The British seem to have good taste. Look who is at the top of the UK bestseller list:
I know what you are thinking: Where can I get my hands on a copy of Wintersmith? Aside from that, though, it’s impressive that The God Delusion has shot to the top so quickly. When I looked at the list of American best sellers, I saw that it wasn’t as depressing as I feared:
Chomsky and
Frank Rich on top,
Sam Harris is at #5, and
Dawkins is at #12 and climbing fast. Maybe there’s some hope for us after all—at least the literate segment of our population is pondering interesting views.
We still always get our Pratchett much, much later than the English and the Australians, though, which is so unfair.
Chomsky’s book sales have been huge since Hugo Chavez told people he was dead at the U.N.
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20060922110229525
I am rather disapointed in PZ, getting in bed with an anti-semitic, America hating, Israel basher like Noam Chomsky. This is a man who gives liberalism a bad name.
To point out the rather obvious, Chomsky isn’t a liberal. I don’t see how Chomsky gives liberalism a bad name, any more than do Chavez or Ahmadinejad.
Chomsky doesn’t hate either group, he simply points out their outrageous behaviour. It is nonsense to equate deserved criticism with anti-anything, in fact it’s a typical reich winger reaction.
Oh wait. Were you being ironic? Cause I missed that.
Dawkins is at #12 and climbing fast. Maybe there’s some hope for us after all …
Yeah, but how much of that is due to sales to people who are out to quote mine him?
Uh-oh. Delusion has slipped to #13.
Sod Dawkins, I want to read The World of Karl Pilkington. You’d find him fascinating, PZ. He has a rather unusual attitude toward biodiversity. He thinks there are too many different species doing too many weird things, and finds it all rahter confusing. He also doesn’t quite grasp how evolution works, as the following quotes should demonstrate:
“It was bacteria, fish, mermaid, man, onwards and what have you.”
On giraffes: “Why didn’t evolution give them genes to make them good at carpentry then, so they could build a ladder instead of growing long necks?”
On jellyfish – “They are 97% water or something, so how much are they doing? Just give them another 3% and make them water. It’s more useful.”
On chameleons (he doesn’t understand why they might want to change their camouflage) – “Stay green. Stay in the woods. Stay safe.”
“They’ve found this spider, in the jungle. Three foot long, it eats chicken. Bit weird, innit. People moan saying that you shouldn’t lock animals up and all the rest of it, but to be honest I wish it was locked up. The idea that it’s roaming in a jungle… get it locked up.”
We still always get our Pratchett much, much later than the English and the Australians, though, which is so unfair.
Amazon UK ships internationally, ya know.
I’m just sayin’.
You’re right. I was wanting to know where I could get Wintersmith…
The God Delusion was number one on amazon.ca for awhile too.
A good place to get Wintersmith would be at a stop on PTerry’s promotional tour for the book (and CD?). He’d really rather be writing the next book, so if he must tour, the least we can do is show up and thank him.
“Chomsky doesn’t hate either group, he simply points out their outrageous behaviour.”
Personally, I find Chomsky very selective about how he targets his criticism. In that regard, I find him almost a mirror to right-wing ideologues, who can find no wrong in Israel or the US, go into significant detail of every transgression made by an enemy, and can never find a reason for the latter except pure nefariousness. Simply doing the opposite doesn’t provide balance. That comes from an historian who looks at both sides, simultaneously and in context.
We still always get our Pratchett much, much later than the English and the Australians, though, which is so unfair.
According to Amazon.com, Wintersmith is coming out in the U.S on Sept. 26, which would be two days before the date shown on that screenshot of Amazon.co.uk.
Not only do we get Pratchett later, we get him with those crappy jackets. Just compare The Night Watch! I always buy from amazon.co.uk …
“I know what you are thinking: Where can I get my hands on a copy of Wintersmith?”
That is exactly what I was thinkng.
Re Brian Coughlin
“Chomsky doesn’t hate either group, he simply points out their outrageous behaviour. It is nonsense to equate deserved criticism with anti-anything, in fact it’s a typical reich winger reaction.
