Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky é um lingüista e um crítico da política norte americana, com forte influência anarquista. Seus trabalhos influenciaram diretamente áreas diversas, como ciência da computação e medicina.

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Dr. Avram Noam Chomsky ( nascido em 7 de dezembro de 1928) é professor de Lingüística no Instituto de Tecnologia de Massachusetts (MIT, das iniciais em inglês) e criador da Hierarquia Chomsky , uma classificação de formal línguas. Suas obras sobre em Lingüística gerativa (ou gramática gerativa) contribuíram significativamente para o declínio do behaviourismo e levaram ao avanço das Ciências da Cognição. Além de seu trabalho em Lingüística, Chomsky também é muito conhecido por sua posição política de esquerda e por sua crítica ao modo como a política externa dos Estados Unidos da América é conduzida pelas pessoas que representam o governo americano. Chomsky descreve a si mesmo como um socialista libertário que apoia o anarco-sindicalismo

Conteúdo [showhide] 1 Biografia

2 Contribuições à Linguística

2.1 Gramática gerativa 2.2 A Hierarquia de Chomsky 2.3 Crítica da Linguística de Chomsky

3 Contribuições à psicologia

4 Crítica da cultura da ciência

5 Posições políticas

5.1 A visão de Chomsky sobre o terrorismo 5.2 Crítica do governo dos Estados Unidos 5.3 A visão de Chomsky sobre o socialismo 5.4 A análise de Chomsky dos meios de comunicação de massa 5.5 Chomsky e o Oriente Médio 5.6 Crítica

6 A influência de Chomsky em outros campos

7 Bibliografia

7.1 Linguística 7.2 Trabalhos políticos

8 Sobre Chomsky

9 Veja também

10 LInks externos

10.1 Discursos e entrevistas selecionados 10.2 Artigos selecionados 10.3 Crítica de Chomsky

[edit]

Biografia Chomsky nasceu na cidade da Filadélfia, no estado da Pensilvânia , filho do estudioso de hebraico escolar William Chomsky. Em 1945 ele começou a estudar Filosofia e Lingüística na Universidade da Pensilvânia com Zellig Harris , professor de lingüística com cuja visão política ele se identificou. Recebendo seu Ph.D em lingüística da Universidade de Pensilvânia em 1955, Chomsky passou a realizar a maior parte de sua pesquisa nos quatro anos anteriores na Universidade de Harvard como pesquisador assistente. Em sua tese doutoral, ele começou a desenvolver algumas de suas idéias lingüísticas , a elaboração das quais resultou em seu livro de 1957 conhecido como Syntactic Structures , talvez seu mais conhecido trabalho no campo da lingüística.

Depois de receber seu doutorado, Chomsky passou a ensinar no MIT e recebeu o primeiro prêmio da "Cátedra de Línguas Modernas e Lingüística P. Ward Ferrari". Foi durante este período que Chomsky tornou-se mais publicamente empenhado em Política passando por volta de 1964 a lutar contra o envolvimento americano na Guerra do Vietnã. Em . In 1969 Chomsky publicou American Power and the New Mandarins, um livro de ensaios sobre essa guerra. Desde então Chomsky tornou-se bem conhecido por sua visão política, dando palestras sobre política por todo o mundo e por vários outros livros sobre esse assunto. Suas crença política, classificada dentro do campo do socialismo libertário lhe deu um enorme número de seguidores entre o campo da Esquerda, e também muitos detratores em todos os lados do espectro político. Durante todo esse tempo Chomsky continuou a pesquisar, escrever e ensinar lingüística.

[edit] Contribuição à Lingüística Syntactic Structures foi uma distilação do livro Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory (1955) onde Chomsky apresenta sua idéia da gramática transformaciona. Ele apresentou sua teoria de que as "oralizações" (palavras , frases , e sentenças ) correspondem a " estruturas superficiais " abstratas as quais, por sua vez, correspondem a ainda mais abstratas " estruturas profundas " (Esta difícil distinção entre estruturas de superfície e estruturas profundas não está mais presente nas versões atuais de sua teoria). Na teoria de Chomsky, regras transformacionais (juntamente com regras de estrutura de frases e outros princípios estruturais) governam ao mesmo tempo a criação e a interpretação das oralizações. Com um limitado conjunto de regras gramaticais e um conjunto finito de palavras, o ser humano é capaz de produzir infinito número de sentenças, incluindo sentenças que ninguém ainda disse antes. Desta maneira, Chomsky concluiu que a capacidade para estruturar as oralizações é inata ao ser humano (isto é, é parte do patrimônio genético dos seres humanos) e a chamou de gramática universal. Segundo Chomsky, nós somo altamente inconscientes desses princípios estruturais assim como somos inconscientes da maioria das nossas outras propriedades biológicas e cognitivas.

