Noam Chomsky Joins Faculty at University of Arizona
uanews.arizona.eduHe's 88, still mentally very sharp and probably moved there for the weather(aside from the great department filled with old students).
His work ethic is incredible, he spends 5 hours a day responding to emails from the public- I've received a detailed response every time I've sent one. The amount of time he spends engaging with even terribly misinformed(but well meaning) people is truly astounding, and unparalleled amongst public figures as far as I can tell.
Here's an example(https://www.reddit.com/r/chomsky/comments/6tz1xp/what_do_you...) of some random kid badgering Chomsky with emails, and he still takes the time out to respond to every one of his questions, even though he gets more than a hundred mails a day.
I think this reddit comment in here sums up my thoughts on reading that random kid post
"Dear mr. chomsky i realize you've been an MIT professor for 60 years. you've made significant contributions to many fields of studies including linguistics, history, computer science, and philosophy and you've debated with towering figures such as Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt, Jean Piaget, etc... now can you please allow me to condescend to you while i quote Breitbart news about blacks?"
For anyone interested to read on the subject of "misguided intellectual egalitarianism":
"The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters" https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MYCDVHH
Of course, there are some older well known books touching on this like Hofstadter, etc.
> he spends 5 hours a day responding to emails from the public
rms, another MIT "affiliate", is like this too, although many of his replies are brief. Whenever you see him cracking open his laptop while he's sitting on a panel waiting for his turn to speak, he's almost surely answering email.
Here are pictures of him answering email around the world:
I call this one, "The Birth of Emacs": http://stallman.org/photos/rms-working/pages/13.html
His cursor blink is so fast. It's like a console for hummingbirds.
"Our GNU/Lord and GNU/Savior is 100% sexy!"
This is my favorite thing I've found on the internet in a good long while.
Holy shit that link you shared was so frustrating to read. To think of all the productive things a great intellectual like Chomsky could be doing with his time. Instead he generously chose to engage someone who had already made their conclusion and just wanted to "debate" without actually ceding to any points (take a shot any time OP says "liberal" or "PC"). He even hints at OP's "intentional ignorance" many times too... What a patient soul to debate someone whose entire education on race issues was some /pol/ infographic and right-wing blogs. OP could have taken some time to read some pre-existing literature, to learn the opposing side's arguments and especially when corresponding with an academic, to read their prior writing. Instead we have this..... the state of public discourse on the web 2.0.
Most people do stuff like this to sharpen their teeth.
There's a great recording on Youtube of a biology grad student debating Kent Hovind on the broad subject of evolution. Even though Hovind is essentially a confidence man, the conversation is enlightening nonetheless because the grad student knows his shit and gives some surprising lucid explanations that I haven't heard in other general audience discussions of evolution.
Also, most people rely on a kind of "smell test" to keep from engaging with certain types of arguments. That can quickly create a moral hazard where the person being avoided misrepresents people's reluctance to engage as proof that he/she is a noble dissident with the courage to speak the truth.
When someone like Chomsky, Ken Miller, Glenn Greenwald, or another intellectual engages directly with such people it pushes them into a corner where they either have to deliver the goods, change the subject, or commit a fallacy.
In a debate, Greenwald forced one of the former NSA directors into such a situation when the response was, "Collect everything doesn't really mean collect everything." Trusting nature of most people being what it is, these forced errors have value.
> Instead he generously chose to engage someone who had already made their conclusion and just wanted to "debate" without actually ceding to any points (take a shot any time OP says "liberal" or "PC").
Chomsky was not prepared to cede any points either. In many places, he does not respond to the probing questions asked of him at all (this is assuming the poster didn't add them in afterwards) instead opting to insult the poster.
Poster:
Chomsky:1: By what mechanism do white supremacist elements impose American black culture on the American black community today? 2: For example, how is white supremacy responsible for single-parent families in the American black community? Allegedly single-parent rates have skyrocketed since the Civil Rights Movement.
> He even hints at OP's "intentional ignorance" many times too.Racism is quite extreme today, and by many measures increasing. I don’t know what cocoon you live in. Perhaps you are completely unfamiliar with racism and its impact, in particular, the extreme racism experienced constantly by African-Americans. If so, I would suggest that you learn something about the world, and then you will understand the mechanisms very well. If you don’t want to have direct experience – which is not that hard –then at least look at the literature. Again, try following your own logic. It’s not genes, so it is circumstances. Do you perceive any circumstances beyond the extreme white racism that it takes real effort to be oblivious to?Hinting at ignorance is not helpful unless you show a path away from ignorance. Saying that something is obvious or trivial (as Mathematicians say) is not helpful. If it is truly obvious, just provide evidence.
Now this is not to criticize Chomsky, he is still replying rather than remaining silent. And with his limited time, it doesn't necessarily make sense for him to give a solid argument in that case, but his argument in that link wasn't convincing.
Readable version...
Poster:
> 1: By what mechanism do white supremacist elements impose American black culture on the American black community today?
> 2: For example, how is white supremacy responsible for single-parent families in the American black community? Allegedly single-parent rates have skyrocketed since the Civil Rights Movement.
Chomsky:
> Racism is quite extreme today, and by many measures increasing. I don’t know what cocoon you live in.
> Perhaps you are completely unfamiliar with racism and its impact, in particular, the extreme racism experienced constantly by African-Americans. If so, I would suggest that you learn something about the world, and then you will understand the mechanisms very well. If you don’t want to have direct experience – which is not that hard –then at least look at the literature.
> Again, try following your own logic. It’s not genes, so it is circumstances. Do you perceive any circumstances beyond the extreme white racism that it takes real effort to be oblivious to?
More from Chomsky.
> Why were you and your friends raised in a different non-ghetto culture? Agreed, it has absolutely nothing to do with genes. Rather, it has everything to do with extreme white racism, which includes refusal to acknowledge what has been created by a history of 400 years of vicious slave labor camps which were the source of a large part of our wealth and privilege, a culture of white supremacy that is the most extreme in the world, beyond South Africa, as comparative studies have shown, and very powerful effects right to the present moment. Including what is sometimes called “intentional ignorance”.
Worth noting that the questioner was pretty much stonewalling him by asking the same question over and over. That's not how to have a constructive dialogue.
Chomsky had stated earlier that there are experts to read who cover such things. The kid kept asking variations of the same question. If I were Chomsky I would have been done after a couple of responses.
"These 'experts' agree with me" is not an argument. Indeed, clearly Chomsky did not want to engage the argument so ceasing responding would have been logical.
That's a pretty good argument to me. I defer to Wiles and other mathematicians on FLT. Full stop, that's sufficient to me.
