Talk:Noam Chomsky/Archive 8

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Who is the other guy?

There's another big thinker, but he is seen as "the elegant Chomsky", he is like Chomsky but dresses ellegantly and all that, anyone knows who I'm talking about?

thanks 201.132.34.197 20:02, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Nevermind, just found him, Gore Vidal, see ya! 201.132.34.197 20:12, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
The elegant Chomsky??, thats a little bit naive to say. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 201.215.169.199 (talk • contribs) 15:09, 8 September 2006 (UTC).

Generative Grammar

  • Even lanaguage universal in semantic of body parts, which is physiologically universal, is only regarded as tendency rather than law. (See Linguistic universal) Language universal in syntax is far more controvercial. An example of partisan trying to present one's POV as a fact? Vapour
  • From the article, "The Chomskyan approach is too in-depth and reliant on native speaker knowledge to follow this method, though it has over time been applied to a broad range of languages." I have difficulties understanding the validity of this claim being other than purely pragmatic. Why is it too reliant on native speaker? What other sources of information could we then have? Or as it is, does it mean syntactic information only is not enough (to describe syntax)? // Hukkinen 11:16, 18 December 2006 (UTC)


Inclusion of other articles about Chomsky under "See Also"

These other articles about Chomsky should be highlighted at the end for people wanting to add more on those topics, or just want to read about them. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cihan (talk • contribs) 05:18, 9 May 2006 (UTC).

Citation Needed

I looked on the Democracy Now page and ran the search engine and found several interviews of Chomsky (as he is a frequent guest there) however, the supposed citation is suppose to come..."From personal interview with Amy Goodman for "Democracy Now!" 2000-11-26"...needless to say an interview with Chomsky on that particular day I can not find, so I put the "citation needed" tag on it. I know for a fact that Chomsky considered himself an anarchist from a very young age, not sure about the paper, but the thing is it needs to be verified.--Jersey Devil 03:54, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Chomsky talks about his paper on the spanish civil war here if that helps,[1]
Barsky cites on several occasions Chomsky’s first political essay, written when Chomsky was 10, on the Spanish Civil War, and he discusses at some length Chomsky’s view that the anarchist movement in Barcelona during the Civil War, described by George Orwell in Homage to Catalonia, was one of the rare occurrences in modern history where, in Chomsky’s opinion, human political nature was allowed to surface (to use a linguist’s turn of phrase). I remember very clearly as a college student in the late 1960s how much this same view was widely held, and widely seen as being implemented (as well as could be managed) by Castro’s and Mao’s New Economic Man, in only slightly different form. [FN 6]--Zleitzen 04:01, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Regarding: "Chomsky considered himself an anarchist from a very young age", be careful about the wording because I'm not sure that Chomsky has ever said exactly that. He has often described himself as a "fellow traveller" with anarchist and/or libertarian-socialist movements (in the tradition of certain tendancies of anarchism that he then outlines, i.e. Pannekoek, Spanish anarchism, certain kibbutzim, etc.), but he appears resistant to labelling himself so directly as the quoted passage implies. Pinkville 16:45, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Hizbullah Meeting

As this article demonstrates - of course if Al-Manar has correctly reported Chomsky's position (and it seems representational) - all this sophisticated condemnation of Western "state sponsored terror" seems a smokescreen for the real motivation behind his view. Clearly, Chomsky has no problem with terror - Hezbullah publically admits to targeting civilians as a focus of their attacks - compared to the accidental deaths of civilians that occur at times during Western actions. His real motivation then is best understood as a form of self hatred directed at his own culture's values.

U.S. Linguist Noam Chomsky Meets With Hizbullah Leaders in Lebanon

http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP116506

On May 13, 2006, Professor Chomsky was quoted by Al-Manar as saying, "Hizbullah's insistence on keeping its arms is justified... I think Nasrallah has a reasoned argument and [a] persuasive argument that they [the arms] should be in the hands of Hizbullah as a deterrent to potential aggression, and there is plenty of background reasons for that. So until, I think his position [is] reporting it correctly and it seems to me [a] reasonable position, is that until there is a general political settlement in the region, [and] the threat of aggression and violence is reduced or eliminated, there has to be a deterrent, and the Lebanese army can't be a deterrent."

