Talk:Noam Chomsky/Archive 15

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Chomsky does argue for innate language structures contra Wikipedia article

Wikipedia states, under the "linguistic theory" section states: "A popular misconception is that Chomsky proved that language is entirely innate, and that he discovered a "universal grammar" (UG)." While this may appear to be true, it is not actually what the author believes. In an interview with Michael Albert, Chomsky states: "...There's got to be a nature. Otherwise, we're kind of like, either we're angels or kind of like amoebas, anything that happens shapes us...There's a huge debate about whether there's an innate language faculty, I mean, the answer to that is so trivial, you have to wonder who's asking the question. I mean, look, say my granddaughter and her pet chimp...have exactly the same data, how come my granddaughter picks out of the data something that's language related reflexively of course?...It's either a miracle or an innate language faculty, there's no other option...Yes, there has to be a human nature..." (Science, Religion, & Human Nature - The Chomsky Sessions 2, 58:32-59:41). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.185.134.6 (talk) 10:59, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that was very weirdly written. I have tried to improve the description of his views which are very clearly arguing in favor of a considerable innate component (though the exact kind of the component has changed over the course of his work) of grammar in humans.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:25, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

References

Western philosophy a religion?

Western philosophy is a philosophy, not a religion. Nobody gets ex-communicated from western philosophical church. Religion is based on faith, an active belief in the supernatural being (or force), creator of the universe. Western philosophy is a world view that is not based in the supernatural, thus cannot be a religion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Koldlok (talk • contribs) 15:21, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

The infobox does not state that Chomsky's religion is Western philosophy. The field is for "Region", ie the region of philosophy with which he is concerned. cf A. J. Ayer, Judith Butler, Daniel Dennett, in contrast to Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i or Tomonaga Sanjūrō. RolandR (talk) 17:14, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 March 2015

In 2004 Chomsky received the Carl-von-Ossietzky Prize from the city of Oldenburg (Germany) for his life work as political analyst and media critic http://www.oldenburg.de/startseite/kultur/kulturprojekte-und-preise/kulturpreise/cvo-preis/preistraegerinnen-und-preistraeger.html Chapultepecs (talk) 09:38, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 15:55, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

It is meant to be added to the "Academic achievements, awards, and honors" section ;) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chapultepecs (talk • contribs) 22:23, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Done Stickee (talk) 23:59, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Art and music – "little interest"?

"He also has little interest in art and music, though he does enjoy reading non-fiction literature." Where on pp. 206–7 does it say he has little interest in art and music? Modern art and music, fine – but in art and music generally? How can anything on those pages be construed as suggesting as such? --YeOldeGentleman (talk) 21:41, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Update Chomsky's Marital Status

Noam Chomsky appeared on Democracy Now on March 3, 2015 and announced his recent marriage to Valeria Wasserman Chomsky. Please update the spouse section by adding Valeria Wasserman Chomsky (m. 2014) to Carole Chomsky (m. 1949–2008).

Britishlibrarysessions (talk) 10:24, 27 April 2015 (UTC)Claire

Not done for now: This information and reference are already in the Personal life section of the article and there is no spouse parameter in the infobox used. Where do you want this information to be added? Sarahj2107 (talk) 11:37, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Filmography - The Power Principle

I've just added in the Filmography section The Power Principle (alternate link) documentary movie. Here's some links that can prove that the movie actually exist (I could not find Amazon or IMDB entries for it): [1] [2] —  Ark25  (talk) 19:30, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Opening Statement: A snowstorm of links

The high number of (pointless) links within the opening statement appear to be ugly, highly distracting and might help to lead people elsewhere. To correct this problem, can they not be deleted or greatly reduced? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.243.219.27 (talk) 18:24, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree completely. The lede itself contains far too many links. Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:45, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

High Times

Chomsky gave an interview to the newspaper "High Times", noting that he is in favour of drugs and accusing his opponents of racism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dukawalla (talk • contribs) 14:44, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

See www.chomsky.info/interviews/20110729.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dukawalla (talk • contribs) 14:50, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Not "in favour of drugs" (whatever that means) - in opposition to the so-called War on Drugs. And he doesn't accuse his opponents of racism, he argues that elements of the War on Drugs will have racially prejudiced consequences.

Semi-protected edit request on 24 June 2015

Please add this external link "On the United-States and Social Movements : Interview with Noam Chomsky", autrefutur.net, June 2015.

FabienD75 (talk) 17:20, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Not done: Do not see how this particular interview is more notable than any other he has given, and the source autrefutur.net does not seem to be particularly well known - Google search for "autrefutur" gives under 4000 hits Cannolis (talk) 23:19, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 July 2015

Andre551524 (talk) 12:31, 11 July 2015 (UTC) 'Avram Noam Chomsky (/ˈnoʊm ˈtʃɒmski/; born December 7, 1928) is an American historian, linguist, philosopher,[21][22] cognitive scientist, logician,[23][24][25] political commentator, social justice activist, and anarcho-syndicalist advocate

••only adding 'historian' into text, as many of his works operate form historical context, or often his arguments rely on historical framework to be constructed.

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Bazj (talk) 12:55, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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Freedom on the Internet

Freedom on the Internet is being challenged to the absolute total destruction of Personal and Religious choice by the enemies of Freedom and by irregular actors, agents, and activists. Under the FARL sysyem, Political choice is allowed - gay vegetarian animal rights, underage sexworker firearm rights are both equally allowed.

Can we discuss this issue of what Internet Freedom is, whom the fore-said enemies of Freedom/Liberte/Libertad are, and how to best front the new Internet (capitalised or not) to allow Global discussion (be it a free-for-all or well-regulated) about the providership of a providence-based defense of an truly, actually, and in-reality prosperous Internet. -Kenologica (talk) 21:47, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Justification of "world's top public intellectual" poll

At the end of the first paragraph, there is a vague reference to "a poll" listing Chomsky as the world's top public intellectual. The source ([3]) itself describes how it is extremely biased : conducted over the internet (no representativity, no method) and heavily marketed by supporters of Chomsky. I suggest the poll's removal, or at least a statement indicating its unreliability and unscientificity. 77.151.29.31 (talk) 13:27, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

please add my book reference to general articles on Chomsky (I am already cited in the 'bibliography section):

Sperlich, Wolfgang B. (2006). Noam Chomsky. London: Reaktion Books. ISBN 1-86189-269-1. Retrieved 2006-09-05.

Wsperlich (talk) 08:21, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Pirates and Emperors help needed

Article Pirates and Emperors could use some edit help from a Chomsky expert. It currently begins with two sentences about the book "Pirates and Emperors, Old and New: International Terrorism in the Real World". a citation would be desirable but I am unfamiliar with the book. See also Talk section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rdmoore6 (talk • contribs) 06:13, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Weasel word & citation needed

The final line of the introduction reads: "with some critics accusing Chomsky of anti-Americanism and alleging that he is sympathetic to genocide denial and despotic regimes" The expression "some critics" without citation is a violation of Wikipedia policy on weasel words. The whole last paragraph in general could use some references. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.217.138.131 (talk) 00:04, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I can understand why you might believe that to be the case, given that Wikipedia does generally eschew weasel words, however in this particular instance it does not actually constitute a violation of Wikipedia policy. If you look at our policy on weasel words, it states that "The examples given above [i.e. some people say, many scholars state, it is believed/regarded etc] are not automatically weasel words, as they may also be used in the lead section of an article or in a topic sentence of a paragraph, where the article body or the rest of the paragraph supplies attribution." What this means is that while weasel words should generally be avoided in articles, this does not apply to the article leads, which are designed to summarise the rest of the article text and thus must to some extent generalise and use wording that might in other contexts be deemed weasel wording. If you look at the Chomsky article, you will see that the names of many of Chomsky's critics are given in the body of the article; it would be unwieldy and detrimental to the prose if we were to start listing the names of such individuals in the fourth paragraph of the lede, would it not? Any reader interested in knowing more about these critics can read the rest of the article, where they will find a number of names provided. Moreover, in biographical articles such as this, there is a tendency to avoid the use of citations within the lede itself (those that still exist in the opening paragraph of this particular article can hopefully be removed soon). This being the case, I see no reason for making any alterations to the final paragraph of the lede. Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:50, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

@Midnightblueowl: Do you even lift? --BowlAndSpoon (talk) 17:50, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

What the dickens? Midnightblueowl (talk) 21:16, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Work on phonology

Chomsky is well known for his work with Morris Halle in laying the groundwork for generative phonology (e.g. in The Sound Pattern of English), but I couldn't find any reference to this outside of a brief mention of Halle in the 'early career' section. This should be remedied. 8.23.143.97 (talk) 22:05, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Noam Avram, preferred order of..

Needs notation. Poe. Maybe. -SPCooni.Rex.Deletionistante (talk) 19:27, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

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Is Noam Chomsky actually banned from Israel?

I'm pretty sure that he is not. The source used to say he is cannot be accessed and other news reports of the same incident say nothing about him being:
A) Barred from entering Israel
B) Barred from the West Bank beyond the date of the incident.

Here are the news reports I have found:

"A fierce debate broke out in Israel on Monday amid finger pointing and hand wringing over the country’s refusal to permit the linguist Noam Chomsky, an icon of the American left, to enter the occupied West Bank from Jordan." ~ New York Times

"Noam Chomsky, whose withering critiques of political establishments have earned him the wrath of regimes of all persuasions around the world, was today forbidden by Israeli immigration officers from entering the Palestinian West Bank." ~ The Guardian

"Professor Noam Chomsky, an American linguist and left-wing activist, was denied entry into Israel and the West Bank on Sunday. No reason was initially given for the decision, but the Interior Ministry later said immigration officials at the Allenby Bridge border crossing from Jordan had misunderstood Chomsky's intentions thinking initially he was also due to visit Israel." ~ Haaretz

BacksShouldersKneesAndElbows (talk) 22:16, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

@BacksShouldersKneesAndElbows: You're right, his being turned away appears to have just been a one-time incident. Thanks for pointing this out. Vrrajkum (talk) 07:49, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

References

Childhood section claims parents met in Mikveh Israel

The state of Israel was not formed until 1948. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.55.84.37 (talk) 07:22, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

@47.55.84.37: Congregation Mikveh Israel is a synagogue located in Philadelphia. Vrrajkum (talk) 11:03, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Discussion of revert

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Noam_Chomsky&diff=next&oldid=723251707

"It's lead. It's covered in article, so no cite needed." -- BowlAndSpoon in revert comment.

@BowlAndSpoon:: Well, that is not true. I added it because I believe it is needed. I read the sentence and wanted to know more (because the claims seem so far out that I was almost in disbelief), and I could not find the claims in the article after actually trying to look for them; therefore the citation is actually needed (and why would I add the tag anyway if it wasn't needed?). Please be careful about saying "no cite needed" when someone else just inserted a request for citation; then it is obviously not true that it is not needed. You might have another personal opinion, but you can not rightfully say that it is "not needed" when a user just needed it. You can say that you personally believe it is not needed for you, but that would just be the start of a discussion on the talk page; you cannot just revert it. That is arrogant behaviour. Please be civil. And anyway, claims in the lead should also have citations, and they can easily refer to already existing citations. Please revert your revert. And you are very welcome to add the missing citations, as you seem to know exactly which they are – which I don't. --Jhertel (talk) 23:41, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

The arrogance is all yours, friend. Look at the fuss over my simply reverting you.

"Please be careful about saying 'no cite needed' when someone else just inserted a request for citation." You inserted it in the lead; leads don't need cites if it is covered in the article. That's pretty simple. Even you should be able to grasp that.

"why would I add the tag anyway if it wasn't needed?" You're begging the question. Anyway, no idea, since I don't know you. Perhaps you are too lazy to check the article through yourself, and resent this appearing in the lead. Perhaps you didn't know that leads don't need cites if its covered in the article, as is indeed the case: "claims in the lead should also have citations".

My advice? First off, dry your tears. After you've done that, learn to take criticism, implicit or otherwise, like a grown up. This is the only reply you're going to get from me. --BowlAndSpoon (talk) 23:52, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Your whole reply is wet of arrogance and ignorance, BowlAndSpoon, and an example of how you should not talk to another human being, and especially not here on Wikipedia. You didn't even reply to what I said, and you did no effort in trying to meet me or come to any consensus. That is arrogance in a nutshell. I clearly showed how a citation was needed, and you kept ignoring it. But I guess it's useless trying to make you behave in a civil manner when you react like that – twice. But anyway, my advice to you: "First off, dry your tears. After you've done that, learn to take criticism, implicit or otherwise, like a grown up." You absolutely failed to do that. Jesus. Will you please learn to cooperate, take part in a civil discussion and not just fight?

Wikipedia is meant to give people information and not make them dig for 15 minutes to confirm seemingly outrageous claims in the lead of a very long article. Will you please discuss the matter of the case? --Jhertel (talk) 00:09, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Practicality of Chomsky’s linguistics theories.

"Within the field of linguistics, Chomsky is credited with inaugurating the 'cognitive revolution'.[152] He is largely responsible for establishing the field as a formal, natural science,[153] moving it away from the procedural form of structural linguistics that was dominant during the mid-20th century.[154] As such, he has become known as "the father of modern linguistics".[155][156]

"The basis to Chomsky's linguistic theory is rooted in biolinguistics, holding that the principles underlying the structure of language are biologically determined in the human mind and hence genetically transmitted.[157] He therefore argues that all humans share the same underlying linguistic structure, irrespective of sociocultural differences.[158] In adopting this position, Chomsky rejects the radical behaviorist psychology of B.F. Skinner which views the mind as a tabula rasa ("blank slate") and thus treats language as learned behavior.[159] Accordingly, he argues that language is a unique evolutionary development of the human species and is unlike modes of communication used by any other animal species.[160][161] Chomsky's nativist, internalist view of language is consistent with the philosophical school of 'rationalism', and is contrasted with the anti-nativist, externalist view of language, which is consistent with the philosophical school of 'empiricism'."

Assuming that Chomsky’s theories regarding linguistics are true, can someone please tell me what practical significance they have? Does he advocate, for example, a new way in teaching children language and later reading? If so, has such methods been adopted anywhere? If so, have they evidenced superior results to other methods?

A problem with the article, I think, is that it comes off as somewhat academic and even obscure to many even fairly intelligent readers. Thanks.HistoryBuff14 (talk) 17:45, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

It is a philosophical question that cannot be reduced to questions of language teaching or reading, or measured by "results". It is a foundational question about what language is. His theory is, put simply, that language is a computational programme that is hardwired into the brain, and which generates language from a set of rules that are the same for all humans regardless of what specific languages they learn from their parents. This theory has been adopted and applied in all fields of linguistics, but arguably the most significant "results" have been in the field of computational linguistics, exactly because it has made it easier to find ways of reconciling natural languages with computer programmes, because the basic assumption is that the two kinds of "languages" are essentially the same.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 18:00, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. It sounds like he is a philosopher of language as Karl Popper was a philosopher of science; that is, advocating a method of endeavor rather than a specific conclusion to a problem or question under discussion.HistoryBuff14 (talk) 18:50, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Correct.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 19:01, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

misspelling

In the section near the bottom beginning "In May 2007, Jamia Millia Islamia...", Noam is misspelled. Having the "lock" on the article prevents me from dealing with it myself while reading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.124.149.248 (talk) 03:24, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

fixed, thanks. nableezy - 04:12, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Wrong link

Wrong link / misspelled name, it should say "Michael Albert" instead of Mike Albert (I couldn't edit it myself, there was no option) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.54.4.179 (talk) 17:17, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Gushing tributes

I find the overall tone of this article to be overly enthusiastic about Chomsky's positive attributes - like an extravangent book blurb, saying what a great guy he is. It could do with being toned down. I'm not saying the eulogies are inaccurate, or that they don't come from valid sources, but they seem to be selected just for the fact that they paint Chomsky as some sort of hero (which, incidentally, he would reject).

An example would be the section, "Reception and Influence" which begins, "Chomsky's legacy is as both a "leader in the field" of linguistics and "a figure of enlightenment and inspiration" for political dissenters." Another example would be the section "In politics", which states, "John Pilger described him as a "genuine people's hero; an inspiration for struggles all over the world for that basic decency known as freedom. To a lot of people in the margins – activists and movements – he's unfailingly supportive."[212]"

There are several more examples in the article.

I would also comment on some of the factual content. It's roughly right, but in places, could do with more accuracy. Take for example, "Part of the reason why he focuses most of his criticism on the U.S. is because during his lifetime the country has militarily and economically dominated the world, and because its liberal democratic electoral system allows for the citizenry to exert an influence on government policy".

Well, yes, but not quite - what he usually says is that he focuses on the crimes of his own state because he feels responsible for them and is in a position to influence them - that's what the article should say. In the Buckley debate for example, he states, "I, as a matter of principle almost, restrict myself to the discussion of American terror ... because I feel that we have some responsibility for it. You see, in the same sense I’ve never written about the terror carried out by both sides in Nigeria, let’s say. I don’t like it, obviously, but I don’t see any point in my giving them good or bad marks for it. On the other hand if we were carrying out the terror I would very definitely write about it."

Not that the electoral system allows citizenry to exert influence - rather that he personally is motivated by a sense of responsibility. In my view, a more restrained and careful assessment would be beneficial. 2.221.54.40 (talk) 09:46, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Additionally I think the characterization of his critics as "corporate interests" is an absurd oversimplification. Of course some of his detractors could be characterized in this way, but many also cannot. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.248.39.215 (talk) 07:28, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't find the overall tone to be overly enthusiastic about Chomsky's positive attributes, as you describe it, however your specific examples I find very reasonable, and could use an edit as you indicate. Reading the article with your comments in mind though, I am not seeing the broad issues as you see them, but rather very specific issues that you correctly point out. I would be in agreement for some modest changes in those areas. q (talk) 01:16, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

I don't mind the praise if legitimate criticisms are included.

