Chomsky vs. Polya on boring lectures.

[Skeptic]

He has to put up with that sort of **** all the time, though.

That's hardly Siberia or the firing squad, though. And I suppose that the generous speaking fees he receives as he flies around the world to preach against the evils of capitalism and globalism are a bit of a consolation.

Incidentally, if you know anybody on this planet who does not "have to put up with **** all the time", I'd like to meet him.

 

[Cain]

*Sigh*

More of the same typical ******** on a JREF thread. First, I wonder how many people here have heard Chomsky speak? It's the same biting sarcasm you see in his books. Chomsky doesn't get up on stage, rub his eyes, and say, "Sometimes I wake up grumpy. Usually I let her sleep." Yuck, yuck, yuck. No, he has a deadpan delivery. Also, he never claims his talks are an act of "bravery" or exhibit "great courage."

Plus, I should think he's a compelling speaker given the fact he's booked years in advance and speaks to packed audiences. Isn't that enough? A firey speach is fine if you come out of the woodwork once every five years to stick it to some group. But for Chomsky it's a marathon rather than a sprint. Therefore, it's ridiculous to call him "lazy."

ETA: And if someone wants to see a debate between Buckley and Chomsky, then go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYlMEVTa-PI

You will witness Buckley's great style: interruptions, exaggerated mannerisms, more interruptions, eyes widening, still more interruptions. That he's holding a red writing utencil throughout is a given.

Too bad the video in this (infamous) Vidal/Buckley confrontation is garbled: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRjZR8j4-z4 I have a better version saved on my harddrive somewhere. I should probably upload it.

 

[Piggy]

I don't think there's much cause for calling Chomsky a coward.

I don't either. But that's essentially what you do when you suggest that his lectures might be boring because:

I think you may be neglecting the tendency of people in the Media to sieze a sound bite and play it out. It only take a single passionate, and borderline inaccurate statement over the course of a four hour lecture to make Chomsky seem like a fool.

And again, we do not have to choose between being dull, on the one hand, and being over the top, on the other.

Making a lecture interesting doesn't mean glitzing it up or clowning or telling stretchers. Feynman's lectures were funny and engaging, but always rigorous.

 

[Skeptic]

(scratches head) I don't see why ImaginalDisc is implying Chomsky's a coward.

 

[Piggy]

(scratches head) I don't see why ImaginalDisc is implying Chomsky's a coward.

I probably misread his post, actually. It seemed to me he was arguing that Chomsky might have adopted a dry style in order to avoid making statements that could be distorted in the media. But looking back, he was probably addressing my post rather than Chomsky's motivations.

 

[Skeptic]

I probably misread his post, actually. It seemed to me he was arguing that Chomsky might have adopted a dry style in order to avoid making statements that could be distorted in the media.

I am no fan of Chomsky, but even if ID claimed just that and even if it's perfectly true, I fail to see why this would necessarily imply cowardice on his part.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

I'm not saying he's a coward, but I never undestood those who think he shows any bravery.

He knows very well, of course, that for all his talk about the "opression", "silencing of criticism", "totalitarianism" and so on in the USA and the west, there is absolutely no danger of him being arrested, exiled, killed, or even slightly inconvenienced for stating his views, no matter how distatsteful. In addition, being a tenured professor, he doesn't even take the risk of losing his job due to the dislike of his co-workers.

So his "brave" anti-USA, pro-whomever-is-the-USA-enemy stand, is just a show, a circus act of sorts. It's a pretend fight, where Chomsky pretends to be "fighting" the powers of evil and opression (as he describes them), knowing full well those powers will do absolutely nothing in retaliation. He is no more "brave" than the actor playing an action hero is "brave" for pretending to fight a dozen people at once.

You're hardly the first to say as much to him. However, you'll note that he tends to say America opresses people in other countries, and that it is generally a fine place to live. America simply makes a rotten neighbor. I think he once compared it to Athens in the Delean League era. Your criticism is a ripping send up of a strawman of Chomsky.

 

[Darth Rotor]

You're hardly the first to say as much to him. However, you'll note that he tends to say America opresses people in other countries, and that it is generally a fine place to live. America simply makes a rotten neighbor. I think he once compared it to Athens in the Delean League era. Your criticism is a ripping send up of a strawman of Chomsky.

