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Chomsky has interesting ideas whether you fully agree or not. On language, human language has intricate rules that we can't fully explain in terms of the under
by farright 10y ago
Chomsky has interesting ideas whether you fully agree or not.
On language, human language has intricate rules that we can't fully explain in terms of the underlying neurobiology. But Chomsky's assertion that this implies some sort of underlying mechanism in the brain strikes me as excessively reductionist. Maybe neural networks are inherently capable of learning arbitrary rules, and the kinds of rules that comprise natural languages are constrained not by the brain, but by something else, e.g. maybe only some kinds of grammatical rules are stable over time as languages are subject to random drift.
On politics, Chomsky gives a very thorough critique of US foreign policy, but it is excessively materialist, i.e. it assumes the main driving force in politics is money and power, not ideology. Often this seems far fetched, e.g. US politicians are clearly very eager to please the Jewish lobby (e.g. AIPAC) but according to Chomsky it's the Jewish lobby that has been co-opted by the US in order to use Israel as a tool for US foreign policy. And yet in all the private discussions of all US presidents, all we hear is them being pushed to the right by the Jewish lobby. We never hear them saying "the Middle East is too stable, Jews and Arabs are starting to form solidarity and oppose US imperialism. Quick, pressure Israel to take a harder line".
- jessaustin 10y agoThat's a great example for ideology > material interest, but in both the Middle East and the world as a whole it's an exception to the general rule. It's amusing that Chomsky resorts to epicycles rather than simply making an exception...
- throawaybay 10y agoIt's all about oil, land and water. Ideology is about your country being the best. Everything else is irrelevant.
- berntb 10y agoThat seems naive in an anti-naive way? :-) When I look at the foreign policy of my country (Sweden), it seems a large part of it is decided as part of internal political posturing. Tail wagging the dog, etc. I'm not as knowledgeable about the US politics, but it seems to not be as bad -- but still a large influence.
- acqq 10y ago> a large part of it is decided as part of internal political posturing I agree that not "everything" on the lowest level (single politicians) is simply "oil" but even looking at your example the motivation on the lower level is surely to keep the power and influence by these who already have it and to get the power and influence for these who don't have it. The next step is to ask what the power and influence does in total, what are the interests of the whole systems.
- blahi 10y agoThere's quite the difference in priorities, objectives, means and constraints between some small and insignificant country and the world's hegemon.
- mikevm 10y agoHow "powerful" would the Jewish lobby be if support for Israel among Americans was not at 62%[1]? [1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/189626/americans-views-toward-israel-remain-firmly-positive.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/189626/americans-views-toward-isr...
- gotofritz 10y agoIt's kind of chicken and egg though, isn't it?
- Synaesthesia 10y agoThere are instances where Chomsky does show that US policy often is ideologically motivated, for instance the Vietnam war which he notes, "could have ended in 1965" as the major aims had been achieved - the region had been inoculated as Indonesia had fallen and Vietnam was devastated.