Chomsky often states that he is critical of US hegemonic power not only for his conscience, but as a US citizen with privileges and freedoms other nations' citizens do not have and cannot affect. Worth noting, he's pointed to study statistics proving most citizens are voiceless, ineffective influencing policies meanwhile policy influence only comes from corporate and elite interests who are only swayed by effective activist movements, of which he is an exceptional voice.

Many times he's stated he's a social libertarian appreciative of Marxist, socialist, and anarchist ideas. That deserves actually mentioning.

As for Chomsky criticisms I only have two.

He admits his presentation is monotonous and dry and the information content should speak for itself. I wouldn't expect him do be a Donald Trump salesman, hypnotist, dancing clown, but I feel there's an ironic paradox because he's co-authored Manufacturing Consent about media, advertising, and propaganda. He clearly has goals and an agenda to change the status quo but declines to engage in the art of persuasion and convincing which he clearly understands too well. Perhaps he doesn't wish to fight fire with fire or violence with violence.

Lastly, he's stated contradictory ideas about 9-11 and JFK's assassination. I suspect he's either aware of limits to what he can say or he's been silenced somehow. He speaks out about the illegitimacy of the Iraq War and criticizes Obama for refusing to dwell on the past preferring to look forward, something no one would say to a serial killer, mass murderer, or any other war criminal. But he refuses to acknowledge the importance or investigate the motives and cover-ups of these deep state false flag events that changed the world. To my knowledge, he's never even questioned the necessity of an unaccountable giant deep state secret agency complex running the world. But at least he's publicly reporting their activities and raising some awareness.

I hope some of this has been helpful. JasonCarswell (talk) 13:54, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

I believe that the issue here is not about a specific criticism that should be added (However, I may be way off with that statement). I think that the article needs to be assessed for neutrality, as I would agree that it lavishes extensive praise on Chomsky. Your specific comment about Chomsky's admitted shortcomings in terms of presentation skills is not quite what is being looked for. I think it would be beneficial to explore critics views of his ideas, instead of an issue of appearance. Olision889 (talk) 18:17, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Cut the lede down to a normal (large) size

The lede was far too long. I cut repeated biographical content that comes immediately after the lede. It's fantastic content, it's just the lede is ridiculously long. Now it's a tighter summary before coming into the article. q (talk) 03:25, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining; to tell the truth, I assumed that the mass removal of over 50% of the lede was just vandalism and accordingly reverted it. I agree that we could perhaps trim the lede a little (that fourth paragraph in particular), but I really can't see how the mass removal of biographical detail from the lede was a good idea. The lede is only marginally longer than various other FA- and GA-rated political biographies, and as per WP:Lede we really do need to use the lede to summarise the rest of the page, and that includes the biographical outline of his life. Midnightblueowl (talk) 09:51, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I have now done some judicious pruning of the lede to remove extraneous wording. I still think that we could cut down that fourth paragraph a little, but I really don't see the removal of whole paragraphs as the solution. Midnightblueowl (talk) 09:59, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

New Pic of NC

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Noam_Chomsky_Jorge_Majfud_April_2016.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.126.69.135 (talk) 00:20, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

The Noam Chomsky Reading List

Hello, The Noam Chomsky Reading List uses references, taken from the notes and bibliographies in some of Chomsky's important works, to create book lists. The site catalogs 1,069 books, from 2,281 references in 17 works by Noam Chomsky.

I wondered if a link might be added to the website in the external links section as this is a useful tool for Chomsky fans that want to learn about his influences and that want to explore his major sources too.

www.chomskylist.com

The site has been shared twice on Chomsky's official facebook page, was linked to on his official website, and is a permanent link in the navigation section of the Chomsky subreddit. Chomsky has also visited the site and said, "Interesting list. And a fair number of surprises."

Readers might find The Top 100 Books Referenced by Noam Chomsky page the most interesting.

http://www.chomskylist.com/top100.php — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.170.185.6 (talk) 11:26, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

While I was sympathetic to adding this, I have several issues:

1. This basically looks like an advertisement for Amazon, as anyone who explores the lists will see.

2. There's not much info about the algorithm they use to agglomerate the lists, or who runs the website.

3. As far as the Chomsky endorsement goes, doesn't that effectively make the link an advertisement for him, or the website?

4. There are single-sentence descriptions of each of the books in the list, so the informational value here is questionable.

5. The external links section is of considerable length as it is, and it seems likely that quite a few of these would be better :served either being incorporated into the article, or perhaps removed if they are redundant, as some appear to be.

I think we should try to make the article more concise, and don't really see how this will help. <> Alt lys er svunnet hen (talk) 04:13, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Hello, thanks for your consideration.

1. I use amazon associates to gain access to book descriptions and images legally. E.g., I like the modern library list of 100 best nonfiction books but it's a pain having to copy and paste titles into amazon to find out more. Better to have a link to more information for the user. Although there is a referral fee when visitors from my site buy on amazon, it nowhere near covers the actual cost of running the website. The website exists because I thought it was interesting and fun to spend 500 hours building it – painstakingly going through books to add references to a database – and I thought it would be fun to share the results.

2. I expect no one would be interested In more details about the algorithm that makes only one of the lists. But, as it states, that one list is a merging of the other lists available on the website. You can look at these other lists as they are unaltered. Originally, I thought that I'd do the Top 100 with the books that had the most references, but that was problematic. In On Anarchism Noam uses references to a select few books more than usual. So the top 10 largely became books on the Spanish Civil War. It seemed more interesting to combine lists; for example, merging the most referenced with the books used in more than one of Chomsky's texts (if Chomsky continues to reference a book in all of his books it's more interesting to me than a book he only references say 10 times in one book, the former has lasted and remained relevant over time). I have “manipulated” the data for the “best 100 books” to make a more interesting list for people, but only through favouring one list over another in the merge, but a more serious user can ignore that by looking at the original lists.

3. I don't think the website is useful as an advert for Chomsky. Some use it to criticise Chomsky: e.g. a book on Cambodia that some find controversial ranks high on the list. These critics can then use the site to find which chapters in which books he references that text, to find out what he says. The site only works for people that already want to find out more about Chomsky. I don't think it encourages people one way or the other about whether they should have an interest in Chomsky. It presumes they already have an interest. It would be quite dull without an interest. It might even be quite dull to all but hardcore Chomsky enthusiasts.

4. Even if there were no descriptions of the books I still think the information is useful. It depends if you want some idea of Chomsky's sources or not. Personally, I found this very useful for expanding my educational reading list. The categories section is also useful as you can quickly find all Chomsky's references to the Kurds, or to Japan, or to Anarchist books. Or if you want to know if Chomsky has referenced an author you can search the authors page. If he has used the author you'll find which books and where the references appear in Chomsky's works. I admit, the site is only useful to certain die-hard Chomsky fans. Also, it depends if you are in the UK or USA. The UK amazon often doesn't provide descriptions on the book pages, whereas US users will see them. The link to Amazon also provides a quick way to get to a description and to user comments. I should perhaps add goodreads links too.

5. I agree, but I think this link is of more value than most. Also there's no link to Chomsky's essay The Responsibility of Intellectuals, which is his most important and defining piece of writing, while there are plenty of links to other less worthwhile articles and interviews. Also I'd ditch the interview videos and perhaps add the movie (available on youtube) Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media instead. I'd also ditch the goodreads link. If chomskylist is an advert for amazon, goodreads is more so and is actually owned by amazon. I actually think goodreads is great, but any user of goodreads will already know about his page, and any non-user won't be interested. And goodreads is book centred anyway, author pages don't matter too much. --19th October 2016 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.164.188.91 (talk) 13:44, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

One issue raised in other discussions about Goodreads (which should probably be removed from the article per Other Spam Exists) relates to your website - that it may used for self-promotion. The [Links] section is (IMO) already approaching WP:BOOKSPAM, and several of these external links should be integrated into the article or removed. Whether or not Chomsky himself endorsed your website is largely irrelevant - of course Chomsky has a financial incentive to support websites that might help him sell books. You appear to have a conflict of interest as the owner/operator of the site, and at least some financial interest involved by sending readers to Amazon through this Wikipedia article. Another editor would have add this material if it is found to have redeeming informational value to the reader, but I still personally don't support adding the link under EL Advertising guidelines. Here's why:

It is still not clear to me why the books on the Top 100 references list are so different from the first 100 entries on the Total References list of 1025 books under "More Lists". I understand why you modified the list, but this raises questions about reliability because there is no way to verify why certain sources are listed higher or lower, or whether the process of deciding which of his works are "most important" was based on some kind of source, or instead arbitrary. Amazon and Goodreads are not reliable sources. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say the 17 books you classified as "most important" likely correlate with Chomsky's top-selling books on Amazon. By omitting all of his work on linguistics, it gives the impression that his most important works have been about politics... which would be a very biased and demonstrably false idea for this Wikipedia article to suggest, even by proxy in an EL section.

Also in the future, please sign your posts by adding four tildes (~) at the end of your comment. <> Alt lys er svunnet hen (talk) 00:21, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Hello again, I can see that even official site with affiliate links are to be considered spam. My site certainly has plenty of affiliate links so I understand why it won't be included. I apologise for taking up your time. I admire all the work done on wikipedia. Just to answer a few of your interesting criticisms I've written the following. I'll change the site to add information on the "algorithm" and add a bit about how I chose the Chomsky texts. You're right that it may be useful to others. What information about myself were you looking for on the site?

How the top 100 list is created

Select all books excluding any Chomsky has written Find total references to each book from all of Chomsky's books (see references list) Find author for each book Get author score (number of authors books referenced by Chomsky) Find how many of chomsky's books the book in question has appeared in (see multiple books list)

$total_score=$row[reference_score]+(6*$row[bibliographic_score])+(6*$row[author_score]);

E.g.,

Bernard Fall, Last Reflections on War $total_score=$row[reference_score]+(6*$row[bibliographic_score])+(6*$row[author_score]); $total_score= 8 + (6 x 7) + (6 x 3) = 68

Marx, Capital v1 $total_score=$row[reference_score]+(6*$row[bibliographic_score])+(6*$row[author_score]); $total_score= 4 + (6 x 2) + (6 x 8) = 62

Broue, Revolution and Civil War in Spain $total_score=$row[reference_score]+(6*$row[bibliographic_score])+(6*$row[author_score]); $total_score= 13 + (6 x 1) + (6 x 1) = 25

You can see that the third book has the lowest score even though it has the highest number of references. However, the other two books were referenced in more than one book by Chomsky and their author has a higher score, as more of his works are referenced by Chomsky. Therefore, these other two books have overall higher scores and rank higher on the Top 100 list. But as you can see with the first two, the total references still make a difference to the ranking.

Only include top scoring book for each author. Each author gets one book on the list.

Why did I choose those particular 17 works by Chomsky as sources.

Initially, I began by using every Chomsky book I had, which was a lot of books. But I was careful to reduce duplication, as many books of essays contain the same essays and therefore duplicate references. Later, I used a full biography of Chomsky's political works to try and ensure that there was some kind of balance over the decades, trying to ensure that works from every era were included. I also used my knowledge of Chomsky's oeuvre to include most of the classics. I found “hidden” classics during the process of creating the lists; for example, of all his books Chomsky references Deterring Democracy the most, so I made sure to include this work. Some were chosen to ensure that particular, relevant topics were covered, such as anarchism or the Middle East. There are still at least two or three others I'd like to include when I have free time: Fateful Triangle, New Mandarins, and Understanding Power. There are more modern works than older ones because I suspect the modern sources will be of more use / interest to readers, so I concentrated my efforts there. 86.164.188.91 (talk) 16:44, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Not a waste of time at all! WP policy actually does allow sites like this in EL sections if they're found to have redeeming informational value. Lets say you flipped the script on your site and made a repository of authors/books that cited Chomsky's work - they would be almost entirely about language and linguistics, not politics. If your standards for inclusion were A) Chomsky books that you own, & B) Chomsky books/sources that you feel are more interesting/useful/relevant to readers - then these would be arbitrary standards. While his political/philosophy works are likely more interesting for 90% of the readers who come to this article, even if you used all of them we would still be misleading people because Chomsky has written about a lot more than politics. I certainly don't expect you to go and revamp your site to include all of his groundbreaking work in linguistics, because that clearly isn't what you were going for. However, if you make the changes you described above, it is possible that the site could be added so long as the wikilink clearly states that it is based on a selection of his political work. I think we should both sit back for a while and let other editors chime in about this. <> Alt lys er svunnet hen (talk) 14:07, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Third Opinion

A third opinion has been requested. It appears that the question is whether to include a particular commercial reading list by and about Chomsky. If that is the question, then I don't see a good argument for it, and it would be against the non-promotional nature of Wikipedia. I am removing the question. If that wasn't the question, please post a new question that is more clearly stated. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:36, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 November 2016

In the line "Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist." I would remove "political activist" and change it to "anarcho-syndicalist". His views aren't that of being an "activist" for the current political and economic system but of something more radical. Please make the change as it is quite a substantive difference.

2601:282:200:83A0:FD:47E8:D864:5A4B (talk) 07:00, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Not done: as you have not cited reliable sources to back up your request, without which no information should be added to, or changed in, any article. - Arjayay (talk) 08:29, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Comparison with Skinner

This is not a debating point but just a request for clarification. Skinner had a functional approach to language, Chomsky a causal one -- he explains language as the result of an antecedent brain structure, while Skinner explained language use as the result of consequent reinforcement. These approaches are not antithetical -- I'm sure Chomsky wouldn't argue that the differences in the language use of English-speakers and Cantonese-speakers were due to differences in brain structure rather than differences in learning experience. I don't think, either, that Skinner would have disagreed with the statement that language is "unlike modes of communication used by any other animal species". I believe Skinner actually assumed an innate language ability. Maybe this issue could be fleshed out a bit. John FitzGerald (talk)

@John FitzGerald: Skinner believed that language was entirely learned behavior, with no innate component. Chomsky, on the other hand, argues that children's rapid mastery of language cannot be explained by exposure to linguistic stimuli alone, and must be supplemented by an innate linguistic capacity (see 'poverty of the stimulus' argument). With respect to the differences in language use of English speakers and Cantonese speakers, Chomsky would argue that these are merely different utilizations of a common language faculty (think of how a pocket multi-tool can be used in various different ways). This article does a good job of explaining Chomsky's theory, emphasis mine:

"Language, then, does not arise from the social/cultural environment, although the environment provides the stuff or input it works on. That input is “impoverished”; it can’t account for the creativity of language performance, which has its source not in the empirical world, but in an innate ability that is more powerful than the stimuli it utilizes and plays with. It follows that if you want to understand language, you shouldn’t look to linguistic behavior but to the internal mechanism — the Universal Grammar — of which particular linguistic behaviors are a non-exhaustive expression. (The capacity exceeds the empirical resources it might deploy.)" (Note that here the phrase "Universal Grammar" is used to refer to the general language faculty, rather than to the theoretical feature(s) that all languages have in common.)

You can read Chomsky's "The Case Against B.F. Skinner" and/or "A Review of B.F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior" if you want more info. Vrrajkum (talk) 22:05, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the extensive and helpful reply. Could you cite a passage from Skinner in which he says that language is entirely learned behaviour? I haven't read Verbal Behavior in over 40 years, but I expect he would say rather that language acquisition can be explained without recourse to anything other than learning principles (a belief I've never shared, by the way). Anyway, my point was that the two analyses are not comparable, ergo not antithetical. Chomsky explains the effects of antecedent conditions on language, Skinner the effects of consequences. You can debate which is more important, but ultimately that's a statistical question that could conceivably be answered effectively. Not only is there no antithesis, but I also don't know why one would want to consider them antithetical -- is Chomsky denying that learning plays a role in language acquisition? Is he claiming people in the same family speak different languages because of idiosyncratic ways in which their Universal Grammar "works on input from the environment? The passage you quote seems to imply that, but I suspect that's not what Chomsky intended. I grew up in southern Ontario and I have a southern Ontario accent, my cousin grew up in Norfolk and has a Norfolk accent, while my cousins in Mexico speak Spanish -- that seems an important effect of learning to me. Of course, this may be a question of priority. In the sense in which the article seems to be using "understand", I can see that the assertion that you can only understand language through an internal mechanism could quite easily be correct. As for understanding a specific language, though, Skinner's approach is a hell of a lot faster. As you may have guessed, I'm thrilled with neither Chomsky nor Skinner, and I appreciate your help.John FitzGerald (talk)

Oh -- I forgot an ignorant question: have any of the brain mechanisms underlying Universal Grammar been identified, as they have been for reading? John FitzGerald (talk)

@Vrrajkum: Here's an article for you. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2223153/

It seems Chomsky was not arguing that his analysis was antithetical to Skinner's, but that Skinner's analysis was not a scientific analysis, which is certainly a better issue to raise.

Here's another link, to Verbal Behavior. https://books.google.ca/books?id=v4CeAwAAQBAJ&lpg=PT1&ots=9e-ZLv35yl&dq=skinner%20verbal%20behavior%20innate&lr&pg=PT29#v=onepage&q=skinner%20verbal%20behavior%20innate&f=true

In chapter 1, under "Traditional Formulations", Skinner writes about the difficulties of attributing speech to internal activity or structures (chiefly because they can't be identified). This was written before Chomsky's analysis was well known, but I'd say it's still true today. In the appendix "The Verbal Community" he notes that there is no evidence that speech arises in the absence of verbal stimulation. Neither of these assertions implies that there is no neural structure underlying speech, just that searching for neural structure is not likely to be fruitful. Chomsky's underlying structure seems to me like a very vague explanatory fiction so far. John FitzGerald (talk)

Genocide denial

The sentence on genocide denial is not appropriate without any source according to WP:ALIVE, so I am removing it pursuant to that page: "Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced – whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable – should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion." Codster925 (talk) 09:11, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

@Codster925: Chomsky has been publicly accused of both Holocaust denial and denying the Cambodian genocide under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Sources are in section 2.2 Edward Herman and the Faurisson affair. Vrrajkum (talk) 22:25, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

@Codster925: The point deserves to be in the lead because the accusations have had a lasting negative impact on his career, and are frequently used as ammunition by critics of his political views & activism. Vrrajkum (talk) 23:28, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Analytic philosophy?

