Next Decoding: Chomsky... suggestions for sources?

Looking forward to this. In my teens Chomsky was my guru.

Oliver Bostridge

He certainly did in the 60s. He kickstarted the cognitive revolution for heaven's sake.

Oliver Bostridge

Sure his poverty of the stimulus argument re: inbuilt capacity for language has fallen out of favour but he is one of the most widely cited linguists of all time

Samantha Rae

Not massively recent, but IMO fairly damning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf474b-pmf8 . Starts right, goes very wrong

Tom Bealby

He certainly sees himself as a polymath. He hasn't had the same success in his actual field of linguistics as he has writing popular books about world politics.

2LegHumanist

Chomsky at his best is Manufacturing Consent or more just talking about left economics and liguistics, Chomsky at his worst is any more modern geo politics takes.

Anonymous ethicist, not a serial killer at all, just asking questions.

Does the debate with William Buckley jr count as recent? 🤣

Paul Sees

As much criticism I can lobe onto Chomsky. Sam understanding of history and geopolitics is severely lacking.

Donkey kong

Just saw a recent 37min interview with Noam Chomsky and Piers Morgan where they covered a lot of topics.

Chris Wishy

I'm not sure it's quite correct that Chomsky's one-sided anti-Americanism dates only from since 1989. Himself and co-author Ed Hermann disputed the Khmer Rouge genocide from 77-79 and there's a validation of their previous position in 88's Manufacturing Consent. Hermann later went full genocide denialist over the Rwandan genocide. But Chomsky, wisely, did not follow his erstwhile colleague into that one. Nonetheless there is a through line from the 70s to his current position on the Ukraine.

Paul Bowman

I picture the shoutoutotron as being 1,000 times more complex than the gurometer.

brianshmrian

Sam looked like a full on moron.

Tobias nilsson

He was to much of an anarchist to mindlessly defend the soviets during the cold war so he wasnt an old school tankie for sure. After the fall of the soviet union his general aproach became "america is the only world power and hence everything that happens anywhere is americas fault". Over time this made him into an apologist for lots of weird things from serbian warcrimes to syrian apologetics and onto his weird position that NATO expansion is cuasing the war in ukraine and not Putins act of aggresion

Klas Bergholtz

https://youtu.be/OHAndY1GsVc

Maytree

https://youtu.be/mEYJMCydFNI

Maytree

https://youtu.be/TQ-Crh3rdQA;

Maytree

Another issue with the so-called .analysis. From the video, a quote from Chomsky (12:39): "... if you look at the British Parliamentary inquiry, they come to the astonishing conclusion that, until January 1999, most of the crimes committed in Kosovo were attributed to KLA guerillas" The narrator presents a screenshot of this: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/cmdfence/347/34707.htm#a1 The narrator goes on to say that the British inquiry came to no such conclusion, but instead says this: "The Kosovo Albanian population, who were suffering from greater atrocities than the Serb population and KLA attacks were mostly focussed on Serb policemen, [112] while Serb action often focussed on unarmed civilians" I have no doubt that some report somewhere says what the narrator says, but I couldn't find it in the given British publication, instead I found this relevant quote: (part II, paragraph 35) "The Foreign Secretary told the House on 18 January 1999 that— On its part, the Kosovo Liberation Army has committed more breaches of the ceasefire, and until this weekend was responsible for more deaths than the [Yugoslav] security forces.[84]" Conclusion: Chomsky is closer to correct than the narrator. The youtube video plays fast and loose with the facts.

Kat

I partially watched the video, and I think it does some of the things it accuses Chomsky of. For example, looking at around 9:15, he quotes Chomsky referencing Wheeler as saying ony 500 Albanians had been killed prior to the NATO bombing. The narrator states that Wheeler doesn't say who killed them or their ethnicity. But the Wheeler quote does say their ethnicity. Similarly, he accuses Chomsky of defending Milosevic. But Chomsky doesn't exactly defend Milosevic, he says the add-on charges against him were difficult to prove.

Kat

Have you heard about the failed attempt by Sam Harris to reach to to Chomsky by e-mail? Harris published the whole exchange because it was quite ridiculous at points. Perhaps you could use it as an opening.

Tomasz

I agree the Chomsky-Dershowitz debate would be good and in any case you should take something from when he was more vibrant. Here's a sample: https://www.democracynow.org/2005/12/23/noam_chomsky_v_alan_dershowitz_a

Kat

maybe this one? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h0qdbsE3Jqo

Georg Tarne

Recent Conversations with Tyler episode.

Cillian McCotter

🤦🏻‍♂️

Donkey kong

Wasn’t he always a bit of a tankie?

Donkey kong

What do you think about his Ukraine take?

Donkey kong

I know that's not a source for decoding but it's a really good Chomsky analysis. Maybe someone will be interested. https://youtu.be/VCcX_xTLDIY

Marius Rutkauskas

Bah, :) just bah

bron stoll-engelsen

bron stoll-engelsen

Also, I've been a patron for a long time but still no shout out

Klas Bergholtz

https://youtu.be/kfYuxn3Lj0o Is a good exemple of his contet that made him the preeminent leftist for alot of us elder millenial types. Came out around 2002 and really gave voice to an alternative to 90s indifference and post 911 jingoism. It captivated me and alot of other people and watching his decent into tankie has been really sad

Klas Bergholtz

He's been on Katie Halper recently. The old debate between him and Foucault might be a a good source

Anjani

Labour won in 2017, apparently: https://youtu.be/T7euc5WZbCw?t=0

Infinite Guff