The purpose of an argument is to show why something is true. Saying an 'expert' believes something is true does not show why it is true nor that it is true. Deferring to Wiles is just ceasing to argue.
I see it as being more along the lines of there have been entire books written on the subject by people with more expertise than me that can cover the matter in far greater detail than a mere email. If the questioner is truly curious, then he has a resource to indulge his curiousity. If the questioner is acting in bad faith, then all of the information in the world isn't going to change his mind.
I know I should be "deferring to Wiles" here too, since you are oblivious to what's being said in response. There are certain things that we take for granted: like gravity. Or a round Earth. If some flat-earther comes over and starts asking you to prove that the Earth is flat, or that gravity is not just little gremlins pulling on your jeans, then I think it's safe to "defer to an expert".
"Why some people are poor" is not as conclusively understood as the curvature of the earth.
"These 'experts' agree with me" is not an argument.
What's your point in saying so? I would guess that Chomsky could care less about winning an Internet "argument" with some random dude. From his point of view, it's entirely reasonably to say "go read the literature and come back when you're more informed". If the other party doesn't want to do that, they have no moral claim to Chomsky's continued participation in the discussion.
Simply that it was odd that Chomsky continued the conversation when he didnt want to actually explain his point of view. His point that "why some people are poor" is well settled science answerable with a literature review is not being honest either.
Its called Appeal to Authority, and it is considered a logical fallacy - basically the opposite of Argument Ad Hominen.
You're only committing a "appeal to authority" fallacy if you contend that something is true because the person saying it is "an authority." Pointing out that someone is clueless on a topic and suggesting they read the literature and gain some baseline knowledge is not the same thing at all.
As to whether it is, as someone said above, "simply ceasing to argue" one can rightly say "so what?" None of us owe some random person on the Internet our participation in their argument. Time is valuable and it's entirely reasonable to check out of an argument or discussion and say "here, go read these books" if you don't stand to gain anything from continuing the dialog.
The example questions you included are just not even wrong and are themselves loaded with racism. It would take hours or days of remedial education just to get the person asking them up to speed on the history and circumstances around black Americans' experiences to the point where the racism in his questions could be addressed. And that assumes he's honestly curious and not just spouting racism disguised as a question on purpose.
In such a forum there just isn't a point to treat the poster as coming from a place of honest discussion.
> The example questions you included are just not even wrong and are themselves loaded with racism.
What about the first question, "By what mechanism do white supremacist elements impose American black culture on the American black community today?", is loaded with racism? It is asking for how white supremacy directly affects black culture. I do not see how even the assertion "There is not a mechanism by which white supremacist elements impose American black culture on the American black community today." instead is racist. It may not be an educated viewpoint, but I do not see it as racist.
Besides whether the question is racist, a good answer to the question could be very illuminating. You could probably fill a book responding to that question.
There's immense difference between ignorance and intentional ignorance - for intentional ignorance showing a path isn't helpful, since the problem is taking a step on the obvious path.
That's not really accurate. Chomsky's "key statement" at the very beginning of the thread refers to studies that have demonstrated "white supremacy that is more rampant here even than it was in apartheid South Africa." That, despite the experience of racism being a naked fact that anyone with eyes can see should they make a modicum of effort to break out of their "white racist cocoon". But these studies would presumably detail how white supremacy works, for those that need it explained.
He implies that these studies are readily available, alongside "a huge literature of professional criminology," for anyone willing to look. What he's facing here is an interlocutor that isn't interested in doing the research or following logic, just citing right-wing op-eds.
> Chomsky was not prepared to cede any points either.
That was patently clear from the thread. His followers also showed a complete lack of intellectual honesty, by trying to avoid any of the points made in the thread and instead trying to dismiss with paternalistic non-sequiturs such as "Why should Chomsky waste time shoring up your self-imposed ignorance?"
When a cult-like following forms, they do behave like a cult.
I mean if you're just going to give non-argumentative question-begging, why even respond? I think Chomsky was wasting Chomsky's time more than the kid.
That's why whenever I speak to someone and they have a strong opinion I like to ask them how many books they've read on that subject. It's almost always zero. You can pretty much instantly discard anyone like that as it's a decent baseline litmus test. If you really cared about something, you would read at least one if not multiple books on the subject. Anything less is just laziness and someone who wants to get an endorphin rush from anger or other emotions.
What you described is a lot better (read some pre-existing literature, to learn the opposing side's arguments and especially when corresponding with an academic, to read their prior writing). But usually even bad books are going to blow a DuckDuckGo search out of the water on quality. Especially for those who aren't astute enough to identify good and bad information.
> If you really cared about something, you would read at least one if not multiple books on the subject.
I'm not sure how true that is anymore. If by "book" you mean "monothematic long-form treatise by a small number of authors" then I have read essentially zero books in the past year, although I have done a great deal of reading otherwise. Research papers, magazines, blog posts, Wikipedia articles, cherry-picked single chapters of books can in aggregate absolutely stand in for a few books. And then there are sources of knowledge that go beyond reading, such as personal experience, original research, attending talks, etc.
I think your test would be more accurate if you asked more generally how they learned what they know about the matter.
It probably doesn't apply to you, or a few others in the minority. If you're intelligent enough to be able to identify credible sources vs those which are not, then you're probably better off. I offered that up as a low-bar. That said, usually if you're truly into a given subject you'll eventually find a book by someone that you really want to read.
Example for me other than Marx & Engels that I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, is my passing interest in European Celts. I enjoy reading about Iron Age Europe, so I've had a hard time resisting books on the subject. Caesar's Druids by Miranda Aldhouse-Green was a recent book that I read and something I couldn't pass up. While I accept your statements and agree, I still think the same will be for you if you're truly serious about a given subject.
That's a pretty pathetic litmus test. I would rather engage someone who has read individual research papers, blogs from researchers, etc than books.
Nearly all of the best programmers I have met have never read a book on the languages in which they are experts.
Books are not conducive to learning about a whole field, they are just a way for authors to lecture you on their world view.
I agree, it is a pathetic litmus test. It still sounds like a very high bar for the majority of people though, right. Good luck finding people who have even read one book on a subject they're so angry about they'd punch you over it. It really demonstrates interest, not expertise, and potentially not even a well rounded opinion as you stated.
I've found that the book medium invites for a lot of opinions from an author and usually selective references to prove some point. Sort of the same reason that when you read scientific papers, you don't want to just read those written by a single lab.
When I want to find out how something works I usually read a meta analysis or a review in a highly rated journal in the field. That way you get to see everyone's opinions and arguments on the subject. They are usually written to be more or less accessible for people not in the field.
