Noam Chomsky: Fake Linguist

Right Wing News (blog of conservative John Hawkins) ^ | 2002 | Marc Miyake

[ultimate_robber_baron]

We all know that Noam Chomsky is an anti-American who, politically, doesn't know what he's talking about. However, many conservatives concede that he's a great linguist. In reality, he's a lousy linguist too.

[genefromjersey]

A girl I know said he was a cunning linguist...

[js1138]

Don't count me among those who think he's a great linguist. I have been ranting against his linguistics for thirty years -- not, however, with the brilliance of this article. I am deeply appreciative of the author.

I suspect many Freepers are into computer science, and Chomsky may have contributed to the analysis of computer languages. I have long suspected that this is the underlying reason for the failure of AI.

[MEG33]

'Noamuhammed'! He is a vile anti American .Keep your children close.He is the voice of leftist academia.Scary

[js1138]

Is Chomsky a double fraud in both science and politics? I honestly don't know. I have never met him and don't want to - the urge to verbally attack him is too strong. Maybe he really believes what he says in one or both fields. But in any case, Chomsky is a troublemaker on two fronts. He is like Lenin and Lysenko rolled into one.

Now I have posted this an number of times of FR.

[js1138]

This thread will die unless those interested in science threads are pinged. Thanks for posting anyway.

[angkor]

I studied structural linguistics (Chomsky) and other aspects of structuralism in college. Personally, I thought it was very interesting, though I'd certainly agree that structuralism is not "provable," in precisely the way Miyake describes above.

However that doesn't mean that it's not thought provoking or even useful as a way of thinking about the world, in the same manner as philosophy or cultural anthropology.

Yet in the end there is zero relationship between Chomskian linguistics, and the superficial and demented trash he brings to the world of politics.

It's kind of humorous that Miyake is really proposing there's a "deep structure" in the mind of Chomsky. What it is we do not know.

[tictoc]

Emperor's clothes bump

[Mamzelle]

However distasteful you find the fact, Chomsky was and is a brilliant linguist. He is crazed with hating America, is breathtakingly hypocritical in enjoying America's freedoms, is pernicious and brutal in using his position to intimidate students. But, I'm afraid, he's still a brilliant linguist. It's like the other fact--Barbra Streisand was wonderful in "Hello Dolly."

[Yardstick]

He is like Lenin and Lysenko rolled into one.

"Now I have posted this an number of times of FR."

It's a great line. Kudos if you thought it up.

[AmishDude]

To be honest, I've never been impressed with linguistics in the first place and the fact that Chomsky was supposed to have been the greatest of them was to me roughly equivalent to being the tallest dwarf. I had never realized his theories were so suspect as well.

[Toskrin]

Chomsky's fame is a bit like Freud's fame, I think. Freud was the first to popularize the notion that the psyche could be studied in a scientific manner, like any other organ in the body. His theories about psychological development were completely wrong, and have mostly been discarded, but they stuck around for more than half a century because the constipated academic minds were unwilling to challenge the "master's" theories.

[eno_]

Chomsky is basically theory of computability applied to linguistics. Take a compiler course, or read about typographical number theory, and it's the same thing.

Chomsky contribution was a basis of rigor in an unrigorous field. Even if his theoretical framework is wrong, he can hardly be accused of a soft-headed PC approach to his field.

I took his graduate seminar as an undergrad, and I can confirm that if I didn't know who Chomsky was, I would have had no idea about his politics based on the content of the seminar.

I have also read one of his political books, which was as rambling and self-indulgent as his seminar was focused. If he had been obsessed with, say, vitamin C, he would be just another genius with a cranky streak.

[RichardW]

Great post!

[AndyJackson]

This is an ignorant hit piece by a third rater who has let his politics warp his professional judgment. The questions that he poses that follow from Chomsky's work are excellent and urgent questions. This author could do himself and the world a favor by picking one and devoting his professional life to answering it.

[AndyJackson]

To be honest, I've never been impressed with linguistics in the first place

Your ignorance is showing. I think it was Peggy Noonan who pointed out that the difference between liberals and conservatives is not the difference between liberal ideas and conservative ideas, but rather the difference between avoiding ideas or arguing about them. By being on the other swing of the liberal hinge you are avoiding ideas.

Linguistics is a sound rigorouse and valuable field of study.

[Mamzelle]

re: Linguistics is a sound rigorouse and valuable field of study. )))

Yeah, and we definitely need more study of grammar!

The linguists' chief claim to fame is the discovery that the Gypsies were of Indic (Sanscrit) origin. Before that, their origins were a mystery.

And it looks like transformational grammar may be helpful in developing, or at least analyzing, computer language.

Other than that, it's an interesting but not terribly important field. No social science can really call itself "rigorous"...

[Malsua]

How old is Noam Chomsky anyway?

Isn't he about due to die of old age? This way we could raise a glass, toast his life and bury him and his idiotic anti-American stance.

[TomSmedley]

To be honest, I've never been impressed with linguistics in the first place and the fact that Chomsky was supposed to have been the greatest of them was to me roughly equivalent to being the tallest dwarf. I had never realized his theories were so suspect as well.

At this point in history, field linguistics is the one and only endeavor in which a Christian organization (Wycliffe Associates) is recognized as being the best in the world.