# Noam Chomsky - Who is this guy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 12, 2002, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/noam-chomsky-who-is-this-guy/136457 "2002-11-12T18:14:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Alaskan\_in\_NYC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f07891/32.png) [@Alaskan\_in\_NYC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alaskan_in_NYC)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2002, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/noam-chomsky-who-is-this-guy/136457/1 "2002-11-12T18:14:42Z")
Hello Dopers, I’m a long time lurker, been reading this board for over a year but this is my first post. A little background on me: I’m college educated, currently work on Wall Street, and enjoy reading about a variety of subjects. Most recently, I decided to read some political science, to get a feel for what was out there. I went into a bookstore, found a book written by Noam Chomsky called ‘Understanding Power.’ The book has the potential to be quite frightening, but before I give to much credence to this guy, I wanted to see what the Dopers think. Has anyone read his work? Know much about him? Believe in what he says? His mastery of fact seems to be extremely strong and his arguments are well put. Is he a quack or for real? ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2002, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/noam-chomsky-who-is-this-guy/136457/2 "2002-11-12T19:21:17Z")
Can’t help you Alaskan, but welcome aboard. May your stay be pleasant. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2002, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/noam-chomsky-who-is-this-guy/136457/3 "2002-11-12T19:45:45Z")
Noam is a very well-respected linguist at one of the American Ivy League schools. His work on languages, their development and how people learn 'em is top-notch. A smart cookie. His also the darling of what is left of the Left. His books attack the capitalist system in general and American policy in particluar. I gave a copy of his latest book (“9-11”) to Marwan, our office taliban (OK, singular is talib, I know that) and he is having a great time highlighting passages to taunt me with. I think it is quite noble of Marwan to pay so much attention to this well-know Jewish thinker. He gives me a dirty look when I mention that. Great fun! ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2002, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/noam-chomsky-who-is-this-guy/136457/4 "2002-11-12T19:46:49Z")
Noam is a very well-respected linguist at one of the American Ivy League schools. His work on languages, their development and how people learn 'em is top-notch. A smart cookie. His also the darling of what is left of the Left. His books attack the capitalist system in general and American policy in particluar. I gave a copy of his latest book (“9-11”) to Marwan, our office taliban (OK, singular is talib, I know that) and he is having a great time highlighting passages to taunt me with. I think it is quite noble of Marwan to pay so much attention to this well-known Jewish thinker. He gives me a dirty look when I mention that. Great fun! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2002, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/noam-chomsky-who-is-this-guy/136457/5 "2002-11-12T19:48:12Z")
Chomsky is an expert on linguistics at MIT, and also an activist and lecturer on politics. You will find quite a spectrum of beliefs about him on this Board, from those who think he’s a crackpot to those who think that he’s tapped into rarely-spoken but deep truths. But he’s always interesting. You can find quite a few of his essays on-line, if you look. ---
**Author:** ![RiverRunner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/977dab/32.png) [@RiverRunner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RiverRunner)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2002, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/noam-chomsky-who-is-this-guy/136457/6 "2002-11-12T19:50:46Z")
You are likely to get a **lot** of responses to your question; it may even make it to **Greate Debates** territory. I don’t claim to be terribly familiar with Chomsky, but I’ll tell you what little I know. ``` Chomsky is a linguist/philosopher at MIT, a left-wing thinker, and -- among other things -- an outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy. He has made important contributions to linguistics and is much admired among certain circles (particularly college campuses) -- so much so that it can be difficult to get an accurate picture of him. At his best, he can be a brilliant thinker; at his worst, he becomes a knee-jerk activist with a tendency to manipulate data to suit his own ends. He sometimes exhibits an unfortunate tendency to decide his position and then work out a way to support it rather than basing his position on the facts at hand. He has also been known to present misinformation as fact, although I doubt he would intentionally tell untruths. ``` To answer your question, he is in no sense a “quack,” but you should always make sure to check out with other sources what he has to say. HTH, RR ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2002, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/noam-chomsky-who-is-this-guy/136457/7 "2002-11-12T21:21:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RiverRunner \* > **At his best, he can be a brilliant thinker; at his worst, he becomes a knee-jerk activist** Agree completely. He goes back and forth between amazingly perceptive criticism and frustratingly close-minded leftist boilerplate. I consider him a must-read, but he is a must-_carefully-and-cautiously_-read. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2002, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/noam-chomsky-who-is-this-guy/136457/8 "2002-11-12T21:48:03Z")