I think it pays to read long-form book reviews about a book if one is concerned that the book has the sort of flaws you mention. I read "From Bauhaus to Our House," a book by Tom Wolfe on modern architecture, and then I went to the local university library and looked up reviews about it. I found many pointers to follow, of which only a few could be followed up that day. Plus in that case I could have researched the various architects mentioned in the book.
I've made my mind about Nazism, because it strikes me as an abominable philosophy. I haven't read any books about it though. Would you dismiss anything I said about it until I read Mein Kampf? Most people have only read a handful of books. If they were limited to expressing their views on those topics, there wouldn't be very much said about anything in society. I'm not sure society would benefit from that.
>I've made my mind about Nazism, because it strikes me as an abominable philosophy. I haven't read any books about it though. Would you dismiss anything I said about it until I read Mein Kampf?
I think that you're using the theme of nazism as a way to make an opinion from a protected standpoint -- it's difficult to refute what you say without sounding sympathetic to nazis.
But i'll say it anyway : I think you, and anyone else in the same boat, hold less authority on a topic without being well-versed on said topic.
It's really that simple for me.
Don't stop speaking to or throw out the opinions of folks uneducated on a topic, just weigh them appropriately along with the expert opinions.
"Making up your mind" without educating yourself on the topic is dangerous, no matter which side you start leaning towards.
I'm not telling you to go pick up 'Mein Kampf' -- not by a long shot -- but to condemn all books on the topic is frighteningly naive as a societal habit. It propagates a certain kind of sneaky "head-in-the-sand" behavior that may lead to even more strife in our world, and prevents the great historic feedback-loop of the knowledge of our past preventing historical repetitions of our worst atrocities.
Well, Godwin is Godwin.
I think a better example would be Marx's Das Kapital. I probably wouldn't waste any time talking to someone about 20th century political & economic history/theory who dismisses it out of hand.
And I can tell you the vast majority of Americans will dismiss it. The standard response to "I've read it" is: "What, you're a commie?"
That's a very interesting anecdote. About 15 years ago I went to my local library and checked out every book by Marx that I could get. One of the librarians said "why would you want to read THAT". She looked actively disgusted.
I'm not a Marxist, but I have read Marx and Engels. If I had to be pidgeonholed into any political ideology that would be the vein I'd choose. I probably most appreciate Peter Joseph from the Zeitgeist Movement, which is similar and derided as "Communism with robots". But at least I've read a few treatises on the subject. I also went to Moscow about a decade ago, simply because I didn't want to form a strong opinion about a world power that everyone thinks they know about- without actually at least stepping foot on their soil myself.
In sum, people need to put their mind where their mouth is.
Yes thank you. You gave a much better example than I did. I just chose Nazism because Charlottesville was fresh in my mind.
You have an opinion about Nazism. You certainly do know less than someone who has read Mein Kampf, so your opinion is to be discarded versus someone like Noam Chomsky's. Who probably has read Mein Kampf. As long as you accept that, and accept why some outsider would take Chomsky's take on Nazism over yours, then we're on the same page.
I do think society would benefit greatly if we cut out the masses who have strong opinions on subjects they haven't even bothered to read.
Your Nazism opinion for example, doesn't sound like it's based on much other than trendiness. If it were 1935 and you were in the environment where it were popular- someone like yourself would probably would be Sieg Heiling with your jackboots on, in all seriousness.
I'd like to think I wouldn't be a brownshirt, because that makes me feel better. But I guess its definitely possible if I didn't make up my own mind about things and I went with the crowd.
It'd be interesting to see those emails publishing as a archive to search through though he's probably used them as fodder for his books.
I don't know how mentally sharp you get to be called after endorsing Hugo Chavez despite a history of similar politicians with similar policies plunging otherwise strong countries into eternal, unhealing chaos.
I know he has lots of clout, and tremendous work ethic, but I really wouldn't say he's very sharp. If he is sharp, he doesn't seem all that wise; and if he is wise, he would be very cruel.
Ideology much?
Heh, reading his sharp responses you forget his age. Then you see him use dated terms like 'Orientals' and remember :).
You misunderstand. He used the term in the context of referring to 19th century racists. Full quote:
"In the 19th century, the US had emigration officials helping drive the native population off their lands, and immigration officials in Europe trying to bring in white settlers to replace them. White. Orientals were entirely excluded."
It is in context, but it's not like he's directly quoting something, so I don't think I misunderstood. E.g., I don't refer to African Americans with the N-word when I'm discussing slavery.
In any case, I don't think anyone is offended by his use of the term here. In fact, AFAIK, it's not even considered that offensive---just a bit dated. I was just making an observation. Not accusing Chomsky of racism or anything.
It's not unusual to use "Negros" when referring to African-Americans in discussions of the Jim Crow era or slavery.
That might be a more fitting analogy than slurs.
>His work ethic is incredible
>he spends 5 hours a day responding to emails from the public
Since I read Deep Work, I think these phrases contradict each other. You don't do original, interesting work when replying emails.
work eth·ic, noun, the principle that hard work is intrinsically virtuous or worthy of reward.
(I didn't down vote you)
I see. That's not quite the definition I was using in my head. According to that, if the emails are very well thought-out and written, it _is_ still hard work...
I assumed that, for a work ethic, it had to be as useful as possible too.
Oh well, thanks for correcting my mistake.
> I assumed that, for a work ethic, it had to be as useful as possible too.
do you mean to suggest that chomsky replying to these sorts of emails isn't all that useful?
there can be value in unoriginal boring work
I suspect that when Chomsky dies, a burst of new and valuable linguistics research will arrive. I'm not saying I hope he dies soon. However, I think his current impact on the field is probably negative.
My theory derives from these sources: https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21695371-theor... (Chomsky's recent theory of how language evolved has not been accepted favorably), and
http://www.nber.org/papers/w21788 (this happens a lot)
Chomsky has far less of a grip on the field than people outside it imagine. There are already lots of people doing research in linguistics that's fundamentally different in its approach. So I would not expect any very sudden sea change once Chomsky dies.
Note that the economist article is very badly informed. Since another poster didn't link directly to the relevant article on the 'facultyoflanguage' blog, here is a link:
http://facultyoflanguage.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/it-never-end...
> However, I think his current impact on the field is probably negative.
This is obvious if you look at other field "champions" such as Claude Lévi-Strauss in cultural anthropology. His admittedly invaluable contributions were followed by 50 years of stagnation. Granted I only studied it for a year but it was one of my reasons for not sticking with it.
Even if his work has had a negative impact, why would the field have to wait for him to die to progress?
