Noam Chomsky

Nusc

My friend who reads alot of Noam Chomsky says

democrats and republicans differ only on the basis of the industry through which they get their campaign money.

Is this view point supported by Noam Chomsky? It seems rather strong.

Further more states that public opinion in the states is "manufactured". nothing happens by virtue of the general people wanting it. any significant action, for good or bad, is taken only when the business sector decides so.

What do you guys think>?

arildno

"Noam Chomsky was voted the leading living public intellectual in The 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll "

That says more about the voters than about the Pol Pot and Enver Hoxha adorer Noam Chomsky.

(No, I don't have a reference that Chomsky adored Hoxha, it is simply a prediction.)

madness

He was also described as the leading living intellectual by the New York Times. But I suppose all the people who voted for him in the poll and the journalists at the New York Times don't have a clue what they're talking about.

russ_watters

Ok, lets try this again...[off topic posts deleted]

This topic is problematic from the beginning, asking personal opinions of a highly controvertial person, but lets at least try to keep it on topic and we'll see if the topic itself has anywhere to go.

arildno

No, it is trivial.

Both the Democrats and Republicans are upholders of democratic ideas,

in contrast to noam chomsky who is an oclocrat, and not a democrat.

russ_watters

Regarding the "global intellectuals poll" - an internet poll with a targeted audience (readers of two particular magazines) isn't really worth much for judging the quality of Chomsy's ideas.

arildno

That is advocacy of oclocracy, rather than democracy.

In Noam's bizarro world, if the "people" decides (almost) unanimously to kill off the hunchbacks and sagbreasted women due to their ugliness, then the "people" (or rather, those calling themselves the representatives of the people) has the right to do so.

In a democracy, guarding human rights is more fundamental than heeding the popular attitude to those rights.

If the majority of the people, for example, is in favour of violating human rights, they are not entitled to rule, and should be controlled.

madness

In answer to the question, yes I think it is a view point supported by Noam Chomsky.

russ_watters

My opinion on Chomsky is that he's someone who says things a certain portion of the population like to hear and he says it in a way that makes them trust him.

There was a recent deleted thread in Skepticism and Debunking where someone asked for a debunking of a wacko (a well dressed, soft spoken, old white guy) who said he was communicating with aliens from the constellation/galaxy of Andromeda. The OP said the video interview seemed compelling. When I asked what was compelling about it, he said the guy seemed earnest. Earnest?! That's what Chomsky is - that's why people listen to him. He looks and talks like an academic, even though what he says is sheer nonsense.

There was a recent thread in Social Sciences where someone asked about an interview that Chomsky did. Chomsky made a claim that lit a red light for the OP, but he seemed so sincere when he said it, the OP asked for others to comment on it. The claim was about the incomes of Americans dropping over the past few decades. Since a central part of Chomsky's ideology is based on the idea that capitalism is a failure, this is a pretty important factoid he said so earnestly. Trouble is, it is easy to check and what he said is clearly wrong. Long story, but the point is that the central basis of Chomsky's ideology is quite simply and clearly a lie. I won't explore the "why" of that, but what it means is that he's just another crackpot who people shouldn't pay any attention to.

WhoWee

Chomsky is a unique person - with as near a celebrity status as possible for an academic.

To comment directly to your post, it would be necessary to review the collective work of Chomsky across linguistics, science, psychology, and politics in order to form a coherent and specific response. Reducing him to a sound bite would be a mistake.

SW VandeCarr

That's ochlocracy.

arildno

Ouch!

Cyrus

I think Chomsky is interesting to watch in terms of his videos. But I'd like to know specifically things he has said that were wrong. I see a lot of Chomsky bashing with no references or substantiation. In other words, I'd like to see a quote or video link where

Chomsky says: X

which is wrong according to reference: Y

russ_watters

Here's the thread I was referring to: http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=332168

And the quote: "For the majority of the population, real wages have either stagnated or declined for about 30 years. For most people in the US, the last 30 years have been pretty grim."

Mattara

An assertion is not an argument. Can you give specific examples of things that Chomsky has said that is "sheer nonsense" and provide evidence to support this claim? Thank you.

russ_watters

??? An assertion of a fact is part of the supporting evidence for a point - part of an argument. I think it goes without saying that if the asserted fact is nonsense, the point it is used to argue is probably also nonsense (I say "probably" because another option is that the person making the argument isn't smart enough to make the argument properly).

Note that in that particular quote (and just fyi, the order of those two sentences was wrong - I had just copied and pasted them from the other thread without checking), he was responding to a question about Obama and he rambled on for a minute without making an actual point (or maybe the youtube video cut him off before he got to it). But what I'm doing here is attaching that quote to what I perceive as Chomsky's primary thesis - the failure of capitalism. Ie, if capitalism is a failure, a long term decline in real wages and standard of living would be a good piece of supporting evidence that capitalism isn't working. On the wiki page for him, it lists a number of his political ideologies and one of them (in the wiki's words) is: "Critical of the American capitalist system and big business..." This quote goes toward that part of his ideology.

russ_watters

You started with what he said, then you made and used your own paraphrase/interpretation of what he said which did not match what he said. In this post, you just restated it again, without attempting to make the connection I requested.

Regardless, this is getting off topic as well. If you wish to assert that the US's internal use of force to protect rights is the same as Stalinist Russia's internal use of force to violate it, start a new thread - and use better arguments.