Chomsky is one of many people who prove that brilliance in one area of endeavour doesn’t confer brilliance in others. That is, just because Stephen Jay Gould knew a lot more about paleontology than you do, it doesn’t follow he knew more about baseball (pssst- he knew far LESS about baseball than an average bleacher bum). And just because Chomsky knows more about neurology as it relates to human capacity for understanding language than you do, it doesn’t follow that he knows any more about U.S. foreign policy than you do. - Bottom line, though? Where you stand on Chomsky depends on where you sit. If you’re a lefty, you’re undoubtedly thrilled to have such an esteemed intellectual on your side. If not, you’ll undoubtedly see him as a babbling, self-important clod. ---
**Author:** ![DasUnterMensch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DasUnterMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DasUnterMensch)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2002, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/noam-chomsky-who-is-this-guy/136457/9 "2002-11-12T22:20:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by astorian \* > \*\* If not, you’ll undoubtedly see him as a babbling, self-important clod. \*\* Add disingenuous, intellectually corrupt, bolshie f-up 😛 Mensch ---
**Author:** ![Ol\_Gaffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Ol\_Gaffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ol_Gaffer)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2002, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/noam-chomsky-who-is-this-guy/136457/10 "2002-11-12T23:19:50Z")
As you can see from the previous posts, Chomsky’s fame has been generated in two arenas. As noted, his politics are to be taken with his agenda firmly in mind. As far as Linguistics goes, I don’t think that his contributions can be overstated. With the publication of _Syntactic Structures_ in 1957, Chomsky’s work revolutionized the field, introduced (or at least refined earlier attempts at) generative grammar, and began asking questions about language that had previously been ignored. Regardless of whether or not you agree with his work, his impact has been enormous. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. ---
**Author:** ![Ffperson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ffperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ffperson)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2002, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/noam-chomsky-who-is-this-guy/136457/11 "2002-11-13T00:19:27Z")
From what I’ve heard, sorry no cite, many of his original ideas in his field have been discredited by his peers but he is still a pioneer in his field, and the first to come up with interesting questions and ideas… sort of like how many of Freud’s theories have been discredited, but is still held in high regard for his intellect and his work. ---
**Author:** ![Ffperson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ffperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ffperson)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2002, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/noam-chomsky-who-is-this-guy/136457/12 "2002-11-13T00:33:34Z")
From what I’ve heard, sorry no cite, many of his original ideas in his field have been discredited by his peers but he is still a pioneer in his field, and the first to come up with interesting questions and ideas… sort of like how many of Freud’s theories have been discredited, but is still held in high regard for his intellect and his work. ---
**Author:** ![freajnt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8e8cbc/32.png) [@freajnt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/freajnt)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2002, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/noam-chomsky-who-is-this-guy/136457/13 "2002-11-13T01:05:38Z")
I don’t know much about Chomsky, but I really like this quote from him: “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.” ---
**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:** [November 13, 2002, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/noam-chomsky-who-is-this-guy/136457/14 "2002-11-13T04:29:44Z")
Ol’Gaffer writes: \> As far as Linguistics goes, I don’t think that his contributions \> can be overstated. I think his contributions _have_ been overstated. Read the books _The Linguistics Wars_ by Randy Allen Harris and _Western Linguistics: An Historical Introduction_ by Pieter A. M. Seuren for some viewpoints on how, even if you accept the basic ideas of generative grammar, it’s questionable whether Chomsky has been a good influence on the field of linguistics. ---
**Author:** ![Urban\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Urban\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urban_Ranger)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2002, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/noam-chomsky-who-is-this-guy/136457/15 "2002-11-13T04:50:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RiverRunner \* > At his best, he can be a brilliant thinker; at his worst, he becomes a knee-jerk activist with a tendency to manipulate data to suit his own ends. He sometimes exhibits an unfortunate tendency to decide his position and then work out a way to support it rather than basing his position on the facts at hand. He has also been known to present misinformation as fact, although I doubt he would intentionally tell untruths. That’s politics for you. In fact, Chomsky is one of the better behaving ones. Just look at the career politicians. ---
**Author:** ![Alaskan\_in\_NYC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f07891/32.png) [@Alaskan\_in\_NYC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alaskan_in_NYC)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2002, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/noam-chomsky-who-is-this-guy/136457/16 "2002-11-13T17:21:51Z")
I got the kind of responses I expected…a wide variety of them. I don’t consider myself a leftist, but some of his arguments are very compelling, others seem a bit extreme. Anyways, thanks for the answers SDMB. ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2002, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/noam-chomsky-who-is-this-guy/136457/17 "2002-11-13T17:30:20Z")