I haven't read his political works but Noam Chomsky as a social phenomenon is interesting. His subject matter is often media and political manipulation and people who haven't read him often feel compelled by an entrenched, opposed political view to voice extremely strong opinions about his work. And they're doing this without any conscious irony.
World-renowned linguist and all people are talking about is his political views (mostly by his own design).
Make no mistake, Chomsky's work was significant to both linguistics proper (X-bar theory, generative grammar, universal grammar) and computer science (Chomsky hierarchy).
In recent years though he more often than not comes across as a grumpy old man who can't seem to accept the fact that linguistic theory has moved on to often simpler, more elegant approaches.
> linguistic theory has moved on to often simpler, more elegant approaches.
As a linguist, I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. There have always been alternative approaches. But we have not recently been blessed with any that are clear winners in terms of simplicity and elegance.
HPSG or statistical approaches in computational linguistics, for instance.
Now, of course one can argue - as Chomsky himself has done - that statistical approaches are not as elegant as rule-based ones but as human language faculty quite likely behaves statistically to some degree, statistical methods for describing language do have some merit.
Linguistic theory has not "moved on" to HPSG. HPSG originated in the early 90s and remains a minority pursuit.
The term "statistical approaches" could mean almost anything. There have always been people who are more interested in building, say, practical machine translation systems than in figuring out how kids acquire grammatical knowledge. But again, the field has not "moved on". There are just different groups of researchers working on different problems.
Could mean almost anything but what generativist linguistics (or whatever the latest label for the Chomskyan school) does, which continues to promote the notion that language is essentially algebraic, that "grammaticality" is binary, and so forth. It's simply not the case that Chomsky is "okay" with approaches to the study of language which are not in accord wiht his own. He repeatedly dismisses whole subdisciplines as "uninteresting," but in context those complaints don't mean "uninteresting to me," they mean "worthless."
>promote the notion [...] that "grammaticality" is binary
I don't know a single generative linguist who is committed to the claim that grammaticality is binary. And there is lots of published work in generative linguistics that explicitly does not assume this. Where are you getting this idea from, exactly?
>language is essentially algebraic,
Not sure what this means. If it just means that sentences have structure, then yes, generative linguistics is committed to this obviously true claim.
>He repeatedly dismisses whole subdisciplines as "uninteresting," but in context those complaints don't mean "uninteresting to me," they mean "worthless."
He's entitled to his opinion, no? It's not as if no-one ever criticizes his work.
I heard that the Universal Grammar reached the peak of simplicity and generality by recursively applying "join-a-word" action. Are those rumors exaggerated?
I'm not sure what you're referring to, sorry.
Chomsky is a great critic of social issues like imperialism, manufactured consent, and state capitalism. However he has been proved devastatingly wrong about Venezuela and as of today won't admit the problems with state socialism. I hope his new students realize this.
I'm not sure what you mean by how "he has been proved devastatingly wrong about Venezuela". When Chavez was first elected, Chomsky noted how the oil wealth of Venezuela was finally being shared beyond a small coterie of wealthy European descendants, and was now accessible to the poor and working class Venezuelans of various races. Then six years ago, Chomsky said in an open letter that the Venezuelan government was beginning to take measures that were an "assault on democracy" ( https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/03/noam-chomsky-h... ).
I don't know how Chomsky "has been proved devastatingly wrong about Venezuela". Do you think these two reactions he had to events in Venezuela were incorrect?
Insofar as human rights, Chomsky saw respect for them beginning to dip six years ago, and reacted accordingly. I should note that eight years ago, Honduras had its first left-leaning president in living memory ousted by a coup from US-trained, US-funded military officers, after which, the US stood alone being supportive of the coup against virtually all other Latin American nations. Actually Wikileaks cables show the US knew what was going on and how they supported this. Elections were scheduled for 2013 and dozens of candidates and supporters were killed. The murder rate of Honduras has exploded, as has immigration from it. You never hear it in the US news though, unless unaccompanied Honduran chidlren appear at the border, and then you never hear why, just arguments between the Trumpites and anti-Trumpites about what to do with them.
Insofar as Venezuela's economy, it has been similar to other economies heavily dependent on energy. Including the energy-dependent areas of the US economy that voted heavily for Trump. It is why Venezuelan minister Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo helped found OPEC in 1960. Venezuela had decades of an up and down economy along with the price of oil before Chavez came along.
Aren't you reading about the recent developments of president Maduro?
How did Chomsky respond to these developments? Did he downplay them or encourage Maduro's authoritarian reaction to the protest?
Is there some crucial factor in Venezuela's woes which clearly arises from socialism? It seems likely that the US will soon become the latest demonstration that corruption can damage a country with any form of government. Chomsky identifies that as the problem in Venezuela, which I find plausible.
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/4/5/chomsky_leftist_latin_...
-Redistribution and price controls, which have brought production, and therefore consumption, to a halt.
-Preventing markets and prices from working and substituting with centralized economic planning.
https://fee.org/articles/you-cant-deny-that-venezuela-is-a-s...
Interestingly enough, redistribution isn't a Socialist policy; if the workers (proletariat) control and own the social means of production, i.e not a state which is clearly not under control of the workers (i.e not a dictatorship of the proletariat) then redistribition would not be necessary unless agreed to on a voluntary basis by the community.
Instead, we see there is still wage labour. Thrre is still money, which as Engels reminds us contains the law of value in embryo, there is still private property, both state owned and private (as we saw in the USSR and Cuba and more obviously in China).
The very fact we are discussing prices shows the proof is in the pudding - there is no Socialism, there is a government attempting to control a capitalist (fitting all of Marx's conditions for a capitalist mode of production as outlined in Capital) economy, the fact that the free market has been limited, or that the state owns private property rather than McDonald's or Microsoft is frankly irrelevant.
Sounds like you are talking about a pure idealized version of socialism. However, I referred to Venezuela as an example of state socialism. Let me quote the wiki article so we both know we are talking about the same thing:
"State socialism is a classification for any socialist political and economic perspective advocating state ownership of the means of production either as a temporary measure in the transition from capitalism to socialism, or as characteristic of socialism itself..."
and: "State socialism was traditionally advocated as a means for achieving public ownership of the means of production through nationalization of industry. This was intended to be a transitional phase in the process of building a socialist economy. The goals of nationalization were to dispossess large capitalists and consolidate industry so that profit would go toward public finance rather than private fortune. Nationalization would be the first step in a long-term process of socializing production..."
So there still may be private capital, prices, money, and other things like redistribution in a state socialist country. Even if they eventually want to transition to pure socialism.
Sounds like you're not talking about socialism at all.
>"State socialism is a classification for any socialist political and economic perspective advocating state ownership of the means of production either as a temporary measure in the transition from capitalism to socialism, or as characteristic of socialism itself..."
