little more critical of the state and the electoral system but it's not a huge deal.

>>8558628
>There's no problem with an anarchist making money in a capitalist society either.
Haha. If they're just trying to get by yeah, but profiting hugely like Chomsky and getting rich in the system is very much a no-go.

>>8560896
>If they're just trying to get by yeah, but profiting hugely like Chomsky and getting rich in the system is very much a no-go.
By all means elaborate, but for now I'll just say I and many others disagree.

>>8560900
According to google he's worth over 2 million dollars. He's profited massively from his career as a writer and scientist. He also says we should vote for the lesser of two evils. That's just wrong. So while I respect him to some degree, I do not trust him as an anarchist in any real sense.

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>>8560935
>That's just wrong.
But why?

DUDE TREES SLEEPING FURIOUSLY LMAO

>>8560949
420 BLAZE IT ERRYDAY
*ERRYDAY IT BLAZE 420
*=ungrammatical

>>8558142
yeah absolutely

>>8559143
>some "new" atheist talks shit
>this kid knows nothing except to write provocative shit
>Old man Chomsky slaps him down
How would this de-legitimize CHomsky?

>>8558527
He sacrificed his well paying job to work full time as a political activist. He is absolutely a guy who has sacrificed a lot for what he believes in. Sort of similar to a Ralph Nader type. Very ethical people

>>8558142
I generally
>And by generally, I mean in the sense that one would generally prefer to stick one's hand in a litter box over a woodchipper

But I disagree with his politics in three main areas:

>1

His terrible criticisms and analysis of Capitalism (mind I have read and respect better criticisms from others)

>2

His lax views on Islam. Specifically look at the exchanges between Chomsky and Christopher Hitchens in the wake of 9/11.

>3

His hypocrisy on US policy. I'm on my phone right now and can't find any specific examples, but when trolling about chomsky.info I found criticisms to the effect of

>Then
>US opens up trade and relations with dictatorial and oppressive regime.
>It just goes to show how low the state capitalist system will go to turn a profit.

>Later
>US institutes sanctions on a dictatorial and repressive regime
>People are dying from starvation and disease and the US isn't even acknowledging that it is the world's greatest exporter of terror. Imagine if someone did this to it.
>It just goes to show how low the state capitalist system will go to maintain and expand global hegemony

>>8560942
The entire system is controlled by the banks. Voting is nothing more than their game to give us the illusion of freedom. In reality nothing within the system gets by them that they do not approve. For instance, in this election both donald trump and clinton are clear puppets. Of course, all politicians are puppets, but now it's more obvious than ever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDYfyAQ8lUI

>>8560942
anarchists often have a phobia of voting

I get it but its sort of silly

>>8561038
>His terrible criticisms and analysis of Capitalism
This interests me. Do you think you could expand? What is his relationship with marxism etc?

>>8561052
He advocates libertarian socialism aka anarchosyndaclism.

OP just baited the fuck out of everyone. Good job /lit/, once again proving that you guys are a bunch of retards.

P.S. Richard Montague was a better philosopher and linguist that Chomsky and his life was also way more interesting and crazy (Chomsky was a pretty cool guy too though).

>>8561062
Yeah I know this. I guess it's too much to ask some random guy to write a short essay to me about Chomsky's economic theory

>>8560449
>BA in philosophy
I honestly have a hard time believing that.

>>8561079
why? he's a hack after all

>>8560935
Lol but 2 million dollars isn't even a lot in America today. I mean its a decent amount, and I'd certainly be happy with it lol, but most upper middle class people like doctors and lawyers are probably worth that much by the time they retire. I think both him (and most far leftists) are more so against people accumulating hundreds or thousands of times more that the average person - like people worth hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars.

I respect Noam Chomsky, immensely, especially for his exposes on power relations and foreign policy.

I also respect him for his contributions to linguistics, but don't have the faculties or knowledge to understand them fully.

Admittedly, of his books, I've only read Manufacturing Consent, Understanding Power, and Deterring Democracy. I've also read extensively from his site, and watched scores of his speeches and interviews.

That said, it perplexes me how his arguments can be so bad.

Just use google (or whatever search engine that has an operator that can search by domain) to look up via site:chomsky.info
>free trade
>free market
>laissez faire
>neo-classical
>neo-liberal
>externalities
>market failure
>Capitalism
>property
>regulations
>public funding

His arguments amount to:

>Externalities exist
>Checkmate, Capitalism

>Non-rivalrous, non-excludable goods exist
>Checkmate, Capitalism

>Enclosures of the Commons was a state-backed coercive initiative, as were similar happenstances globally and throughout history
>Checkmate, Capitalism

>Public spending (e.g. military or NASA) did some good work here, especially in R&D
>Checkmate, Capitalism

>"Free trade agreements" are in large part investor-protection deals, and if the early US followed Adam Smith's early advice to cease manufacturing and go with agriculture citing what we now know as comparative advantage, it would have stunted the US and the world, never mind the confounding variables of the US' industrial capacity not being met for comparison, or the Crown actively and coercively stamping out competition
>Checkmate, Capitalism

>Adam Smith proposed various government interventions and regulations, and was against wealth inequality
>Checkmate, Capitalism

>Volatility increased with the end of Bretton Woods and regulations on monetary trading; volatility exists at all
>Checkmate, Capitalism

>Cronyism is built in to the Capitalism l because it rewards those who have the means and opportunity to increase their wealth. It's a feature not a flaw.