Recentes teorias de Chomsky (como o seu Programa Minimalista) faz fortes reivindicações sobre a gramática universal. Entre outras afirmações, Chomsky diz que os princípios gramaticais subjacentes às linguagens são completamente fixos e inatos, e que as diferenças entre as várias línguas usadas pelos seres humanos através do mundo podem ser caracterizadas em termos de conjuntos de parâmetros cerebrais (como o parâmetro pro-drop parameter o qual indica se um sujeito explícito sempre é exigido, como no caso da língua inglesa, ou pode ser opcionalmente deixado de lado, como no caso do espanhol). Esses parâmetros são freqüentemente assemelhados a interruptores (como os que acendem e apagam uma lâmpada). Daí o nome principles and parameters, freqüentemente dado a este conceito. Nesta abordagem, uma criança que está aprendendo uma língua precisa adquirir apenas e tão somente os itens léxicos necessários (isto é, as palavras) e os morfemas, e determinar os conjuntos apropriados de parâmetros. Este é um trabalho que pode realizado com base em apenas alguns exemplos primordiais.

Esta abordagem é motivada pelo rapidez espantosa com a qual as crianças aprendem línguas, pelos passos semelhantes dados por todas as crianças quando estão aprendendo línguas e pelo fato que as crianças realizam certos erros característicos quando elas aprendem sua língua-mãe enquanto que outros tipos de erros aparentemente lógicos nunca ocorrem. Isto deve acontecer, segundo Chomsky, porque as crianças estão empregando um mecanismo puramente geral, e não específico da língua que está sendo aprendida.

As idéias de Chomsky influenciaram fortemente alguns pesquisadores que investigavam a aquisição de linguagem pelas crianças, muito embora a maioria de pesquisadores que trabalham nesta área atualmente não apoiam suas teorias. Freqüentemente alguns deles preferem teorias emergentistas ou teorias coneccionistas que se baseiam em mecanismos de processamento genal no cérebro. Entretanto, praticamente todas as teorias lingüísticas são controversas de maneira que existem pesquisadores trabalhando atualmente na área de aquisição de linguagem que usam a abordagem de Chomsky.

[edit] Gramática Gerativa A abordagem de Chomsky em relação à sintaxe, freqüentemente chamada de gramática gerativa, embora muito popular, tem sido desafiada por muitos pesquisadores, especialmente aqueles que trabalham fora dos Estados Unidos. A análise sintática de Chomsky, muitas vezes altamente abstrata, se baseia fortemente em uma investigação cuidadosa dos limites entre construções gramaticais corretas e construções gramaticais incorretas numa língua. Deve-se comparar esta abordagem aos assim chamados casos patológicos (pathological cases) que possuem um papel semelhantemente importante em matemática. Tais julgamentos sobre a correção gramatical só podem ser realizados de maneira exata por um orador nativo, entretanto, e assim, por razões pragmáticas, tais lingüistas normalmente (mas não exclusivamente) focalizam seus trabalhos em sus próprias línguas-mães ou em línguas em que eles são fluentes (geralmente o inglês, o francês, o alemão, o holandês, o italiano, o japonês ou um das línguas do chinês). Algumas vezes a análise da gramática gerativa não funcionou quando foi aplicada à línguas que não foram ainda estudadas. Desta maneira, muitas alterações foram realizadas na gramática gerativa devido ao aumento do número de línguas analisadas. Entretanto, as reivindicações feito sobre uma lingüística universal tem se tornado mais forte e não enfraquecido durante o transcorrer do tempo. Por exemplo, a sugestão de Kayne, na década de 1990, de que todas as línguas têm uma ordem Sujeito - Verbo - Objeto das palavras teria parecido altamente improvável na década de 1960. Um das principais motivações que estão por detrás de uma outra abordagem, a perdpectiva funcional-tipológica (ou tipologia lingüística, freqüentemente associada a Joseph H. O Greenberg), é basear hipóteses da lingüística universal no estudo da maior variedade possível de línguas, para classificar a variação e criar teorias baseadas nos resultados desta classificação. A abordagem de Chomsky é por demais profunda e a dependente do conhecimento nativo da língua para seguir este método (embora tenha sido aplicada a muitas línguas desde que foi criada).

[edit] Hierarquia de Chomsky Chomsky é famoso por investigar vários tipos de linguagens formais na busca de entender se poderiam ou ser capazes de capturar as propriedades-chave das línguas humanas. A hierarquia de Chomsky partilha gramáticas formais em classes com poder expressivo crescente, i.e., cada classe sucessiva pode gerar um conjunto mais amplo de linguagens formais que a classe imediatamente anterior. Interessantemente, Chomsky argumenta que a modelagem de alguns aspectos de linguagem humana necessita de uma gramática formal mais complexa (complexidade medida pela hierarquia de Chomsky) que a modelagem de outros aspectos. Por exemplo, enquanto que uma linguagem regular é suficientemente poderosa para modelar a morfologia da língua inglesa, ela não é suficientemente poderosa para modelar a sintaxe a mesma língua. Além de ser relevante em lingüistica, a hierarquia de Chomsky também tornou-se importante em Ciência da Computação (especialmente na construção de compiladores) e na Teoria dos Autômatos.