I agree that this can exist and has the potential to exist, and the usage of the state temporarily to secure the power of the proletariat (their dictatorship) was something espoused by Marx and Engels. The issue is that it requires the proletariat as a whole to be in control of this state; at the moment, the state is run not by workers but by people who are acting as bourgeois on a global scale - buying and selling in a capitalist economy, trading commodities. They employ wage labour. As such, Venezuela does not operate a state Socialist system.
There is some confusion around the meaning of Socialism; in Marx's day, the word 'Socialism' and 'Communism' were synonymous, though Marx distinguished between lower and higher stages of Communism. The idea that Socialism is a form of state in the first place I am willing to concede, though this is largely a Leninist invention.
>So there still may be private capital, prices, money, and other things like redistribution in a state socialist country.
I don't know if I agree; the key component of a Socialist economy is outlined by what doesn't exist in the capitalist economy, namely in particular the absence of the law of value, which prescribes that commodities have both exchange and use value; if production is predominantly focused such that use values, but not exchange value is being produced (i.e we have products rather than the specific form of product, commodity) then it can be said that the workers own the means of production, that they are not paid wages in order to exchange products. Socialism is the breaking of Marx's chain of exchange (M-C-M').
The nationalisation of industry is conducted in the transition of power from the bourgeois state to the proletarian state (which necessarily incorporates proletarian democracy); however as soon as this transfer of power is complete, the state should start dismantling, withering away is Engels put it.
And we do not see this happening in Venezuela. The state continues to trade on a global scale (oil etc.), employing wage labour (showing that the state is not in the control of the workers) and is thus not Socialist. If you can find any major Socialist theorist who is in support of wage labour within a Socialist economy, I'd be surprised.
> Is there some crucial factor in Venezuela's woes which clearly arises from socialism?
Ah, the never-ending cycle of socialist revolution, followed by establishing socialism, and finally followed by a string of desperate attempts to pin the effects of socialism because no true socialists would ever do any wrong.
Or the realization that capitalist Venezuela had a worse version of this same crisis. Why are the socialist policies to blame this time?
> Or the realization that capitalist Venezuela had a worse version of this same crisis.
Don't go lecture me about how bad "capitalist Venezuela" was. I have family members living in Venezuela, and not only did they saw their property and livelihood seized by Maduro's thugs, one family member also died due to restrictions imposed on access to basic medical care by your pet socialist utopia.
I'm sorry for your loss.
Maybe worse is overstepping, things under the capitalist government were often fairly rotten as well. Blaming it all on socialism needs more proof than I've seen provided
Worse in what way?
Poverty rate, wealth inequality, corruption, violent unrest. Admittedly, 2015 is the last year data seems available for, and pre-Chavez years get very little coverage online. Either way, you can't just point at the problems and say socialism is to blame.
Clearly, you haven't lived in Venezuela. The current crisis cannot be compared to anything in the last 60 years.
I was born in the middle of a crisis, but never lacked anything important. Nowadays I can say with certainty that my family is poorer than when I was a kid.
Chavez left a country with a deeply broken economy before he died.
> no true socialists would ever do any wrong.
That's irrelevant to my question.
> However he has been proved devastatingly wrong about Venezuela and as of today won't admit the problems with state socialism. I hope his new students realize this.
Doesn't the problems with state socialism result from being attack by state capitalism which tend to be much stronger nations?
The US and europe attacking venezuela and blaming their failures on state socialism is like blaming democracy for ukraine's loss of crimea. When larger nations bully smaller nations, smaller nations suffer.
We can never truly ascertain the merits of socialism, capitalism or any other ism really because it doesn't exist in a vacuum.
The chinese and their state socialism has been the most successful nation the past 40 years after the US decided to play nice with them.
The situation in Venezuela is not the result of US and European attacks, much as their state propaganda would have you believe. It's the result of 19 years of high corruption, and since the death of Chavez, even worse leadership (Maduro is a moron, plain and simple). They, much like the Kirchner governments in Argentina, and the Mujica government in Uruguay, squandered resources to buy good will, spending money they didn't have (and stealing what money they did have).
> Doesn't the problems with state socialism result from being attack by state capitalism which tend to be much stronger nations?
Venezuela has nearly 300 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, so I think it makes sense to ask why they have done so much worse than other countries. It can't just be due to US meddling.
"The US and europe attacking venezuela..."
Speaking as a Venezuelan, what the bloody hell are you talking about?
"...and blaming their failures on state socialism..."
Venezuela's failures are the failure of state socialism. Price controls, capital controls, expropriations, redistribution policies, central planning, disregard for property rights, and other insane economic policies tanked the country. High oil prices were the only thing hiding the structural damage these policies were creating for years.
China is not a socialist country.
They are more socialist than capitalist. Besides, there is no pure socialist or capitalist society on earth.
Using that logic, the US isn't a capitalist nation and venezuela isn't a socialist nation. And the guy's assertion that venezuela is suffereing because of state socialism is pointless.
China and venezuela are both socialist countries. You can't just decide to accept one because it fits into your worldview and reject the other because it doesn't.
>Besides, there is no pure socialist or capitalist society on earth.
Yes there is. All nations on earth adhere to the capitalist mode of production, entailing the following: primacy of wage labour, capital accumulation by the owners of the means of production, majority capitalist control over the means of production, the existence of private property and the fact that commodities (which have use and exchange value) are produced rather than simple good (which have only use value).
This is what Marxists mean when they talk about the difference between capitalism and Socialism.
>China and venezuela are both socialist countries.
Why? What precisely makes them socialist, and by whose definition? North Korea calls itself "democratic".
> They are more socialist than capitalist.
No they're not. Production isn't controlled by the public. China doesn't even classic social-democratic policies like free health care, free higher education or a strong welfare system. It's much more a cut-throat proto-capitalist state, which happens to also also a not a democracy.
China is an autocracy, which is a form of government associated with the east block that used to call itself socialist and communist. Socialism is an economic system that China doesn't have.
"the US isn't a capitalist nation" - ok buddy
In 2017, 36% of the US GDP is government spending, including federal, state and local governments. Of the remainder, most is highly regulated giving government specific controls over how companies can speak, hire, employ, operate, manufacture, and how their ownership is determined and profits distributed.
At what level of government control over the economy do you draw the line between socialism and capitalism? It can't be 100%, that's called communism. If you draw it at 50% for socialism, a very good argument exists that we are there right now, just establish that the government controls anywhere near 20% of the decisions private businesses make.
>At what level of government control over the economy do you draw the line between socialism and capitalism?
