“old Noam actually contributed something valuable as a linguist”
Highly debatable—imho he was a clown—a rebel without a clue.
He’s actually a very important linguist. Very influential.
“Highly debatable—imho he was a clown—a rebel without a clue.”
Chomsky’s politics had nothing at all to do with his linguistic theory.
I had conservative Christian friends who considered his theory of universal grammar to be an important contribution to their apologetics work. They had no idea that Chomsky was a radical leftist until I mentioned it to them.