Chomsky suffers from the combined curse of brilliance, which he has in abundance, and arrogance: he is convinced he is right and has slammed the door shut on other points of view long since . . . or at least his writing suggests that. My real complaint with his positions is his continued harangue on an imagined American conspiracy to do evil.

Absent that canard being recycled over and over in his talking points, I find his rhetoric compelling. Don't always agree with him, I rarely do, but I like his incisiveness and wit.

DR

 

[zenith-nadir]

Agreed, except that I find Chomsky to be a USA hating Commie.

AS

The folks that listen to Chomsky scare me more than Chomsky. An Example? Chavez holding up Chomsky's book at the UN recently.

The thing I dislike the most about Chomsky and his followers is everyone who is opposed to ANY U.S. policy is always right.

Absent that canard being recycled over and over in his talking points, I find his rhetoric compelling. Don't always agree with him, I rarely do, but I like his incisiveness and wit.

DR

He's a cunning linguist.

 

[Darth Rotor]

He's a cunning linguist.

So you are saying that chicks dig him?

DR

 

[zenith-nadir]

So you are saying that chicks dig him?

DR

Hehehehehehe.

 

[Piggy]

I am no fan of Chomsky, but even if ID claimed just that and even if it's perfectly true, I fail to see why this would necessarily imply cowardice on his part.

Going hypothetical here, then.... Yeah, seems to me, if you're going to speak publicly, you have a responsibility to engage your audience. Deliberately making your presentation dull in order to go under the radar, that's cowardice in my book. If you have enough conviction to speak about a topic to an audience, then you ought to have enough conviction to face potential misrepresentation of your ideas, and the energy to counter those misrepresentations.

 

[Skeptic]

You're hardly the first to say as much to him. However, you'll note that he tends to say America opresses people in other countries, and that it is generally a fine place to live.

In that case he is a coward, because clearly the moral thing to do if you live in a country that you think is rich and prosperous because it opresses others is--at the very least--to refuse to participate in such ill-gotten gains and to move to some small country where, while you'll have a lower standard of living, at least you won't be opressing anybody. But he won't do that, because he values his high standard of living too much and is afraid to lose it.

What's worse, morally, is not only that he had done nothing about "the few" whose happiness he claims is bought at the expense of the misery of millions--apart from joining them, that is--but his entire "crusade" against the system is based on his comfortable, secure, and reassuring knowledge that it will be completely ineffective.

He knows that a thousand speeches by him will not increase the probability of a revolution or the collapse of the "exploitive American system of global capitalism" one bit. If he thought it would, he would shut up, because that would mean his personal standard of living might be at risk.

I'm sure Chomsky has already prepared fiendishly clever answers to this rather obvious criticism, but, as (I think) S. Maugham once said, he doesn't have to say anything--his true character is standing right there speaking so loudly, his words to the contrary are not heard.

 

[Number Six]

If it's an either/or situation then obviously substance should trump style. But usally it's not an either/or situation. Teaching or conveying information depends on both knowing the subject and communicating it and I don't know why the latter is often poo-pooed, as if paying attention to how well you communicate somehow diminishes the substance of what you're trying to communicate.

I've seen Chomsky speak before and he's simply boring to me and to many others too. He takes 10 minutes to say something that a good communicater could get across in 20 seconds. Yeah, maybe if he said it in 20 seconds then he wouldn't be able to get in quite as much documenations and footnotes and all that stuff but at least he might actually COMMUNICATE SOMETHING instead of turning people off.

People often forget that the goal of communication is to communicate rather than to satisfy their own need of thinking they are communicating well. No matter how well you think you did it, if the other person doesn't get your point then you did it poorly.

 

[Number Six]

People often forget that the goal of communication is to communicate rather than to satisfy their own need of thinking they are communicating well. No matter how well you think you did it, if the other person doesn't get your point then you did it poorly.

Let me qualify that last part a bit. In some situations it may not be possible for the other person to get your point. Maybe they just don't want to hear it or maybe they can't comprehend it or whatever. So if you try to communicate something and the other person doesn't get it, it doesn't necessarily mean you communicated poorly. But let's just say that I think people don't put enough empahsis on how their communication will be interpreted by the listener.

