Two or more generations of left activists have grown up reading Noam #Chomsky's fearless exposure of the US imperium.

@RadicalAnthro

There is no dichotomy. Chomsky’s work, whether linguistic or political, has always been the ephemeral fluff of a blowhard. Proclamations without worry about evidence constructed to “feel” right. I recall watching à talk by him about an Israeli atrocity that included a number he pulled out of his ass. He said - you can look it up- and the website included a citation to facilitate that. The citation cited a different source, which looped back to Chomsky making the same claim in an earlier talk. It was true, Chomsky believed, because HE said it was true. To challenge his claim was unthinkable to him. His scientific work, better couched as theoretical speculation, worked the same way. He ignored Epstein’s crimes because Epstein flattered him. It’s that simple. Imho.

@LaNaehForaday I am very sorry to hear what happened to you (I have some serious family dysfunction too).

Of course, we do not justify it.

@pkw Jeffrey Epstein's Russian visa application sponsored by the FSB M00 Vympal leads to the conclusion that he was an FSB asset trained in deep penetration, espionage, and sabotage. Noam Chomsky chose to support his efforts, according to their email exchanges. This is not polarizing rhetoric. It went on for 16+ years!

@RadicalAnthro I'm disgusted. Years ago I corresponded with Chomsky about a moral issue that was bothering me. Now I know that he wasn't worth the effort!

It may be naive of me to ask, if Newton was a rapist, would the theory on gravity still be valid? Would F=m*g where g=9.81m/s^2 at sea level?

Would the theory on value (Das Kapital) be invalidated if found that K.Marx slept with his maid while his wife was dying in the next room?

If I developed a machine that produced clean water, even in a hot dry day, with a tiny bit of power/fuel use, and published the design under GPL, would it matter
who/what I am?

@RadicalAnthro
#marxism #materialism

@yianiris but the difference is Chomsky's supposed 'science' is actually up the wall. He was a huge but absolutely dire influence on cognitive science for the whole second half of the 20th.C. which had a bad bad impact, above all for materialists (we are marxist materialist anthros). Science stands up because it is collective not because it's guided by severe vested interest.

He was the first one to invent 'modularity' with a language module. He opened the gates for rubbish evolutionary psychology. We oppose that by understanding science in a social world. Chomsky completely rejected any social aspect in the investigation of language.

@RadicalAnthro
Please read:
https://www.aaronmate.net/p/noam-chomskys-wife-responds-to-epstein

1 Scientific merit of his theories or lack there of should have nothing to do with his personal life or any relation to Epstein (irrelevant)

2 Marx used an assumption of all civilized humans living in centralized authority/hierarchically structure societies, and the rest were savages. Late in life he begun to develop doubts due to non-hierarchical communal structures as anthro.data kept coming in.

3 It is hard to debate/discuss anything with someone who responds as "we"

@RadicalAnthro

(1/?)

@RadicalAnthro
> Chris Knight explains what lies behind this extraordinary paradox, the Two Chomskys

It's not that confusing. In the late 20th century it was considered normal to separate the public from the private. This was a prerequisite for things like diplomacy to exist. Where one might be horrified by the human rights abuses in a country, but still meet with its diplomats and leaders in a respectful way.

(2/?)

But it's also a prerequisite for academic freedom. Where one might be highly critical of someone's methods, even horrified by the implications of their theories and the applications they put them to. But still be willing to engage in a respectful formal debate, even though that requires sharing space with them.

(3/?)

The rise of social media started to dissolve this public/private membrane, and raised a generation unfamiliar its uses. Leading to a situation where a person's entire creative output can be dismissed out of hand, because of the most flawed thing they've ever done, or even said. Where people's academic work or public activism, regardless of its own quality, can be dismissed on the same basis.

@strypey perhaps you might read the article. It is not so much an attack on Chomsky's morals -- apart from the gaping hole of gender consciousness which isn't there with NC. It's an anthropological analysis of the complete paradox of a guy who could have lunch with the designer of the daisycutters dropped on Vietnam by B52s while going to campaign against the Vietnam invasion and the draft in the evening. That is one very extreme example of how capitalism and imperialism splits people into parts.

Knight has very little time for Chomsky's supposed 'science'. But NC had a woeful effect across the entirety of cognitive science for the whole of the second half of the 20th.C. It suited the US military-industrial machine to a) keep tabs on him by keeping him at work, and let him become this voice and b) fuck up materialist thinking.

Yes NC always insisted on free speech for eg Holocaust deniers. And a blank slate for child rapists once they'd served their time.

We are anthropologists with highly egalitarian hunter-gatherers and the issues are always about inequality and power. It's pretty astonishing that NC could behave as if he'd forgotten that.

@yianiris we are a collective of anthropologists. Look at our profile, what's your problem? I put I when it's what I think, and we if the whole bunch would say it.

> what's your problem?

This promotes discussion?

We don't think so!

@RadicalAnthro

Radical Authoritarianism

@yianiris you are a troll. I, me personally, was not expecting that behaviour on Fediverse