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That video you sent is funny because it shows Sowell contradicting himself. He says public intellectuals create demand for their own work by exploiting their a
by m52go 10y ago
That video you sent is funny because it shows Sowell contradicting himself.
He says public intellectuals create demand for their own work by exploiting their authority in one field to claim authority in others. Example he gives: Noam Chomsky. Genius in linguistics who exploited that fame to become a political commentator.
Does Chomsky's background in linguistics really give him any standing to be a political commentator? No.
Sowell is an academic economist. His specialty is social trends concerning topics like race, minimum wage, affirmative action, welfare, etc.
Should he really be commenting on global warming? No!
Check out Sowell's work on social issues and I think you'll find it more attractive (at least intellectually attractive, because you might disagree with it, which is totally okay).
- CalChris 10y agoIf you are comparing Sowell and Chomsky then Sowell will come up noticeably short. First, Chomsky is a towering figure in linguistics. He's emeritus at MIT, taught at IAS. Really. Genius in linguistics who exploited that fame Wow. Name another famous linguistics academic who's exploited the fame we bestow upon linguistics academics. Sowell has a sinecure at Hoover. He's a towering figure at ... ?
- m52go 10y ago> If you are comparing Sowell and Chomsky then Sowell will come up noticeably short. If you carefully reread my comment, you'll notice I didn't compare the two.
- CalChris 10y agoYou may wish to carefully re-read your own writing. You'll find that when you ask the same rhetorical question about two subjects in parallel that most people are gonna say that you've implicitly compared them.