Oh wait. Were you being ironic? Cause I missed that.”
1. Gee, I guess that Prof. Chomskys’ endorsement of his buddy, the Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, proves how much he likes Jews.
2. Has Chomsky ever said anything positive about the US or Israel? If you believe him, everything wrong in the world for the past 58 years is their fault. In particular, he appears to be convinced that if the State of Israel were to disappear today, if not sooner, everything would be well in the Middle East.
Don’t worry about getting the latest Pratchett. Just read one of his old ones. They’re all pretty much the same.
I have to agree with Russell about Chomsky. He is exactly the sort of mirror image, if the right thinks it, I must be right for thinking the opposite, sort of person that makes me suspicious of some parts of the left. The guy has some screws loose and some of the stuff I have heard him say, not just quoted from him, are about as unbelievably, “Wait! You really think that is true?!?”, as some of the equally bizzare stuff from the right. For example, Chomsky seems to believe in the whole, “speech code are OK, as long as they promote diversity.”, BS. I.e., the right wants speech codes in the form, “The guy that wants to beat you to death with a bat wouldn’t be doing that if he said, ‘Slap you!!’, instead of, ‘F#$% you!!’.” Chomsky is on the reverse end of the spectrum. I presume he is in the “bad language isn’t bad” crowd, and not in the silly group above, but he promotes the equally insane idea being bandied about at a lot of universities that you should defend the right of everyone to say what they want (ok so far), even to the extent of denying anyone else the right to confront their insane BS **when** they are saying it, such as during a Neo-Nazi rally (WTF?), you should instead fill out the paperwork to file for a new protest/rally, then, when all the people that you need to challenge and all the idiots that follow them are someplace else (i.e. there is no threat of disturbance of the peace or anyone’s beliefs being challenged, since the only attendies are already almost exclusively believers…) *then* you can preech to the choir about how wrong the other group was. Oh, and stereotypes *are* OK, as long as its liberals that come up with them and not some old stereotype from one of those older “wrong” generations.
Ok, maybe he just hasn’t thought some of the stuff he believes through, but given his high standing in acedemia and the number of people that promote him as some rising star in the reality based movement, he *still* has more in common with some parallel universe than this one, a noticable amount of the time.
1. Gee, I guess that Prof. Chomskys’ endorsement of his buddy, the Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, proves how much he likes Jews.
A. Were you aware that Chomsky is himself a Jew?
B. Chomsky’s interaction with his so-called “buddy” boils down to exactly three facts: he signed a petition condemning Faurisson’s prosecution on grounds of respect for free speech, he wrote a small essay elaborating on his points (which was later used as a preface for Faurisson’s book, essentially without Chomsky’s permission), and one of Chomsky’s books was translated into French and published by the same publisher that Faurisson used. None of this amounts to an endorsement. The Holocaust and the ideology behind it factors repeatedly into his analysis, and he does not and did not agree with Holocaust deniers.
2. Has Chomsky ever said anything positive about the US or Israel? If you believe him, everything wrong in the world for the past 58 years is their fault. In particular, he appears to be convinced that if the State of Israel were to disappear today, if not sooner, everything would be well in the Middle East.
Sure. He’s repeatedly discussed the value of the freedom enjoyed by Americans. He doesn’t consider the US to be oppressive to its own citizens, unlike some on the left. I recall some pretty effusive endorsement of American belief in social justice in Class Warfare.
However, even if he never said a single good word about the United States, that alone would not be a sufficient reason to denounce or ignore him. After all, it’s not like the viewpoint that the US is benevolent is particularly ill-represented in both academia and in the public arena.
As for Israel, he’s never endorsed its elimination. He has generally been in favor of a two-state solution, although sometimes he’s appeared to lean toward a single-state solution. I’ve read quite a lot of his writing and interviews, and Israel is a rather infrequent target of his criticism.
Do you have any criticisms of Noam Chomsky which aren’t rooted in misrepresentation and slander?
Re Djur.
