Noam Chomsky doesn’t really use the Internet for social media. But he’s got an opinion about it anyway. He thinks the Internet is full of people who can’t read that want to talk about sandwiches.
Although Chomsky doesn’t use social media, he says he can feel its effects. He’s annoyed that people email him with letters that contain only one sentence. He thinks that people are just sending out their ideas, talking without thinking about them first. That’s probably true. But where’s the insight?
Here’s a video of Chomsky with some real insight, and it’s meaty. Like a sandwich!
21 comments
I’m no fan of Chomsky’s politics, but when it comes to language and how it is used he is one of the sharper knives in the drawer. I do use social media and have to agree with Chomsky’s apparent point that social media and the internet in general has brought instant gratification expectations to the arena of information as well as lowering expectations for depth of content. Expressions have become more spurious and less well thought out, and on the receiving end, people don’t want to put energy into reading an answer more complex than one sentence. The resultant communication is with a primordial limited vocabulary of chirps and beeps about a similarly constrained range of reality. Like, LOL, ttyl. Depth of dialog, forethought, and parsing are out of style while speed, surface, and more frequent broadcast of low-shelf-life sound-bites fill the large gaps left behind.
Don’t know why you would be opposed to Chomsky’s politics, he is a true champion of liberty and also very wise.
He voted for Obama in spite of all the glaring evidence of reasons not to. Need I write more?
Well? Just shows a great thinking can get caught up in the stir of a two party system and a candidate that promises change. Show me some of his opinions you disagree with, and not a comment about his voting for Obama. He obviously doesn’t appreciate Obama now.
Benjamin Kerstein (at link below) speaks well to all the points that have formed my views, especially with regards to the Pol Pot travesty. It is probably his intellectual hubris that is the most repelling aspect.
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/noam-chomsky-last-totalitarian
(not sure if this site just deep sixes posts with links or if the moderator is working extra hard, but here goes the 3rd try) Benjamin Kerstein (at link below) speaks well to all the points that have formed my views, especially with regards to the Pol Pot travesty. It is probably his intellectual hubris that is the most repelling aspect.
h t t p : //www . worldaffairsjournal . org/blog/michael-j-totten/noam-chomsky-last-totalitarian
Yes, I saw it and even tried to reply to it but I couldn’t because it was still awaiting moderation. I’ll put a much condensed version of my earlier post. That’s a good critique of Noam Chomsky, and I could understand the dislike of him. However, that’s old… he’s obviously a different person now but that does not mean he is not doing what he does for the celebrity status. However, I agree with him on the United States being allied with Nazi Germany. It’s widely known about all the Nazi agents being allowed to live here and serve in our CIA. I think calling him the last totalitarian is hilarious also as it ignores the fact that our government is totalitarian in it’s rule even with many different branches and people involved.
I forgot the 23rd rule internet interaction:
Never attempt rational discourse with a true fan.
I wish you the best, Dylan, really I do. But you will get nowhere, imho, worshiping the perspiration from big toe of Noam. Allied with Nazi Germany. Wow. That would explain the Nazi’s sinking of hundreds of our commercial craft off our own coasts, our massive bombing of Berlin, Dresden, invasion of Normandy, and mutual slaughter of each others troops and mutual destruction of billions in hardware and so many other events that Noam must consider “false flags”. Amazing.
Let’s just call this done, Ok? Let’s agree to disagree.
Let’s just say that certain alliances go deeper than others. I also acknowledged that Noam may be a whore for the attention and not true to his words, but I guess that still counts as worship to you.
My first introduction to Chomksy was when studying natural language processing in college. His work on generative grammars is really cool. It was 2 years before I realized he even had a political side I was so immersed in his linguistic writings. As a linguist, he is really sharp. But he tries to take his aptitude for a formal system like linguistics, and assume it transfers to the more chaotic world at large with disastrous intellectual results.
Benjamin Kerstein (at link below) speaks well to all the points that have formed my views, especially with regards to the Pol Pot travesty. It is probably his intellectual hubris that is the most repelling aspect.
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/noam-chomsky-last-totalitarian
At first I thought this was going to be demeaning to Chomsky but I noticed the tone changed rather quickly! I was going to have to school you on Chomsky and his mastery of liberty.
Except that he thinks the liberty movement in America is in support of slavery to corporations.
Well, some of the money behind it is, and that’s the truth. I’m a big fan of the liberty movement but I understand like all political movements there is dirty money under it and there is an explosion of dirty money under the liberty money just as there is an explosion of popularity among it. I’m not dissatisfied with these things, but it is worthy of note.
So is it doubleplusgood or plusbad? Can I agree with Chomsky’s language analysis and yet disagree with his politics? If so, is the “tone” good or bad? Which is it? Can it be more complicated than good tone / bad tone? You are kind of making Chomsky’s point that communications have gotten too simplistic.
You’re making the point that unnecessarily complicated is unnecessary. Chomsky is spot-on but two-line quips are where it’s at, I don’t care how simplistic it is.
You are what, 20-ish years old? I sometimes miss the incredible conviction I had in my views back then. Wait until you are 50+, you might be surprised out how much realization you have yet to experience. Back to the topic: How can Chomsky be “spot-on” but two-line quips be “where its at”? That doesn’t even make sense. It is emotive bullying at best and discards rational discourse as not being a big enough hammer or something along those lines.
Chomsky is spot-on in his assessment, yet I still enjoy using two-line quips and I feel I use them effectively.
Define “effectively”. You haven’t convinced me of anything other than that you feel really proud of your two-line quip strategy. But as long as you *feel* you use them effectively. And as long as you *enjoy* it. Those are the important parts I suppose. Ah, to be young again.
Actually, there’s no reason to. What you just posted was meaningless and not worthy of discussion. See how great quips are?
Overly clever. (yawn)