Your Opinion on Noam Chomsky

[Stranger_On_A_Train]

@Richard_Parker

He is arguably the most influential linguist of the 20th century. He’s certainly up there. Every student of linguistics reads his works and knows his theories.

The problem with this statement is that it is self-justifying; he’s an authority, therefore his ideas are right. In the hard sciences nearly every prior authority has been at least partially wrong, and often enough dramatically wrong. Consider, for instance, Aristotle, whose theories on mechanics, chemistry, biology, and medicine were, while innovative, often far afield from what we currently hold as working theories. One could argue that Albert Einstein was, in the public consciousness, the most influential physicist of the Twentieth Century, but when it came to his ideas about quantum mechanics and hidden variables he turned out to be utterly wrong. The Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paradox, intended to debase quantum theory, instead resulted in demonstrating the viability of the statistical theory. Relativity itself is likely to be seriously revised when a successful theory of quantum gravity is recognized (although the overall macroscale rules of GR will probably remain consistent with our observations).

With specific regard to the Chomskian theory of Universal Grammar (which is the crown jewel in Chomsky’s career and reputation) there are significant reasons to believe that it simply isn’t true, or at least, not as absolute as Chomsky claims. For instance, see John Colapinto’s article, “The Interpreter” (The New Yorker, 16 April 2007). Field Linguist Dan Everett–a trained Chomskian linquistic reserarcher–discovered a tribe of people in Brazil whose language simple doesn’t conform to the precips of UG, and specifically the concept of recursion. (The Piraha do not use recursion or allusion to refer to or ideate analogues.) Noted cognitive scientist Stephen Pinker–also an MIT faculty member–considers this “a bomb thrown into the party” of Universal Grammar and the devotees of Noam Chomsky, and it is not an isolated example (though, due to geographic and social isolation, one of the most extreme and unpolluted).

Chomsky has instigated some interested ideas and lines of inquiry, but it is likely that his specific theories will be found to be false, or at least, only superficially accurate. Today’s authority is tomorrow’s discarded crackpot. See the unfortuante Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (who proposed the now-discarded notion of inheritance of acquired characteristics) as another example.

@gonzomax

I love Chomsky. He tells Americans uncomfortable truths ,which pisses off a lot of them. He is extremely smart and what he says is almost always the simple truth.

Nonsense. Simply being a contrarian doesn’t by default make one smart or true. It is useful that he provides an antipodean view (even if it is wrong) because it prompts one to critically consider the validity of the accepted wisdom, but that doesn’t make him right, and he is far more often wrong in his demonstrable facts than he should be, particularly for one regarded as an authority. His views on the Vietnam war, for instance, were often as woefully misinformed as those he was challenging. A better example of respectable contrarianism is Christopher Hitchens, who at least makes the effort to fact-check his details even as he is telling his particular spin on the story.

Stranger

[Richard_Parker]

@Stranger_On_A_Train

The problem with this statement is that it is self-justifying; he’s an authority, therefore his ideas are right.

You are under the mistaken impression that I was arguing that his ideas are right.

[ivan_astikov]

What about his suggestion that sport was the new opiate of the people, and that such events were used to keep people distracted? Anybody think that was an outlandish claim?

[Frustrated_Wonderer]

@ivan_astikov

What about his suggestion that sport was the new opiate of the people, and that such events were used to keep people distracted? Anybody think that was an outlandish claim?

He mentions that a couple of time, but he does make an interesting argument.

There is a lot of emphasis for people to follow sports team, sometimes without a good reason, such as having a family member play, having money invested on the team, etc.

This is not to say that many people like certain sports because they enjoy watching it, but given the way people are so obsessed with teams, sometimes they go beyond issues that “should” be of importance to us. (Mass political changes, like NAFTA, Genocides and the little attention given to them, poverty, etc.)

I happen to like a couple of sports but I can see the aspect of using teams in sports to lead people astray from other issues.