Al-Manar goes on to state, "When asked about the U.S. list of terrorist states, he [Chomsky] said [that] if the U.S. was to stick to the clear and precise definition of terrorism in its code of laws, it would be the leading terrorist state."(3)

Fascinating, I'm sure, but irrelevant to this article. Chomsky's motivations as inferred and speculated on by third parties cannot be included in this article. Pinkville 16:38, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
It doesn't say anything in there about Chomsky defending Hezbollah's attacks on civilians; he is just saying they should not be disarmed when those arms deter potential aggression. It's about the right to defend themselves. If pressed, I'm sure he would admit the same about Israel.--csloat 18:09, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


As for the article: The document you requested doesn't exist. Click Here for a complete list of available documents in this section. Not that I doubt he meets with many, many different people, ( I bet even Israelis, that Zionist bastard!) but the terrorist - lover claim is getting quite useless, and is mostly a sign of the desperation of anti-Chomsky zealots, as he has repeatedly denounced such attacks. BTW, check the civilians death statistics for the recent Israel-Lebanon confict (66 killed by the former, 4 by the latter last reports I saw) Of course all attacks on civilians are disgusting and wrong (it is sad such things need to be said), but to paint Israel as saintly makes you look either biased or uninformed (or both). User123 July 16 2006

Israel is just plain not having the best of images right now, wich is actually odd, cos Israel has been bombing the hell out of middle east for years and years.

So for his meetings with foreign "state sponsored terror" to be fair and balanced, maybe he should also meet with, for two examples, the Contras or the KLA? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by LamontCranston (talk • contribs) 21:38, 19 November 2006 (UTC).

NN Blogs in External Links Section

Please stop adding links to non-notable blogs in the external links section. Thank you. [2]--Jersey Devil 18:57, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Chomsky Watch is the premier dissenting blog in the Noam Chomsky conversation; how about stop quashing dissent?

DrZin 08:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

For the "premier dissenting blog", it's not updated very often. Over a year? Wyatt Riot 09:19, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it hasn't even been updated since 2005. It is an nn blog and I will remove it again if you continue to add it. Anyone can make a "blogspot" blog and we have certain standards here at Wikipedia.--Jersey Devil 22:36, 30 May 2006 (UTC)


Criticisms of 9/11?

Nothing on the "criticisms" page, nothing here apart from the vague and unverified remark in the "bio" section.

I added a "citation needed" tag, but feel that these criticisms either need to be documented (linked to other page) or this reference should be deleted. {[unsigned|67.22.226.16|12:52, 5 June 2006 (UTC)}}

I think you were being too cautious, and that bit about "Chomsky coming under increasing criticism from liberals" should probably just be deleted. For one thing, the "increasing criticism" phrase is pretty weaselly (what, were there 3 and now there are 7?). If there's a lot of criticism it should be easy to at least put in a link to some of it. -- Doom 19:32, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
I deleted the lines "He has a devoted following among the left, but he has also come under increasing criticism from liberals as well as from the right, particularly because of his response to the September 11, 2001 attacks.[citation needed]"

The Right will certainly criticize him, but I don't think one can say that he's getting "increasing criticism" from the Left.

one common mistake americans make, is that internationally, their "left" is actually Right-wing, while Chomsky is truly a left wing partisan, i wouldnt know if he would care a lot if liberals criticized him, all left wing criticize liberals and conservatives equally (although sympathize with the liberals in a few matters here and there). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 201.215.169.199 (talk • contribs) 8 September 2006 (UTC).

Removed a line, explaining why

Removed line was "* He finds "terrorism" to be an easy label for use by governments which fail to acknowledge their own questionable activities. "

This is simply not true, and shows a lack of understanding in what terrorism is, or why Chomsky would call a government a terrorist nation. I do not have a problem if someone wants to restate what they are trying to say, but this is definately not true.

He finds terrorism to be a label (not sure how easy comes in) for governments who commit terrorist acts. It can't be any more simple than that, and stating that just seems silly.