Seu trabalho seminal em fonologia foi The sound pattern of English, que publicou juntamente com Morris Halle. Este trabalho é considerado ultrapassado (embora tenha sido recentemente reimpresso) e ele não pesquisa e publica mais na área de fonologia.

[edit] Criticisms of Chomsky's linguistics Although Chomsky's is the best known position in linguistics his views have been criticised. Perhaps the best known alternative to Chomsky's position is that proposed by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. Their cognitive linguistics developed out of Chomskyan linguistics but differs from it in significant ways. Specifically, they argue against the neo-Cartesian aspects of Chomsky's theories, and state that Chomsky fails to take account of the extent to which cognition is embodied. As noted above, connectionist views of learning are not compatible with Chomsky's. Also, newer movements in psychology, such as, for example, situated cognition and discursive psychology are not compatible with Chomsky's views.

In a much more radical way, philosophers in the tradition of Wittgenstein (such as Saul Kripke) argue that Chomskyans are fundamentally wrong about the role of rule following in human cognition. In a similar way philosophers in the phenomenological/existential/hermeneutic traditions oppose the abstract neo-rationalist aspects of Chomsky's thought. The contemporary philosopher who best represents this view is, perhaps, Hubert Dreyfus, also famous (or notorious) for his attacks on artificial intelligence.

[edit] Contributions to psychology Chomsky's work in linguistics has had major implications for psychology and its fundamental direction in the 20th century. His theory of a universal grammar was a direct challenge to the established behaviorist theories of the time and had major consequences for understanding how language is learned by children and what, exactly, is the ability to interpret language. The more basic principles of this theory (though not necessarily the stronger claims made by the principles and parameters approach described above) are now generally accepted.

In 1959, Chomsky published a long-circulated critique of B.F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior, a book in which the leader of the behaviorist psychologists that had dominated psychology in the first half of the 20th century argued that language was merely a "behavior." Skinner argued that language, like any other behavior — from a dog's salivation in anticipation of dinner, to a master pianist's performance — could be attributed to "training by reward and penalty over time." Language, according to Skinner, was completely learned by cues and conditioning from the world around the language-learner.

Chomsky's critique of Skinner's methodology and basic assumptions paved the way for a revolution against the behaviorist doctrine that had governed psychology. In his 1966 Cartesian Linguistics and subsequent works, Chomsky laid out an explanation of human language faculties that has become the model for investigation in other areas of psychology. Much of the present conception of how the mind works draws directly from ideas that found their first persuasive author of modern times in Chomsky.

There are three key ideas. First is that the mind is "cognitive", or that the mind actually contains mental states, beliefs, doubts, and so on. The former view had denied even this, arguing that there were only "stimulus-response" relationships like "If you ask me if I want X, I will say yes". By contrast, Chomsky showed that the common way of understanding the mind, as having things like beliefs and even unconscious mental states, had to be right. Second, he argued that large parts of what the adult mind can do are "innate". While no child is born automatically able to speak a language, all are born with a powerful language-learning ability which allows them to soak up several languages very quickly in their early years. Subsequent psychologists have extended this thesis far beyond language; the mind is no longer considered a "blank slate" at birth.

Finally, Chomsky made the concept of "modularity" a critical feature of the mind's cognitive architecture. The mind is composed of an array of interacting, specialized subsystems with limited flows of inter-communication. This model contrasts sharply with the old idea that any piece of information in the mind could be accessed by any other cognitive process (optical illusions, for example, cannot be "turned off" even when they are known to be illusions).

[edit] Criticism of science culture Chomsky has written strong refutations of deconstructionist and postmodern criticisms of science:

"I have spent a lot of my life working on questions such as these, using the only methods I know of; those condemned here as 'science,' 'rationality,' 'logic,' and so on. I therefore read the papers with some hope that they would help me 'transcend' these limitations, or perhaps suggest an entirely different course. I'm afraid I was disappointed. Admittedly, that may be my own limitation. Quite regularly, 'my eyes glaze over' when I read polysyllabic discourse on the themes of poststructuralism and postmodernism; what I understand is largely truism or error, but that is only a fraction of the total word count. True, there are lots of other things I don't understand: the articles in the current issues of math and physics journals, for example. But there is a difference. In the latter case, I know how to get to understand them, and have done so, in cases of particular interest to me; and I also know that people in these fields can explain the contents to me at my level, so that I can gain what (partial) understanding I may want. In contrast, no one seems to be able to explain to me why the latest post-this-and-that is (for the most part) other than truism, error, or gibberish, and I do not know how to proceed."

Chomsky notes that critiques of "white male science" are much like the anti-Semitic and politically motivated attacks against "Jewish physics" used by the Nazis to denigrate research done by Jewish scientists during the Deutsche Physik movement:

"In fact, the entire idea of 'white male science' reminds me, I'm afraid, of 'Jewish physics.' Perhaps it is another inadequacy of mine, but when I read a scientific paper, I can't tell whether the author is white or is male. The same is true of discussion of work in class, the office, or somewhere else. I rather doubt that the non-white, non-male students, friends, and colleagues with whom I work would be much impressed with the doctrine that their thinking and understanding differ from 'white male science' because of their 'culture or gender and race.' I suspect that 'surprise' would not be quite the proper word for their reaction." [1] (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/95-science.html) [edit] Political views

Noam Chomsky at World Social Forum 2003. Chomsky is one of the most well-known figures of left-wing American politics. He defines himself in the tradition of anarchism, a political philosophy he summarizes as challenging all forms of hierarchy and attempting to eliminate them if they are unjustified. He especially identifies with the labor-oriented anarcho-syndicalist current of anarchism. Unlike many anarchists, Chomsky does not always object to electoral politics; he has even endorsed candidates for office. He has described himself as a "fellow traveller" to the anarchist tradition as opposed to a pure anarchist to explain why he is sometimes willing to engage with the state.

Chomsky has also stated that he considers himself to be a conservative (Chomsky's Politics, pp. 188) presumably of the classical liberal variety. He has further defined himself as a Zionist; although, he notes that his definition of Zionism is considered by most to be anti-Zionism these days, the result of what he perceives to have been a shift (since the 1940s) in the meaning of Zionism (Chomsky Reader). In a C-Span Book TV interview, he stated:

"I have always supported a Jewish ethnic homeland in Palestine. That is different from a Jewish state. There's a strong case to be made for an ethnic homeland, but as to whether there should be a Jewish state, or a Muslim state, or a Christian state, or a white state — that's entirely another matter." Overall, Chomsky is not fond of traditional political titles and categories and prefers to let his views speak for themselves. His main modes of actions include writing magazine articles and books and making speaking engagements. He has a large following of supporters worldwide, leading him to schedule speaking engagements sometimes up to two years in advance. He was one of the main speakers at the 2002 World Social Forum.

[edit] Chomsky on terrorism Chomsky differs from conventional views in that he sees state terrorism, as opposed to terrorism by fringe political movements, as the predominating form. He clearly distinguishes between the targeting of civilians and the targeting of military personnel or installations, thereby demonstrating that in his view causes, reasons or goals do not justify acts of terrorism. For Chomsky, terrorism is objective, not relative. He states in his book 9-11:

"Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a war against terrorism." (pp. 76) On the efficiency of terrorism:

"One is the fact that terrorism works. It doesn't fail. It works. Violence usually works. That's world history. Secondly, it's a very serious analytic error to say, as is commonly done, that terrorism is the weapon of the weak. Like other means of violence, it's primarily a weapon of the strong, overwhelmingly, in fact. It is held to be a weapon of the weak because the strong also control the doctrinal systems and their terror doesn't count as terror. Now that's close to universal. I can't think of a historical exception, even the worst mass murderers view the world that way. So take the Nazis. They weren't carrying out terror in occupied Europe. They were protecting the local population from the terrorisms of the partisans. And like other resistance movements, there was terrorism. The Nazis were carrying out counter terror." [edit] Criticism of the United States government He has been a consistent and outspoken critic of the United States government. In his book 9-11, a series of interviews about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, he claims, as he has done before, that the United States government is the leading terrorist state in modern times.

Chomsky has criticized the government for its involvement in the Vietnam War and the larger Indochina conflict, as well as its interference in Central and South American countries and its military support of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Chomsky focuses his most intense criticism on official friends of the United States government while criticizing official enemies like the former Soviet Union and North Vietnam only in passing. He explains this by the following principle: it is more important to evaluate actions which you have more possibility of affecting. His criticism of the former Soviet Union and China must have had some effect in those countries; both countries banned his work from publication.

Chomsky has repeatedly emphasized his theory that much of the United States' foreign policy is based on the "threat of a good example" (which he says is another name for the domino theory). The "threat of a good example" is that a country could successfully develop independently from capitalism and the United States' influences, thus presenting a model for other countries, including countries in which the United States has strong economic interests. This, Chomsky says, has prompted the United States to repeatedly intervene to quell "socialist" or other "independence" movements in regions of the world where it has no significant economic or safety interests. In one of his most famous works, What Uncle Sam Really Wants, Chomsky uses this particular theory as an explanation for the United States' interventions in Guatemala, Laos, Nicaragua, and Grenada.

Chomsky believes the US government's Cold War policies were not entirely shaped by anti-Soviet paranoia, but rather toward preserving the United States' ideological and economic dominance in the world. As he wrote in Uncle Sam: "...What the US wants is 'stability,' meaning security for the "upper classes and large foreign enterprises."

[edit] Views on socialism Chomsky is deeply opposed to the system of "corporate state capitalism" practiced by the United States and its allies. He supports Mikhail Bakunin's anarchist (or "libertarian socialist") ideas, requiring economic freedom in addition to the "control of production by the workers themselves, not owners and managers who rule them and control all decisions." He refers to this as "real socialism", and describes Soviet-style socialism as similar in terms of "totalitarian controls" to the US-style capitalism — each is a system based in types and levels of control, rather than in organization or efficiency. (In defense of this thesis, Chomsky sometimes points out that Frederick Winslow Taylor's philosophy of scientific management was the organizational basis for the Soviet Union's massive industrialization movement as well as the American corporate model.)

Chomsky has illuminated Bakunin's comments on the totalitarian state as predictions for the brutal Soviet police state that would come. He echoes Bakunin's statement "...after a year" [..] "the revolutionary will become worse than the czar himself," which expands upon the idea that the tyrannical Soviet state was simply a natural growth from the Bolshevik ideology of state control. He has also termed Soviet communism as "fake socialism," and said that contrary to what many in the United States claim, the collapse of the Soviet Union should be regarded "a small victory for socialism," not capitalism.

In For Reasons of State Chomsky advocates that instead of a capitalist system in which people are "wage slaves" or an authoritarian system in which decisions are made by a centralized committee, a society could function with no paid labor. He argues that a nation's populace should be free to pursue jobs of their choosing. People will be free to do as they like, and the work they voluntarily choose will be both "rewarding in itself" and "socially useful." Society would be run under a system of peaceful anarchism, with no "state" or "government" institutions.

[edit] Mass media analysis Another focus of Chomsky's political work has been an analysis of mainstream mass media (especially in the United States), its structures and constraints, and its role in supporting big business and government interests. Unlike totalitarian systems, where physical force can readily be used to coerce the general population, democratic societies like the US can only make use of non-violent means of control (despite minor instances of state violence). In an often-quoted remark, Chomsky states that "propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state." (Media Control) His book Manufacturing Consent — The Political Economy of the Mass Media, co-authored with Edward S. Herman, explores this topic in depth, and presents the theory behind the analysis incorporated in subsequent works.

The "Propaganda model" developed by Chomsky and Herman in Manufacturing Consent explains systemic bias of the mass media in terms of structural economic causes rather than conspiracy. The private media are profit-oriented businesses selling a product - readers and audiences rather than news - to other businesses (advertisers). This view is based on the observation that for example newspapers derive most of their revenue from advertisement rather than sales, and that elite audiences are a far more lucrative "product" to sell. In addition, the news media are dependent on government institutions and major businesses for information sources. This constellation causes information to pass through several "filters" that influence the choice of news stories and the way in which they are reported. The individuals and organisations involved in the "filtering" act independently and usually in good faith but they tend to share common elite views and similar interests. The model describes a decentralised and non-conspiratorial but powerful propaganda system that is able to mobilize an elite consensus, frame public debate within elite perspectives and at the same time give the appearance of democratic consent.

Since the Propaganda model would predict that reporting in the private media is biased towards elite interests, allowing Chomsky and Herman to test their model empirically. They picked pairs of events that were similar but on which elite interests differed and showed that news coverage was highly biased. In addition they found their model to be confirmed in cases that are usually held up as prime examples of an independent and free press, such as the Vietnam war, Watergate, and the Iran-Contra Affair.

[edit] Chomsky and the Middle East Chomsky "grew up...in the Jewish-Zionist cultural tradition" (Peck, p. 11). His father was one of the foremost scholars of the Hebrew language and taught at a religious school. Chomsky has also had a long fascination with and involvement in left-wing Zionist politics. As he described:

"I was deeply interested in...Zionist affairs and activities — or what was then called 'Zionist,' though the same ideas and concerns are now called 'anti-Zionist.' I was interested in socialist, binationalist options for Palestine, and in the kibbutzim and the whole cooperative labor system that had developed in the Jewish settlement there (the Yishuv)...The vague ideas I had at the time [1947] were to go to Palestine, perhaps to a kibbutz, to try to become involved in efforts at Arab-Jewish cooperation within a socialist framework, opposed to the deeply antidemocratic concept of a jewish state (a position that was considered well within the mainstream of Zionism)." (Peck, p. 7) He is highly critical of the policies of Israel towards the Palestinians and its Arab neighbours. Among many articles and books, his book The Fateful Triangle is considered one of the premier texts among those who oppose Israeli treatment of Palestinians and American support for Israeli government policies. He has also condemned Israel's role in "guiding state terrorism" for selling weapons to apartheid South Africa and Latin American countries that he characterizes as U.S. puppet states, e.g. Guatemala in the 1970s, as well as US-backed right-wing paramilitaries (or, according to Chomsky, terrorists) such as the Nicaraguan Contras — see Iran-Contra Scandal. (What Uncle Sam Really Wants, Chapter 2.4) In addition, he has consistently condemned the United States for its unconditional military, financial and diplomatic support of successive Israeli governments. Chomsky characterises Israel as a "mercenary state" within the US system of hegemony. He has also fiercely criticised sectors of the American Jewish community for their role in obtaining unconditional US support, stating that "they should more properly be called 'supporters of the moral degeneration and ultimate destruction of Israel'" (Fateful Triangle, p.4).He says of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL):

"The leading official monitor of anti-Semitism, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, interprets anti-Semitism as unwillingness to conform to its requirements with regard to support for Israeli authorities.... The logic is straightforward: Anti-Semitism is opposition to the interests of Israel (as the ADL sees them). "The ADL has virtually abandoned its earlier role as a civil rights organization, becoming 'one of the main pillars' of Israeli propaganda in the U.S., as the Israeli press casually describes it, engaged in surveillance, blacklisting, compilation of FBI-style files circulated to adherents for the purpose of defamation, angry public responses to criticism of Israeli actions, and so on. These efforts, buttressed by insinuations of anti-Semitism or direct accusations, are intended to deflect or undermine opposition to Israeli policies, including Israel's refusal, with U.S. support, to move towards a general political settlement." Necessary Illusions (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/ni/ni-c10-s20.html) Middle East Politics, speech Columbia University 1999 (http://sources.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_Policy_(Chomsky))

[edit] Criticism Over the years, Chomsky has been involved in many public disagreements over policy and scholarship, both on ideological and academic grounds. His foreign policy writings remain very controversial, and Chomsky has both conservative and left wing critics, who dispute his writings and political interpretations of world events. Some of his more prominent critics include Alan Dershowitz and Christopher Hitchens.

Critics of Chomsky's political and historical writings sometimes accuse him of using out of context quotations and facts to support his arguments, or citing sources of dubious legitimacy. As well, many critics accuse him of overlooking, sympathizing, or minimizing the actions of states and groups hostile to the United States, thus making his work excessively US-centric and one-sided. However, Chomsky's books rigorously and extensively cite their sources; Chomsky also explains his focus on the US by the responsibility to hold one's own government to account and the increased likelihood that such criticism will affect the government's actions.

In After the Cataclysm: Postwar Indochina and the Reconstruction of Imperial Ideology, Chomsky and Herman, claimed that the American media used unsubstantiated refugee testimonies and distorted sources with regard to the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge to serve US government propaganda purposes in the wake of the Vietnam War. Some critics, such as Anthony Lewis, accused Chomsky of being a Pol Pot apologist. Chomsky argued that he had acknowledged the attrocities (e.g. stating in After the Cataclysm that "there is no difficulty in documenting major atrocities and oppression, primarily from the testimony of refugees"). In Manufacturing Consent (also cowritten with Ed Herman), Chomsky responds:

As we also noted from the first paragraph of our earlier review of this material [i.e. After the Cataclysm]..."when the facts are in, it may turn out that the more extreme condemnations [of the Khmer Rouge] are in fact correct", although if so, "it will in no way alter the conclusions we have reached on the central questions addressed here: how the available facts were selected, modified, or sometimes invented to create a certain image offered to the general population. The answer to this question seems clear, and it is unaffected by whatever may yet be discovered about Cambodia in the future."... This review of an impressive propaganda exercise aroused great outrage — not at all surprisingly: the response within Soviet domains is similar, as are the reasons, when dissidents expose propaganda fabrications with regard to the United States, Israel and other official enemies. Indignant commentators depicted us as "apologists for Khmer Rouge Crimes" — in a study that denounces Khmer Rouge atrocities (a fact always surpressed), and then proceeded to demonstrate the remarkable character of Western propaganda, our topic throughout the two-volume study in which this chapter appeared. Some scholars who reviewed this controversy, such as Milan Rai, consider it to have been part of a propaganda campaign against Chomsky, designed to generate "endless defence" in response to critics in order to distract attention from the substantive issues.

Conservative author David Horowitz, one of Chomsky's more prominent critics, has described Chomsky's as the "Ayatollah of Anti-American Hate" for what he describes as Chomsky's fundamental hatred of the United States. According to Horowitz, Chomsky's historical analysis are always written from a pre-determined perspective in which the government of the United States- regardless of the party in power, the time period, or the issue at hand- will always be viewed as both the instigator and the antagonist in any global crisis. He thus accuses Chomsky of routinely ignoring or ommiting relevant facts of history, especially the actions of other nations and regimes at the time, that may provide a deeper context for the "crimes" war "atrocities" he accuses the United States of committing. In an anti-Chomsky pamphlet entitled "The Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky" (later reproduced in a larger "Anti-Chomsky Reader") Horowitz criticized Chomsky's criticism of United States policy during the Cold War saying:

In Chomsky’s telling, the bi-polar world of the Cold War is viewed as though there were only one pole. In the real world, the Cold War was about America’s effort to organize a democratic coalition against an expansionist empire that conquered and enslaved more than a billion people. [...] In Chomsky’s world, the Soviet empire hardly exists, not a single American action is seen as a response to a Soviet initiative, and the Cold War is "analyzed" as though it had only one side. This is like writing a history of the Second World War without mentioning Hitler. Chomsky has not responded in detail to Horowitz's allegations, stating in an interview that "I haven't read Horowitz. I didn't read him when he was a Stalinist and I don't read him today" [2] (http://www.robert-fisk.com/chomsky_interview7_oct18_2001.htm). This response has in turn been disputed by Horowitz himself, who argues he was never in fact a Stalinist and that Chomsky has in fact read and analyzed his writings in the past.

Francis Wheen criticized Chomsky as a leading "intellectual quack" in his book How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World arguing that Chomsky uses an "inexhaustible hoard of analogies and precedents" as distractions, allowing him to avoid addressing certain issues. Wheen accuses Chomsky of constantly bringing up certain "favorite" topics, such as Western support for the East Timor massacres of the 70's, to avoid having to take sides on more contemporary political issues.

More recently, Chomsky was criticized for his claim that reports from both Human Rights Watch and the German Embassy when he alleged that the US attack on the al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory killed "tens of thousands" of Sudanese civilians. Allegations [3] (http://www.salon.com/people/letters/2002/01/22/chomsky/index.html) were made that Human Rights Watch had made no such estimates, to which Chomsky has responded [4] (http://www.salon.com/people/letters/2002/01/29/chomsky/).

Chomsky was also involved in a high-profile controversy over an essay he wrote in defence of the right to freedom of speech of Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, which was then used as the introduction to a book by Faurisson. See: Faurisson Affair.

[edit] Chomsky's influence in other fields Chomskyan models have been used as a theoretical basis in several other fields. The Chomsky hierarchy is usually taught in fundamental Computer Science courses as it confers insight into the various types of formal languages. A number of arguments in evolutionary psychology are derived from his research results.

The 1984 Nobel Prize laureate in Medicine and Physiology, Niels K. Jerne, used Chomsky's generative model to explain the human immune system, equating "components of a generative grammar ... with various features of protein structures". The title of Jerne's Stockholm Nobel lecture was "The Generative Grammar of the Immune System".

[edit] Bibliography See a full bibliography on Chomsky's MIT homepage [5] (http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/bibliography/noam.html).

[edit] Linguistics Chomsky, Noam, Morris Halle, and Fred Lukoff (1956). "On accent and juncture in English." In For Roman Jakobson. The Hague: Mouton Syntactic Structures (1957). The Hague: Mouton. Reprint. Berlin and New York (1985). Chomsky (1965). Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Chomsky (1965). Cartesian Linguistics. New York: Harper and Row. Reprint. Cartesian Linguistics. A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1986. Chomsky, Noam, and Morris Halle (1968). The Sound Pattern of English. New York: Harper & Row. Chomsky (1981). Lectures on Government and Binding: The Pisa Lectures. Holland: Foris Publications. Reprint. 7th Edition. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1993. Chomsky (1986). Barriers. Linguistic Inquiry Monograph Thirteen. Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press. Chomsky, Noam (1995). The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

[edit] Political works Chomsky (1960). American Power and the New Mandarins. New York: Pantheon. Chomsky (1970). At War with Asia. New York: Pantheon. Chomsky (1971). Problems of Knowledge and Freedom: The Russell Lectures. New York: Pantheon. Chomsky (1973). For Reasons of State. New York: Pantheon. Chomsky & Herman, Edward (1973). Counter-Revolutionary Violence: Bloodbaths in Fact and Propaganda. Andover, MA: Warner Modular. Module no. 57. Chomsky (1974). Peace in the Middle East: Reflections on Justice and Nationhood. New York: Pantheon. Chomsky (1979). Language and Responsibility. New York: Pantheon. Chomsky & Herman, Edward (1979). Political Economy of Human Rights (two volumes). Boston: South End Press. ISBN 0896080900 and ISBN 0896081001 Otero, C.P. (Ed.) (1981, 2003). Radical Priorities. Montréal: Black Rose; Stirling, Scotland: AK Press. Chomsky & Pilger, John (1982). Towards a New Cold War: Essays on the Current Crisis and How We Got There. New York: Pantheon. Chomsky (1983, 1999). The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians. Boston: South End Press. ISBN 0896086011 Chomsky (1985). Turning the Tide: U.S. Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace. Boston: South End Press. Chomsky (1986). Pirates and Emperors: International Terrorism and the Real World. New York: Claremont Research and Publications. Chomsky (1987). On Power and Ideology: The Managua Lectures. Boston: South End Press. Peck, James (Ed.) (1987). Chomsky Reader ISBN 0394751736 Chomsky (1988). The Culture of Terrorism. Boston: South End Press. Chomsky & Herman, Edward (1988, 2002). Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon. Chomsky (1989). Necessary Illusions (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/ni/ni-overview.html). Boston: South End Press. Chomsky (1989). Language and Politics. Montréal: Black Rose. Chomsky (1991). Terrorizing the Neighborhood: American Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War Era. Stirling, Scotland: AK Press. Chomsky (1992). Deterring Democracy. New York: Hill and Wang. Chomsky (1992). Chronicles of Dissent. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press. Chomsky (1992). What Uncle Sam Really Wants (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/sam/). Berkeley: Odonian Press. Chomsky (1993). Year 501: The Conquest Continues. Boston: South End Press. Chomsky (1993). Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and U.S. Political Culture. Boston: South End Press. Chomsky (1993). Letters from Lexington: Reflections on Propaganda. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press. Chomsky (1993). The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many. Berkeley: Odonian Press. Chomsky (1994). Keeping the Rabble in Line. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press. Chomsky (1994). World Orders Old and New. New York: Columbia University Press. Chomsky (1996). Class Warfare. Pluto Press. Chomsky (1999). Profit Over People. Seven Stories Press. Chomsky (2000). Rogue States: The Rule of Force in World Affairs. Cambridge: South End Press. Chomsky (2001). 9-11. Seven Stories Press. Mitchell, Peter & Schoeffel, John (Ed.) (2002). Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky (http://understandingpower.com). Chomsky (2003). Hegemony or Survival. Metropolitan Books. (Part of the American Empire Project.) [edit] About Chomsky Hitchens, Christopher (1985, Autumn). "The Chorus and Cassandra (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/other/85-hitchens.html)", Grand Street Roy, Arundhati (2003). "The Loneliness of Noam Chomsky (http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mag/2003/08/24/stories/2003082400020100.htm)", The Hindu Rai, Milan (1995). Chomsky's Politics [edit] See also language acquisition Chomskybot Chomsky hierarchy Important publications in computability "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously." Intellectual worker Nim Chimpsky [edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations by or about:

Noam Chomsky

Wikisource has original works written by:

Noam Chomsky The Official Noam Chomsky Website (http://www.chomsky.info) Turning the Tide (http://blog.zmag.org/bloggers/?blogger=chomsky) — The Official Blog of Noam Chomsky (subset of his forum replies, link below) Chomsky's MIT homepage (http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/chomsky.home.html) ZNet: Noam Chomsky Archive (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/) Bad News: Noam Chomsky Archive (http://monkeyfist.com/tmp/BN/) e-text.org: Noam Chomsky Archive of Texts (http://www.e-text.org/text/) A-Infos Radio Project: Talks by Noam Chomsky (http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=search&nav=&session=&searchtext=chomsky) — MP3 format. Noam Chomsky Replies to Daily Questions from Members of the ZNet Forum (http://forum.zmag.org/search?str=noam%20AND%20chomsky%20AND%20replies%20AND%20reply%20AND%20nc&offset=0&confs=5&detail=0&sort=1&fromdate=&todate=) — You might need to log in as a guest here (http://forum.zmag.org/~ZNetCmt) first. [edit] Select speeches and interviews The New War Against Terror (http://www.zmag.org/globalwatch/chomskymit.htm) — The Technology & Culture Forum at MIT, October 18, 2001; Transcript, RealAudio format. The World After September 11th (http://www.c-span.org/search/basic.asp?ResultStart=1&ResultCount=10&BasicQueryText=chomsky&image1.x=30&image1.y=6) — December 8, 2001; Provided by C-SPAN in RealVideo format. C-SPAN Book TV In Depth 3 Hours Interview (http://www.booktv.org/feature/index.asp?segid=3562&schedID=195) — June 1, 2003; RealVideo format. Ohio State University Debate (http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=program-info&program_id=8409) — Noam Chomsky vs. Richard Perle, 1988; MP3 format. Noam Chomsky on Charlie Rose (http://media5.bloomberg.com:443/cgi-bin/getavfile.cgi?A=22615137) - November 20, 2003; RealAudio format. Talk and Q&A at Boston College (http://frontrow.bc.edu/program/chomsky/) — March 23, 2003; RealVideo format.

[edit] Select articles Chomsky on Socialism (http://mediafilter.org/caq/CAQ54chmky.html) Chomsky on Anarchism (http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/rbr/noamrbr2.html) Commentary on Chomsky and Anarchism (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/interviews/9612-anarchism.html) The Legitimacy of Violence as a Political Act (http://www.chomsky.info/debates/19671215.htm) [edit] Criticism of Chomsky The Hypocrisy of Noam Chomsky, by Keith Windschuttle (http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/21/may03/chomsky.htm) Partners in Hate: Noam Chomsky and the Holocaust Deniers, by Werner Cohn (http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/cohn_on_chomsky.html) The Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky, by David Horowitz (http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=1020) Dissecting Chomsky and Anti-Americanism by George Shadroui (http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article3754.html)

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