No level, where do you get this idea that Socialism and capitalism exist on a scale between government control over the economy and no control over the economy? I can't imagine what would arouse such an opinion. Marx never said "Socialism is when the government does stuff, and the more stuff it does, the more Socialist it is". That's complete rubbish.
>It can't be 100%, that's called communism.
No, it's not. Communism, like other anarhcist ideologies, has no "government control", and this is painfully obvious by reading Marx's discussion on the self-regulating sphere of activity.
And this is of course ignoring the fact that in Marx's time, Socialism and Communism had the same meaning. Their distinction is almost entirely a Leninist one.
Here's the thing: Socialism isn't about government control over a capitalist economy, and it's not about acting like a capitalist but on a global scale. That's called state capitalism.
I was talking about real world definitions of socialism, not fantasies Marx used to trick people into buying into his concepts.
The real world definition of socialism is government control of economic activities. And there has never been a "socialist" economy without dictatorship and fascism. Socialism is a mandatory step on the road to fascism.
That wasn't what he said.
The point is not so much that these countries are socialist, I agree they’re not, although they have some aspects of socialism. The point is they’re not integrated into the western system. That’s the big distinction or cause of schism.
I'm not sure how that statement can be taken seriously. Puppet leaders of industry, are extensions of the party. The ability to act independently isn't much different than the leeway given to a US executive agency head.
Socialism isn't ever absolute...as if the Nordic Model isn't "socialist" either.
He made some stupid comments about privatization in Brazil in the 1990s. He never lived here, he did not know the absolute mess that Brazil was before the tenure of president FHC. He seems to think that state bureaucracy, inefficiency, inflation, public spending and privileges of public servants are problems so minor that can be ignored.
Chomsky is intelligent and points real problems in USA and capitalism, but he is not infinitely intelligent and should not put the weight of his name in things that he does not have any first-hand experience, because it is damaging. Already some hard-left local people cite Chomsky and call it a day, along with the young lefties that think that Brazil was a paradise until the 1980s.
Brazil was a mess, but it simply makes zero sense to say that the young lefties thinks that our country was a paradise under a right wing military dictatorship, most of them agrees that our country was always riddled with corruption, bureaucracy and a ton of other problems.
On the aspect of privatization, some of that was necessary, but the main criticism is not about the privatization per se, but the way it was handled, giving strategic companies for almost nothing.
If you want to criticize the left, please don't resort to lies just because most of the HN aren't brazilians.
you have a different opinion than mine, it does not make me a liar.
When you say that young lefties thinks that Brazil was a paradise during a time when a right wing military dictatorship ruled the country, you are stating a fact that simply isn't true, not an opinion.
And to be honest, a lot of young right wingers are the ones that miss the dictatorship and say that the country was better in that time, in which case what you said couldn't be more distant from the reality.
This is a nostalgic credo among youngsters that are too far into either side of political spectrum: that there was some sort of 'order' or 'grand plan' for the country until the 1980s. Obviously I don't subscribe to that credo.
Let's not forget that local left worships Getúlio Vargas, which was a right-wing dictator and a full-fledged fascist (a true fascist that fortunately was not a Nazi puppet, which made a lot of difference!). Also, the local military regime belonged firmly to the right, but borrowed some ideas from the left (strong presence of the state in economy, auto-sufficiency in manufacturing). Many times the impeached Dilma was compared to General Geisel; they even committed the same errors regarding the economy.
Anyway I am not sure if you want to debate or just calling people liars.
> This is a nostalgic credo among youngsters that are too far into either side of political spectrum: that there was some sort of 'order' or 'grand plan' for the country until the 1980s. Obviously I don't subscribe to that credo.
Source needed, credible sources about lefties that loved our military dictatorship would be greatly appreciated.
I can agree with you on Getulio Vargas, but I disagree in everything else and would love to see you support your arguments with sources.
I call things what they are, and saying that the left has fond memories of the dictatorship in the same way that the right has is a false equivalence.
I won't say that we don't have a few lefties that admire Stalinism and left-wing dictatorships, but I find very hard to believe that the left is fond of our dictatorship, would gladly read some sources that corroborate your arguments.
I'm not sure what you're referencing, but Chomsky has typically not been aligned with state socialism. I think typically it's viewed as another structure which uses it's position to maintain power.
He praises the Venezuela's state socialist policies, but manages to blame the problems on private capital.
That video has frustratingly little information. Except for the hosts rage and short quotes from a supposed conversation with Chomsky; the only actual study mentioned is discarded immediately on basis of its author having advised some movie on the topic that he's an expert on.
Just Google Chomsky Chavez or Venezuela. I've heard him give plenty of interviews where he talks about how great Chavez is. Sorry I had just provided the top search result.
I have heard these too and that is a misrepresentation of his statements. He does not say Chavez is great. He makes specific and nuanced arguments about value exemplified in some things Chavez did.
This probably didn't need saying, but what an obnoxious generalization to make.
So, you want to point to Chomsky opinions about Venezuela and this is the best link you can find?
No that was the first video on Google search, which I quickly looked over, and had the necessary quotes from Chomsky to validate my point.
Chomsky opinion about Venezuela is not so difficult to understand if we make a honest effort. Unfortunately a honest effort, as reflected by your link, is not very common.
Chomsky supported initially Chavez, (who, by the way, and not as your link insinuate, was democratically elected), because his government initially improved the conditions of the most humble people in the country. People that lived in misery in one of the most resources rich countries in the world, elected what was then, a new hope.
As frequently happen, the new elite was incompetent, and get corrupted fast. Consequently, Chomsky criticized them.
Here there is video of Chomsky criticizing the Venezuela government:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maHgtLp21Iw
And, for completion sake, here there is a video of the government of Venezuela criticizing Chomsky's criticism of them (in Spanish only, sorry):
So Chomsky was incredibly short-sighted when he praised Chavez. I am just an average guy, but I always knew that this story would not end well.
> As frequently happen, the new elite was incompetent, and get corrupted fast. Consequently, Chomsky criticized them.
That doesn't just happen "frequently", it has happened in 100% of socialist countries after the "revolution". The "critics" then get silenced or killed, unless they happen to (ironically) be sitting in a comfortable chair in an imperialist capitalist country such as the USA, like Chomsky.
You'd think that with this track record, a smart guy like Chomsky would begin to see that there must be something fundamentally wrong with socialist political theory. Yet, he keeps retreating into the "No True Scotsman" fallacy whenever the next socialist experiment fails.
Well you can say the same for supposedly capitalist countries. I mean US elections are a farse of external (no, not the russians) buying our elections for their economic or geopolitical purposes.