1. I didn’t say Chomsky endorsed holocaust denial. Chomsky claims that Fauriasson is not a holocaust denier.
2. You are apparently unaware of several debates Chomsky has had with Alan Dershowitz in which the former has explicitly stated that the State of Israel is an illegal creation. To my knowledge, he has never endorsed a two state solution, and in fact, in the debates with Dershowitz took issue with the latters’ endorsement of same.
3. Prof. Chomsky was born a Jew. So what? Karl Marx and Lazar Kaganovich were also and they were both vicious anti-semites, as is Chomsky.
Joan Bakewell has a review of Dawkins in the Grauniad. It’s curious: I had her down as a Church of England stalwart.
Anyway, this is how she ends her review:
Bob
“You are apparently unaware of several debates Chomsky has had with Alan Dershowitz in which the former has explicitly stated that the State of Israel is an illegal creation.”
Saying it was an illegal creation is completely different from saying it should be eliminated. I would say that the Anglo colonization of North America was illegal, but that doesn’t mean that I think it should be eliminated.
N, bt h hs t strt smwhr!
You get can get Wintersmith right now from Amazon.com. They shipped my copy of Wintersmith today, for delivery on the 28th.
1. Wow. You have one guy (SLC) attacking Chomsky for daring to defend a bigot’s right to say what he has to say, and another (kagehi) claiming (I think…that wasn’t the most cogent post I’m afraid) that Chomsky is a big proponent of university speech codes. Why don’t you guys duke it out first?
2. “I didn’t say Chomsky endorsed holocaust denial. Chomsky claims that Fauriasson is not a holocaust denier.”
This is nonsense. Chomsky said it doesn’t matter what he thinks, he should be allowed to say it. Thought-crime is a very bad thing, he sez.
Karl Pilkington is great.
SLC, why don’t you keep your racist Israel-first anti-american ideology to yourself?
“Personally, I find Chomsky very selective about how he targets his criticism.”
By necessity, I’m afraid, and he has admitted as much. How many other American commentators even talk about the US history in the middle east? From overthrowing Mossadegh and propping up Shah to supporting Saddam and the Saudis to financing the Mujahideen, the list goes on, and with media as prone and helpless as the American mainstream news networks, someone has to give the other side.
As Rush Limbaugh once said (rather cleverly, I thought, though I can’t stand the prick) “you don’t need to balance me. I AM equal time”
Russell: Chomsky explains why he appears selective in his criticism – he primarily (but not exclusively, if you read enough to see) criticizes the crimes and thuggeries that he, as an American, has some control over. (Through taxes and public opinion etc.)
In case it isn’t obvious, the argument for free speech even for Nazis and other monsters is simply that giving the government the power to decide that such and such speech is to be banned is too dangerous. In essence it is a slippery slope argument, one first made (or at least popularized) by JS Mill.
Having been a Pratchett fan for far too many years, I’ve watched the UK/US publising times for a while, and the US publisher has made huge strides in evening the releases–the last four or five books have been a matter of a handful of weeks as opposed to the months and months it was before.
Also, for the truly impatient in Seattle (as I was when the delay was so long), the University Bookstore may have British Pratchett books before their official release stateside. Actually, I doubt they are allowed to for various reasons, so it must have been completely my imagination; I’m certain they weren’t on the top shelf in the fantasy section, on the second floor.
Also, for anyone else who happens to be hardbound obsessive but missed the first fifteen books or so, there are Omnibus editions with three books apiece, excepting the first two which are in their own collected edition, all in hardback in Britain. amazon.co.uk can help with that.
Wow – the amazon.com featured review really sucks. I guess we should be happy that it’s all the way up to #13, with that toxic mess right on the page.
Re bernarda
Chomsky is the anti-American, not me.
Re D
Attached is an article by Alan Dershowitz which, among other things, rebuts your claims that Chomsky is just defending Faurissons’ right to free speech. It also shows Chomsky for the lier that he is.
