Talk:Noam Chomsky

2008-09-30T02:16:55Z

Michaelmuffin:

why do you keep reverting my edits, its not vandalism, its removing POV --[[User:UncleJalapeno4|UncleJalapeno4]] 09:11, 19 May 2007 (EDT)
::Noam's support for Hezbolla is not just an accusation, it's a fact.[[User:Jaques|Jaques]] 00:33, 20 May 2007 (EDT)

Cite it --[[User:DemocraticSocialist|DemocraticSocialist]] 10:52, 20 May 2007 (EDT)

Ok, i checked out the source, but it is pretty suspect. It has a strong right wing bias. How can we even be sure Chomsky said that. I've heard Chomsky denounce dictatorships of all political ideologies, and the only thing I've heard him say about the Khmer Rouge is why are they getting all the media attention while the Indonesian genocide is ignored. How is saying that supporting the Khmer Rouge. --[[User:DemocraticSocialist|DemocraticSocialist]] 11:01, 20 May 2007 (EDT)

Well looks like you were right, Noam did meet with Hezbollah commanders, I'm dissappointed that Noam would speak with terrorists but just because he speaks with them doesn't mean he supports their brutal methods. Besides George Bush meets with Colombian president Uribe and the Saudi Arabian government and they are both terror states. --[[User:DemocraticSocialist|DemocraticSocialist]] 11:54, 20 May 2007 (EDT)
::Quite true. I don't understand why my (very measured) edits were deleted. It is a demonstrable fact that he does not support Hamas, nor did he support the Soviet Union, which he (again, in fact) described repeatedly as "a dungeon." He also, smaller point, identifies himself as a libertarian socialist, not an anarcho-syndicalist; perhaps that last bit is semantics, but still. --[[User:Keep_the_faith|Keep the faith]] 6:15, 22 May 2007 (EDT)
::::The terms `libertarian socialist' and `anarcho-syndicalist' are pretty much interchangable [[User:Michaelmuffin|Michaelmuffin]] 22:16, 29 September 2008 (EDT)

== the agenda against Chomsky here ==

I've made a few edits. The only not so suspect piece is the one viz. his 2006 visit with Nasrallah. He explains it thus, as he wrote to me: "I visited Lebanon to give talks at the American U[niversity] of Beirut. While in Lebanon, I tried to meet as wide a range of leading figures as I could, along with popular groups, in order to learn something about the country, as I do everywhere, in fact as any sane person does who wants to learn something about a country and is not merely interested in repeating some Party Line. I therefore was pleased to be invited to speak to Nasrallah, the head of Hizbollah, and ... to be invited to Walid Jumblatt's Mukhtara, where I spent considerably longer time with him than with Nasrallah, including a meal... Jumblatt ... is not only one of the leading political figures in Lebanon, but also the most outspoken supporter of the US war in Iraq and the most outspoken opponent of Hizbollah."

The rest, excluding the more-or-less comments about his linguistic theory (of which I am mostly ignorant), is just slander. There is also no mention of his past involvement with Hashomer Hatzair, but apparently that doesn't fit the agenda here. I'm no fan of the idolatrous, unthinking adoration a lot of people have for him. All that is required is a fair representation, which is not provided; I made the edits, in a small way, to steer the article toward that standard.{{unsigned|Keep the faith}}

Noam Chomsky

2008-09-30T02:13:34Z

Michaelmuffin:

[[Image:Chomsky3.gif|right|thumb|130px]]
'''Noam Avram Chomsky''' (born December 7, 1928) is a Jewish linguist who is best known for his writings on politics. He is an institute professor & professor of linguistics (Emeritus) at the [[MIT|Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] (MIT) <ref>http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/people/faculty/chomsky/index.html</ref>.
He has always been very critical of [[America]]n and [[Israel]]i foreign policy and sympathizes with [[Palestine|Palestinians]] and has shown support for the terrorist organization [[Hezbollah]]<ref>http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=11&x_article=1151</ref>. He has also been criticized for [[anti-Semitism]].

His opponents accuse him of expressing admiration for governmental systems such as the Soviet Union, Chinese and Cambodian governments which are characterized by central control, xenophobia, and rejection of free expression. Chomsky counters that he is merely pointing out the West's own crimes and not condoning authoritarian governments that the West opposes. Chomsky identifies himself as a libertarian socialist who is opposed to both neoliberalism and authoritarianism. <ref>http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19446</ref>

== Background ==
Chomsky was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of William Chomsky, a [[Russian]] immigrant, and Elsie Simonofsky Chomsky. His parents both practiced Judaism. His father taught [[Hebrew]], and published a scholarly edition of a medieval Hebrew grammar.<ref>http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/abcde/chomsky_noam.html</ref>. He received his education at the [[University of Pennsylvania]] where he studied linguistics, mathematics, and philosophy, and eventually earned his [[Ph. D.]] in 1955. Since then, he has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds the Ferrari P. Ward Chair of Modern Language and Linguistics.