Could someone point me to a source for the statement that one of Chomsky's fields was analytic philosophy? Thanks. Gravuritas (talk) 07:10, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

@Gravuritas: https://chomsky.info/2004____/ Vrrajkum (talk) 05:52, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Inaccurate First Paragraph

Noam Chomsky is also a logician, mathematician, and philosopher of science. No exaggeration whatsoever. Those of you familiar with his work and lectures already know that I am right. Linguist91 (talk) 10:08, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

He is not trained in either of those disciplines and have not had a significant impact in them. You would need to show another source using those terms to describe him in order to convince me that they should be included.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 10:37, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

A critic of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict?

The intro reads: "...he remains a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy, neoliberalism and contemporary state capitalism, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict..."

While it is possible to be a critic of a conflict, should it say that he is a leading critic of Israel? Or a critic of Israeli policies towards Palestine/Palestinians? --Երևանցի ^talk 15:04, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 February 2017

I would like to add to the article the addition that Chomsky is teaching at the University of Arizona from January to March 2017, a class called "What Is Politics"

The source is here https://sbs.arizona.edu/news/noam-chomsky-teach-politics-course-spring Teaspoontom (talk) 17:24, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Not done: requests for decreases to the page protection level should be directed to the protecting admin or to Wikipedia:Requests for page protection if the protecting admin is not active or has declined the request. JTP ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:06, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Overly homogeneous presentation of his linguistic views and no mention of critics

The discussion of Chomsky's linguistic views starts right out with the bioprogramme. This is not something that was a feature of his thinking in the fifties. It would be more sensible to start off by talking about transformations. Also, the article seems to attribute the coignage of "deep structure" to him, whereas it was a term of coined by Hockett. Finally, in general the tone of the article is triumphant, making no mention of the many criticisms of his programme from Charles Hockett, Robert Hall, and Raimo Antilla in the old days to as recently as the devastating Scientific American article of this year. I stay my hand, because I am not eager to get sucked into a time wasting edit war, but this article has a long way to go before it is NPOV. Tibetologist (talk) 02:17, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Seconded. The "Reception" section is overwhelmingly positive, with perhaps one meagre line listing a number of critics (but not WHAT is being criticized!) compared to several paragraphs of lauding by various sources. From what I remember, Chomsky has been heavily criticized within the linguistic sphere as well, for his theories, and those criticisms should be included here. Nederbörd~enwiki (talk) 15:52, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Reference to "upcoming" 2016 election

In the ″Increased political activism: 1990–present″ section, a sentence makes reference to the 2016 election as if it is in the future.

″In late 2015, Chomsky announced his support for Vermont U.S. senator Bernie Sanders in the upcoming 2016 United States presidential election.[152]″ Fasterlitespeed (talk) 09:30, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

 Not done it was "upcoming" in 2015 when Chomsky announced his support - Arjayay (talk) 11:31, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Reference to sympathy for "genocide denial" in intro

I am wondering whether this is appropriate for the intro (placement at the very end of the intro especially gives prominence). We are really considering two issues here -- 1. Chomsky's defence of free speech rights of Holocaust deniers; 2. Chomsky's initial skepticism regarding reports of genocide in Cambodia. In the former case Chomsky took pains to clarify that he did not sympathise with Holocaust denial itself; in the latter case, we are talking about initial perceptions of events that had not been well-documented at that point in time and that Chomsky later issued disclaimers regarding. In neither case is it precisely accurate to say he sympathised with genocide denial. And in any case, these are controversies from 40 years ago that hardly deserve such prominence in context of highlighting major aspects of his career as a political commentator. Is there any alternate wording we could attempt, or should perhaps this reference be removed altogether from the intro? Adlerschloß (talk) 13:14, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Chomsky

Just a minor thing but shouldn't there be a tie bar like so t͡ʃ? --Polyknot (talk) 13:15, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

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Pronunciation of Noam

While it's true that a lot of people pronounce it /ˈnoʊm/, as the article says, every other person with that not-unusual name whom I've ever known pronounces it /ˈnoʊ.ɑm/ (or maybe /ˈnoʊ.əm/). The pronunciation like gnome strikes me as comical every time I hear it. How does NC pronounce his own name? Linguistatlunch (talk) 16:22, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree, it's ludicrous having the IPA sound it like 'gnome'. I've never heard himself describe himself as a gnome. Am all in favour of correcting this. Look at some intros of his talks, debates etc. on YouTube and it is not Gnome Chomsky. --BowlAndSpoon (talk) 20:13, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

"Defense of unconditional freedom of speech"

The part However, his defense of unconditional freedom of speech—including for Holocaust deniers—generated significant controversy in the Faurisson affair of the early 1980s.

Chomsky never have said that he defends the freedom of speech unconditionally. There clearly are conditions where you can't support it. Chomsky has said this in an interview: I think you have to have balance -- which is not easy to determine -- between allowing full freedom of expression and imposing some restrictions on what people are exposed to. So for example, even the most passionate advocate for freedom of speech does not believe that, say, I have a right to go into your living room and put up a pornographic poster or something. You might say my inability to do that is a restriction of freedom of speech, but I think everyone agrees with that. "Noam Chomsky - Freedom of Speech I" So there are some restrictions (or conditions), which are hard to determine, where we have to restrict the freedom of speech. The word unconditional should be removed. Spacedout apollo (talk) 23:12, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

"There clearly are conditions where you can't support it."

Who decides this 'where'? You? Me? The strongest? Freedom of speech has to be for everyone. Everything else is dictatorship. Can you prove the holocaust? If so, then why shouldn't one be able to prove the falsehood of the claim that it didn't happen - if it happened indeed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.146.145.183 (talk) 12:03, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

It's for everyone, but not in every condition. Chomsky says that freedom of speech isn't unconditional, it has conditions where it can not be defended. "So for example, even the most passionate advocate for freedom of speech does not believe that, say, I have a right to go into your living room and put up a pornographic poster or something." Chomsky clearly says, that there are conditions where you can't defend freedom of speech. --Spacedout apollo (talk) 03:26, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

MIT professorship as teaching or emeritus

The article says of Chomsky, "[u]ntil 2017, he was Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)". From what I saw at MIT's website, he still is (http://linguistics.mit.edu/user/chomsky/ as accessed 8-20-17). I assume the past tense applies to his active professorship with a current responsibility to teach, not to his retirement status at that institution, which, I think, usually continues until death. Maybe someone knows more than I do about this, since I don't much follow his career, so I'd rather leave editing to others. Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 23:15, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Opinion

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Political_positions_of_Noam_Chomsky#Times_times_times — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.137.38.162 (talk) 13:03, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

This is just a link to a six-year-old article. What do you expect anyone to do with it? RolandR (talk) 00:45, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Put it in the article Noam Chomsky. Chomsky's opinions have changed very little since childhood. This lack of change is mentioned in the article already. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.166.193.196 (talk) 08:02, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 October 2017

please restore the deleted 2000 bytes

Noamocrokck (talk) 20:54, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

 Done - The list may require pruning, but should not have been lopped altogether without a reason being given William Avery (talk) 21:10, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

U.S. English should be used throughout this article

The noun "middle class" in U.S. English is spelled out as "middle class", and not "middle-class". In the second paragraph of this article, the words "middle" and "class" are conjoined by a hyphen. Those two words should be separated by a single white blank space rather than conjoined by a hyphen. Brother Tree can retire (talk) 16:24, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, no. Not when they're functioning as an adjective. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 17:06, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Indeed U.S. English should be used here, but this question has nothing to do with varieties of English. I would call it a noun phrase used attributively, so the hyphen is correct regardless of which variety of English is being used. If it's used as a predicate, then the hyphen isn't necessary (correct: "Chomsky's family was middle class."). For a more detailed explanation, see MOS:HYPHEN under compound modifiers. --NSH001 (talk) 17:16, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Khmer Rouge

I'm guessing this has been discussed before but I was very surprised to see no mention of Chomsky's highly controversial downplaying/whitewashing of the Khmer Rouge massacres until he finally backtracked 15 years later. To me this seems like a huge deal -- if a public figure known for their political activism were to spend 15 years claiming the Jewish Holocaust numbers were massively inflated for political purposes, I think that would be noted in their Wikipedia entry. It seems to me to be quite a significant fact in assessing Chomsky's politics. That's my personal opinion anyway, I leave it to others to decide 81.109.176.186 (talk) 12:38, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

The article covers the matter in this section. --Epipelagic (talk) 08:32, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Chomsky as philosopher?

The lede for this article describes Chomsky as, among other things, a philosopher, and states that "Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy". But this description is not supported by the rest of the page. There is only a bare-bones 2-sentence section on Chomsky's philosophy, with only 1 citation, to an obscure book (ISBN: 978-0745649894)

It would be more correct to say that Chomsky's linguistic theories have served as a foil for some work in philosophy of language, for example J.J. Katz, Realistic Rationalism. But that doesn't make Chomsky a philosopher. I can't find any notable source for counting Chomsky as a philosopher at all, much less a "major" figure in philosophy. For example, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy does not have an article on him.

Shall we remove the description of Chomsky as a philosopher?

Jonathan Kastin (talk) 17:15, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

No. If you take the trouble to look you will almost certainly find numerous reliable sources identifying Chomsky as a philosopher. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 17:20, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Really? I went looking and found some academic sources describing him as a philosopher, but I didn’t find philosophers describing him as a philosopher. I’d suggest it’s not up to a piano-player to decide who is a guitarist. @FKC maybe you could supply some WP:RS?

Gravuritas (talk) 17:32, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

It is futile to suggest that sources identifying Chomsky as a philosopher must be written by philosophers. WP:RS does not work that way. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 17:43, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

”A source is more reliable within its area of expertise than out of its area of expertise.”. From WP:RS/Flaws.

Gravuritas (talk) 18:04, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

WP:RS/Flaws states, "This page is an essay." FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 18:10, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

.....but a bit more authoritative than a random ed claiming “WP:RS does not work that way”. Got any philosophers claiming Chomsky as a philosopher yet?

Gravuritas (talk) 18:44, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Gravuritas that it's the experts in a field (not outsiders) who get to decide who is a major figure in that field. Perhaps that should be added to WP:RS. In the current case, though, it looks to me like the most relevant policy is WP:BLPSOURCES, which states in part that "contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced should be removed immediately and without discussion". That looks like we shouldn't even be discussing this, but rather deleting the info until someone properly sources it. Jonathan Kastin (talk) 17:28, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Criticism of Noam Chomsky

There is a draft article at Draft:Criticism of Noam Chomsky that people here might wish to comment on. Mortee (talk) 23:15, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up. Here is the situation, which is certainly worthy of attention:

The article Criticism of Noam Chomsky was created, if I'm not mistaken, in early 2008. The following years, criticism of Chomsky had been gradually transferred from here into that article. In August of said year a deletion nomination took place, and the next year a second one did. They results were all keep; in fact, it was so obvious that such an important article is needed, that 100% of the votes were in favor of keeping it (in the second nomination, the closing admin even called it a "speedy keep as pure disruption"). Then, on the third attempt at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Criticism of Noam Chomsky (3rd nomination), in a discussion that went largely unnoticed and was only included in one list of related deletion discussions - a 7 delete vs 4 keep voting result brought about the deletion of a massive 60,000 character article that so much work was invested into. The main reason? "POV forks page issues." The sad part is that despite consensus to do so, content from there was not properly merged into the main article, Noam Chomsly. Several years later the content from that article was restored per request so it can be reused. Draft:Criticism of Noam Chomsky was created, I cleaned it up in order to fix the alleged POV issue and submitted it to Articles for Submission. Here's what the checker wrote:

So, if the article is not created again (at least not in its current form), the deleted criticisms should be discussed here and appropriately integrated into this article. Here are the sections (see the draft for further information):

1 Criticisms of Chomsky as a linguist:

• 1.1 Larry Trask
• 1.2 Early generative semantic critiques
• 1.3 Emphasis on syntax, not semantics
• 1.4 Limited applicability of theories to computational linguists
• 1.5 Resistance to modern theories of language evolution

2 Criticisms of Chomsky as a political theorist:

• 2.1 President Truman quotations
• 2.2 Vietnam war opposition
• 2.3 Cambodian atrocities
• 2.4 Ambassador Moynihan
• 2.5 Improper attribution of a quote
• 2.6 Terrorism and state violence
• 2.7 "Threat of a Good Example"
• 2.8 Description of the motives of US policy-makers deemed incorrect
• 2.9 Criticism of views on Israel and Palestine and alleged antisemitism
• 2.10 Criticism of views on Lebanon
• 2.11 Criticism of Chomsky's stance on proposed Israel-Palestinian conflict solutions
• 2.12 Support for the publication of Holocaust denial on freedom of speech grounds criticized
• 2.13 Anarchist criticism of Chomsky's political views
• 2.14 Marxist criticism of Chomsky's political views
• 2.15 Conspiracy theories
• 2.16 Accusations of hypocrisy concerning wealth

Shockingly, nearly all these points are presently completely missing from the article. They are an integral part of the subject and should be added either to the "Reception and influence" section or to a separate criticism section of its own. This is valuable information; different analyses of one of the most influential individuals in the modern American political era. Editors are therefore invited to use the draft for their assistance in contributing to this article, and discuss new additions and ideas here. Shalom11111 (talk) 10:28, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

It is generally considered bad form to have a specific "Criticism" section in a Wikipedia article. Any criticisms, if relevant and attested in Reliable Sources, should be incorporated into the main body of the text. Midnightblueowl (talk) 14:50, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

• I think the criticism of Chomsky as a linguist and political theorist is significant and extensive enough to merit a section.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 16:00, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Its not necessarily 'bad form' to have a criticism section or article, it depends how it is done. In long articles it may be a better way to structure the content, especially where their are issues of how much weight to give each criticism. Also, note deletions can be challenged. Jonpatterns (talk) 18:39, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Legitimate and noteworthy criticism/critical opinions about Chomsky's opinions and works are by no means "bad", to the contrary - they're necessary for a balanced coverage (without giving anything undue weigh of course). WP:NOCRIT tells us that "Articles should present positive and negative viewpoints from reliable sources fairly, proportionately, and without bias". Apparently, most people at Category:Criticism of individuals have a designated criticism section on their page, so I believe we can follow this trend on this article too (and yes, there might be a good case to challenge the old deletion decision, this option is still a possibility). If there is anyone out there on Wikipedia that justifies some form of a criticism section, it would without a doubt be Chomsky. We can have a vote on how to go about it (there's also the Political positions of Noam Chomsky article that can be of use). Regards, Shalom11111 (talk) 00:42, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Rather than have a specific "Criticism" section plonked at the bottom of the page—which are generally discouraged unless absolutely necessary, as per ["Controversy"_section|WP:Criticism]—we should incorporate properly sourced criticisms into the main body of the article. Some of it could go in the "Reception and influence" section, for example, where we already do find critical comments of Chomsky from both linguists and politicians. Other criticisms could go into the "Linguistic theory" and "Political views" sections. They could even be in the form of sub-sections to those sections, which is perhaps close to what others are arguing here. What I am concerned about if a big long "Criticism" section right at the bottom, which is rather poor form. 12:01, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

User:Midnightblueowl, incorporating text from the draft into the main body of this article is definitely a possibility. I believe it would require a more careful work, as opposed to "dumping" criticisms/opinions about Chomsky into the relevant section. We should reach a consensus on how to go about it, maybe by a vote or a request for comments. Shalom11111 (talk) 14:03, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

• The question of how to add the criticism is a relatively minor issue of "form" or style, whereas excluding the significant and notable critiques altogether is a breech of the NPOV policy. So the material should be included as soon as possible in whichever form is most convenient - then it can always be improved stylistically, for example by gradually moving points of critique from the criticism section and integrating them into the general flow of the article.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:54, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Alright, we all seem to agree on the obvious significance of that content, at least some of it for sure. What's needed now is the volunteer(s) to start doing the work - the full draft is there, waiting (further discussions can be resolved here). Good luck. Shalom11111 (talk) 21:32, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Misleading/False quotation

In the introductory paragraph:

"Chomsky and other scholars also backed the Khmer Rouge regime (responsible for the Cambodian genocide), arguing that "there was nothing terribly wrong in Cambodia during the regime." "

Which cites the reference here.

However, the relevant section of that reference reads:

"Senator McGovern was a lone voice for intervention in Cambodia at a time when some prominent Western intellectuals were supporters of the Khmer Rouge regime, said Sophal Ear, associate professor at the Occidental College in Los Angeles. (...)

Bergström and his colleagues were not the only Westerner sympathizers of the Pol Pot regime.

Scholars such as Noam Chomsky, Gareth Porter and George Hildebrand claimed there was nothing terribly wrong in Cambodia during the regime, Ear said."

It's presentation in the NC article is misleading, as it makes it seem to be a direct quote from Chomsky himself or a phrase adopted by one of the scholars he was working with, neither of which are the case. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshoclast (talk • contribs) 18:29, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. This is highly controversial at the very least and potentially utterly false. On a WP:BLP we cannot have such material anywhere in the article, let alone in the lede. Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:08, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Text copied to page for Edward S. Herman

I have copied the following text from the Noam Chomsky page to the page for Edward S. Herman.

