# Is Noam Chomsky all he's cracked up to be? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 11, 2010, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-noam-chomsky-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be/553430 "2010-09-11T20:48:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-noam-chomsky-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be/553430/1 "2010-09-11T20:48:54Z")
I’ve been watchin a few videos of him on Youtube, and most of what he says makes sense, if I ignore the Anarchistic tendencies he has, but I wanted a more general opinion on his works, I mean, he begun as a linguistics professor, and somehow became philosopher of the left. What’s your opinion of him? ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-noam-chomsky-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be/553430/2 "2010-09-11T21:15:42Z")
I don’t know how he stands up to the standards of linguistics today, but his short work _Syntactic Structures_, published about 1959, was considered seminal; we were still studying it in the 1970s. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-noam-chomsky-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be/553430/3 "2010-09-11T22:33:26Z")
I don’t agree with _everything_ he says, but he’s undeniably brilliant with respect to both linguistics and politics. Attend a talk\* if you have the chance, and certainly pick up any of his books. - He’s not what you’d call a powerful or emotive speaker, but deliberate and precise. Aside from the content, it was also fun to observe a large auditorium so hushed, so that everyone could listen carefully to calm, structured sentences. The depth of the quiet was driven home by the very loudness of the bursts of applause after particular points, which Chomsky would endure briefly and then flap his hands a little so people would settle down and he could continue. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-noam-chomsky-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be/553430/4 "2010-09-11T22:38:44Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I don’t know how he stands up to the standards of linguistics today, but his short work _Syntactic Structures_, published about 1959, was considered seminal; we were still studying it in the 1970s. The field he created, “[Universal Grammar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_grammar),” is very controversial in the field of ESL between the linguistics and pedagogy camps. The pedagogy camp says that UG is pure quackery and has no place in the classroom. The linguistics camp says that the theory is brought-down-from-Sinai, capital “T” Truth and thus should be the basis for classroom teaching (even though the UG camp has no idea how to do this either.) My impression (pedagogy camp) is that there’s a bunch of linguistics majors who are trying to expand their foothold in the field outside of linguistics and pretend it has some sort of practical application in the classroom. They spend an inordinate amount of time using rhetorical slight of hand to shoot down other theories in light of UG, without actually offering anything substantial on their side. A sample UG argument: “If all humans use the same underlying grammar, the fact that nobody has found it yet simply means we haven’t developed the right tests to detect it.” Response: “No you idiot. If you can’t see something, it doesn’t exist. Period.” ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-noam-chomsky-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be/553430/5 "2010-09-11T22:44:11Z")
We do this once in a while on the board. From the [last thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=514365) in which I participated: > [@](#): > > I began reading Chomsky in high school, starting with Manufacturing Consent, and then moving to some of his foreign policy books. At the time I thought he made some incisive critiques and that his arguments were generally well-supported. > > A decade or so later, I have quite a different opinion. Manufacturing Consent is probably his best work, and most of the credit for that goes to Edward Herman. His foreign policy work is pretty poor. Chomsky is a polemicist. He isn’t as bad as Ann Coulter or something, but he’s no Marilyn Young (or even Howard Zinn). He is rarely outright dishonest, but he definitely bends the facts as far as they can be bent without breaking. If he can make two plausible inferences from evidence, he will make the one that best fits his argument. He constantly builds straw men of his opponents, failing to grapple with the real opposing views out there. > > Just like it’s hard to spot a case of selective quoting when you haven’t read the entire work, it’s hard to see Chomsky’s spin when he’s not talking about something you know a lot about. I advise the following experiment: pick some subject about which Chomsky has written but on which you haven’t read his work. Read a few of the widely respected books on that subject from whatever political perspective you like–but choose books that are serious academic works. Something written by a tenured historian would be best. Then read Chomsky. It just immediately becomes clear how he selectively chooses facts and ignores others to string together the most extreme argument he can make. ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-noam-chomsky-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be/553430/6 "2010-09-12T03:32:55Z")
My favorite **Zach Galifianakis** joke: [What was it Noam Chomsky said about eating pussy?](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ADoo_xBy7s) (Skip to 5:10 mark) ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-noam-chomsky-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be/553430/7 "2010-09-13T00:21:38Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > A sample UG argument: “If all humans use the same underlying grammar, the fact that nobody has found it yet simply means we haven’t developed the right tests to detect it.” > > Response: “No you idiot. If you can’t see something, it doesn’t exist. Period.” I shudder to contemplate the state of physical science if this attitude had been our guiding principle. It’s been many years since I studied this, but as I recall the basis of UG is that human language, as a natural aspect of normal human behavior must share some sort of common substrate across all humanity. It’s difficult to deny, for example, that all languages share more or less the same level of complexity, because children whose first language is Lithuanian or Aleut, or some other language that seems horrendously difficult to us, are not normally any more gifted or intelligent than any others. A language is a mapping to the real world and as such provides a structure by which we can reason about it. Now a German, a Francophone Canadian, and and American all have different words (symbols) for the same things, but you can’t convince me that they reason about the world differently, on a qualitative level, because of their languages. On the other hand, I agree with you (presumably) that all this, at least so far, hasn’t been very productive in terms of actually teaching second languages to people. IME nothing but immersion really works, and there’s really not much science to that. Instruction in grammar and vocabulary are helpful, but not sufficient. In my opinion transformational grammar is an interesting study in its own right, like human evolution, but probably isn’t going give us immediately practical results any time soon, if ever. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-noam-chomsky-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be/553430/8 "2010-09-13T03:33:31Z")