Check out [http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm](http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm) Lots of Chomsky on that. The movie (I’ve never read the book) _Manufacturing Consent_ is dated now as he talks about East Timor a lot but the ideas are still fresh. Great stuff IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Ol\_Gaffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Ol\_Gaffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ol_Gaffer)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2002, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/noam-chomsky-who-is-this-guy/136457/18 "2002-11-13T18:56:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Wendell Wagner \* > \*\* > > I think his contributions _have_ been overstated. Read the books _The Linguistics Wars_ by Randy Allen Harris and _Western Linguistics: An Historical Introduction_ by Pieter A. M. Seuren for some viewpoints on how, even if you accept the basic ideas of generative grammar, it’s questionable whether Chomsky has been a good influence on the field of linguistics. \*\* I have read the Harris book but am not familiar with the latter. By “a good influence” are you referring to his body of work or the fallout from his interactions with other linguists? I still think that one cannot “overstate” his contributions to the body of linguistic knowledge. While many of his ideas have been discounted, refined, and/or supplanted (as they should be, this is an academic research field after all), his work has always sparked furious debate which, in turn, furthers our understanding. Although, I seriously doubt whether an equivalent work by another researcher would spark as intense a scrutiny, considering the egos and personalities at stake. Of course, if you feel that generative grammar is fundamentally a flawed approach then, obviously, his contributions and influence on the field have been profoundly overstated and have had a severe negative impact on our knowledge of language. BTW, I think that if your research in a particular field eventually led to the publication of a book with the word “War” in the title, you have definitely made an impact! **RiverRunner** you had it right. This is quickly moving into GD territory. ---
**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:** [November 14, 2002, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/noam-chomsky-who-is-this-guy/136457/19 "2002-11-14T05:29:07Z")
Ol’Gaffer, I think that Chomsky is a bad influence in the sense that he doesn’t know how to conduct a civil argument. His early work on generative grammar contained enough interesting ideas to redirect and eventually re-organize linguistics, but even then he had a tendency to make it sound like his ideas were more original than they actually were. As time went on though, the interesting ideas in his linguistic works became a smaller part of his writings and became surrounded by philosophical and historical meanderings that often showed that he was less well read in philosophy and the history of linguistic thought than he thought he was. The purely technical theoretical changes he made in his theories as time went on became less clear and often were only loosely tied to the evidence that he adduced for them. Meanwhile, by the mid-'60’s, he was spending more of his publication time on his political writings, and it showed in the poor quality of his linguistic writing. Much of the late '60’s through mid-'70’s writings of Chomsky were badly written, as though he considered it beneath him to write an understandable paragraph. Increasingly, it became clear that he wasn’t very good at defending his ideas. I think that his writings of the late '60’s and the '70’s were classic examples of how to badly conduct an argument. The fact that Chomsky has had an impact on linguistics is not at all the same as saying that he has had a good impact. I’m _not_ saying that generative grammar is fundamentally a flawed approach. I’m saying that, despite having a few good ideas at the start of his career, much of Chomsky’s later work was so muddled and his arguments for his ideas were so confused that they actually messed up the field of debate by forcing both defenders and opponents of his ideas to wade through a host of bad argumentation. This is _not_ the same thing as saying that his early ideas were supplanted or refined by later work. Of course most tentative early ideas will be refined. Chomsky’s problem is that, although he was able (at least early in his career) to come up with interesting, fruitful ideas, he had no idea of how to develop, defend, and refine those ideas. Late in his career he became just a guru who was allowed to expound sketchy, obscure ideas which he then expected followers to make some sort of sense of. Read the Seuren book. I think that Harris soft-pedaled Chomsky’s faults. Seuren is clearer about what a bad influence Chomsky is. ---
**Author:** ![Ol\_Gaffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Ol\_Gaffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ol_Gaffer)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2002, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/noam-chomsky-who-is-this-guy/136457/20 "2002-11-14T17:35:09Z")
**Wendell Wagner** - I’m going to try and pick up the Seuren book this weekend. Thanks for the info. My experiences with Chomsky’s linguistic work has been two-fold. I had one vehemently anti-Chomsky professor in school and two who were (apparently) able to distill the essence out of his work and were generally in favor of his ideas. While my interests were never on the syntax/semantics side of the coin, I have slogged my way through some of the more famous stuff (Aspects, P & P, etc.). I have always been more interested in phonology and I’m sure you know the direction that that field has gone in and how Chomsky feels about it. As my fellow grad students and I used to say when we couldn’t explain something - “As Chomsky says, it clearly follows that …” 🙂 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/noam-chomsky-who-is-this-guy/136457.md?page=2)