"Chomsky and Herman authored Counter-Revolutionary Violence: Bloodbaths in Fact & Propaganda, a book which criticised U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia and highlighted how mainstream media neglected to cover stories about these activities; the publisher Warner Modular initially accepted it, and it was published in 1973. However, Warner Modular's parent company, Warner Communications, disapproved of the book's contents and ordered all copies to be destroyed. " Burrobert 11:45, 26 July 2018 (UTC) Burrobert 11:48, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Text copied to page for Edward S. Herman

I have copied the following text from the Noam Chomsky page to the page for Edward S. Herman.

“In 1979, Chomsky and Herman revised Counter-Revolutionary Violence and published it with South End Press as the two-volume The Political Economy of Human Rights. In this work they compared U.S. media reactions to the Cambodian genocide and the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. They argued that because Indonesia was a U.S. ally, U.S. media ignored the East Timorese situation while focusing on that in Cambodia, a U.S. enemy.” Burrobert 12:35, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

References

Political activist

A description of Chomsky as a political activist was recently removed from the page because “Political activist is not an occupation“. He is still described as a social critic even though it could be argued that social criticism is not an occupation either. I don’t see why the initial description needs to be restricted to occupational items. I also think that “political activism” is a reasonable description of some of his work. Burrobert 22:37, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree. And, as someone who has spent a long part of my life employed as a political activist, I disagree with the assumption behind this assertion. RolandR (talk) 21:35, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

New York Times

I am confused that there appears to be no mention of his extensive critique of the New York Times. I have read some of his writings and seen Manufacturing Consent (film), and the New York Times comes up quite in what I have looked at when it comes to his critique of American foreign policy and American media. --David Tornheim (talk) 10:22, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Question over who got Chomsky his job at MIT

At the beginning of the section “Early career: 1955–66”, it is stated that “Chomsky had befriended two linguists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Morris Halle and Roman Jakobson, the latter of whom secured him an assistant professor position at MIT in 1955. . . . Chomsky had been recruited to MIT by Jerome Wiesner, . . .” The first statement does not accord with information in the Wikipedia article on Jakobson, which states that he was a professor at Harvard from 1949 until 1967 & did not become professionally associated with MIT until about ten years before his death, i.e. in the early ‘70s. It also seems strange that if Wiesner recruited Chomsky, then why wasn’t it he who “secured him an assistant professor position”?Denicho (talk) 07:48, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Critic of ...

@Jemma88085: What's the basis of your claim that Chomsky is a critic of religion? I see a long list of things Chomsky is supposedly a critic of. I think it is safe to say he is a critic of mainstream media, American colonialism, Postmodernism, probably capitalism, and possibly sports (based on one comment he made in the documentary Manufacturing Consent), but this huge list for him seems a bit much. --David Tornheim (talk) 07:06, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Based on this, he seems more a critic of atheists than of religion. I'm going to delete that for now. --David Tornheim (talk) 07:52, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Picture/Caption Mismatch?

There is a caption on this page that seems to discuss a picture of Rudolf Rocker and George Orwell. However, the picture itself only shows Orwell. We seem to have a case of a mismatch. Or is there some other explanation that I'm not privy to? Maximajorian Viridio (talk) 05:37, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Maximajorian Viridio, good catch. It used to have a picture of both of them, but then the picture of Rocker was deleted from the Commons over copyright concerns, and subsequently a bot came by and removed the link to the picture from the article [4]. But that lazy bot didn't update the caption! Anyway, I put another photo of Rocker back in, so all fixed. Thanks for posting about it here and good eye! ^Leviv_ich? ! 06:55, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

You're welcome. Glad I could help. Maximajorian Viridio (talk) 07:16, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Erroneous disclaimer parameter to talkheader

Removed it because it stated a clear falsehood, perhaps as a result of a change to the template. In any case this is not a user talk page and this is wikipedia. 98.4.103.219 (talk) 12:17, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Noam Chomsky/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Wugapodes (talk . contribs) 23:52, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Previous Reviewer: CodexJustin (talk · contribs) 16:27, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Starting the review on this date and it may take a day or two to complete. Please indicate when you are ready to start. Here are some initial comments. CodexJustin (talk) 16:27, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Review by CodexJustin

See Talk:Noam Chomsky/GA1/Archive for older threads

6 Personal life

The location of this section looks a little odd and can either be put at the end of the article or merged into the earlier biography sections. CodexJustin (talk) 16:11, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

I agree that this shuld be merged into the earlier biography sections. I bring it up in my review, so see that section as well. Wug·a·po·des​ 01:38, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

7 Reception and influence

Chomsky's theory of linguistics is no longer the only one at center stage. Current research has move far from generative grammars to explain natural languages, and their simulation is much more influenced by advances in AI which were never part of Chomsky's program. The prominent rival theory today which displace Chomsky should be mentioned here. CodexJustin (talk) 16:11, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

The whole linguistics section needs attention, I give some detailed feed back in my review below. Wug·a·po·des​ 01:38, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

In the politics section, some mention should be made of the Walt-Mearsheimer debate 10 years ago and Chomsky's viewpoints. CodexJustin (talk) 16:11, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Small Philosophy section

The previous preference of Czar was to include this section as a subsection of the other sections already in the article, with which I agree. The article should be returned to the Czar format of integrating this short section into the other sections, just like it was already done by Czar previously. CodexJustin (talk) 14:50, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

The paragraph was expanded from two sentences, as it was prior. I think the small paragraph can stand alone as a section vs. forcing it somewhere else. Are there any outstanding issues for the GA criteria? I think the other content expansion discussions can continue on the talk page. czar 13:24, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Your previous version of this section as part of the other section looked better. I am supporting your previous version of assimilating this section as subsection. CodexJustin (talk) 16:03, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Also, the Philosophy section in its current form appears to fully ignore Political philosophy. This is done in spite of the fact that this biography as a whole has been going out of its way to legitimize Chomsky Political activism as being on a par with his academic background as a scholar of Linguistic studies, predominantly while at MIT. From the list which you currently give as "philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science", this is an odd list. Thomas Kuhn is normally cited at the top of the list for the philosophy of science, and Chomsky is not even a distant second in this field if one reads the article on the Philosophy of Science. Similarly for the Philosophy of Mind which is usually looked at as a specialist field within Philosophy and studied by philosophers in philosophy departments. That leaves the Philosophy of language for Chomsky which seems the only justified point. If this section is meant as a Philosophy of language section then it should be called that. It still should be assimilated into the larger Language studies section of this article as was previously done by Czar. In its current form it continues to look like an 11th hour section which was bolted on to the article at the last minute. It looks poorly in its current placement as an independent section. If you insist on this direction for the article then at least at Political philosophy to your list with some supportive cites. CodexJustin (talk) 14:34, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Worth clarifying that while Chomsky is certainly known for his political activism, he is not known for "political philosophy" per se. Whereas McGilvray 2014 (p. 19, cited in the Philosophy section under discussion) has an entire section (through p. 25) dedicated to "Chomsky's work in the philosophies of mind and language and the philosophy of science, particularly as it bears on the science of mind and the science of human nature", mainly re: the cognitive revolution, so I would think the short paragraph does sufficient justice to that. I don't see a particular issue with keeping it as its own section. czar 02:19, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Bare References 7/27/2019

There appear to be a large number of unformatted references in the bibliography which need to be tended to; normally not acceptable for GAN. In its current numbering, these unformatted references include: #94, 95, 226, 227, 228, 299. CodexJustin (talk) 14:23, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Those links were very, very recently added. I've removed them as superfluous. czar 02:03, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Second opinion and new reviewer

A second opinion is requested on the Friederici section below. I've requested a one sentence quote from Chomsky about Friederici and provided 3 cites for including a one sentence quote in the article. User:Czar has challenged this as being NOR. Requesting second opinion based on 3 citations being given. Also, after nearly 6 months on this article, it seems that the article my benefit from a new set of eyes taking over at this time. My request is that the second opinion editor also take over as the new reviewer of this article as of this time. CodexJustin (talk) 14:45, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

@CodexJustin: I've been lurking here for a while, so picking up where you left off shouldn't be too much trouble. I did participate a bit above, so if anyone has any concerns about me taking over let me know. Otherwise I can get around to the second opinion in a couple days. Wug·a·po·des​ 18:19, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Friederici

Since Chomsky is a living author, it is of some significance to know who he is currently using as his main source for evolution and physiology of the brain, which is Prof. Friederici and her new book; and she is the co-author with Chomsky of articles for the last few years. The Wikipedia article here currently appears to ignore Friederici in spite of her importance to Chomsky. Chomsky speak positively of her book summarizing his high appraisal with his own words: "The result of this wide-ranging exploration (of Friederici) is a fascinating array of insights into what has been learned in this rapidly developing field (of brain sciences) and a picture of the exciting prospects that lie ahead," by Noam Chomsky in November 2016.

Another quote by Chomsky about her book on page x, states: "Friederici's extensive review covers a great deal of ground... the study deals with the dissociation of syntactic/semantic processing both structurally and developmentally. It reviews the evidence that right hemisphere specialization for prosody may be more primitive in evolution, and that its contributions are integrated very rapidly (within a second) with core language areas for assignment and interpretation of prosodic externalization." A quote from Chomsky about his appraisal and use of the research of Friederici should be included in the article. You may apply either one or both of the quotes which I have just provided for you. Chomsky in his own words calls her 'fascinating'. CodexJustin (talk) 16:03, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

I alluded to this in an earlier section but if Friederici is important to Chomsky's thought, wouldn't it be covered in the reams of secondary sources about Chomsky? The aforementioned foreword to Friederici's textbook doesn't read as being biographically important to Chomsky—i.e., that Chomsky finds the book "fascinating" does not necessitate its biographical importance to Chomsky. (Indeed the two pages read like hagiography, standard for forewords.) czar 02:08, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Here is another Friederici paper coauthored with Chomsky this time from 2017: AD Friederici, N Chomsky, RC Berwick, A Moro and JJ Bolhuis, Language, mind and brain, Nature Human Behaviour, 2017, 1, 713–722. That is quite a track record with Chomsky including Chomsky's generous Foreward written for his coauthor. He does write Forewards for everyone, and this a one where he calls it 'fascinating'. Its also not for you, not for me, and not for anyone at Wikipedia to accuse Chomsky of writing 'Hagiography' in your words. He wrote the forward for her, he co-authored several articles with her, and she is prominent among his current co-authors. In answer to your question, no, it is not odd that a one or two year old paper to not have an extensive secondary literature. You can look up on Web-of-Science the citation analysis of their co-authored papers together if you would like (2013, 2017, her new book). Chomsky recognizes her as a 'fascinating' coworker in his own words. A short one sentence quote is all that's needed in the Wikipedia article to recognize that Chomsky is now in active research with the co-director of the Max Plank Institute in Germany [5]. The sentence and the citation should be added into a section which you select. CodexJustin (talk) 15:06, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Look, sure, they've coauthored papers together and maybe even Chomsky's foreword was more laudatory than normal, but we don't do that sort of independent analysis ourselves as editors. If a secondary source, e.g., another scholar, writes that Chomsky's relation to Friderici's ideas is noteworthy, I'd be happy to work that in. But right now, it feels like a stretch to make that assessment on our own. If the quote you want entered in the article is that Chomsky found her work "fascinating" then how many other primary source quotes should we be adding along the same lines? Or if the line is to the effect that Chomsky is working with her, then should we not mention many other scholars with whom Chomsky actively works? I would not want to call unreasonable attention to one relation unless a secondary source has called attention to its noteworthiness. Is that position unreasonable and is it holding up the GA review for breadth, or if more discussion is warranted, is this something that can transfer to a talk page discussion? czar 19:26, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Second Opinion It's rather beyond typical editorial synthesis to claim that one person influences his thought without a secondary or primary source making that assertion. Czar is right that he's had many intellectual relationships, and highlighting one without other sources noting that relationship would be undue. I don't think this has much influence on whether the GA criteria are met. Wug·a·po·des​ 01:46, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Review by Wugapodes

Got through the lead and early life sections. Wug·a·po·des​ 07:02, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

And now also through to 1980. To be explicit, anyone is free to undo any of my copy edits they disagree with per BRD. Wug·a·po·des​ 01:02, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

I've gotten through the Linguistic Theory section. Wug·a·po·des​ 01:50, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Finished reading. Still need to do the technical stuff like citations, images, and captions. Wug·a·po·des​ 23:20, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Checklist

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

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1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose is "clear and concise", without copyvios, or spelling and grammar errors:

   In general, the prose seems to be fine. I haven't found any major problems yet and doubt I will. Most suggestions on prose will be beyond GA requirements; exceptions will be noted.

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

   Lead seems fine, I'll look at once I've read the article to make sure it's an adequate summary.

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. Has an appropriate reference section:

   B. Cites reliable sources, where necessary:

   C. No original research:

   I'll inline tag anything that I think needs cited but citations are generally well above typical GA quality

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused (see summary style):

   See comment 1, 4, and 5.

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

   See comment 2, 6 and Justin's comment in #7Reception and influence.

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   Haven't checked this yet. Captions in general seem good though.

   B. Images are provided if possible and are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

   The images are used well, and this is one of the few articles I've seen that have used pull quotes well, with some caveats.

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Comments

If the comment is numbered, it must be addressed for the article to pass, if it is bulleted, it's an optional suggestion or comment that you don't need to act on right now.
When I quote things, you can use ctrl+f to search the page for the specific line I quoted.

1. This page is huge at 150kb. It's a good problem to have, but we'll need to discuss what should be spun out. There are a number of places where it goes into too much detail for this biography, such as:

   -the paragraph on his time at elementary school. It's not a particularly important topic, all things considered, and it winds up breaking the flow of the prose.

   -The clause "where the translation of his political writings was delayed until the 2000s" doesn't seem to add much given that we already knew the French weren't hug on Chomsky, and the subordinate clause breaks the flow of the sentence.

2. The neutrality issue is not huge, and mostly is about folding criticism into the prose better so that a good balance is reached. See Wikipedia:Criticism#Integrated throughout the article and other sections for suggestions.

   -"This Chomsky-Herman thesis has been challenged by Sophal Ear" should not be hidden in a footnote. If it's an important enough criticism that it warrants mention, it should be discussed in running prose.

   There's a list, with citations, of scholars who disagree with Chomsky's theory of universal grammar in the reception section, but very little coverage of any of those challenges in the description of his work. These critiques should similarly be folded

3. The Yergin pull quote in the Linguistic Theory feels non-neutral. Partly because it is a highly laudatory quote near another laudatory quite in a section that doesn't much describe contemporary criticism of Chomsky's theories.
4. The Transformational generative grammar section is an inadequate summary of Transformational generative grammar.
5. Similarly, the Chomsky Hierarchy section does not cover a major point which is its application to linguistics. The references at Chomsky hierarchy have good information on its application to linguistics (which is also notably lacking from that article). I've put the two I think will be most useful below.
   1. Chomsky, Noam (1959). "On certain formal properties of grammars" (PDF). Information and Control. 2 (2): 137–167. doi:10.1016/S0019-9958(59)90362-6.
   2. Chomsky, Noam (1956). "Three models for the description of language" (PDF). IRE Transactions on Information Theory (2): 113–124. doi:10.1109/TIT.1956.1056813.
6. The use of quotes in this article needs some attention and I'd recommend reading WP:QUOTEFARM for more on some of my concerns:
   1. The end notes are all, save one, quotations. It's not clear what any of them add to the article. If they're for verification, they're much too long and should be bundled with the reference not separate from it.
   2. The use of pull quotes is, in some instances, very engaging and helpful for understanding the prose that is to come. Those good uses are washed out by the overwhelming number of pull quotes, which seem to increase as the article goes on. Some serve only as illustrations of things Chomsky has said which would be better summarized in context in the prose, rather than pulled away. I think the Chomsky on Vietnam, Marcotte, McGilvray, and Sperlich pull quotes are worth keeping. Barsky, Chomsky on Israel, and Szabo should not all be kept, but all serve important purposes so pick a couple to keep. I think the rest should be removed.
   3. The selection of quotes has neutrality problems per WP:IMPARTIAL. Some, like Sperlich, are rather matter-of-fact descriptions, even summaries, of the content and are extremely useful in that regard by providing readers an obvious snippet to get a sense of what is to come. Others, like McNeil quote in note K seem to only be laudatory which does not add substance, and leads to situations where, to balance out the praise, pull quotes like Halliday's get introduced which seek to introduce some criticism. However out of context these quotes just seem to editorialize the subject and rather than bringing about neutrality disrupt the encyclopedic tone of the article. By using quotes in this way without meaningful context moves the article away from describing disputes to engaging in them by highlighting some views and not others.
7. The bibliography section needs content. One possible way to select a subset is to provide citations important enough to have been mentioned in our article's prose.

• The use of hidden comments in the lead is really cool. Helps keep it focused and guides new editors to making helpful edits. I started to miss them further down!
• Any reason for that particular lead image? Some Wikipedias and the Commons page use File:Noam Chomsky portrait 2015.jpg. Nothing wrong with it as is. Full disclosure I edited the linked file a day or two ago so am probably biased.
• "established his role in public dissent" reads strange to me. I don't have a better wording though so hopefully someone comes along with an idea.
• The section "Anti-Vietnam War activism and rise to prominence: 1967–75" doesn't read very smoothly. I get the point of it however, so I think it satisfies the clear and concise criterion.
• You've probably noticed my pet is the linking in the article. That's partly because most problems have already been addressed. These link-related comments are mostly explaining why I've made some of the edits. I'm probably also a little overzealous, so revert changes you don't think are improvements.
  • In general, readers shouldn't have to follow a link to have an acronym defined. When first used, it's generally better to link the full word and then use the abbreviation subsequently.
  • Avoid having multiple links right next to each other as it can confuse readers when they click what looks like one link, only to find its two or more. A particular example from the prose is "Israel at Hashomer Hatzair's HaZore'a kibbutz."
  • In general link the more specific of two related terms in a sentence. Especially try to avoid linking terms that can be found in the lead of a nearby link. Fewer links are often better, and the more specific link often gives readers better context than general articles. Those who don't get what they need from the specific article will then be able to find the more general topic within, rather than following it from this article. Example: "Chomsky continued to frequent the office of the Yiddish anarchist journal Fraye Arbeter Shtime". Our article on Fraye Arbeter Shtime almost certainly links to our article on Yiddish in its first sentence, so readers are provided with much more context for what they will find in that article. There are frequent exceptions though so use best judgement.
  • In the sentence "In 1952 Chomsky published his first academic article" I'm not sure the link is particularly helpful but wanted others' thoughts.
• The sourcing is exemplary for a GA. However if you plan to take this to FA, you'll want to look into the work of John E. Joseph. Joseph is a major authority in the study of the history of American linguistics and his analysis of Chomsky's place in the history of linguistics is a glaring omission from this bibliography. I've provided citations for his three works on Chomsky below. If anyone needs help accessing them feel free to ask me or post at WP:REX.
  • Joseph, John E. (2002). From Whitney to Chomsky: Essays in the history of American linguistics. John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/sihols.103. ISBN 9789027275370.
  • Joseph, John E. (2010). "Chomsky's atavistic revolution (with a little help from his enemies)". In Kibbee, Douglas A. (ed.). Chomskyan (R)evolutions. pp. 1–18.
  • Joseph, John E. (2011). "Theories et politiques de Noam Chomsky [Political Theories of Noam Chomsky]". Langages (in French). 182 (2): 55--68. doi:10.3917/lang.182.0055.
• I feel like the early and later life sections are a somewhat arbitrary division. Is this standard in our larger biographical articles? Is there any way they could be combined into a single level-2 header rather than having two of them?
• In general the linguistic theory section is lacking. The caveat above notwithstanding, it's fine for GA but will need some work to get up to FA. In general the sections don't adequately explain the concepts or provide examples, and important points are missing. For example, one of the cornerstones of the minimalist program is bare phrase structure grammar which Chomsky developed and yet is notably absent from this section.
• The clause "he is largely responsible for establishing the field as a formal, natural science" while attributed in text, is pretty one sided. The neogrammarian hypothesis, for example, was among the first attempts to formalize the field of linguistics into a science. Suzanne Kemmer at Rice University, for instance, attributes to Osthoff and Brugmann (1878) the goal of establishing linguistics as a formal science: "O&B's aim is to ... emphasize the strongly rule-governed nature of one type of change, namely what might be termed 'ordinary sound change'. This property makes the study of language change amenable to the discovery of law-like principles, almost like those of the natural physical world. In effect, such law-like behavior makes it possible to see Linguistics as a science, which can develop its own empirical methodology for the discovery of general principles." (Kemmer 2009). Leonard Bloomfield in the second volume of Language published an article titled "A Set of Postulates for the Science of Language" in which the entire work was dedicated to describing and deriving formal principles for a scientific study of language. I won't go much deeper into the weeds, but essentially, the quote from McGilvray misrepresents the development of the field of linguistics.

Responses

In general, I've been trying to keep out of the GA process, as my interest is more in the long-term improvement of the article. However:

Re 6.1 above: "The end notes are all, save one, quotations. It's not clear what any of them add to the article. If they're for verification, they're much too long and should be bundled with the reference not separate from it."

No, no, no! Short quotes are OK within the long citations, but then only if there is only one short cite pointing to it, or if the quote is necessary to verify text supported by all the short cites pointing to it. Otherwise it is better to put them in a separate notes section, and I have been moving quotes out of the long citations for this reason. For a good example, see the Featured Article Balfour Declaration, where almost all the notes are quotations, or substantially quotations with just a brief description of their source. I do agree, though, with the point made elsewhere that there are too many quote boxes in the article.

--NSH001 (talk) 09:15, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I read through the relevant parts of the two Balfour Declaration FACs and the rationale for extended quotes was the highly controversial nature of the article, meaning that the quotes were foremost an aid to verifiability. Does this article use the quotes in the same way? There were at least two major objections to this format, but not ultimately presented as a blocker. Only case I can see for the endnotes is that the quotes are necessary for verifiability and, based on their length and usage, it making more sense to keep them in a separate notes section than to add them in-line at either the {{sfn}} or full citation. I'll work on the pull quotes. czar 16:42, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

I've struck the part regarding bundling of citations. I'm not too concerned about this point, but do still wonder what the value of most of them are. Note d is a good example of one that does add value; it presents a sequence of quotes along with their citation which together show not only that he has been called the "father of modern linguistics" but also provides context for a number of those statements. Others, like notes e-g seem to at best reproduce the content which was said in the sentence. Because end notes pull the reader out and far away from the prose, they need to add substantial information and context to justify that interruption. The sentence says that Chomsky's father fled Russia and moved to Baltimore, so a note saying that same thing is redundant; a citation with a page number serves the same function but without pulling the reader's attention. Bundling notes e,f,g, and citation 20 into a single note like was done with d would be a good compromise, though its worth considering if those quotes are really needed (they might be, I'm pretty ambivalent). Note k seems to mostly be a coat rack; it's not clear why such an extended quotation about Donald Knuth's life is relevant for an article on Chomsky other than the tangential intellectual connection. And note l doesn't seem that related to the sentence it is attached to. That sentence says he has generated controversy, which is a statement obvious to anyone who has read the article, doesn't really need a citation, ad the quote chosen is less a statement that he has generated controversy, and more a statement about hy he has done so which is better explained in context in the prose. I don't think they all need to go, but they are not all equally valuable and we should think about which ones are worth keeping. Wug·a·po·des​ 17:47, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Wugapodes. My editing style is slow and contemplative, paying meticulous attention to detail, which is partly why I'm trying to stay out of the GA process. However, FWIW, the only note I've had anything to do with is note (e). That note is there because of some earlier edit-warring about whether Chomsky père moved from Ukraine, or from Russia. So the footnote gives some extra detail about where in Ukraine he moved from, his age when he moved, and some family details – useful information that's worth having, but put into a footnote to avoid cluttering the main body of the article. That's a good use of footnotes in my opinion. Most of the other notes were moved automatically out of the long citations when my ETVP script moved them all out of the article body, replacing them with short-form citations (see my talk page for the motivation behind that script). Someone added note (k) to a full citation in the biblio, but I manually moved it out into a separate note. Contrary to what you say, it is not a coat rack, but a quote from a single source. Although it's not my work, I quite like it, as it adds some human interest to an otherwise dry article (someone who takes along a maths textbook on his honeymoon!?)

The long list of linguistics critics with an equally long list of short cites bundled into a single note (#264) is horrible, and should be fixed, but I'm not going to touch it until I've done some more reading on linguistics.

Yes, the footnotes can certainly be reviewed, and good luck to anyone who does so. For myself, I expect to make substantial revision to the notes as part of the slow process of revising the article. I do like this use of notes, which fits a contentious article very well. For another example, see Israeli occupation of the West Bank, an article on which I've done some significant work, although I'm not the main author. --NSH001 (talk) 22:18, 11 August 2019 (UTC)؛

Results

On hold for two weeks until 24 August 2019. If most things are resolved by then I'm fine extending it as well. As I said above, I still need to do some checks of technical things, but most of my comments above should be pretty stable. Wug·a·po·des​ 23:20, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks! Giving us room to thread below. re: archiving the older threads—is it standard to create a subpage as you did? I seen hatting but don't think I've seen that subpage practice before. czar 02:53, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
  • It was more a practical issue than a standard thing; the review size and the article size together were causing my browser some issues (and syntax highlighting just gave up). Plus the headers would still show up in the TOC when hatted which clutters the main talk page. It's by no means standard practice, and if anyone feels they should be restored feel free to move them back. My thinking was that, since it already has talk page archives and this is just a special talk page discussion, creating an archive page would be the easiest way to pare down this page and cause minimal problems elsewhere. Wug·a·po·des​ 05:14, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
• re: length (#1), do you think anything needs to be immediately split? The prose is at 56k, which given the breadth of Chomsky, makes sense. The WP:SIZESPLIT recommendation is to start serious pruning at 60k. I shortened re: elementary school and the Faurisson affair in France. czar 02:52, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Thinking some more, spinning things off isn't an immediate concern. The shortening of those sections helps somewhat, and I think deciding on what to spin out is better once the GA review is over since things will be changing. Wug·a·po·des​ 05:14, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
• Removed Yergin pull quote (#3) czar 02:52, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
• Added selected bibliography (#7) czar 04:52, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
• Pull quotes addressed (#6) czar 03:57, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
  • I like that you added some of the quotes back into the text. I think it actually makes the article better than just outright removing them. A good idea I'll keep in mind for other reviews. Wug·a·po·des​ 20:38, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Also, @Czar:, I'm probably going to be busy the next few days and might not respond swiftly. Despite setting deadlines for my holds, I'm incredibly lax with them, so let me know if you need more time to work on the article especially since I may not be able to answer your questions quickly. Wug·a·po·des​ 20:41, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
• Resolved neutrality issues and distributed egregious list of critics (#2); revised endquotes (#6) czar 02:42, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
• Rewrote/reintroduced the linguistics concepts (#4 and #5) but it's tricky to walk the line between what is relevant to a general reader learning about Chomsky's life and the linguistics student who wants to know Chomsky's role in the development of jargon-intensive concepts. My stance is to sway towards the former, because the summary style split articles already exist specifically for the latter. czar 15:44, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
• Re: the bullet points (non-numbered),
  • I can't find it in writing, but I've usually seen the infobox image default to the most recent image with sufficient quality. No strong opinions on my end, but 2017 looks like the latest image we have.
  • Retitled sections
  • I'll review the additional links, but I think many of the new redlinks are just going to be rephrased out of existence
  • I didn't think any of the sequential bluelinks were particularly egregious
  • I think it's fine to link academic article as I wouldn't assume a reader has heard of one before
  • re: Fraye Arbeter Shtime (btw, I wrote that article ), I think it's important to give sufficient context for the reader within the existing article. For example, just seeing the name of the publication, I'd have no idea whether it's animal, vegetable, mineral, but with context that it's a Yiddish journal, knowing its name has more importance. That said, there are more proper nouns in this article that can be dispensed with altogether.
  • Happy to balance out the McGilvray quote re: establishing the field, if you have suggested source leads/material

czar 19:27, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

• @Wugapodes, okay! I believe I've resolved the major outstanding points and cleanup tags, if you have time to take a look. For the sake of wrapping this very long review, I might take any of the minor suggestions that warrant discussion to the talk page so they can continue ad hoc outside of the review. Thanks again for the thorough review! czar 18:55, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
  • The article looks good! The images all have suitable licenses (though one is nominated for deletion, that can be handled outside GA). I've passed the nomination. Wug·a·po·des​ 20:33, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

List of influences

The list of influences (in the infobox) has become quite lengthy over time. Since Chomsky is a major figure, at the risk of making a long list that accretes cruft, I think we should limit entries to those who were significant enough to warrant a cited explanation in the prose itself (per Template:Infobox philosopher/doc). So a few thoughts on whether to move text into prose:

• Wittgenstein: See the citation's quote, which I was about to add myself. Seems like a big inference to assert that Wittgenstein was a major influence in Chomsky's work based on this quote. He was influenced as a student, yes, but if it was a major condition for his growth, I would think that the connection would be discussed/dissected more than this aside in a book of Chomsky's critics.
• ... In progress

czar 14:44, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• Noam Chomsky WSF - 2003.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 21:51, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Addressed; the image may not have been released under the previously stated CC BY 3.0 BR license, but it is nevertheless a free image as per the source. Vrrajkum (talk) 01:03, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Raised as a practitioner of Judaism etc.

• in this case he was raised a practitioner of Judaism.

Where is the evidence in the sources given that Chomsky was raised as a 'practitioner of Judaism'? Nishidani (talk) 14:40, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

@Nishidani: Sorry for the delayed reply. pp. 12-13 of Barsky's A Life of Dissent says the following:

• "From a very early age, Noam and David were immersed in the scholarship, culture, and traditions of Judaism and the Hebrew language through the work of both their parents."

Later on p. 13:

• "Noam and David were deeply marked a remarkable home life. The entire Chomsky family was actively involved in Jewish cultural activities and Jewish issues, particularly the revival of the Hebrew language and Zionism."

This is referenced in the Childhood section, specifically the sentence "Chomsky and his brother were raised Jewish, being taught Hebrew and regularly discussing the political theories of Zionism; the family was particularly influenced by the Left Zionist writings of Ahad Ha'am." Vrrajkum (talk) 17:17, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes I read those sources, as is evidenced from the books I used to outline details of his precocity, which someone rather mindlessly removed, while plunking in this phrase, with its heft of religious suggestiveness. The problem is the phrasing. What is being 'practiced'? Judaism is a vast heritage embodying an enviably rich spread of languages, cultural practices, approaches to the world, religious beliefs or practices etc. When one uses 'practice' in these context, the semantic drift-over is that one practices a religion. We speak of 'practicing' or 'lapsed' Christians. Chomsky had a profound, thorough but not 'thoroughly' Jewish upbringing, a good part of which was linguistic, and political, the latter overlapping with their Zionist and New Deal outlook - which formed an intense part of the Jewish culture that developed among immigrants to the US - a tradition to which the modern sense of social justice owes an enormous debt. To be Jewish was to, in that world, also be passionate about social justice and politics, for example, and did not necessarily imply some assiduity in synagogue attendance. I'm unaware of any signs of intense religious observance, (dress, kosher, Shabbos, seder, tefillot etc. ,)which is implied with that phrasing. In other words, my request was that if the phrase is to be retained, the religious cast of their Judaism be documented. Nishidani (talk) 17:36, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

As those texts noted, his family came from strictly ultra-orthodox backgrounds, but they did not raise their children, apparently, that way. One would need to cleave closely to the following text to find an adequate reformulation of this misleading phrase. I.e.

'(He) spent his early years in a 'cultural ghettio,' marked not only by distinctively Jewish social and political concerns but also by Sephardic liturgies and rituals in the Mikveh synagogue. Chomsky's parents were by this time firmly in the Haskalah or Jewish Enlightenment tradition.Yet every Friday night, Chomsky's mother would light Shabbat candles and his family would gather together to read Hebrew together-including the essays of Ahad Ha'am . .Chomsky insists that his upbringing was a thoroughly secular one in which 'you keep the symbols, but it doesn't involve religious faith'. Ronald E. Osbourne, 'Chomsky and Religion,' in Allison Edgely, Noam Chomsky, Palgrave Macmillan 2015 pp.11-31 p.28

If you give that yet and Chomsky's own description of the essentially secular cast of his upbringing, 'practitioner of Judaism' becomes problematical. It is important, by the way, to note that his Ashkenazi background was complemented by the Sephardic milieu of ther local Congregation Mikveh Israel his family frequented. Nishidani (talk) 20:02, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

@Nishidani: I wasn't familiar with that source, but I think Chomsky's own take on Judaism is relevant here:

Science and religion are just incommensurable. I mean, religion tells you, ‘Here’s what you ought to believe.’ Judaism’s a little different, because it’s not really a religion of belief, it’s a religion of practice. If I’d asked my grandfather, who was an ultra-orthodox Jew from Eastern Europe. ‘Do you believe in God?’ he would have looked at me with a blank stare, wouldn’t know what I’m talking about. And what you do is you carry out the practices. Of course, you say ‘I believe in this and that,’ but that’s not the core of the religion. The core of the religion is just the practices you carry out. And yes, there is a system of belief behind it somewhere, but it’s not intended to be a picture of the world. It’s just a framework in which you carry out practices that are supposed to be appropriate.

Nevertheless, a look at your profile and contributions suggests that you are very familiar with Judaism and possibly Jewish yourself. Since your familiarity with the religion exceeds my own, I will defer to you on this; if you think that it's inaccurate to describe Chomsky as a 'practitioner of Judaism', I'm fine with leaving it out. Vrrajkum (talk) 21:19, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

You also seem to be rather invested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; do you think you might be able to enhance the corresponding section in the article? The current version is a bit anemic and could use expansion. Vrrajkum (talk) 21:30, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

No I am not of Jewish background, though several close relatives, and a large number of people whose books, personal teaching etc., helped me 'grow up', are. As to expanding the I/P section, it would require a full page to do justice to the topic. I think all that needs to be added is something along the lines of the seminal role he has played in raising public awareness of the nature of the I/P conflict. In short, just a link to Irene Gendzier, 'Noam Chomsky and the Question of Palestine/Israel,' in James McGilvray (ed.),The Cambridge Companion to Chomsky, Cambridge University Press, pp.314-329 p.314 Nishidani (talk) 12:20, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

References

Lippmann

Neil. In my copy of Lippmann's Public Opinion, 1921 (Free Press paperbacks ed. 1997) p.158 the phrase occurs that Chomsky and Herman use for their title:

That the manufacture of consent is capable of great refinements no one, I think, denies. The process by which public opinions arise is certainly no less intricate than it has appeared in these pages, and the opportunities for manipulation open to anyone who understands the process are plain enough.