Now riddle me this. Name me one failed socialist country that failed (as I believe all will) without massive Western intervention to ruin their economy. We're kinda pricks, aren't we?
I don't think it's fair to blame external influence always in those cases. It's not honest.
Venezuela's situation main blame should go, in my opinion, to the people in charge in Venezuela. My impression, is that they really don't know what they are doing. Never liked Chavez, but compared to the current one, the guy was a genius.
Other countries have showed that you can work discretely and apply politics that help the vast majority of the population instead of a few elites:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Correa#General_Balance_...
We tried a coup-de-etat within months of Chavez' victory. That doesn't set the stage for a pro-Western social democratic state, does it?
We tried to steal the Bolivian elections that got Morales in power. By then the American brand was so tarnished the ambassador got run out of the country.
So most of the blames does go to Chavez. But can we please pretend we're anything other than pricks?
I'd like to think I have the same outlook for most of the places that I've lived. Mostly it gets better, because mostly, people are good. But people f up, and then they make it worse... That is life. Reading a bit of chomsky helped me form that outlook.
The world used to be much much worse. The world is getting better and better. Statistically speaking. We literally live in a golden age. For a good portion it seriously seriously sucks. But that ratio is getting lower and lower yes? 500 million people raised out of poverty in china alone over the past 30 years. That's gotta count for something, doesn't it?
Define "massive Western intervention" first. Socialist policy at one point in history ruled half the world's economy. You'd think at that size, if those policies made any sense, it should be able to do fine even without the West.
A significant expenditure for us, an overwhelming one for the other side, of money, arms, and conflict to destroy a region's viability therefore ensuring that any (including capitalism) economic system will fail. The aim is force people to either capitulate to us in the hope we will bring in re-construction money, or terrorize others into falling in line.
Read Chomsky, he'll give you references (from the likes of the declassified CIA documents, ect)
For example
Russian Civil War. That's well before they "ruled half the world's economy". Btw, the side we picked were real pricks. The only ones who could make the Bolsheviks the better alternative.
Greek civil war. Here we started sweeping away the commies (who actually liberated Greece) while we stil at war with the Nazis.
Cuba, nasty embargo. Numerous terrorist act committed by our proxies. The point here is to demonstrate to L. America the punishment of going red.
Cambodia. Bombed them to the stone age destroying all their capital. We were so through, people predicted that millions would die even if the Khmer Rouge hadn't (the predictions, btw, predate the Khmer Rouge taking power).
Cambodian side note: by the 1980s we were siding with the Khmer Rouge against Vietnam. Politics and bed fellows and all of that.
Vietnam. We dumped so much Agent Orange that they can't grow non-poisonous produce if they tried. We destroyed all their industrial capital.
N. Korea. We bombed them so throughly that we ran out of civilian* targets. We bombed them for things we hung Nazis for (irrigation damns). Needless to say they had no capital.
Read more Chomsky for more fun (and references) !
* Did you really mean economy or landmass, or population? I don't think the combined socialist countries, at their height in the late 70s, got close to third the world economy, nevermind half. To be clear, i don't expect socialism to work. I just don't get why we bomb those who try it.
You're talking mostly about military intervention, mostly before socialists got the chance to even implement their policy.
Now, wherever you start, a functioning economic system should be able to lift even a destroyed country up eventually. Just look at what Germany accomplished after WW1 (too bad they went for another war with what they gained).
What about all the Eastern European countries that abandoned socialism without a single bullet fired? What about all the former African socialist countries that few people ever talk about?
> Did you really mean economy or landmass, or population?
I'm talking about roughly half the world (people). I may be off with that figure, but suffice it to say it should be big enough to work autonomously.
So defending South Korea from being brutally over-run by an unwarranted North Korean attack is intervention into North Korea? Somehow 60 years of direct access to the massive chines market and North Korea's economy is still a fraction of South Koreas.
How did we intervene in the USSR, the largest county in the world, to destabilize it. And how could we, given socialism is so efficient and they had all the massive resources they'd ever need, right?
It's not just in socialist countries that the critics get silenced or killed, or that they are incompetent or get corrupted, but, normally, there are a more "laissez faire" attitude to those countries from the press and the political class, as Chomsky have pointed repetitively.
If you care about the welfare of people is fair to ask why a minority live like kings when the vast majority live in misery in a resource rich country. And, I think, is fair to ask for changes and try to support those changes even if you know that probably you will get disappointed finally or you will get mixed results.
The true is that, unsurprisingly, and independently of how you call those policies, spending resources in the poor improve the life of the poor.
Socialism has failed 100% of the time. You can't get worse than that. Even if capitalist systems failed to improve the lives of the poor 95% of the time, it would still have a better track record. In reality, the most successful countries are all capitalist and free markets have lifted more people out of poverty than anything else.
The fact that some autocratic countries also employ capitalism doesn't change that. Capitalism doesn't magically cure corruption, it's merely a superior economic system. Poverty isn't a function of wealth inequality, it's function of economic development. In a socialist system, the poor may be less poor in relative terms, but they're more poor in absolute terms, because socialist economics eventually fail.
It seems to me that you define socialism as whatever it fails and capitalism as whatever it works.
Pure capitalism has never existed neither, so we have a spectrum of possibilities. I would argue that the better system is the one that improve the lives or the people and, that should be the measure.
Even if capitalism was the definitive answer, that doesn't mean that we should stop criticizing it.
If you have a system where, in the middle of the most advanced age of humanity, most of the people have not even the most basic needs covered, like was (and it's) the case of Venezuela, some criticism is needed.
I'm not going to argue that socialism is a good system, I agree with you that we have not good examples, but that doesn't automatically, leave us with a system where all resources have to be allocated by the market. In fact, if something has been proved for now, is that is a very bad idea.
So, when you criticism socialism, remember that a lot of countries in the world redistribute resources in a not market way very successfully. Call that whatever you want.
> It seems to me that you define socialism as whatever it fails and capitalism as whatever it works.
No socialist state that called itself a socialist state has been a success. None. Zero. There are democratic countries that may at some point have "social democrats" or even "socialists" in power. These countries may have passed some laws that are "socialist" in spirit, but virtually all of those countries employ a capitalist free enterprise market. Then you have countries like China that call itself communist and still employ capitalism.
Yet, socialist thinkers are pre-occupied with the perceived evils of capitalism (and finding means to abolish it), even though it has outperformed any socialist economic model thus far conceived. Capitalism is blamed for practically every ill, including the failure of socialism itself.
> So, when you criticism socialism, remember that a lot of countries in the world redistribute resources in a not market way very successfully. Call that whatever you want.