I would say that Chomsky does not "find terrorism to be a label" at all. Chomsky frequently refers to acts committed by the Contras in Nicaragua for instance to "terrorist attacks" and acknowledges the 9/11 attacks as "terrorist attacks". Rather, Chomsky argues that U.S. foreign policy encourages terrorists attacks against the U.S. and that the U.S. by changing its "hawkish foreign policy" would thereby reduce terrorist attacks against itself.--Jersey Devil 00:10, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
So you would agree that as a statement, it should not be in the article? It is incorrect in a few ways, and seems biased.

Confusing structure of articles

The main article is too long, I see people agreeing, but shortening it is not in the to do list. Then there are two sub-articles: Politics of Noam Chomsky and Criticisms of Noam Chomsky. All of these go into the controversies about his politics. So in all there are three articles that go over the same ground. This is fertile ground for endless and fruitless discussion about POV. Can I suggest that the basic Noam Chomsky article carries the biography, bibliography, and summarises his thinking in politics, psychology and politics. Then a sub-article "Chomsky's linguistic theory" goes into all his linguistics writing and the psychology dimensions and the various criticisms of both. Then a second sub-article "Chomsky's political views" goes into all his political writing and activism and all the criticisms of them.Itsmejudith 16:03, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Language Chart

Citation Needed

For this sentence from the Bio section:

"From the age of twelve or thirteen, he identified more fully with anarchist politics [citation needed]."

I am rather sure this can be found in (at least) his three hour "In Depth: Noam Chomsky" BookTV interview, which aired first On Sunday, June 1 (2003) at 12:00 pm. It can be viewed online here: http://www.booktv.org/indepth/index.asp?schedid=195&segid=3562

I think you might find a few other needed citations in it, and it is quite an interesting interview in general. O.T.C. July 16th 2:20 EST

Crit Removal

I removed the Srebrenica genocide remark from the Crit. Section until it has better proof and citations:

"Chomsky has also been criticized for his alleged denial and/or failure to recognize Srebrenica genocide and ever close association with Srebrenica genocide deniers, such as ZMag where he actively publishes his writings. [3]"

How can Zmag, a print and online publication with many (hundreds?) contributers be labeled wholly, and simply, "Srebrenica genocide deniers," with no citation. That tipped me off at first. Also, Chomsky has repeatedly responded to this charge, for example see the Guardian newspaper debacle, including Chomsky's letter in response, and their retraction. Much better proof is needed for such a serious (and answered) charge, besides a biased blog (and none was given for the Zmag accusation). Wikinote: I know this isn't formatted right, sorry. 24.115.241.23 18:45, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Heads up

Just to let those Noam Chomsky editors know, there is a heated debate over at: Allegations of state terrorism by United States of America that Chomsky does not meet WP:RS. In the spirit of WP:CON, I have conceded to keep Chomsky out of the conversation, with no concentions in return, but maybe some of you could find a convincing reason to keep him in. Travb (talk) 23:33, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


Dr. Fun cartoon about Noam Chomsky

One of the Dr. Fun cartoons is about Noam Chomsky: http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-Fun/df200304/df20030409.jpg . I tried to include a link to it, but User:HawkerTyphoon reverted it. He then left a note on my talk page accusing me of link-spamming to my own site. I'm not Dave Farley, so the accusation is certainly misplaced. The cartoon is certainly relevant enough to be included at the bottom of the article in the external links section, I think. Nsayer 04:40, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia. Why should anyone care about a vaguely amusing cartoon? Things aren't "relevant" in encyclopedic terms merely because they refer to the same subject! For my money, the cartoon is irrelevant. --Dannyno 07:26, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Reverse order

It seems that this page is in reverse order. It is my understanding that Chomsky is best known as a controversial critic. But this is not mentioned in the first paragraph, and you have to get all the way to the bottom of the page to find out that there are other pages about his controversial ideas.