Chomsky’s Immoral Divestiture Petition
Guest Column
Alan M. Dershowitz
Who is Noam Chomsky and why is he seeking to compel universities to divest from corporations that have ties to Israel? I have known Noam Chomsky for more than thirty years. I have debated him on numerous occasions, and I have written extensively about his zealous anti-Zionism and his flirtations with neo-Nazi revisionism and Holocaust denial. I was not surprised therefore to learn that he is the inspiration behind the foolish and immoral campaign for divestiture.
I first debated Chomsky in 1973, several weeks after the Yom Kippur War. Chomsky’s proposal at that time was consistent with the PLO party line. He wanted to abolish the state of Israel, and to substitute a “secular, binational state,” based on the model of binational “brotherhood” that then prevailed in Lebanon. Chomsky repeatedly pointed to Lebanon, where Christians and Muslims “lived side by side,” sharing power in peace and harmony. This was just a few years before Lebanon imploded in fratricidal disaster.
This is what I said about Chomsky’s hare-brained scheme in our 1973 debate: “Putting aside the motivations behind such a proposal when it is made by the Palestinian organizations, why do not considerations of self-determination and community control favor two separate states: one Jewish and one Arab? Isn’t it better for people of common background to control their own life, culture, and destiny (if they so choose), than to bring together in an artificial way people who have shown no ability to live united in peace. I confess to not understanding the logic of the proposal, even assuming its good will.”
My counterproposal was that “Israel should declare, in principle, its willingness to give up the captured territories in return for a firm assurance of lasting peace. By doing so, it would make clear what I think the vast majority of Israelis believe: it has no interest in retaining the territories for any reason other than protection from attack.”
Chomsky rejected my proposal out of hand. He characterized it as a mere return to the “colonialist status quo.” Only the dismantling of the colonialist Jewish state would satisfy the PLO, and only the creation of a secular, binational Palestine in “all of Palestine” would satisfy Chomsky.
My next encounter with Chomsky revolved around his writing an introduction to a book by an anti-Semite named Robert Faurisson who denied that the Holocaust took place, that Hitler’s gas chambers existed, that the diary of Anne Frank was authentic, and that there were death camps in Nazi occupied Europe. He claimed that the “massive lie” about genocide was a deliberate concoction initiated by “American Zionists” “and that “the Jews” were responsible for World War II. Chomsky described these and other conclusions as “findings” and said that they were based on “extensive historical research.” He also wrote that “I see no anti-Semitic implication in the denial of the existence in gas chambers or even in the denial of the Holocaust.” He said he saw “no hint of anti-Semitic implications in Faurisson’s work,” including his claim that “the Jews” were responsible for World War II. He wrote an introduction to one of Faurisson’s book which was used to market his anti-Semitic lies.
In a subsequent debate at the Harvard Medical School, Chomsky initially denied having advocated a Lebanon-style binational state for Israel, only to have to back down upon being confronted with the evidence. He also tried to dispute the fact that he had authorized an essay he had written in defense of Robert Faurisson to be used as the forward to Faurisson’s book about Holocaust denial, but again had to back down. Chomsky took the position that he had no interest in “revisionist” literature before Faurisson had written the book. When confronted by Robert Nozick, a distinguished philosophy professor who recalled discussing revisionist literature with him well before the Faurisson book, Chomsky first berated Nozick for disclosing a private conversation and then he shoved him contemptuously in front of numerous witnesses.
This then is the man who is leading the campaign for divesture against Israel. He is joined in this ignoble effort by some who would take the money now invested in the Mideast’s only democracy and have it sent to Iraq, Libya, Syria, Cuba, the Palestinian Authority, and others who support and finance terrorism. He is also joined by a motley assortment of knee-jerk anti-Zionists, rabid Anti-Americans, radical leftists (the Spartacist League), people with little knowledge of the history of the Arab-Israeli dispute, and even some of Chomsky’s former students who now teach in Israel.
There is no intellectually or morally defensible case for singling out Israel for divestiture, and I challenge Chomsky to debate me on the morality of this selective attack against an American ally that is defending itself — and the world — against terrorism that targets civilians. Universities invest in a wide array of companies that have operations in countries that systematically violate the human rights of millions of people. Nor are these countries defending themselves against those who would destroy them and target their civilians. Yet this petition focused only on the Jewish State, to the exclusion of all others, including those which, by any reasonable standard, are among the worst violators of human rights. This is bigotry pure and simple, and those who signed the petition should be ashamed of themselves and shamed by others.
Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard University.
Chomsky just says the stuff no one else has the guts to say. Past, and especially current american policy is proto-fascism, certainly from my 2nd class remove as a “non-american”.
As for Israel, no group has ever cornered the market on victimhood as consistently, while simultaneously kicking the shit out of another party.
I would never recommend their extermination (or indeed anyones) but I can certainly see they are a bunch of heartless bastards, actively encouraged by the heartless bastards in the white house.
Yes, Alan Dershowitz is authoritative on everything regarding Chomsky, because unsourced claims from known plagiarists, quote-doctors and advocates of torture are always to be trusted when they are attacking their political enemies.
I can’t believe I’m finding this Chomsky bashing here!
The simple act that brought about this lable of anti-semitism was Chomsky’s defence of FREE SPEECH, even applied to something as dispicable as holocaust denial.
Calling a born jew an anti-semite (or self hating jew) is silly. Read a book.
No, no it isn’t. It does (or should) require a great deal of evidence before we label someone an anti-semite — and if the person in questioin is themselves semitic, we should examine that hypothesis even harder. But it’s not inherently silly.
I have never met a Chomsky basher who was actually knowledgable about Chomsky’s views and work. Check out this series of interviews from 1986 to 1990. http://www.zmag.org/CHOMSKY/interviews/dissent-excerpts.html Virtually everything in it applies today.
I was just shocked (“shocked I say”) to find an article on LewRockwell.com that is sympathetic to Noam Chomsky. But it’s not by Lew; it’s by Richard Wall and drives home the point that Chomsky is a libertarian, a left libertarian (libertarian socialist) who has a lot in common with the right libertarians.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/wall/wall26.html
Re Brian Coughlin
Gee, that’s very nice of you, not wanting to exterminate the Jews in Israel. Unfortunately, if Israel ever lost a war to their Arab enemies, that’s exactly what would happen. You claim that the IDF is bashing the Palestinians. Unfortunately, the Palestinians are asking for it. If they want to stop being bashed, they should cease firing kassim rockets into Israel and sending homicide bombers to blow up piazza parlors. Nothing very complicated about it.
Re Tyler DiPietro
The accusation of plagerism against Dershowitz is a goddamm lie. This charge has been made by such people as Howard Finkelstein, an anti-semitic so called Jew, and Alexander Cockburn whose anti-semitism was so obvious that he was fired by the Nation magazine, a publication not known for being friendly toward the State of Israel. The charge is that Dershkowitz plagerized a book authored by a Ms. Joan Peters. Here are a couple of responses to this crap accusation.
That is why James O. Freedman, the former president of Dartmouth, University of Iowa, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, concluded after reviewing the Finkelstein charge:
I do not understand [Finkelstein’s] charge of plagiarism against Alan Dershowitz. There is no claim that Dershowitz used the words of others without attribution. When he uses the words of others, he quotes them properly and generally cites them to the original sources (Mark Twain, Palestine Royal Commission, etc.) [Finkelstein’s] complaint is that instead he should have cited them to the secondary source, in which Dershowitz may have come upon them. But as the Chicago Manual of Style emphasizes:
Importance of attribution. With all reuse of others’ materials, it is important to identify the original as the source. This not only bolsters the claims of fair use, it also helps avoid any accusation of plagiarism.
This is precisely what Dershowitz did. Moreover, many of the sources quoted both by Dershowitz and Peters are commonly quoted in discussions of this period of Palestinian history. Nor can it be said that Dershowitz used Peters’ ideas without attribution. He cites Peters seven times in the early chapter of his book, while making clear that he does not necessarily accept her conclusions. This is simply not plagiarism, under any reasonable definition of that word.
Professor Charles Fried, the former Solicitor General of the U.S. and the Beneficial Professor of Law at Harvard, agrees, calling the Finkelstein accusation “stupid, unfair and ridiculous… from a biased accuser.”[39] The distinguished chief-librarian at Harvard Law School also concluded that I had done nothing improper. An inquiry by Harvard cleared me of any wrongdoing.