It’s just a perspective and he always allow people to disagree with him, but I think that specific statement is quite interesting.

[Stranger_On_A_Train]

@Richard_Parker

You are under the mistaken impression that I was arguing that his ideas are right.

As you like. Regardless, the fact that his is considered an authority does not, by default, make his ideas correct, particularly in the soft sciences and liberal arts where cults of personality often dominate in a field despite contrary evidence. Witness the influence of Freud even in modern psychology, despite the fact that the vast majority of his theories and ideas were utter bolsh. Chomsky definitely has his own cadre of utter devotees who would argue in favor of his ideas regardless of their validity or applicability to linguistics. Universal Grammar really extends into cognitive science and neurology, fields that Chomsky is demonstrably ignorant about.

Stranger

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Stranger_On_A_Train

The problem with this statement is that it is self-justifying; he’s an authority, therefore his ideas are right. In the hard sciences nearly every prior authority has been at least partially wrong, and often enough dramatically wrong.

Note the company you put him in: Aristotle, Einstein, Freud. Yes, all of these folks were profoundly wrong in significant ways–but they were also profoundly right in revolutionary ways that took their sciences forward significantly. If Chomsky is proven wrong by later science, that’s fine: I’d argue, and I think his informed critics like Pinker would argue, that the disproofs of his theory are predicated on science that would be impossible without his work.

As for his spinning and misrepresenting of his political enemies, I think this bit almost speaks for itself; I’ll add one word to complete it:

@Tom Tildrum supposedly quoting Chomsky

“I see no anti-semitic implications in denial of the existence of gas chambers, or even denial of the Holocaust”

Cite?

[Tom_Tildrum]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

Cite?

Chomsky’s own website. Quoted in pertinent part as follows:

@Chomsky.info

Kolodney’s query:

1. Is it true that you stated that you saw “no anti-semitic implications in denial of the existence of gas chambers, or even denial of the holocaust”? Did you mean this in a purely formal sense? In any other way, it seems strange to me that you wouldn’t at least suspect the motives of someone who does seriously attempt to deny that event.

Chomsky’s reply:

The “statement” to which you refer is a distortion of something that I wrote in a personal letter 11 years ago, when I was asked whether the fact that a person denies the existence of gas chambers does not prove that he is an anti-Semite. I wrote back what every sane person knows: no, of course it does not. A person might believe that Hitler exterminated 6 million Jews in some other way without being an anti-Semite. Since the point is trivial and disputed by no one, I do not know why we are discussing it.

In that context, I made a further point: even denial of the Holocaust would not prove that a person is an anti-Semite. I presume that that point too is not subject to contention. Thus if a person ignorant of modern history were told of the Holocaust and refused to believe that humans are capable of such monstrous acts, we would not conclude that he is an anti-Semite. That suffices to establish the point at issue.

When he was catching flak for defending Faurisson, he made that remark. When he got criticized for its implications, he argued that he was only referring to the special case of a hypothetical person raised in ignorance of all modern history might believe that the Holocaust was too monstrous to be possible. Personally, I don’t see that hypothetical case in his original remark, nor do I see any connection between that hypothetical person and Faurisson.

I don’t think Chomsky’s an anti-semite, by the way. I think he’s a provocateur who likes to say outrageously iconoclastic things. I tend to think of his politics as performance art, like L. Ron Hubbard and religion.

[Sitnam]

@guizot

I wouldn’t call anyone a “douche bag” simply because I’ve taken one linguistics class. I have a masters degree in linguistics and I can still appreciate Chomsky’s contributions to the field.

But I agree with you that humans aren’t inherently (that is to say, physiologically) predisposed to certain grammatical structures.

Mine wasn’t an appeal to authority, I’m fully aware I’ve barely gotten my linguistic feet wet, but you have a masters degree and feel Chomsky is wrong…so I’ll appeal to YOUR authority.