Steve, to reply to your question about Chomsky. In 1970, I went to a
meeting of the AAAS where Chomsky spoke. I was very eager to hear him,
because, as you might remember, he was one of the leading, if not
loudest, critics of the Vietnam War, and I agreed with that criticism.
After he'd spoken, somebody from the audience asked: But Professor
Chomsky--don't you take money from the Defense Department in the form
of contracts or grants? Isn't that somewhat hypocritical?
Professor Chomsky squirmed only a little, and then dismissed his
questioner with a what-do-I-care? answer. I was much younger then,
and hadn't often run into that kind of cynicism. Sad to say, I have
since. He may have been right with everything else he ever said or did
(though I don't think so) but that raised my skepticism about the man
to the utmost, and I've never got over it.
On May 9, 2011, at 2:43 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
Siddarth -
http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/noam_chomsky_my_reaction_to_os/
Noam Chomsky... I love that man's clarity and directness. I can
only imagine the conversations in the White House whenever he speaks
up...
Bush/Cheney: "Can't we just disappear him? I *am* the decider, and
that is what I decide!"
Obama: "Shit, he's right... shit... did he really have to say
that? shit."
Clinton/Clinton/Gore: "He's a really bright man, I wish he would
just come over to our side!"
I've wondered for decades if a man like Chomsky could ever have a
role in a US administration (aside from the inconvenient academic
gadfly I presume most administrations dismiss him as).
Imagine what the US's posture in the world might look like if the
sitting president always had someone as clear and direct as Noam
Chomsky sitting next to her. Imagine if every evening they sat
down to review the day's events and Noam did that quiet, level,
clear, (almost?) non-blaming analysis of the (clearly intentional?)
fuckups going on in our government *every day*!
I hope that after Obama is out of office that his memoirs will
include what he was thinking every time Chomsky quietly pointed out
his (and other's) glaring errors in action.
In reviewing his Wikipedia entry, I found reference to him being the
8th most cited author of all time and *most* cited living author.
It does not bear directly onto the "Mapping Scientific Output"
symposium tomorrow at the Hilton but onto a much larger domain of
"Mapping the Contemporary Evolution of Human Knowledge" perhaps.
- Steve
PS. I'm sure there are those here who do not hold Chomsky in as
high of esteem as I do (it started when I first studied his work in
Linguistics), and while I'm not interested in the (usually right-
wing?) ad hominem attacks I'm already too familiar with, I *would*
appreciate any useful criticism of the man and his political
opinions. He is one purveyor of "inconvenient truths" to a great
many people.
epilogue :
http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/noam_chomsky_my_reaction_to_os/
(- no fake quotes here!)
...
The killing was easy , the understanding is difficult.
It takes no great skill to kill, any brute can do it, it is a much
greater challenge to keep something alive.
How do we model stupifaction of real people?
Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD
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"Her passage through her early years was a negotiation between her
unruliness and society's tamings."
Molly Peacock
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