“Gee, that’s very nice of you, not wanting to exterminate the Jews in Israel. Unfortunately, if Israel ever lost a war to their Arab enemies, that’s exactly what would happen.”
Yes, yes, those Arabs are eeeeevil! They hate everyone.
Just like how the jews run the world.
“I do not understand [Finkelstein’s] charge of plagiarism against Alan Dershowitz. There is no claim that Dershowitz used the words of others without attribution. When he uses the words of others, he quotes them properly and generally cites them to the original sources (Mark Twain, Palestine Royal Commission, etc.) [Finkelstein’s] complaint is that instead he should have cited them to the secondary source, in which Dershowitz may have come upon them.”
That is technically the incorrect way to attribute things, unless he went and looked up the quotes in the original source he should only cite the secondary source; I learned that sophmore year in college. But that is definitely not plagarism.
If Israel wants to stop being rocketed, they should cease bulldozing Palestinian homes with people inside and building an endless stream of settlements in violation of UN-ratified orders.
It would seem that for there to be any real peace, both sides would have to stop being dicks simultaneously, which really isn’t going to happen. The only peace that seems likely is the one that will exist once they finally exterminate each other once and for all.
I really appreciate Chomsky’s contributions to the field of linguistics. I can overlook his politics.
Re Caledonian
The Palestinians had a chance for real peace in 2000 and turned it down. The problem is that real peace to them means the elimination of the State of Israel as it currently exists.
Re AoT
I don’t know if the Arabs hate everyone but a sufficient number of them hate Jews and Christians so that they are willing to commit suicide in order to kill as many of the latter as possible through homicide bombings and crashing hijacked airliners into buildings.
“The Palestinians had a chance for real peace in 2000 and turned it down. The problem is that real peace to them means the elimination of the State of Israel as it currently exists.”
And by peace you mean only not being attacked, not living in a situation that was conducive to any sort of meaningful development which Israel did not control. The problem is that the Palestinians are fighting *for* something which means that there are certain situations of “peace” which are completely unacceptable, 2000 was one of those cases.
“I don’t know if the Arabs hate everyone but a sufficient number of them hate Jews and Christians so that they are willing to commit suicide in order to kill as many of the latter as possible through homicide bombings and crashing hijacked airliners into buildings.”
Many Arabs hate Israel, America and Britain enough to kill the citizens of those countries but the vast majority certainly do not hate Christians. You could likely say that a majority of Arabs hate Jews, but isn’t every Jew a citizen of Israel, at least in theory. And if they do all hate Jews, why do they work with some of them against Israeli actions in palestine?
FWIW (and apologies if everyone already knows this), Richard Dawkins and Terry Pratchett also have in common their connection with the British Humanist Association: Dawkins is a vice president, Pratchett a Distinguished Supporter.
Don’t know about Karl P. …
I’d just like to chime in to say the SLC is a lying sack of shit. That is all.
Unfortunately, Wintersmith is one of the ‘Discworld for younger reader’ books. :(
Hmm. Chomsky seem like a concerned and thoughtful fellow on television.
“Chomsky has acquired many critics from both the right and left ends of the political spectrum. Despite his Jewish heritage, he has been accused of lending support to those accused of expressing anti-semitic viewpoints for his defense of Robert Faurisson’s right to free speech.” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky )
It seems Chomsky’s point was:
“”In that context, I made a further point: even denial of the Holocaust would not prove that a person is an anti-Semite. I presume that that point too is not subject to contention. Thus if a person ignorant of modern history were told of the Holocaust and refused to believe that humans are capable of such monstrous acts, we would not conclude that he is an anti-Semite. That suffices to establish the point at issue.”” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faurisson_affair )
I wouldn’t trust Dershowitz pertaining Chomsky:
“In 1972, according to his critics, Dershowitz attempted to discredit Israel Shahak, the chairman of the Israel League for Human and Civil Rights, who had sharply criticized Israeli treatment of Palestinians. … In response, Noam Chomsky, citing court documents, claimed that the court had opined that the elections had not been held properly, that no conclusions or actions were to be drawn from it, and that Shahak and his colleagues were to continue to function as “those who now direct” the Israel League for Human and Civil Rights.[22] The controversy initiated by this dispute has fuelled ongoing personal animosity between Dershowitz and Chomsky” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Dershowitz )
SLC, anyone who cites Israel-firster Dershowitz as an authority has already discredited himself. People like Dershowitz, and Horowitz for example, will do, say, and lie about anything to defend their “fatherland” Israel.