Like which? I'm not going to call any form of redistribution "socialism", like some people like to do.
So, if they are successful and call themselves communist they are not really communist. There are not private banks in China, for just pointing a random fact. I'm not defending the Chinese model, but the diminishing of poor people in the world that you pointed before is mostly due to China.
>>"Like which? I'm not going to call any form of redistribution "socialism", like some people like to do."
I suppose you agree that there are not pure capitalist states. What we see in the world is normally called "mixed economy".
In your opinion, what is this mix composed of?
Anyway, I think we are discussing about semantics.
> So, if they are successful and call themselves communist they are not really communist.
China is still very much communist in every way but economically. I don't mind calling them communist, it's just that if we're talking about an economic system and I'm looking for success story of socialism, you can't bring up China. Ever since China abandoned planned economy and employed capitalism, its economy has grown by leaps and bounds.
> I suppose you agree that there are not pure capitalist states. What we see in the world is normally called "mixed economy".
Whatever you want to call it, does "more socialism" or "more capitalism" correlate strongly with wealth? What about individual freedom?
Can you define what you mean by socialist?
It seems to me that critics of the government in non-democratic countries are the ones in danger, while the ones in democracies aren't, even in socialist democracies (eg, Scandinavia).
If you don't consider these countries socialist that's ok, but the danger government critics are in within non-socialist dictatorships is something worth considering.
> Can you define what you mean by socialist?
Apparently, anything that fails eventually is not socialist. Hence, "No True Scotsman".
> If you don't consider these countries socialist that's ok, but the danger government critics are in within non-socialist dictatorships is something worth considering.
I don't consider these countries socialist. They're not "socialist democracies" (no such thing exists as far as I can see). They're commonly called "social democracies", but that's because the word "social" is political capital. The word "socialist" on the other hand is rather toxic, so most of the mainstream left parties call themselves "social democratic". They may have a bit of "socialist" policy, but not much more so than e.g. the US. Their economic system is fundamentally capitalist.
Venezuela is very far from the government he prefers. In fact it's close to the exact opposite, since he's an an anarchist and vocal critic of Lenin and Stalin. He however supports the rights of Latin American countries to elect their own government over CIA backed dictators who privatise resources and funnel out a country's wealth.
The fact that social democratic countries in Latin America have overall had better development than extreme free market societies like haiti or pre-socialist Brazil is pretty widely accepted, dutch disease inflicted Venezuela notwithstanding.
Which social democracy is doing well here in south america? We are currently paying the price for all the post-socialist economical measures here in Brazil.It's not pretty.
As I have some Brazilian friends that disagree with you I went to the statistic data and it doesn't look so bad.
For instance,the poverty headcount:
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.NAHC?locations=BR
Specially against this one, a growing population:
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=BR
Ecuador didn't do too badly under Correa: http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/ecuador-2017-02.pdf
Chomsky is a linguistics professor. His students won't presumably have that much reason to care about whether he was right about Venezuela or not.
Still if they are young and impressionable and like his linguistics teachings, they might be lured into believing his opinions on other subjects.
He is a libertarian socialist therefore he doesn't like state socialism.
Nevertheless, he praises state-socialist policies.
Or, maybe, he just praise reduction of poverty. That it's something that actually happened in Venezuela when Chomsky showed his support, by the way.
From then he has criticised them frequently.
An argument about socialism requires all parties to understand the actual definition of socialism. That is further than most peoples understanding of government.
Actually under Chavez a lot of improvements were made thanks to state socialism. Chomsky’s position in Venezuela currently is that it has a lot of problems, and he’s criticized the authoritative directions the government has taken, but he believes the US should be trying to help, and not start fires there.
[EDITed to leave only the point I'm confident about]
a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guyAs much as Chomsky may have been incorrect, I think it is foolish to call him "depressingly ignorant" without justifying your statement. His international recognition both in his field and in his commentaries did not appear out of nowhere.
I think I could justify it... but it'll take some work, and is unlikely to ignite any sort of productive discussion - so I'll just edit that out.
This seems to be the theory of multiple intelligences + g-factor denialism + credentialism taken to an absurd extreme. I see this idea used so often in arguments, I think it ought to be a formal fallacy. I'll call it Silo Fallacy for now. The idea that Einstein was as capable of making an argument outside his lane as the person on the street is ridiculous enough, but Chomsky identifies as a "public intellectual" - that is his lane.
I'm not very proficient with the "theories" you've mentioned. I'm more into facts. The quote is not offensive and is not about Chomsky. Personally, I find it empirically true. YMMV
How to define a nonscientific problem. There is none. All sociology problems are related to psychology that is related to biology which is related to chemistry which is related to physics which is related to math. https://xkcd.com/435/
Congratulations to Noam Chomsky! I remember when he was giving a talk at Columbia university and the line for entry was literally around the block !
Great man.
The redness of Arizona comes from the affluent suburbs of Phoenix; it doesn't come from Tucson (where Chomsky is presumably moving).
If everywhere south of the Gila River (i.e., the Gadsden Purchase) became its own state, it would be deep blue.
If you exclude Cochise county anyway.
He is not a great man. He is an intellectually dishonest enabler of repressive leftist governments. He was a well known supporter of Hugo Chavez - perhaps the only leader in the Americas dumber than Trump. I'm embarrassed at how many of my fellow techies have fallen under Chomsky's sway.
http://www.noticias24.com/actualidad/noticia/77779/hugo-chav...
I just about died when I read, 'He formulated the algorithm "context-free grammar"...'
TIL that Noam Chomsky answers emails. It's always been my thing to reach out to personal heroes of mine. What's the best way to reach out to him?
His public MIT email
Interesting move given the hostile AZ political climate.
Does anybody else find these sorts of discussions to be just fundamentally cringey as hell? On both sides. Stuff like "We agree mainstream black culture is terrible."
Like I don't think either would have the guts to say that in front of a black person.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15052145 and marked it off-topic.
As a UofA grad I can tell you the hippies down there are going to go absolutely apeshit. The university is half Rob Gronkowski and half Cesar Chavez. The Gronks all leave after school but the Cesar's all stick around the university and think, act, and look like Noam. He'll fit right in.
>> and think, act, and look like Noam
So they are low-key, patient, and make thorough, very detailed responses when debating?
I didn't say anything negative about him or his debating style. I'm just saying I'm not so surprised he chose UofA. Tons of east coast aging hippies fall in love with the desert, get a mansion in the foothills, then only come down into the city for the university dressed like they're on a fucking safari.
If you disregard his halo of authority for a moment, you'll find that most of what he says is usually very laboriously articulated whataboutery. It is "thorough and detailed", but that doesn't make it convincing.