>So let's thwart private power, and increase public power from which said cronyists derive theirs.


As for Marx and Marxism, he considered Marx a theorist on 19th century Capitalism, not of socialism, and doesn't conaider himself derivative of or affiliated with Marxism, though has taken Marxism economic positions.

As for Anarchism, he described himself as a "fellow traveler" which allowed him to support reformist (increased state spending and power toward certain social and economic ends) and revolutionary actions.

>>8561126
For
>>8561052

>>8561062
Is not me.

Also
>Marxism economic positions.
*MarxIAN
Autocorrect is pleb.

>>8560449
>>8559245
Yeah I went through the dialogues between Harris and Chomsky and Harris literally didn't say anything of worth in the entirety of their conversation and refused to address the points Chomsky raised.

He wrote a very influential critique of BF Skinner and proposed 'universal grammar.'

These are both influential sets of ideas.

That said, I don't like him that much as a social critic. Everything he says has this defeatist "it's all hopeless" tone to it. I find it suspicious, like he's not really against the systems he makes an act of opposing, but merely trying to gain favor with the cool kids at universities.

>>8558142
My favorite political philosopher, helped break me out of my Neoconservative upbringing and prevented me from falling into the crazy SJW liberal camp.

I really worry about the void he'll leave when he's gone

>>8561481
Maybe you can fit it.

>>8561504
>Maybe you can fill it

/lit/'s not one to throw away a fat joke.

>>8561038
Here's Chomsky and Hitchens' exchange that I referred to.

https://humanities.psydeshow.org/political/chomsky-1.htm

There was a second exchange in the wake of the UBL operation.

https://www.guernicamag.com/daily/best_smackdown_of_2011_chomsky/

>>8558037
The system of thought that he constructed and developed over the course of his career in linguistics is brilliant.

I agree though, his politics is shit.

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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/549g1i/how_credible_is_noam_chomsky_on_american/

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>the number of people in this thread who find Chomsky insightful

The field of economics is literally doomed

>>8561776
Another absolute cancer-tier thread on reddit with more hidden posts and bans handed out than any actual parseable content

>>8557856
He revolutionized linguistics. We know a ton more about natural language, and we know there's even more that we don't understand. We would probably still be going around just cataloging languages if it weren't for Chomsky.

>>8561962
>>8561776
My favourite part is where the moderator measures quality of a post by how much moderator brown nosing it has.

>>8560449
The fact that anyone could read their correspondence and not just cringe at Harris, let alone think negatively of Chomsky is mind boggling.

>>8561957
>We mentioned his contributions to linguistics (and psychology)

>We mentioned his general foreign policy and political analyses

>You all agree with him 100% unquestioningly on Economics!

>>8562028>>8561962>>8561776
I thought it was a decent thread, despite my general disdain for Reddit outside of hobby/diy subs.

>>8561072
>>8561062
Has Chomsky ever given his own economic theory? My impression, based on the Chomsky books I've read, is that he's referred people to other an-synd theorists like Rudolf Rocker for a more comprehensive vision of anarchist economics and social organization. Can't really blame him for that, he writes, interviews, etc. so much on numerous other topics.

>>8561062
I thought libertarian socialism was different from anarcho-syndicalism?

>>8558142
no, he's a meme

>>8562199
>I thought it was a decent thread
The best bits are a history student criticizing a work from the late 80s for not being like actual history scholarship from within the last 5 years. On many levels that's stupid as hell and yet the least stupid thing there,

I don't really know much about his work, and he seems like a cool guy, but the thing that has always pissed me off about him is how he constantly claims that the media won't give him a platform and that his ideas never get a look in. Despite being the darling of every left-leaning professor everywhere, being something like the second most cited scholar in history, and packing every single lecture hall where he makes an appearance. He can't possibly claim he doesn't have influence.

I love when there's a thread critical of Chomsky, you'll see a ton of posts a long the lines of "his linguistic theories were disregarded long ago", "he's a joke in the field of linguistics", which is hilarious.

>>8562282
Not any of the people you're responding to, I'm >>8561126 >>8561137

The problem with Chomsky is that he is not much of an economic theorist. I've seen his recommendation on the back of Bad Samaritans, and he for years has been arguing that free trade should be abandoned for protectionism in small nations to protect infant industries.

Ha Noon Chang is who to look into for those arguments.

He has praised Yanis Varikouvis not only as a meme minister but also as an academic. One can look at both his blog and his academic work.

He's an LTVist, and IMO Anwar M. Shaikh
is the modern economist that makes the best arguments against marginalism.


He's a syndicalist, and there are a number of economists that went over syndicates and cooperatives, but I think David Graeber and Richard Wolff would be good places to begin.

His economics are a Marxian mish mash of reformist and revolutionary, which odten can be at odds.

>>8562317
The latter is a subset of the former

>>8562747
Lol noted, but some of the responses seemed thoughtful and constructive. Especially [Removed]