That was a remarkable breakthrough book, and I think of fundamental importance to later generations, but particularly to the political milieu in which NC was raised. Of course he was critical of Lippmann's elitist spin, inverting it to identify the élite itself as the course of distortions. But such revision does not erase the fact that for Chomsky, Lippman was an important predecessor in the analysis of the spin-doctoring of news.Nishidani (talk) 09:37, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

OK, I take that point (shouldda checked out Lippmann more thoroughly). But the Al-J. source doesn't really verify that Chomsky was influenced by Lippmann, other than being the source for the famous phrase. Do you have a better source? --NSH001 (talk) 13:55, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

On reconsideration I think your judgment was correct. Chomsky was raised and remains a Deweyite. Lippmann outlined, I think remarkably for those times, the mechanisms of soft mass mind control, but he was undoubtedly an elitist in his solutions: an interpretative liberal-democratic cultural elite would manage things so that the passive rather dull public would know enough to make the right choices (the New York Times approach). Chomsky, bless the man, had and has no such elitist illusions (hence his relentless criticism of the liberal-democratic mainstream press), and therefore, since from an early age he closely identified with the opposite wing (Dewey) to Lippmann on the liberal democratic spectrum, he probably should not be thought of as being significantly influenced by Lippmann, unless we can find an admission to that effect.Nishidani (talk) 14:43, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Lowering page protection

There is a request to lower the page protection of this article at WP:RFPP. Interested editors are invited to give feedback on the proposal at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection#Noam Chomsky. Wug·a·po·des​ 01:09, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

A link for posterity czar 02:59, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Criticism within linguistics

For discussion, this line from Noam Chomsky#In academia [6], per the GAN:

Despite their respect for his intellectual contributions, some scholars have been critical of Chomsky's view of language as a discrete cognitive faculty that evolved as a means of clarifying our internal thoughts, rather than an extension of general cognitive and learning mechanisms that evolved as a means of communicating with others. These critics include Elizabeth Bates, Margaret Boden, Nick Chater, Morten H. Christiansen, Jeffrey Elman, Vyvyan Evans, Nicholas Evans, Daniel Everett, Adele Goldberg, Mark H. Johnson, Annette Karmiloff-Smith, Chris Knight, Stephen Levinson, Geoffrey K. Pullum, Pieter Seuren and Michael Tomasello.

References

Sources

• Boden, Margaret A. (2006). Mind As Machine: a History of Cognitive Science. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199241446. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Chater, Nick; Christiansen, Morten H. (October 2010). "Language as shaped by the brain". Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 31 (5): 489–509. doi:10.1017/S0140525X08004998. ISSN 1469-1825. PMID 18826669. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Elman, Jeffrey L.; Bates, Elizabeth A.; Johnson, Mark H.; Karmiloff-Smith, Annette; Parisi, Domenico; Plunkett, Kim (1996). Rethinking Innateness: Connectionist Perspective on Development. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-05052-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Evans, Nicholas; Levinson, Stephen C. (October 2009). "The myth of language universals: Language diversity and its importance for cognitive science". Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 32 (5): 429–448. doi:10.1017/S0140525X0999094X. ISSN 1469-1825. PMID 19857320. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Evans, Vyvyan (December 4, 2014). "The evidence is in: there is no language instinct". Aeon. {{cite magazine}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Everett, Daniel (2012). Language: The Cultural Tool. Profile Books. ISBN 978-1846682681 {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Goldberg, Adele E (November 1, 2004). "But do we need universal grammar? Comment on Lidz et al. (2003)". Cognition. 94 (1): 77–84. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2004.03.003. ISSN 0010-0277. PMID 15302328. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Goldberg, Adele E. (March 30, 2016). "Another look at the universal grammar hypothesis: Commentary on Evans 2014". Language. 92 (1): 200–203. doi:10.1353/lan.2016.0018. ISSN 1535-0665. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Knight, Chris (2016). Decoding Chomsky: Science and Revolutionary Politics. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300228762. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Levinson, Stephen C.; Ruiter, J. P. de (October 2010). "A biological infrastructure for communication underlies the cultural evolution of languages". Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 31 (5): 518. doi:10.1017/S0140525X08005086. ISSN 1469-1825. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Scholtz, Barbara; Pullum, Geoffrey K. (2006). "Irrational nativist exuberance". In Stainton, Robert J. (ed.). Contemporary Debates in Cognitive Science. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 59–80. ISBN 978-1405113052. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Seuren, Pieter (2004). Chomsky's Minimalism. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195173055. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Tomasello, Michael (January 1, 1995). "Language is not an instinct". Cognitive Development. 10 (1): 131–156. doi:10.1016/0885-2014(95)90021-7. ISSN 0885-2014. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Tomasello, Michael (2003). Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01030-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Tomasello, Michael (October 2009). "Universal grammar is dead". Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 32 (5): 470–471. doi:10.1017/S0140525X09990744. ISSN 1469-1825. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

I've been poking around in this mammoth footnote to figure out how best to handle/integrate this information throughout the article. Some of these sources are super long and unclear what exact passages note both respect for Chomsky's contributions and direct criticism of his views on language. Without direct citations, it just feels like a laundry list of names and very difficult to verify. czar 02:57, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

• I'm skipping mention of the Seuren work here, per these two reviews on the credibility of its arguments:

1. Fiengo, Robert (2006). "Review of Chomsky's Minimalism". Mind. 115 (458): 469–472. ISSN 0026-4423. JSTOR 3840569 – via JSTOR.
2. Hacken, Pius ten (2006). "Review of Chomsky's Minimalism". Journal of Linguistics. 42 (1): 226–229. ISSN 0022-2267. JSTOR 4176980 – via JSTOR.

Feel free to expand in the Minimalist program or Seuren's own articles but doesn't seem relevant enough a criticism to mention in Chomsky's biography.

czar 12:43, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

• Boden 2006 has a really great chapter on Chomsky's influence that I recommend to future editors: "Transforming Linguistics" (ch. 9)
• Sources dropped as adding little to Chomsky's biography over current citations; feel free to restore the citation with paraphrase if I missed something important: Evans 2014, Goldberg 2004, Goldberg 2016, Everett 2012
  • Knight 2016 is really expansive—is there a single point here that warrants mention?
  • Scholtz & Pullum 2006 is more about assessing nativist claims as a group than anything Chomsky biography-specific
  • re: Elman et al. 1996, I see some discussion of nuanced points within the biological basis for Universal Grammar circa pp. 370–371 but not necessarily seeing what it adds over current sources

    Based on the facts about brain development reviewed in Chapter 5, we think it quite unlikely that Universal Grammar could be encoded so directly in the genotype. However, many lines of evidence have been cited to support such a claim.

czar 02:32, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

John E. Joseph

For posterity and future expansion, the GAN reviewer suggested these sources for potential expansion in the future. Message @Wugapodes or WP:RX if you need a copy.

• Joseph, John E. (2002). From Whitney to Chomsky: Essays in the history of American linguistics. John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/sihols.103. ISBN 9789027275370.
• Joseph, John E. (2010). "Chomsky's atavistic revolution (with a little help from his enemies)". In Kibbee, Douglas A. (ed.). Chomskyan (R)evolutions. pp. 1–18. doi:10.1075/z.154.01jos.
• Joseph, John E. (2011). "Theories et politiques de Noam Chomsky [Political Theories of Noam Chomsky]". Langages (in French). 182 (2): 55--68. doi:10.3917/lang.182.0055.

czar 19:32, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Linguistics section

• In general the linguistic theory section is lacking. The caveat above notwithstanding, it's fine for GA but will need some work to get up to FA. In general the sections don't adequately explain the concepts or provide examples, and important points are missing. For example, one of the cornerstones of the minimalist program is bare phrase structure grammar which Chomsky developed and yet is notably absent from this section.
• The clause "he is largely responsible for establishing the field as a formal, natural science" while attributed in text, is pretty one sided. The neogrammarian hypothesis, for example, was among the first attempts to formalize the field of linguistics into a science. Suzanne Kemmer at Rice University, for instance, attributes to Osthoff and Brugmann (1878) the goal of establishing linguistics as a formal science: "O&B's aim is to ... emphasize the strongly rule-governed nature of one type of change, namely what might be termed 'ordinary sound change'. This property makes the study of language change amenable to the discovery of law-like principles, almost like those of the natural physical world. In effect, such law-like behavior makes it possible to see Linguistics as a science, which can develop its own empirical methodology for the discovery of general principles." (Kemmer 2009). Leonard Bloomfield in the second volume of Language published an article titled "A Set of Postulates for the Science of Language" in which the entire work was dedicated to describing and deriving formal principles for a scientific study of language. I won't go much deeper into the weeds, but essentially, the quote from McGilvray misrepresents the development of the field of linguistics.

Wanted to break out these two comments from @Wugapodes's GA review for discussion. The linguistics section is a tricky balance of giving a general introduction to jargon-laden ideas and going totally overboard in explaining concepts that will not matter to almost all readers (general audience). Open to ideas on sources that best summarize Chomsky's linguistics contributions at the correct granularity. czar 19:37, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Page load

Does anyone know what is making the page load so slow? Is it just the amount of prose and citations or some template invocation? czar 19:38, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Hmmm... The page loads almost instantly for me, but that is probably because of caching. Scrolling through diffs takes a little longer, but nothing to worry about. From the statistics embedded in the HTML:

NewPP limit report
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Lua time usage: 2.360/10.000 seconds
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Lua Profile:
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Transclusion expansion time report (%,ms,calls,template)
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Saved in parser cache with key enwiki:pcache:idhash:21566-0!userlang=en-gb and timestamp 20190824202740 and revision id 912324355

This doesn't seem unusual for a page of this size, except for the "Expensive parser function count: 42/500", which is higher than I would expect. But overall page load time isn't a problem for me (I use two laptops, one about 3yrs old running Windows 10, the other about 7yrs old, running Windows 7). --NSH001 (talk) 21:18, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Hm. Thanks for checking. It looks like it's only bad when I'm logged in and I'm getting a CPU spike whenever I open the editor so must be some script that I'm loading. czar 23:40, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Structure

Something to keep in mind for the future: Considering how the article is currently written with little overlap between his linguistics and political dissent careers, it might make more sense to eventually bifurcate his career along these lines, so we wouldn't be switching between anti-interventionism and publishing books on linguistics. (Additionally, the "Life" section is way too heavy on published works when it should be more about the arc of his career, how he arrived at doing those books, how his thought evolved over time, etc. czar 20:31, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Titling

"Chomsky's BA honors thesis was titled 'Morphophonemics of Modern Hebrew'"

83d40m, despite your edit, there is nothing wrong with the verb TITLE here. Changing it to ENTITLE is neither a change of spelling nor an improvement. -- Hoary (talk) 02:36, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Chomsky new book

Could Chomsky's new book about language theory from 2016 be added to the table of his books at the end of the article. He did not stop writing on this topic in the 1990s. Title: Why Only Us: Language and Evolution. Book by Noam Chomsky and Robert C. Berwick. CodexJustin (talk) 19:07, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

@CodexJustin, the section links all Chomsky books with their own articles (independently notable books). If Why Only Us has enough sourcing to warrant its own page, feel free to create and link it. czar 19:12, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Meant to state that it is currently not listed in the Selected bibliography section in Linguistics which ends with a 1990s entry. Its completely up to you if you think it should be listed in that Linguistics column or not. Nice to see the page count for this article starting to increase in the last week. CodexJustin (talk) 19:16, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

"Lesser evil" voting

For decades, Chomsky has advocated "lesser-evil" voting for Democratic candidates, which has been criticized by some journalists.

References

Taking this recent edit here for discussion. First, this doesn't belong in the lede because the lede is meant to summarize the article, meaning that the most important parts from the article graduate to the lede on their merits. If this is something he has advocated for decades is true and sourceable, then I have no objection to adding it to the body/prose. That said, the primary sources above are overkill. One/two good sources would suffice if they adequately make the same point. And criticized by some journalists feels evasive—if his position was actually opposed by journalists to the point where that opposition became noteworthy, again, a secondary source would say so. Citing a bunch of cursory Counterpunch op-ed mentions doesn't do that. Let's come to consensus here on the best sources/evidence before restoring the text, please. czar 01:59, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Actually, at this point. I say we just remove the whole thing from any part of the article. Spoonydude84 (talk) 03:19, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Czar, I agree with eveything you say above. --NSH001 (talk) 10:47, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

I don't. It sounds like political censorship. When someone advocates something for decades, it defintely lead worthy material. 213.226.177.25 (talk) 19:57, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

If this is a definitive aspect of Chomsky's reputation, you should have no problem finding a secondary source that describes it as such. I'll add that we've already had discussions above about the length of this article. We're beyond adding detail on the strength of primary sources alone. If it's definitive Chomsky, it should be said by a reputable source, not left to inference. czar 01:36, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

MIT as affiliated source

re: [7] @Vrrajkum, MIT is not a reputable source here for the claim that Chomsky is "widely known as the father of modern linguistics" since MIT is affiliated with the subject. If this claim is worth mentioning or indeed widely known, there should be plenty of sufficient secondary sources. (WP:EXCEPTIONAL) czar 02:47, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Indeed, I'm getting many more hits for Saussure as the "father of modern linguistics" [8][9][10][11] (And this one really has an axe to grind.) I recommend that the quote be removed until this can be resolved. czar 02:54, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

List of honorary degrees

This restored list strikes me as overkill. If the full listing was necessary (or more than trivia), a secondary source would provide it. The reference sources I've seen only include partial lists—the most notable examples. I'll note that we also call out some honorary degrees in the Vietnam War section already. Would it not be sufficient to only list the honorary degrees that have been cited by a secondary source? I don't think we can make any claim to completeness anyway. czar 18:50, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Disclosure: I'm somewhat biased in favor of keeping it in part because I am the one who spent hours tracking down the references for every single degree on the list. I'm not adamantly opposed to removing it (and I agree that it's unlikely that the list is 100% complete), but at the same time I don't think it's inconceivable that e.g. a school student doing a presentation on Chomsky -- or even a future biographer -- would use the list to mention that Chomsky has received more than 40 honorary degrees. Vrrajkum (talk) 23:31, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

I'd lean towards removing this. Perhaps it could be splintered off into a separate 'list' article? Midnightblueowl (talk) 10:49, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

 Done. I agree, and have created a new list article at List of honorary degrees awarded to Noam Chomsky, in the form of a table. The table has columns for the year awarded and "Notes" for any relevant information, for example the reason for the award, but I have not yet entered anything in these columns. If anyone wishes to add these details, or further awards, their help will be much appreciated. --NSH001 (talk) 19:16, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

This list may bemuse you. -- Hoary (talk) 13:11, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

• fwiw, I still think this split list is overkill if we lack secondary sources to describe the group of honorary degrees. I.e., if we can only support this list from primary sources, we should pare it down to the most notable honorary degrees and just include them in the main article proportionate to their coverage. It's the same for his public speeches—we only cover the ones that are most notable, since the full set is so many. czar 19:21, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

@Czar: What do you think about a completely separate awards/honors page, à la Taylor Swift? Vrrajkum (talk) 23:25, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

@Vrrajkum, potentially! List of awards and nominations received by Taylor Swift is a summary style split from Taylor Swift#Awards and achievements, since the full list is all noteworthy info that cites secondary sources but would be undue weight to shove into the main article. We should ask the same question here. What academic honors has Chomsky received that (1) have received secondary sources but (2) would be overkill for this article? Similarly, we would need more sources that cover Chomsky's honors/accolades as their own topic (WP:LISTN). There's a way to do this while including many of the honorary degrees listed, but right now that list needs way more secondary source coverage to justify itself, even if just regional newspapers covering the college's slate of honorary degrees. czar 03:40, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Kibbutz Hazorea

According to This article in Haaretz it was several months, not 6 weeks? ("Chomsky, a Jewish professor of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had spent several months at Kibbutz Hazore'a during the 1950s and had considered a longer stay in Israel." - quote) Schissel | Sound the Note! 15:01, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Here's Barsky:

In 1953, while Noam was still a member of Harvard's Society of Fellows, he and Carol decided to spend some time in Israel, a country in which both, for a long time, had thought of settling. In the end, however, they simply went and lived on a kibbutz [Ha-Zorea] for about six weeks.
— Barsky, p. 82

And Sperlich doesn't specify the length. For new sources, Linfield doesn't specify length. Fischbach says it was the summer of 1953. I'm inclined to think it was more on the order of weeks than months, but I also think the specificity is irrelevant, based on the sources so I'll remove the length of their stay from the article. czar 20:27, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

According to this page, "Junior Fellows are required to reside in Cambridge" during the academic year, which would make it unlikely that Chomsky stayed in Israel for several months. I also think that Barsky is a more reliable source than Haaretz in this particular instance. With that said, I also agree that the length of their stay isn't all that important. Vrrajkum (talk) 20:21, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

It's also reasonable to believe that the author of the Haaretz article simply paraphrased "six weeks" (which is between 1-2 months) as "several months" when she was composing the article; this would be a forgivable simplification. Vrrajkum (talk) 20:29, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

NoteTag

@Hopelesswiki: Regarding this edit, I'm unsure if using NoteTag is more appropriate from a rigorous standpoint (it may be), but to me it seems to create visual clutter in the lede. The previous format of [a][b][c] seems to me aesthetically superior than [note1][note2][note3]; thoughts? Vrrajkum (talk) 20:18, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

[a][b][c] (or [a][6][c] together) can mean anything, including [ref a], sometimes confused with other stuff like [IPA]/chem/math notation (at least aesthetically) and always confused with texts in Latin alphabet. But Note tags shows intuitively Note purposes and also correspond to the title of "Notes" section. Natually please let Note tags for Notes while ref tags for References. Further, [note 999] vs. [zzz], which seems clearer/reader-friendly? Thank you :) Hopelesswiki (talk) 20:26, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't see any consensus for this mass change of footnote style. {{efn}} is the most commonly used style for Notes sections, in my experience. I'm reverting these edits until there is talk page consensus to reinstate. And please note that drive-by cosmetic changes are generally discouraged on Wikipedia, especially with no edit summary and no prior talk page discussion. czar 22:30, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

This user was blocked for sockpuppetry. If there was anything else minorly helpful in the edit I reverted, feel free to restore piecemeal. czar 05:18, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Strike comments by indef blocked sock. Mathglot (talk) 05:24, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Altered portrait