They are particularly active in the zionist-McCarthyite campaign to smear anyone who criticizes Israel as an “anti-semite”. Their apologies for Israel’s crimes against humanity are in themselves anti-semite. They need to re-create the bogeyman of anti-semitism to justify them.
Here is a video conference by Norman Finkelstein on the origins and influence of the Israel Lobby in the U.S.
http://workingtv.com/next.html
Just scroll down to Finkelstein, “Is Criticism of Israel Anti-Semitic?” There is also a video of Noam Chomsky.
On another subject, I also suggest the conference by Vandana Siva
I wouldn’t trust a word Alan Dershowitz says about anything. If he told me it was a nice day, I’d take an umbrella.
Indeed. I’m not a huge fan of either Chomsky’s politics or his linguistics, but bringing up Dershowitz as the voice of reason who “debunks” him is, well, sort of comical.
Chomksy himself isn’t so bad, actually. I just grow weary very quickly with the cult of personality that follows him in both of his academic realms.
I don’t know if the Arabs hate everyone but a sufficient number of them hate Jews and Christians so that they are willing to commit suicide in order to kill
For goodness sake snap out of the propaganda. Ask almost any american if he would “die for his country” and you’d have even modestly intelligent people answering “yes”. I’m guessing,if you are honest, you’d answer the same.
However, as it happens, your country has a heavily armed military to do all the killing for it, so the issue rarely arises.
Killing people randomly, which both the Isrealis, Americans and Hamas etc. do, is wrong. Period. War is a crime. Period. Those that advocate it, prosecute it and organise it should be tried as criminals, on ALL sides.
How is it progress if a scientist (Chomsky) can only get on the bestseller list by writing outside his field of expertise?
But perhaps there is a light at the end of the tunnel – in this Chomsky-inspired
Huh? It’s a Law Of Internet Behavior:
Any forum of otherwise like-minded individuals can be inspired to turn upon each other at briefest mention of Chomsky’s name.
Please ignore the first line of my previous post. Althought it may seem apropriate, it belongs in a different forum.
Re Torbjörn Larsson
The late Israel Shahak was another Israel hater, even though he lived there. His writings have appeared on a number of anti-semitic sites such as ptimes.com, which has since dissappeared. Attached is an article exposing Shahak as a liar and self-hating Jew.
The Jews are Bad !
by Werner Cohn
A review of
Jewish History, Jewish Religion. The Weight of Three Thousand Years. by Israel Shahak, Foreword by Gore Vidal. Pluto Press, London and Boulder, Colorado. 1994
Israel Horizons, vol. 42, no. 3 of 4 (sic), Autumn 1994, pp. 28-9. copyright 1994 by Werner Cohn
Israel Shahak is a retired Israeli teacher of chemistry who travels the world to lecture on the evils of Zionism and the Jewish religion. His claims and opinions are so bizarre that, by themselves, they could not justify paying any attention to this book. But the work comes to us with an urgent recommendation from Noam Chomsky on its cover and with an essay by Gore Vidal as a foreword. Bearing this double cachet, the book will undoubtedly find its way to the shelves of bookstores and, at least in some limited way, to the attention of people on the Left.
