Re: OFF-TOPIC: Non linguistics books by Chomsky

Chris Bates scripsit:

> I wasn't aware Chomsky had written any books about politics
> but the book itself is very interesting, and very convincing...
Chomsky was a leftist long before he was a linguist, and has been
more or less continuously denouncing American foreign policy since
the Vietnam War.  (Which in Vietnam is called the American War, not
illogically.)  You can easily find American yahoos who will denounce
Chomskyan linguistics, and indeed linguistics generally, as a criminal
enterprise on the strength of Chomsky's political opinions.

I agree with most of what he says (as opposed to what he is *said* to
have said), but I find his prose style almost impenetrable.  It's also
been pointed out (on this list? can't remember) how authoritarian most
of Chomsky's technical linguistic metaphors are.

> book gives a very coherent and well thought out argument against it
> which I find myself agreeing with completely. Has anyone else read it?
Not that one in particular.  It usually makes sense to read just the
latest Chomsky book, as it tends to recapitulate (with corrections)
the earlier books.

--
John Cowan  jcowan@reutershealth.com  www.ccil.org/~cowan  www.reutershealth.com
"If I have seen farther than others, it is because I am surrounded by dwarves."
        --Murray Gell-Mann

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