Talk:Noam Chomsky

Maybe I'm stupid :(

Okay maybe it's just me but the grammar/linguistical section is very hard to understand without prior knowledge of the subject. Perhaps it should be made simpler for the average encyclopedia browser. 130.88.186.26 (talk) 17:28, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

An excellent suggestion, however unlike a number of other sciences - biology, geology, paleontology, the various space related sciences, etc - not a lot of work has been done in bring linguistics down to a 'general science' level. LamontCranston (talk) 10:12, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Atheism

There were already discussions (1, 2 on Chomsky being labeled as an American atheist or Jewish atheist). I believe these categories are inaccurate about him. At most he can be categorized as an agnostic. Here is the full quote of his POV about a spiritual existence [3]:

When people ask me, as they sometimes do, 'Are you an atheist?' I can only respond that I can't answer because I don't know what it is they're asking me. When people say, 'Do you believe in God?' what do they mean by it? Do I believe in some spiritual force in the world? In a way, yes. People have thoughts, emotions. If you want to call that a spiritual force, okay. But unless there's some clarification of what we're supposed to believe in or disbelieve in, I can't answer. Does one believe in a single god? Not if you believe in the Old Testament. A lot of it's polytheistic; it becomes monotheistic later on. Take the First Commandment, which presupposes that there are in fact other gods. It says, 'You shall have no other gods before me: Well if there aren't any other gods you can't say that. And, yes, it's coming from a polytheistic period, a period when the god of the Jews was the war god and they were supposed to worship him above all other gods. And he was genocidal, as you'd expect a war god to be.

--Mohsen (talk) 20:39, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

It is illogical to assert: "if there aren't any other gods you can't say that." The commandment "You shall have no other gods before me" can very well refer to possible gods, not merely existent gods. Also, there is no evidence that the Jews were polytheistic. Unlike many other religions, they did not have war gods and food gods and weather gods and fertility gods, ad infinitum.Lestrade (talk) 17:53, 12 May 2009 (UTC)Lestrade

The paragraph Mohsen has cited as evidence that Chomsky should be categorized as an agnostic seems to better describe him as an ignostic does it not? Ignosticism, of course, is the theological position that every other theological position (including agnosticism) assumes too much about the concept of god and many other theological concepts. This seems like a more appropriate description. Jemoore31688 (talk) 17:57, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Characterizing him as an atheist works for practical means; he only contends being considered one because he feels that the concept of spirituality that atheism denies is so vaguely defined. If you read many of the interviews that he has participated in, you quickly notice that Professor Chomsky approaches religion from the pragmatic approach one would expect: considering the devout adherence to spiritual belief as a psychological phenomenon, and, ultimately, delusionsal. --Florida Is Hell (talk) 02:10, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Religious belief

What's his religious belief? Has he said something like "I am a...", something like "I'm a child of enlightenment" isn't a clear reference. Faro0485 (talk) 13:08, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Does it matter ? DocteurCosmos (talk) 13:17, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

No, it doesn't matter, because this is merely an encyclopedia that contains information about noted persons. Why would we want to know anything about those persons? Surely, it is of no interest to mention a person's religious belief. It is enough to know that he is a child of the enlightenment and not a child of romanticism or the progressive era.71.245.114.30 (talk) 17:12, 12 May 2009 (UTC)Lestrade

Faro0485, if you look slightly above, under the header "Atheism", a discussion of his religion is already underway. --Florida Is Hell (talk) 02:14, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Libertarian-socialism Oxymoron

Chomsky is identified as a Libertarian Socialist. This is an oxymoron - can't happen. A Libertarian is one who shaves government down to a bare minimum. A socialist seeks to exert control over all the citizens' lives. TaoLee (talk) 02:58, 28 May 2009 (UTC) May 27, 2009

Chomsky is for small government (libertarian), and believes that the workers themselves (not a state or government) should have mastery over production (socialist). It's only an oxymoron if you go with a Leninist definition of socialism. Chomsky denies this definition, and denies that socialism is about replacing the bourgeois with another elite ruling class. He maintains that the central essence of socialism is putting mastery over production in the hands of the producers. There is no contradiction given his definitions. CABlankenship (talk) 04:00, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore, it's not Chomsky's invention, but a well-established political term. See, for example, the WP article, Libertarian socialism. Pinkville (talk) 11:09, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Well explained in Alison Edgley's paper : "Chomsky's Political Critique: Essentialism and Political Theory", Contemporary Political Theory (2005) 4. DocteurCosmos (talk) 14:47, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

He also explains it here [4]

Likeminas (talk) 14:54, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Describing a right wing leaning person as a Libertarian is the real oxymoron that many American Libertarians dont seem to realise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.47.29.240 (talk) 21:43, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

This requires defining libertarian as Objectivist or Classic Liberal, and defining Socialist as Leninist. Chomsky, as well as most outside the United States, refute this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Apconig (talk • contribs) 00:23, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

People are still responding to this trolling I see. LamontCranston (talk) 03:06, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

'A socialist seeks to exert control over all the citizens' lives.' Lul wut. Someone needs to take politics 101. --79.64.234.155 (talk) 02:00, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

generative power

I'm more asking for this to be looked into. Not thinking it should be one way or another.
"He also established the Chomsky hierarchy, a classification of formal languages in terms of their generative power."
It might be said that generative power is not a property of formal languages, but of classes of rule systems (generative grammars). So, I think maybe something in that sentence might get changed eventually. 72.255.48.121 (talk) 10:17, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Genocide denial claims by Marko Attila Hoare

Has anyone seen Marko Attila Hoare's claims that Chomsky is a denier of the Srebrenica genocide committed by the Serbian military/paramilitary? Here's the blog post: http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2005/12/chomskys-genocidal-denial.html I'll have to say, though, that I'm highly skeptical of Hoare's claims, as he slanderously called Omadeon, an anti-nationalist Greek blogger, an... "extreme nationalist" merely because of his skepticism towards Hoare's pro-Gruevsky postings. Elp gr (talk) 15:25, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Pointless to dispute it if not more sources are used. One example - the blog tries to connect Chomsky to David Irving, who was arrested in Austria (and I happen to live in Austria, and I got "first hand information" more than I guess quite many other people in the i.e. US press. It is really stupid to try to connect Irving with Chomsky, that doesn't compare AT ALL. Irving is one of those guys who constantly tries to deny certain issues like mass murder committed under the Nazi dictatorship - these guys will try EVERY way around a specific law which prohibits them from praising the Nazi dictatorship. Chomsky never denied this. It is really shameful for that blog to try to put both on the same scale. Irving can be compared to guys more reaily like John Gudenus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gudenus - to try to put him into perspective of Chomsky is really just stupid of that blogger. The blog even tries to put words into Chomsky's words like "[...]hundreds of thousands of Bosnian citizens in the 1990s, whose rights Chomsky has never got round to championing.". I am sorry but this blogspot article is just bullshit, and I dont think such a frantic personal attack should not be analyzed further at all. 80.108.103.172 (talk) 11:43, 3 September 2009 (UTC)