 

[Mycroft]

So his "brave" anti-USA, pro-whomever-is-the-USA-enemy stand, is just a show, a circus act of sorts. It's a pretend fight, where Chomsky pretends to be "fighting" the powers of evil and opression (as he describes them), knowing full well those powers will do absolutely nothing in retaliation. He is no more "brave" than the actor playing an action hero is "brave" for pretending to fight a dozen people at once.

I hear those Hollywood action heros get knocked around a lot in filming. Certainly pretending to fight isn't anything like actually fighting, but accidents do happen, and then there are the explosions, etc.

Of course, a seven or eight digit paycheck makes up for a lot.

 

[FreeChile]

I'm not saying he's a coward, but I never understood those who think he shows any bravery.

Who are those people and why do they think Chomsky shows bravery?

He knows very well, of course, that for all his talk about the "oppression", "silencing of criticism", "totalitarianism" and so on in the USA and the west, there is absolutely no danger of him being arrested, exiled, killed, or even slightly inconvenienced for stating his views, no matter how distasteful. In addition, being a tenured professor, he doesn't even take the risk of losing his job due to the dislike of his co-workers.

Are those your only measure of bravery? So you would not consider the questioning of your own presumptions about you and your government to be acts of bravery. You wouldn’t question the nationalistic attitude that leads to accusations like “He's also an America hating Commie.” I’m just asking and not implying that Chomsky is brave in that sense.

So his "brave" anti-USA, pro-whomever-is-the-USA-enemy stand, is just a show, a circus act of sorts. It's a pretend fight, where Chomsky pretends to be "fighting" the powers of evil and oppression (as he describes them), knowing full well those powers will do absolutely nothing in retaliation. He is no more "brave" than the actor playing an action hero is "brave" for pretending to fight a dozen people at once.

Would you kindly back up your claims here.

Following your meaning of bravery as expressed in this post, can you show me other American intellectuals you would consider to be brave. Would you, for instance, consider Alan Dershowitz to be more or less brave than Chomsky? After all, you can only be brave in comparison with others.

 

[FreeChile]

Chomsky suffers from the combined curse of brilliance, which he has in abundance, and arrogance: he is convinced he is right and has slammed the door shut on other points of view long since . . . or at least his writing suggests that. My real complaint with his positions is his continued harangue on an imagined American conspiracy to do evil.

Absent that canard being recycled over and over in his talking points, I find his rhetoric compelling. Don't always agree with him, I rarely do, but I like his incisiveness and wit.

DR

I have highlighted the only statement I would like you to substantiate here. Not because I want to defend Chomsky, but because you have made an accusation and I would like to know if your claim is true or false.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

In that case he is a coward, because clearly the moral thing to do if you live in a country that you think is rich and prosperous because it opresses others is--at the very least--to refuse to participate in such ill-gotten gains and to move to some small country where, while you'll have a lower standard of living, at least you won't be opressing anybody. But he won't do that, because he values his high standard of living too much and is afraid to lose it.

What's worse, morally, is not only that he had done nothing about "the few" whose happiness he claims is bought at the expense of the misery of millions--apart from joining them, that is--but his entire "crusade" against the system is based on his comfortable, secure, and reassuring knowledge that it will be completely ineffective.

He knows that a thousand speeches by him will not increase the probability of a revolution or the collapse of the "exploitive American system of global capitalism" one bit. If he thought it would, he would shut up, because that would mean his personal standard of living might be at risk.

I'm sure Chomsky has already prepared fiendishly clever answers to this rather obvious criticism, but, as (I think) S. Maugham once said, he doesn't have to say anything--his true character is standing right there speaking so loudly, his words to the contrary are not heard.

Skeptic, I can see that were we all to be assessed by your standards, we would all be called cowards. Maybe some might consider that a pithy observation, but I tend to think that makes the work so broadly applicable as to be useless. Chomsky beleives that America needs to change, and he beleives that his writings and speeches may help to accomplish that. He may be wrong on both counts, but he commited himself to the method be believes will be most effective.

 

[FreeChile]

The folks that listen to Chomsky scare me more than Chomsky. An Example? Chavez holding up Chomsky's book at the UN recently.

The thing I dislike the most about Chomsky and his followers is everyone who is opposed to ANY U.S. policy is always right.

He's a cunning linguist.

May I ask where you get that from? How have you come to that conclusion? That is a very general statement to make.