== Anti-Semitism ==
Chomsky has been criticized for [[anti-Semitism]].<ref>http://www.jbooks.com/interviews/index/IP_Dershowitz.htm</ref><ref>http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15381</ref>. In addition to his support for Hezbollah, He has stated that Jews are "the most privileged and influential part of the population", and that "Anti-Semitism is no longer a problem. It's raised, but it's raised because privileged people want to make sure they have total control, not just 98% control"<ref>http://www.variant.randomstate.org/16texts/Chomsky.html</ref>. His statements show striking similarities with classic anti-Semitism.

Chomsky has also been a vocal supporter of controversial author Norman Finkelstein, author of ''The Holocaust Industry'', who has argued that claims of anti-Semitism are used to silence critics of Israel and that the Holocaust is exploited by some Jewish institutions for their own gain.<ref>[http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=311000&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news University denies tenure to Holocaust academic], ''Mail & Guardian'', 12 June 2007.</ref>

==Chomsky's Criticisms of the West==
Chomsky is one of the most vocal critics of the [[United States]] foreign policy. Some of his criticisms are:
#The overthrow of democratic and secular leader [[Mohammed Mossadegh]] in Iran and replacement with the Shah, a brutal dictator in 1953 (Done by the US and the UK)
#The overthrow of social democrat Jacobo Arbenz in [[Guatemala]] in 1954
#The overthrow of democratic socialist Salvador Allende in Chile on 9/11 in 1973
#The Dirty War against the Sandinista government in [[Nicaragua]] in the 1980s
#The backing of a brutal military dictatorship in [[El Salvador]] during the same time period
#Selling weapons to a terror-state ([[Iran]]) to fund another terrorist group (The Contras). (See [[Iran-Contra Affair]])
#Selling weapons of mass destruction to [[Saddam Hussein]] during the Iran-Iraq war.
#Supporting the mujahideen which later became al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan in the 1980s
#Invading [[Iraq]] in 2003 despite lack of support from the [[UN]]
#Blatant Support of [[Israel]] which Chomsky believes is a terror state despite his [[Jew]]ish ethnicity
(Source: Hegemony or Survival)

Many of his critics claim that Chomsky's books are riddled with factual inaccuracies <ref>http://www.paulbogdanor.com/200chomskylies.pdf</ref>.

==Linguistic Works==

===Generative Grammar===
Noam Chomsky advocates the view that the human brain has innate ability to generate grammatical sentences, thus all utterances which is deemed sensical to the speaker is necessarily grammatical, and the only role the linguist should play is to decipher its grammatical structure. This view has been criticized by many linguists as [[nihilism|nihilistic]] in that it rejects the notion of ungrammatical sentences. Noam Chomsky also pointed to instances of infants utter grammatical sentence fragments they have not been taught before as evidence for Generative Grammar.

===Universal Grammar===
Noam Chomsky also proposed the theory that a kind of universal grammar, a grammar that underlies all human languages, is hard-wired in the human brain. Thus all human languages are fundamentally the same, with only superficial differences. This theory of universal grammar has been criticized by linguist Geoffrey Sampson as being not falsifiable, arguing that the grammatical generalizations made are simply observations about existing languages and not predictions about what is possible in a language. To this day, the search for such universal grammar has been fruitless.

For decades, Noam Chomsky and his followers have been trying to make sense of sentences such as:
<blockquote>
''Who will be easy for us to get his mother to talk to?''
</blockquote>
which are deemed to be ungrammatical by a lot of linguists; by using techniques such as linking theory, anti-c-command requirement, A-positions, Bijection Principle, weakest crossover configurations, bound variable anaphora, asymmetric linking, licensing conditions, index of a pronoun, null operator analysis, variable binding, configurational conditions, inappropriate and appropriate antecedents, etc.

== See Also ==
*[http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/people/faculty/chomsky/publications.html List of Chomsky's Publications]
*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk8pxyAWTBk Chomsky Speaks about American Politics] Chomsky believes the Democrats and Republicans are a single entity
*[http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1136# Video of Noam Chomsky with Hezbollah Leaders in Lebanon]
*[http://www.paulbogdanor.com/chomskyhoax.html The Chomsky Hoax] by Paul Bogdanor
*[http://www.grsampson.net/AGwg.html Grammar Without Grammaticality] by Geoffrey Sampson
*[http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23543 Chomsky's New Blood Libel] by Alan Dershowitz
*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXMZZCvFtlw Chomsky on Middle East Television] Chomsky speaks about American Imperialism

==References==
<references/>
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Talk:Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky