Costentin Cornomorus scripsit:
> I've never read any of Chomsky's work. What's he about, then?
Trying to summarize Chomsky in a brief compass is probably impossible.
In addition, there is Chomsky the linguist and Chomsky the political
thinker; one can agree with either without agreeing with the other.
(C. himself says that his politics long predates his linguistic work.)
I think the shortest term to characterize him politically would be
"libertarian socialist". He can get along with ordinary socialists
to some degree, and with ordinary libertarians to perhaps a greater
degree. Here's a somewhat out of date but still useful page:
http://www.robotwisdom.com/issues/chomsky.html
> Oh, it's a laugh a minute, once you understand
> that it can't possibly be serious! :P
It is very much the way Chomsky talks about U.S. wars since and
including Vietnam.
> > anyone with strong opinions and a
> > marked style is
> > fair game for parodists.
>
> Yep.
And I have to say that Chomsky's style both in politics and
linguistics is notorious for its near-impenetrability. See
http://rubberducky.org/cgi-bin/chomsky.pl to get a feel of what his
technical articles are like.
--
Verbogeny is one of the pleasurettes John Cowan <jcowan@...>
of a creatific thinkerizer. http://www.reutershealth.com
-- Peter da Silva http://www.ccil.org/~cowan