@Wugapodes and Czar: Re: this edit, I'm unsure of the propriety of modifying the infobox photo to such an extent? A simple digital retouching I could understand (although I don't think one was needed), but I think that artificially removing the mic diminishes the authenticity of the photo. Vrrajkum (talk) 07:08, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

@Vrrajkum: It's not strange to remove elements from photos which distract from the main subject. The point of a lead photo is to show the person, and a microphone draws focus distracting the reader from the subject. Per the featured picture criteria an image where the main subject is not obscured or distracted from is superior to an image with visual clutter. I'm not sure what you find inauthentic about the image—Chomsky is still clearly depicted—but per MOS:PERTINENCE "Images should look like what they are meant to illustrate, whether or not they are provably authentic" so even if this is not an exact replica of what the photographer saw, "authenticity" is not a reason to not use an image so long as it's of better quality and depicts the subject well. — Wug·a·po·des​ 19:27, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

While true that it's less authentic, I wouldn't say that it's misleadingly inauthentic or taken out of context. On its merits, the portrait is clearer without the clutter. czar 05:30, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

GA category

I'm reverting the change in GA category. Chomsky is primarily/overall known for philosophy, not just language/literature. czar 13:15, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

@Czar: He's first and foremost a linguist, a philosopher only secondarily:

Chomsky’s intellectual life had been divided between his work in linguistics and his political activism, philosophy coming as a distant third.[12]

Also, the original GA nomination by User:Tejas Subramaniam was in the Language and literature category; how did this result in the actual GA being categorized under Philosophy and religion? Vrrajkum (talk) 22:14, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Pure analytic philosophy, sure. But even as a linguist he is best known for philosophy of language. Between that and his works of political criticism/philosophy, I'd wager that "philosophy" is the more appropriate category. czar 23:53, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Tricky question. I'd lean to giving prominence to him as a linguist, and thus including him in a language/literature section. I don't think it is fair to say that he is known primarily as a philosopher; if anything he might be best known (to the general public) as a political commentator and activist, although within academic circles it is perhaps his work in linguistics which has had the greatest impact. Midnightblueowl (talk) 13:02, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

As much as I would love to add another to the linguist category, I would agree that Chomsky is better placed in Philosophy. Most readers would know him for his political activism and anarchist philosophy, and even his work in linguistics has a broader impact than that field. His work on the Chomsky hierarchy, for example, was ostensibly about the descriptive adequacy of a generative grammar, but it's most enduring impact has been in computer science as a work of philosophical logic. I think either category is appropriate, but given his body of work and reception, philosophy is a better summary. — Wug·a·po·des​ 17:35, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

This edition by Czar is NOT the status quo because it has no consensus, so unless we reach consensus to include it, I put back the word linguist first, followed by cognitive scientist, and then philosopher and historian, which was the original lead sentence. There is no consensus that Chomsky is more known as a philosopher than as a linguist. In fact, most Wikipedia editors agree that he is foremost a linguist, and secondary a philosopher and historian. Vrrajkum, Midnightblueowl and James343e agree that he is more known as a linguist. First of all, being a political commentator is not a synonym with being a philosopher, so it is even debatable that he is a philosopher sensu stricto. Secondly, over 90% of Chomsky's academic papers have been published in journals of Linguistics, while less than 1% of his academic papers have been published in Philosophy journals. In fact, as far as I know, he only has published one article in a Philosophy journal. Thirdly, Chomsky is widely regarded as the most influential linguist of the XX century. He is like the Michael Jordan of Linguistics, the most famous linguist ever. On the other hand, it is not sure whether most academic philosophers would classify Chomsky as a "philosopher". Check it out this poll of the 40 most influential philosophers of the XX cnetury, Chomsky is not even included:

https://people.ucalgary.ca/~rzach/blog/2009/03/whos-most-famous-philosopher-of-20th-century.html

Now, try to find a poll of "the most influential linguists of the XX century" where Chomsky is not included. You won't succeed.

If you feel like political criticism can be connected to a kind of "political philosophy" (even though it is not a synonym), I am fine with including the word philosopher after linguist and cognitive scientist, and just before historian. But there is no way Chomsky is more known as a philosopher than as a linguist. Chomsky is not considered one of the most important philosophers of all time, while he is widely considered one of the most, if not the most, important linguists of all time. And the general public does not know him as a "philosopher" but rather as a linguist and political commentator (which is not a synonym with philosopher).James343e (talk) 13:24, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Bias

This Noam Chomsky article seems biased, as if a publicist wrote it. It overtly aggrandizes a living person.

As a simple example, the article has more lines, words and active links in its first paragraph than Wikipedia articles on: Jesus, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, and Nelson Mandela, among only a few deceased notables. That gives one pause.

Among living notables, based upon the same above criteria, the article dwarfs: Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. The entire article comes off as a promotion of a man and perhaps his philosophy. Virtualkelly (talk) 20:38, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Virtualkelly, do you have any specific comments on what bias there might be in this article? The number of lines, words, and active links doesn't imply bias, and visually comparing this article to others isn't particularly helpful. Are there specific sentences or paragraphs that are concerning? – Muboshgu (talk) 20:41, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Edit to reply to user... Muboshgu To answer your question: no, because it's my understanding this is not a discussion forum. Nevertheless, if I am wrong about this stipulation, I will add that in my 30 years editing news and commercial copy that length was always a factor in editing as it pertains to bias. I will add that we euphemistically called them "valentines" and "phone books." I will also add that balance is a requirement of this site. I will also add the names of Golda Meir, David Ben-Gurion and Indira Gandhi to the short-shrift-ed notables above; so perhaps one should lengthen these others? I've already done my sentence as an editor; I'm retired. Good luck. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Virtualkelly (talk • contribs) 13:27, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

@Virtualkelly, yes, this isn't a forum for general Chomsky discussion, but it is a place to discuss improving the article's content. If there is a specific passage/section that reads as biased, we can discuss and rectify it. I'm unclear as to whether you're saying the whole article is biased or just the lede/first paragraphs. If your comment is about Wikipedia content in general being uneven, well, perhaps, though I think most consider it better than the alternative. The lede paragraphs in the articles you mention are well trafficked and should be proportionate to the amount of content in the articles. I think you'll find across Wikipedia that length is not a marker of importance, but of editors trying to bring proper fidelity to the amount of secondary source coverage that exists on a topic. re: the other articles that you feel should be longer, the Wikipedia mantra is to be bold and make the changes you wish to see. If someone disagrees, you will have a discussion and discuss past precedent/policy. I'll note that the Meir, Ben-Gurion, Indira Gandhi articles each have not been peer reviewed while this Chomsky article has. This process tends to even out the articles' coverage and ensure that the lede is expanded. czar 15:48, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

"Anti-Americanism"?

The last line reads "His ideas are highly influential in the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements, but have also drawn criticism, with some accusing Chomsky of anti-Americanism." Is anti-Americanism really something you can be accused of? Imaginably what is meant here is that he is reflexively, unfairly and unduly "anti-American", but I don't think those connotations can be expected to be associated with the naked word. If we are to call this an "accusation" then there should be some further clarification/explanation. Otherwise, if for whatever reason only one criticism is to be listed here, I'd say it ought be a more substantive one.

I see the topic has been discussed before.

CampWood (talk) 18:31, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

(On a completely unrelated note: is it possible to link to a Special page, with parameters and all, without doing an external link? I only ask here as I had to do this above.) CampWood (talk) 18:35, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

It's an accusation when it's used as a pejorative, yes, and it's both how the phrase is normally meant and how it's sourced within the article's text (the lede section paraphrases sourced text below). Following the first citation:

In return he is vilified by the corporate world of power, including the mainstream press, in both the US and Europe—the German news magazine Der Spiegel has described Chomsky as 'Ayatollah des antiamerikanischen Hasses' ('the Ayatollah of anti-American hatred').

For the second question, yep, with {{search link}}. czar 02:26, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 September 2020

I would like to add a link to the Philadelphia wikipedia page where it says where he is born Mattman2864 (talk) 16:51, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

@Mattman2864, done! czar 18:09, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Jewish origin

Is there an objective reason to mention is Jewish background in the introduction?

--Vanlister (talk) 21:16, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

The lede is paraphrasing a lot of material and open to putting it differently, but per the biographical section, it's clear that his cultural upbringing played an outsized role in his early education. czar 03:33, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Rocket Labs' 'Gnome Chomsky'

Rocket Labs named its mass simulator for "Return to Sender" mission after Noam Chomsky on 19 November 2020. 162.207.203.26 (talk) 02:53, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Is there any source that covers this as noteworthy in relation to Chomsky's life? Otherwise it is presented as trivia and I doubt it would belong in the related Half-Life article either. czar 20:37, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Support for terrorist organisations, genocide and antisemitism

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

criticism of Dershowitz http://tech.mit.edu/V122/N25/col25dersh.25c.html

and a list of people http://www.paulbogdanor.com/chomskyhoax.html

Chomsky support for Hezbollah : anti-Semitic and genocidal organization on the terror list of US, Israel, EU.

Is there an objective reason not to mention those aspects of his war ideology?

--Vanlister (talk) 21:12, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

(1) Wikipedia only cites reliable, secondary sources. Surely we can do better than Dershowitz's op-ed in a student paper. If you have other sources, we can discuss. (2) This is an already long, overview article on Chomsky. We don't go into all of his political views, but cover what is most prominent in the sources. Proportionate coverage is an aspect of neutral point of view. Wikipedia has additional coverage of his political views in the summary style split article "Political positions of Noam Chomsky". czar 03:44, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

The problem is then who decide what is proportional. When you begin selecting information, you cannot pretend to be non-partisan at the same time. --Vanlister (talk) 02:47, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia editors build articles by policy and consensus. I linked to the policy that helps us determine due weight and gave a reasonable answer for how we'd consider including this kind of information. czar 06:49, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

So first you write the policy, and then you share a consensus between those who share your views. The most corrupt system I have ever seen. Maybe Chomsky should be exempted of " unfair" criticism. Habemus pampam. So censorship is deserved, so people can easily identify the very real official and trustful thuth. So smart.--Vanlister (talk) 18:51, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

It's clear you didn't read any of those links. I didn't write the policy and it's not even unreasonable here? I don't know why it would come as any surprise that editors have systems of discretion. This is an encyclopedia, not a free-for-all. czar 19:00, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Please examine righting great wrongs and gain some experience editing Wikipedia. Johnuniq (talk) 22:31, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes what we need is more experience and less academic freedom. Bureaucracy is superior, especially when it is easy to reach. Hail to the popular consensus. This editorial trick against criticism is such a just cause, therefore maybe there is no need to worry about presenting the unworthy, filthy and poor criticsm, as a gesture for the weak. It will certainly reinforce confidence in our propaganda, as the illusion of a dialectical reasoning is presented. Let's not limit ourselves, our ego deserve better. --Vanlister (talk) 02:00, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Notes section

The references in this article are fairly unwieldly. The Bibliography's length is not conducive to anyone who wants an actual bibliography on Chomsky, mainly because it contains a bunch of sources that are sourced as brief asides in the article. If instead those single-use refs were listed as Notes (alongside the other short footnotes), the bibliography would naturally pare down to a reasonable length. The idea is to shorten the bibliography by turning more of the short footnotes into the full citation (as refs 162/163/164 are currently). Wanted to check before I proceed with this. czar 06:47, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Well, if someone wants a bibliography we already have Noam Chomsky bibliography and filmography, which is linked from the article. For reasons why the citation style you suggest is so bad, see the very long pinned "thread" on my talk page here. (I put "thread" in quotes, because although it started out as a thread like any other, once the OP didn't respond it slowly developed into a place where I could record all the drawbacks of that citation style.) If that "thread" is too long to read, the main points are summarised at User talk:NSH001#Update, August/September 2020 (which is itself a sub-section of the "thread"). I also recommend reading the examples sub-page linked there User:NSH001/ETVP/examples.

It makes no sense to try to reduce the "unwieldy"-ness of the biblio list by making the "Citations" section more unwieldy. That saves nothing, besides which full citations really, really don't belong there at all, for the reasons described in the links I have given. If anything, I have been looking for ways to reduce the size of the "Citations" section, possibly by making more use of parenthetical referencing, but that has been set back by the recent RfC. (I was fully expecting that RfC to close as no consensus, so it is quite likely that after a decent interval I may wish to revisit it, either to get it reversed, or at least modified in some way.)

No, a much better way forward is to split the "Sources" section into separate sub-sections, say one for books and academic journals, and another for everything else; there are numerous other possibilities, say splitting out news sources, or cites to stand-alone web pages, or showing books and journals separately.

I have been considering for a long time adding option(s) to my ETVP script to do this sort of thing, but so far I haven't encountered a pressing need. This isn't the sort of change to the script that can be made in a day, but if you are patient, I'll see what I can do. I am very open to making reasonable changes that people might suggest for my script, and fully intend to support any reasonable citation style, with the sole proviso that it will never allow any long, horizontally formatted templates (aka "turds") to remain in place. --NSH001 (talk) 12:16, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

That's a bibliography of Chomsky. This article's section is a bibliography about Chomsky (it's actually more of a Works cited right now). That talk page link is extremely troubling, start to finish, for reasons I hope I don't have to explain ("turds"? really?) but nevertheless are tangential to this discussion: My post is about how citations appear to readers, not in the wikicode. I hope you'll let other talk page editors participate and not make this about a personal preference for line breaks in citations, which is not the point. czar 17:38, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 March 2021

I think carol chomsky died in 2009 98.143.78.4 (talk) 20:27, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

We need reliable sources for any information added. Thanks. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 20:36, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 May 2021

In politics | Michael Albert, Julian Assange, Bono, Jean Bricmont, Hugo Chávez, Zach de la Rocha, Clinton Fernandes, Norman Finkelstein, Robert Fisk, Amy Goodman, Stephen Jay Gould, Glenn Greenwald, Christopher Hitchens, Naomi Klein, Michael Moore, John Nichols, Ann Nocenti, John Pilger, Harold Pinter, Arundhati Roy, Edward Said, José M. Santana, Aaron Swartz

Jsantana0225 (talk) 21:18, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

References

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:57, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

COVID-19 vaccine

Should information about his stance on COVID-19 vaccine mandates be added to the article?[13] X-Editor (talk) 16:51, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

As biographical detail, this Twitter response strikes me as trivial. If it gets sustained coverage in multiple reliable sources, we should revisit. czar 17:01, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Influence

You may want to add Rochelle Lieber to the long list of linguists Chomsky has influenced. Heck, why not just unlock the page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.85.204.176 (talk) 07:27, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

"Influenced" people should be significant enough to be discussed in the text of the article. Please provide reliable sources to cite. czar 14:39, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

Image of Chomsky

Chomsky is old enough to have had an impact on academia for much of his career. However, he was most influential in the middle of the 20th century where he put forth his theories of language acquisition, and was arguably a more iconoclastic public intellectual with his views on the Vietnam war. Thus, should his image be changed to one of him in the 70s? Dawkin Verbier (talk) 01:30, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

I think it's arguable to say that his influence peaked in the 1970s when he continues to publish and be cited. In any event, we use the image most representative of the subject, and a more recent photograph is generally more representative than one 40 years old. czar 05:37, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Query: Web interviews

Moved from user talk:czar

Thanks for taking a look at my edits to the Chomsky page and the need to cite non-web interviews. I am still new to all of this :)

I am curious is this a standard throughout the whole of Wikipedia? Some of the information I put in there I think was novel and the interviewer has written for the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. It would be great to put some of the information in there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CarlMarks51 (talk • contribs) 19:09, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi @CarlMarks51 and welcome to Wikipedia! In general, yes, Wikipedia aims to use high-quality reliable sources. In Chomsky's case, the article is already jam-packed with reliably sourced biographical content, so the question is what essential detail do these tidbits add that is currently missing. These aspects of trivia about his tastes and likes may be interesting to a Chomsky afficionado but in that case, they should seek out such sources. The general biography is for a general audience. If there are any factoids in particular that you would like to discuss re-adding, we can discuss here. czar 05:24, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Debate on military funding's influence on Noam's thought

Moved from user talk:czar

Hi, Could you advise me how to rewrite this so it is seen as acceptable:

Chomsky has been open about who employed him at this time, saying “[MIT] was a Pentagon-based university. And I was at a military-funded lab." What effect this had on his linguistic and political ideas has been debated in Open Democracy and the London Review of Books.

References

You said "these sources do not make a point about the Pentagon affiliation; if there is something specific to say, just say it, otherwise it's aspersions".

Really sorry, but I'm not clear what is wrong. The debate at Open Democracy consisted of 10 contributions from Frederick Newmeyer, Randy Allen Harris, Chris Knight, Les Levidow, David Golumbia, Peter Jones, and Wolfgang Sperlich. The debate was all about the extent to which "Pentagon affiliation" had an effect on Chomsky's politics and linguistics. A similar debate occurred with Hilary Rose (sociologist), Chomsky and others in the London Review of Books and the debate continued in and around a UCL conference and the publication of the book: "The Responsibility of Intellectuals: Reflections by Noam Chomsky and Others After 50 Years (Nick Allott, Chris Knight, Neil Smith (linguist))". The debate also occurred in several online interviews, various book reviews and the Chronicle Of Higher Education.

Is it not relevant to say, in two short sentences, that this debate occurred in the section concerning this crucial period of Noam's academic career: 'Early career: 1955–1966'? If so, how should it be described?

Thanks!

• Allott, Nick; Knight, Chris; Smith, Neil (2019). The Responsibility of Intellectuals - Reflections by Noam Chomsky and Others after 50 years (PDF). London: UCL Press. ISBN 9781787355514.
• Golumbia, David (25 September 2018). "The Chomskyan revolution and the politics of linguistics". Open Democracy.
• Levidow, Les (6 September 2018). "The Chomsky paradox: the responsibility of intellectuals, revisited". Open Democracy.
• Lears, Jackson (4 May 2017). "Mysterian". London Review of Books. 39 (9).

Morgan1874 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 18:17, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Morgan1874, and welcome to Wikipedia! What exactly is the claim that is being made here? Chomsky is one of the most cited scholars in history—there are all kinds of discussions about him. If the claim is that military funding helped shape his ideology or thoughts, then sure that could be relevant, and we would include such information on the strength of the source that said it. This is a long article with many high-quality, biographical sources, so the standard for inclusion is above the aspersion that something might have influenced him. If something noteworthy came from the debates you mentioned, I would expect we could find a more precise and vetted claim from a source secondary to the debate. czar 18:34, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Kyle Kulinski as an Influencee of Chomsky

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I'd like to add a new influencee to the list (politics).

Kyle Kulinski is a leftist political commentator, co-founder of Justice Democrats, and a podcast host with Krystal Ball.

-He has repeatedly called Noam Chomsky an "idol" of his, namely in the introduction to an interview with Noam Chomsky himself.

Please see: https://krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/p/episode-6-audio-noam-chomsky?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo5NTQ5NTQxLCJwb3N0X2lkIjozMjI3MjQ2MiwiXyI6IlhRTVlXIiwiaWF0IjoxNjEyNjY4NjkwLCJleHAiOjE2MTI2NzIyOTAsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0yNTA4NDUiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.ZOYgz9lPW_7Kw6dEF6nUZiIUs5eu1Ru_XKIehpoLpNg LyonsDen1995 (talk) 16:24, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

-Also,

Please see a 2017 article by Jacobin, (left wing news magazine), in which Kyle Kulinski is described as having been influenced by Chomsky, specifically in regard to the War in Iraq.

Please read: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/03/kyle-kulinski-bernie-bros-secular-talk-joe-rogan-youtube — Preceding unsigned comment added by LyonsDen1995 (talk • contribs) 17:38, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Hi @LyonsDen1995, per the infobox guidelines (WP:INFLUENCES), those listed as major influences and acolytes should be discussed in the body of the article to warrant mentioning in the infobox. Given the length of this article and the wide influence of its subject, there has to be an exceptional reason to warrant an individual's mention in the prose and infobox. czar 18:33, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

@Czar,

I see your point. However, I would argue that this mention is relevant enough to warrant mention in the infobox (as an "acolyte".) Kulinski's online views are in the hundreds of millions, and his philosophy is recognized as being based largely on Chomsky's work.

LyonsDen1995 (talk) 18:45, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Kulinski's online views are in the hundreds of millions That is not at all relevant to Chomsky. and his philosophy is recognized as being based largely on Chomsky's work. By who? Citations needed. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:52, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

@Muboshgu

The question is did Chomsky significantly influence the individual who participates in politics. This is explained in the cited Jacobin article, and in the interview with Chomsky. That's the relevant part. When I mentioned online views, I was referring to the noteworthiness in general (in left wing politics, Chomsky's wheelhouse). Someone who commands a wide audience, founded a left wing PAC, assisted in notable elections, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LyonsDen1995 (talk • contribs) 19:08, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

The question here is not whether Chomsky influenced Kulinski (which would be fine to include in Kulinski's biography article) but if the former is true, how that is relevant to Chomsky's own biography. The list in the infobox needs to be pruned based on the guideline I linked, but the truth is that there are many individuals that could be listed there. The point is for the infobox to collect the most prominent examples. czar 20:33, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Please enlighten me on what criteria makes someone a most prominent example. He is at the very least on equal footing with someone like Glenn Greenwald, who made the list with no objections. LyonsDen1995 (talk) 00:34, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

The article currently does not do a good job of discussing his acolytes and, as I mentioned, the list in the infobox needs to be trimmed. If it were to be trimmed for the guideline, it would be empty of all "influenced" save for maybe John Backus, Niels Kaj Jerne, and Donald Knuth, who are mentioned in the article. I think it's fine to leave to leave your addition for now (thank you!) and someone will eventually clean up that whole section. czar 03:17, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Fair. Thanks for not just removing it.

LyonsDen1995 (talk) 15:16, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

"Genocide Denial" or "Controversial Opinions on Genocide"

Given Chomsky's life-long, strongly-held opinions on "genocide" as a label used in contemporary international politics, his prominence as an international political theorist, and the numerous occasions in which he has publicly stated that "he doesn't believe a genocide is going on in such-and-such a place," I think it might be worth it to establish a sub-section in which these various instances are concentrated. Whether it was his contemporary actions during the Cambodian genocide in the 70s, his controversial defense of French holocaust denier Faurisson in the 80s, his refusal to acknowledge the systemic genocide of Bosnians during the 90s, his foreword for a book denying the Rwandan genocide, and current opinions on the ethnic cleansing in Ukraine--it might be worth adding as a coherent topic area under that section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Closkeian (talk • contribs) 20:29, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Considering that this is a WP:BLP, do you have any citations about this to present? – Muboshgu (talk) 20:50, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

One source that would qualify https://quillette.com/2018/07/15/devastation-and-denial-cambodia-and-the-academic-left/

Relevant except: "However, Chomsky’s highly evasive manoeuvring doesn’t accurately capture his former position at all, or account for the copious derision he had emptied over those he accused of alarmism. In assessing Ponchaud’s dramatic claims of deaths, Chomsky had previously written, “We wonder, frankly, whether Ponchaud really believes such figures.”13

In his 1979 book After the Cataclysm, co-written with Edward S. Herman, Chomsky invites us to consider historian Ben Kiernan’s hypothesis that the Khmer Rouge leaders never properly established discipline over insubordinate soldiers: “[Kiernan] notes that most of the atrocity stories come from areas of little Khmer Rouge strength, where orders to stop reprisals were disobeyed by soldiers wreaking vengeance, often drawn from the poorest sections of the peasantry.”14 According to this theory, atrocities were chiefly carried out by unaffiliated peasants unmotivated by party ideology."

HoboDyerProjection (talk) 21:45, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

This other source could be used to add a section on Chomsky's controversial views on the use of genocide, as it contains a direct quote of Chomsky arguing that the Srebrenica massacre should not be called a genocide.

"The mass slaughter in Srebrenica, for example, is certainly a horror story and major crime, but to call it “genocide” so cheapens the word as to constitute virtual Holocaust denial, in my opinion." https://www.monbiot.com/2012/05/21/2181/

HoboDyerProjection (talk) 21:58, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

One more addition from me, which most notably contains a quote from Chomsky about the Serbian concentration camps in Bosnia and Herzegovina: "In a 2006 interview, Chomsky reiterated the claim: "It was a refugee camp, I mean, people could leave if they wanted,""

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/the-west-s-leftist-male-intellectuals-who-traffic-in-genocide-denial-1.5626759 HoboDyerProjection (talk) 22:17, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 April 2022

Remove "Immunologist Niels Kaj Jerne's 1984 Nobel lecture applied Chomsky's generative grammar theory to the immune response process." section (due to non-importance), or change (after "Nobel lecture") to "analogised the immune response process to Chomsky's generative grammar theory".

Since influencing someone's lecture is not equivalent to motivating their research. Song12301 (talk) 14:23, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. It is still part of his influence in academia. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:38, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Remove or change Nobel lecture section in academic influences

Remove "Immunologist Niels Kaj Jerne's 1984 Nobel lecture applied Chomsky's generative grammar theory to the immune response process." section (due to non-importance), or change (after "Nobel lecture") to "analogised the immune response process to Chomsky's generative grammar theory".

Since influencing someone's lecture is not equivalent to motivating their research. And I feel that influencing someone's lecture is not necessarily a big academic achievement (compared to the other two researchers, who implemented Chomsky's ideas into their own seminal work).

Currently, it reads as if Chomsky influenced Jerne's work. Thus, if this paragraph is still to be included, it should emphasise that Jerne "analogised" his work to Chomsky's work (as shown in the nobel lecture Jerne gave), rather than "applied" it to his work.

Song12301 (talk) 00:45, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Chomsky’s view on Cambodian massacres by Pol Pot’s regime

To know Chomsky any biography should include his views on Cambodian massacres as well as a question that brings up the topic of how a linguist has been introduced as a philosopher. 108.194.235.71 (talk) 23:36, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Both of these issues are discussed in the article. If you have a particular edit to suggest, please propose it here, stating exactly what text you wish to add or remove. RolandR (talk) 00:50, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Pronunciation of name

How is his name pronounced? Is the "ch" as in "cheese" or as in, say, "Bach"? Esedowns (talk) 23:18, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

"ch" as in cheese czar 21:48, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Recent events and lead

More should be added about Chomsky's views on Ukraine, currently it only mentions that he condemned the invasion.

Also, the lead seems a bit too laudatory, it would help to include some balance. Rousillon (talk) 22:10, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

This article doesn't cover all of Chomsky's many political views, only the ones that have had significant secondary source discourse to factor into what a general reader would need to know about his general biography. The Political positions of Noam Chomsky article goes into more depth.

Feel free to expand on what you think the lede needs. czar 21:56, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

"Genocide Denial" or "Controversial Opinions on Genocide"

Given Chomsky's life-long, strongly-held opinions on "genocide" as a label used in contemporary international politics, his prominence as an international political theorist, and the numerous occasions in which he has publicly stated that "he doesn't believe a genocide is going on in such-and-such a place," I think it might be worth it to establish a sub-section in which these various instances are concentrated. Whether it was his contemporary actions during the Cambodian genocide in the 70s, his controversial defense of French holocaust denier Faurisson in the 80s, his refusal to acknowledge the systemic genocide of Bosnians during the 90s, his foreword for a book denying the Rwandan genocide, and current opinions on the ethnic cleansing in Ukraine--it might be worth adding as a coherent topic area under that section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Closkeian (talk • contribs) 20:29, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Considering that this is a WP:BLP, do you have any citations about this to present? – Muboshgu (talk) 20:50, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

One source that would qualify https://quillette.com/2018/07/15/devastation-and-denial-cambodia-and-the-academic-left/

Relevant except: "However, Chomsky’s highly evasive manoeuvring doesn’t accurately capture his former position at all, or account for the copious derision he had emptied over those he accused of alarmism. In assessing Ponchaud’s dramatic claims of deaths, Chomsky had previously written, “We wonder, frankly, whether Ponchaud really believes such figures.”13

In his 1979 book After the Cataclysm, co-written with Edward S. Herman, Chomsky invites us to consider historian Ben Kiernan’s hypothesis that the Khmer Rouge leaders never properly established discipline over insubordinate soldiers: “[Kiernan] notes that most of the atrocity stories come from areas of little Khmer Rouge strength, where orders to stop reprisals were disobeyed by soldiers wreaking vengeance, often drawn from the poorest sections of the peasantry.”14 According to this theory, atrocities were chiefly carried out by unaffiliated peasants unmotivated by party ideology." HoboDyerProjection (talk) 21:45, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

This other source could be used to add a section on Chomsky's controversial views on the use of genocide, as it contains a direct quote of Chomsky arguing that the Srebrenica massacre should not be called a genocide.

"The mass slaughter in Srebrenica, for example, is certainly a horror story and major crime, but to call it “genocide” so cheapens the word as to constitute virtual Holocaust denial, in my opinion." https://www.monbiot.com/2012/05/21/2181/ HoboDyerProjection (talk) 21:58, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

One more addition from me, which most notably contains a quote from Chomsky about the Serbian concentration camps in Bosnia and Herzegovina: "In a 2006 interview, Chomsky reiterated the claim: "It was a refugee camp, I mean, people could leave if they wanted,""

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/the-west-s-leftist-male-intellectuals-who-traffic-in-genocide-denial-1.5626759 HoboDyerProjection (talk) 22:17, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Added this back because it was archived prematurely. I made a bit of a mess accidentally posting it twice; mobile editing is not ideal. HoboDyerProjection (talk) 09:18, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia classifies Quillette as a generally unreliable source. To make the claim you're attempting to make, I would expect there to be a round-up academic article that analyzes his statements across various genocides. Any unified statement of what Chomsky does and does not term a genocide should have a solid reliable source and not be our own original research from various Chomsky quotes. czar 03:07, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for adding that information. I think your assessment of what would be required to support the initial claim is rather fair. On that note, I stumbled across a paper by Adam Jones (link below) essentially does exactly that. For the sake of brevity, an excerpt from its conclusion to give everyone a general idea: "Noam Chomsky’s approach to the discourse of “genocide” may best be described as conflicted. On one hand, he is justifiably cynical about the manipulative and politicized ways in which the term has often been employed (...) However, with the exception of Nazi genocide, the destruction of indigenous peoples in the Americas, and possible future genocides, Chomsky’s use of “genocide” is hedged with key reservations and qualifications: one is much more likely to find references to “near-genocide,” “virtual genocide,” or “approaching genocide,” and he is readier to cite others’ claims of genocide, albeit supportively, than to advance them without the attendant quotation marks."

Overall, the paper is an exhaustive review of Chomsky's comments on genocide and provides meaningful insights on the matter.

https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/gsp/vol14/iss1/8

HoboDyerProjection (talk) 07:36, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

James McGilvray

I recently created a draft for James McGilvray, the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Chomsky and the author of Chomsky: Language, Mind, and Politics. Does he appear notable enough for an article? Any help with sourcing would be appreciated. Thank you, Thriley (talk) 16:29, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Anti-Chomsky Reader

Are there any objections to including this book in the see also section? Its description seems relevant to the topic and it isn't mentioned in the article anywhere I can see, the only objections I've seen were that Chomsky's works should be included as well but that doesn't make much of a reason to exclude this in the meanwhile. I'm planning on restoring it given what I think was a mistake in its latest removal but it'd be good to hear if there are concerns. XeCyranium (talk) 02:55, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

I do not know who Peter Collier is, but I do know about David Horowitz. When I went to see Chomsky speak at my university in early 2002, I believe, College Republicans came to the line to be admitted and handed out pamphlets written by Horowitz with a photo of Chomsky superimposed onto Osama bin-Laden's body and titled "The Ayatollah of Anti-American Hate". (Aside, I met Chomsky at the end and got him to autograph one for me, which is why I remember the title. I have it in my desk right now.) My point is, Horowitz is a crank he does not publish scholarly work. It will not be included along with whatever other hate speech and partisan attacks that you want to include. – Muboshgu (talk) 03:11, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

Please don't forget to be civil, I didn't try to insert any hate speech or partisan attacks and it's wrong of you to make assertions that I'm some kind of monster because I disagreed with an edit reason I saw in the page's history. From what I can tell your objection is that you don't like one of the authors of the book, I've got no real opinion on them given I know nothing about them aside from their authorship but more importantly our personal estimations of and anecdotes about the authors aren't really relevant. What's important is it's relevancy to Chomsky himself and how notable it is, given it's a book about him it seems plenty relevant and it's notability doesn't seem to be in question given its page.XeCyranium (talk) 03:35, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

I am not being uncivil, to you. Maybe I'm uncivil to Horowitz, but he's not here. I am supporting Czar's objection. They have worded their objections better than I, I admit. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:41, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

You accusing me personally of planning to include hate speech and partisan attacks implies, or really just outright means, that I support hate speech and partisan attacks. I think you can understand why it's hard to read you claiming I plan on adding more hate speech, when I've done nothing of the sort, as anything but you being uncivil.XeCyranium (talk) 18:29, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

Also, for the future, WP:BRD means bold, revert, discuss. It is not, bold, revert, reinsert, discuss. It stays out until there is a consensus to include it, it doesn't go back in until there's a consensus to exclude it. – Muboshgu (talk) 03:18, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't mean to annoy but as my edit summary tried to make clear I reverted because the second removal was seemingly based on a mistake, as is indicated by the edit summary in which the user thought the see also section was actually a section for works by the subject.XeCyranium (talk) 03:39, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

I feel I should also point out that I was the "R" in this situation, I reverted an edit I saw a problem with. Without starting a discussion another editor reverted my revert for a reason that they now realize was a mistake. Following BRD it would been their responsibility to open a discussion.XeCyranium (talk) 05:16, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

So far it was removed because one editor thought it shouldn't be included because that editor believed there should be more mentions of Chomsky's works and until there were nothing else should be added to the see also section, this is the original edit I disagreed with and reverted. The next edit was done in mistake by an editor who believed they were removing the book from Chomsky's bibliography which I reverted as well. Now the objection is that David Horowitz is a bad person, which is probably true but is also irrelevant to whether or not his book on Chomsky can be mentioned in an article about Chomsky. Aside from that are there reasons that it's such a big deal that a book about the article subject is in the see also section? XeCyranium (talk) 05:09, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I said my edit summary was in error and yes, you're right that it was originally in the See also section since at least earlier this year, but the point of discussion is that there is disagreement now. After reviewing the sources in The Anti-Chomsky Reader, apart from one, they're all right-wing reviews writing on a polemical, self-published book. I'd suggest that we merge that article to Noam Chomsky bibliography with a short summary of the reviews but I don't see how we could support a full article on the topic based on the current sourcing. I also don't see what value it offers for linking to it from here. czar 07:15, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

So the sourcing on the book itself is poor, that makes sense to me as to why it shouldn't be included.XeCyranium (talk) 15:38, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

I agree that the author mentioned does not publish scholarly work and is not notable in the relevant field. Just another desperate hack job. (him, not the wiki editor)

Also, just a sidenote. We should be civil but there's also a time to call a spade a spade. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LyonsDen1995 (talk • contribs) 02:31, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

"Noam Chomsky/Comments from Chomsky" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Noam Chomsky/Comments from Chomsky and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 December 1#Noam Chomsky/Comments from Chomsky until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 09:09, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Featured status

Would anyone be interested in helping to take this article to featured status? We'll need to review all citations in the article to confirm that they match the contents (and without close paraphrasing/copyvio). This will take a while. Anyone interested in claiming a section to verify? czar 04:35, 3 December 2022 (UTC)