Perhaps the discussions of the controversy can be moved towards the top of the page, so those interested in the controversies can more quickly learn that:

  • this is the right guy, but
  • the good stuff is on other pages

-The Gomm 02:09, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Chomsky became well-known as a New Left critic after the release of American Power and the New Mandarins back in 1969. But before that he revolutionized the, then small, field of lingiustics with Syntactic Structures in 1957 and the Chomsky–Schützenberger hierarchy. The structure of the article is correct, it is in chronological order as an encyclopedia is suppose to be. Keep in mind that this is an encyclopedia.--Jersey Devil 02:29, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
If he had limited himself to linguistics, he would have been lucky to get a page as big as Marcel Schützenberger. (Note: no big bio section on the Schützenberger page. Just his science). I am just thinking that a reader should not have to read to the bottom of a big page to find out that the guy is important. -The Gomm 03:28, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
"If he had limited himself to linguistics..." This is not true. When Chomsky became the world's most cited living author according to the Arts and Humanities citation index it was far far more by virtue of references to his linguistics that to his political analysis. The Chomsky-Schützenberger hierarchy is considered only a minor part of the overall contribution to linguistics typically attributed to him. The major achievements concern his reformulation of linguistics as the study of language as a natural species-specific object utilising precise formal models, and his emphasis on creative language use based on recursive generative functions as a fundamental characteristic of this biological system. This work had undeniable implications extending well beyond linguistics into psychology, philosophy of mind, epistimology, etc., just at a time when fields such as philosophy, biology, and anthropology were recognizing/rediscovering the centrality of language to notions of human nature and cognition. Hence the explosion of references in the social sciences to Chomsky's linguistics work. I happen to think that Chomsky's political analysis is equally important and that therefore he should be treated similarly to other multidisciplinary thinkers such as John Locke or Bertrand Russell. BernardL 20:51, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Hugo Chavez's U.N. Speech

What if any has been the reaction of Chomsky on Hugo Chavez's United Nations Speech. Is this not a major problem we face in this nation when we (non-republicans) agree with our "enemies"? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.76.228.1 (talk • contribs) 18:28, 22 September 2006 (UTC).

There was a NYT article about it today in section C. I don't think it's accurate to say that Chomsky "agreed" with Chavez on particular points.--csloat 00:22, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Let's not argue over the semantics my usage of the word "agree". Thank you for the source. I highly doubt that Chomsky would agree with Bush Sr.'s failed foreign policy of assasinating Chavez. He might disagree that Bush Jr. smells like sulfur and is the devil incarnate. I look forward to a debate or discussion between Chomsky and Chavez because Bush's White House has refused to enter into any meaningful discourse. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.201.170.234 (talk • contribs) 05:30, 23 September 2006 (UTC).

Out of Mainstream Politics

" Within the United States, many consider his views to be on the far end of the political spectrum, and thus outside the mainstream. Chomsky has in turn argued that his views are those which the powerful "don't want to be heard" and for this reason he is often termed and considered an American political dissident. "

I would like this to be edited. Who are many? Perhaps it should read that "Chomsky's views are outside the mainstream political spectrum. Chomsky has argued that his views are those which mainstream politicians "don't want to be heard" and for this reason he is often termed and considered an American political dissident." References also need to be cited here Candy 14:13, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

The first version is better in my opinion. Chomsky's views are not necessarily outside the mainstream of the international political spectrum, it is more accurate to refer to the more narrow US political spectrum. He is also generally referring to the US media and powerful private interests rather than politicians when he argues that his views "don't want to be heard".--Zleitzen 15:24, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
I concur with Zleitzen.--Jersey Devil 20:18, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

We could do with some sources here (I don't doubt it, but sources are always useful.) Especially since the phrase "alleged" is shot throughout the topic of his marginalization by mainstream media. Sdedeo (tips) 22:17, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Claims?

Specifically, he denounces what he considers to be the "double standards" of the US government, which he claims results in massive human rights violations.

That statement concerns very varifiable questions. Has the US government committed massive human rights violations. Certainly that would be unambiguous. If it's true, it should read "which he points out massive human rights violations". Calling every action anyone commits that is not main stream, but is verifable as a claim, or considers is not being unbias. It's just being biased towards anything that is not within the indoctrinal structure.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.162.42.37 (talk • contribs) 17:28, 30 September 2006 (UTC).

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