5mo ago

Inside of you, there are two political theorists you must kill to be a good person

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I really adored chomsky when I was a teen. Is he sort of a teen idol everyone grows out when they get older?
- Not at all and criticising him like this is churlish - and putting him next to Kissinger is grotesque misrepresentation of him.
  He’s been completely clear on his views on America, and why they are the subject of his focus. He, together with Herman, have revised their initial comments on The Khmer Rouge (which were not exclusive to them but held by many academics of the time) but stand by their criticism of the general media narrative at the time.
  You can read this in Manufacturing Consent
  No one is perfect and there are errors in his work, but no one has written more truth about American imperialism and likely no one will.
  Perhaps for this reason, there are continual and considerable motivations to discredit him.
  
  He is making it easy to discredit with comments he made even about Ukraine.
  Don't get me wrong, I still really respect the man, but as I got older, I see him as an academic. I don't see him as someone who can explain how the world really works.
  
  I haven't read probably 99.9% of what Chomsky's wrote, so I don't have a strong opinion, but from what I have read his position always ends up being much more nuisanced and reasonable than the extremist denialism random billionaire-owned MSM articles and social media comments have wanted me to believe.
  Also, he is 95 for fucks sake! I could not give two shits about his opinion on Ukraine because, based on my experience with 80+ year olds, he may not even be able to remember what happened 5 minutes ago most days. You'd be a fool to judge someone's life and character based on their opinions in their twilight — quite possibly at their most vulnerable, and least capable of defending themselves.
  
  For sure, I agree. Much respect to chomsky, a great man that influenced a lot of people for good, but I don't think he would mind a jab from me on this relatively obscure social network 🙂.
  
  someone who can explain how the world really works.
  And that person is?
- Nobody is right about everything - you can't blindly follow even the most brilliant minds.
  You've gotta take the good where you find it and work out a philosophy that works for you. Plenty of good to be pulled from Chomsk
  
  For sure. I have much respect for the man and everything he has done. The reason I stopped having him in the highest regard is not that he got some stuff wrong, but that I started taking him as academic in the sense that his view is limited by the direction of his studies. I don't think he has a deep grasp on how the world works, because he has spent more than half a century preaching the same stuff. I don't think he is the kind of man, who can step away from his work and say there is more to global politics than American hegemony, if I can exaggerate a bit. The are certain grey areas and paradoxes in the world that chomsky tries to rationalize, but fails to notice how incredibly subjective his academic viewpoint is.
  What I resented recently was his comments on Ukraine, where he couldn't get out of his skin and immediately tried to put invasion of Ukraine into context of American wars. He should have been completely aware that that is exactly what the worst of Russian propagandists are saying. Ok, he is really old now, but Geez.
  Anyway, incredible body of work of great importance.
- I read alot of his work and have seen alot of his talks and such, but the one thing that always bothered me about him was how he’d sometimes make big claims about how society is operating, and then he’d go, “It’s all there, it’s all out in the open you can read all about it, they’re not even trying to hide it,” but then seemingly wouldn't ever give sources or elaborate on what he was talking about. I’m not an academic, I don’t know what publications you’re talking about, please enlighten me, I really want to know.
  
  Here's a start: Understanding Power has a PDF of all the sources in the footnotes of the book by the same name. Or, if you're really looking for voluminous elaboration, this purports to be a list of source references, sorted by publisher, with links to the books.
  
  It's not new - it's a career-long habit.
  
  Did you intend to link to an explicitly pro-Western, Zionist, neoconservative magazine? Not sure if I fully trust their framing, especially when it comes to someone so consistently critical of Western policy. The article is just the author (not even a member of the staff, it appears to be a letter to the editor) whining that Chomsky said the author couldn't find certain quotes and that his stance on Vietnam was hawkish, not a whole lot mentioned on anything else. I'm aware of some of Chomsky's more problematic positions, but how does this back that up what you're saying? Sounds more like a petty personal spat between a couple academics.
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  Did you intend to link to an explicitly pro-Western, Zionist, neoconservative magazine?
  It wasn't neoconservative at the time. Commentary used to be a liberal magazine.
  I’m aware of some of Chomsky’s more problematic positions, but how does this back that up what you’re saying?
  This was in support of the comment about Chomsky's tendency to dance around and misuse sources.
- Not everyone grows out of it. Like with Howard Zinn, those (rightly) disillusioned with American jingoism often find and latch onto him to justify a reversal of their (originally pro-US) Manichean worldview without concern for whether it is consistent, moral, or correct.
- As someone getting a master’s degree in linguistics… yes.
  Joking aside, he’s got a pretty good track record, he just goes big when he goes wrong.
- Same, but the more I learned the more I was repulsed.

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