I am not a linguist so I can not offer an expert’s opinion on Chomsky’s theories. But I will note that there are people who are linguists who disagree with Chomsky. (And plenty of linguists who defend him.) Some of his critics have pointed out what they consider to be contradictions and errors in Chomsky’s theories. Chomsky has apparently responded by saying they’ve misunderstood his theories. But again, his critics say that Chomsky has been intentionally vague and changes what he says over time. To me as an outsider, it appears there’s no actual objective substance at the core that can be scientifically tested - it’s more akin to philosophy or theology. Some people follow Chomsky and some don’t and it all begins to look a little cultlike. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-noam-chomsky-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be/553430/9 "2010-09-13T04:12:13Z")
Here’s another thread in which we discussed Chomsky: > **[Objections to Noam Chomsky's Linguistics](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=333620)** > > Inspired by the sub-discussion in this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=333451. The impression I had of Noam Chomsky was that, while his politics are very controversial, especially given that he has very strong opinions,... I say this there: Chomsky is like a poster to the SDMB who you know, at some level, is very smart and well read. His posts are superficially coherent and not overtly snide and yet any thread the guy enters will end up as a trainwreck. Chomsky had no idea of how to present an ordinary falsifiable theory. Any idea he presented will be defended from attacks from other people to the death. He would ignore contradictory evidence and misunderstand objections as much as necessary. He would take advantage of vagueness in his original presentation of his ideas to claim that his proposals already take care of any objections. He would actually claim that some objections were irrelevant because they don’t fall within the field of linguistics. He would later propose a new theory which was essentially throwing away all his previous ideas but would pretend that this was a minor revision to his old theories. He would never admit that someone else’s objections to his theories influenced him. ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-noam-chomsky-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be/553430/10 "2010-09-13T04:26:00Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Chomsky is like a poster to the SDMB who you know, at some level, is very smart and well read. His posts are superficially coherent and not overtly snide and yet any thread the guy enters will end up as a trainwreck. Chomsky had no idea of how to present an ordinary falsifiable theory. Any idea he presented will be defended from attacks from other people to the death. He would ignore contradictory evidence and misunderstand objections as much as necessary. He would take advantage of vagueness in his original presentation of his ideas to claim that his proposals already take care of any objections. He would actually claim that some objections were irrelevant because they don’t fall within the field of linguistics. He would later propose a new theory which was essentially throwing away all his previous ideas but would pretend that this was a minor revision to his old theories. He would never admit that someone else’s objections to his theories influenced him. That sounds a lot like a BUNCH of posters I could name (I started to list them, but didn’t bother), of all political stripes. But I can’t speak to his linguistic stuff. In terms of his politics - I attended a talk by Chomsky when I was in grad school, got to meet him and chat for a while, and I’m of the same political persuasion as he is, and while I believe that he is interesting and thought-provoking, it strikes me that he is as much of a propagandist as Michael Moore. Which is a shame because while he does have things to say that I believe need to be said (again, much like Moore), his presentation interferes with the reception of his ideas. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-noam-chomsky-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be/553430/11 "2010-09-13T04:30:59Z")
Yeah, my point was not that he was like any particular SDMB poster, but that he had the irritating aspects of a number of them. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-noam-chomsky-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be/553430/12 "2010-09-13T05:43:15Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > > [@Superhal](#): > > > > A sample UG argument: “If all humans use the same underlying grammar, the fact that nobody has found it yet simply means we haven’t developed the right tests to detect it.” > > > > Response: “No you idiot. If you can’t see something, it doesn’t exist. Period.” > > I shudder to contemplate the state of physical science if this attitude had been our guiding principle. Maybe I should have said: If you can’t MEASURE something, it doesn’t exist. Regardless of whether he’s right or wrong, UG has no business in pedagogy. Linguistics, in general, tells us _what a language is._ Pedagogy deals with _how a language is taught._ It’s apples and oranges. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-noam-chomsky-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be/553430/13 "2010-09-13T12:38:50Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > A language is a mapping to the real world and as such provides a structure by which we can reason about it. But if UG is true, then we should be able to reason about the real world without having to use any particular language, as the real-world language we choose simply maps to our in-born semantic factory. In fact, I’m not sure about UG, but I often think thoughts without using any particular human-spoken language. One could argue that I speak a language to myself internally, but then I could claim I speak many languages other than English (like combat tactics, programming, and poker.) ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-noam-chomsky-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be/553430/14 "2010-09-13T19:51:11Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > > [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > > > A language is a mapping to the real world and as such provides a structure by which we can reason about it. > > But if UG is true, then we should be able to reason about the real world without having to use any particular language, as the real-world language we choose simply maps to our in-born semantic factory. But, it’s been 50 years now, and humans have been documented using language for 10k years now (6k if you’re Christian.) If they had any evidence, we wouldn’t need to say “if” anymore. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-noam-chomsky-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be/553430/15 "2010-09-13T20:44:17Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > > [@Ludovic](#): > > > > But if UG is true, then we should be able to reason about the real world without having to use any particular language, as the real-world language we choose simply maps to our in-born semantic factory. > > But, it’s been 50 years now, and humans have been documented using language for 10k years now (6k if you’re Christian.) If they had any evidence, we wouldn’t need to say “if” anymore. Not sure who is arguing what side anymore, but Chomsky uses very ambiguous language sometimes (a lot?). Human brains likely have some common hardwiring, but he implies some kind of higher level functioning directly related to language that hasn’t panned out. But he did change the thinking about this area. I’d make him in the raconteur category, somewhere off to the side. He is thought provoking. In some ways he reminds me of Buckminster Fuller. We don’t live in Dymaxion houses (although similar concepts have been applied), but his genius was in getting people to think, and consider alternatives. Maybe Chomsky will get some brain structure named after him someday. And you have to admire a guy who has managed to piss off every political faction at one time or another. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-noam-chomsky-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be/553430/16 "2010-09-13T22:32:21Z")
Incidentally, the idea of universal grammar is only one of the concepts he introduced to linguistics (and, in my opinion, only a minor one of them). His reputation in linguistics stands or falls on a number of ideas he came up with and the arguments (good or, as I think, bad) which he came up with to defend them. Furthermore, for each of those ideas, it’s necessary to examine both whether there is ultimately a good use for them and whether his arguments for them make sense before one can decide whether he should be considered a good influence on linguistics. ---
**Author:** ![FallenAngel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@FallenAngel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FallenAngel)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-noam-chomsky-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be/553430/17 "2010-09-13T22:55:02Z")
He was a groundbreaking linguist, but once he went off the political rails he’s been spectacularly wrong and wrong-headed. It’s the age old problem of political theory vs. human reality, and he’s entirely too grounded in academia to realize theory never works once it leaves the ivory tower and has to actually be incorporated into daily life. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-noam-chomsky-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be/553430/18 "2010-09-13T23:12:39Z")
I gather that, as far as linguistics goes, Chomsky is regarded like Freud. Even if he is wrong, he is BRILLIANTLY wrong! Seriously, he is considered a seminal thinker in the field, and no student of linguistics can possibly ignore him. Any other subject, the guy is a loon. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2010, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-noam-chomsky-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be/553430/19 "2010-09-14T00:37:17Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > I gather that, as far as linguistics goes, Chomsky is regarded like Freud. Even if he is wrong, he is BRILLIANTLY wrong! > > Seriously, he is considered a seminal thinker in the field, and no student of linguistics can possibly ignore him. > > Any other subject, the guy is a loon. But are people saying Chomsky must be brilliant because he’s right or saying he must be right because he’s brilliant? ---
**Author:** ![InterestedObserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@InterestedObserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InterestedObserver)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2010, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-noam-chomsky-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be/553430/20 "2010-09-14T01:09:02Z")
Coincidentally enough, I just picked up a copy of a collection of his fairly recent essays from the rec.room of my elderly mom’s apartment complex yesterday (I was over doing several loads of laundry for her and desperate for something to read). I, being a progressive leftie, appreciate the alternative perspectives he offers (perspectives which, as the intro to this collection points out, are conspicuously absent from the mainstream media in the U.S., even though they are published by the New York Times International group in other countries, none have ever appeared in the U.S. NYT.) Of course I don’t agree with him on everything (I can’t name anyone with whom I DO) but I find his perspective refreshing and often right on, in my opinion. As a linguist, I studied his theories some in college (for my 1st degree, in Child Development). I actually think his theory of UG (Universal Grammar) makes sense…look at it this way, a young child speaking in any language tends to follow certain basic grammatical rules…(“Me/I want food”, as opposed to “Food…me/I…want” or “Want…me/I…food” or “Want…food…me/I”.) I have witnessed this in my many years of working with young children, including those of several different languages of birth (Vietnamese, French, Spanish, etc…) learning English via full immersion. In much the same way as musical response seems to be hard-wired in humans, certain general characteristics of language seem to be. Just my humble opinion, of course. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-noam-chomsky-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be/553430.md?page=2)