Dr. Shahak says that he wants Jews to change their ways and to stop the atrocities associated with Zionism and Orthodox Jewish religion. As a first step, he wants us to face the terrible crimes that were committed by of our ancestors. One way of doing this, he says (pp. 72-3), is to develop a positive attitude toward “popular [his emphasis] anti-Jewish manifestations of the past.” His prime example are the Chmielnicki massacres of 17th century Ukraine, which he wants us to celebrate as a progressive uprising:
Do decent English historians, even when noting the massacres of Englishmen by rebellious Irish peasant rising against their enslavement, condemn the latter as ‘anti-English racists’ ? What is the attitude of progressive French historians towards the great slave revolution in Santo Domingo, where many French women and children were butchered ? To ask the question is to answer it.
It is indeed.
Dr. Shahak is full of startling revelations, if that is the word, about Jewish history and the Jewish religion. None of those I was able to check had any foundation.
Some are just funny. He says (pp. 23-4) that “Jewish children are actually taught” to utter a ritual curse when passing a non-Jewish cemetery. He also tells us (p. 34) that “both before and after a meal, a pious Jew ritually washes his hands….On one of these two occasions he is worshiping God… but on the other he is worshiping Satan…”
I did take the trouble to question my orthodox rabbi nephew to find what might be behind such tall tales. He had no clue. If orthodox Jews were actually taught such hateful things, surely someone would have heard. Whom is Dr. Shahak kidding ?
Orthodox Jews, according to Shahak, frequently kill those whose views they do not like. “For example, in the late 1830’s a ‘Holy Rabbi’ (Tzadik) in a small Jewish town in the Ukraine ordered the murder of a heretic by throwing him into the boiling water of the town baths…” Shahak gives neither the name of the town nor the year of this alleged killing. We are asked to take this tale on his say-so alone (p. 17).
In another story he gives enough detail to find a reference to the incident in the Encyclopaedia Judaica. It seems that a liberal rabbi and his family were poisoned in Lemberg (now Lvov) in 1848. According to the EJ, some orthodox fanatics were suspected of the crime. Where the EJ reports an unsolved case, which may indeed have been due to food poisoning, Shahak knows precisely who the murderers were: “the leaders of the Jewish community.” How does he know this ? He won’t say. This is the very stuff of the paranoid approach to historiography. (P. 17)
One of Shahak’s charges has been taken very seriously. Some thirty years ago Shahak reported to the press that he had personally witnessed the following incident: an orthodox Jew saw an injured non-Jew on the Sabbath. To save the man’s life, it was necessary to call an ambulance. The Jew had the phone handy but would not allow a violation of the sabbath, i.e. use of the phone, because the injured was a non-Jew. In Shahak’s version, with which he begins this book, the Jew here followed the ruling the of orthodox rabbinate. The story was taken up by Ha-Arets in Israel, then by the Jewish Chronicle in London and other publications, all joining in a clamor against the barbaric orthodox. (Dr. Shahak does not seem to notice that this clamor, which he duly notes, is in itself a refutation of his charge that current Jewish life is dominated by orthodox inhumanity).
Dr. Shahak, whose nose is longer than Pinocchio’s in any case, does not tell us the whole story of the incident. In the Summer 1966 issue of Tradition, an orthodox Jewish journal, we have the much more credible account by Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits (later the Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth). First of all, according to Rabbi Jakobovits, and contrary to Shahak’s allegation, the rabbinate had ruled clearly that not only can the Sabbath be violated under such circumstances, but such violation would be a religious duty, to save a non-Jewish life no less than a Jewish life. Moreover, we also learn that Dr. Shahak, when challenged to produce his “orthodox Jew,” was forced to admit that this Jew did not exist.
Re Anonymoses
I will refrain from responding in kind to this kind of invective, other then to say that the writer apparently believes that name calling precludes the necessity of providing intellectual discourse.
Re Brian Coughlan
The cause that the terrorists are dying for is to impose the rule of the Sharia on the entire world. To compare the sacrifices made by the civilized world during WW 2 in combatting Hitler with such a cause is beyond the pale.
Re AoT
Rather then take up further space on this blog refuting the erroneous claims made in this response, I will refer the interested observer to the book written by Dennis Ross concerning the events of the year 2000. Unlike AoT and myself, he was there and describes exactly what happened. As a man who labored tirelessly for 12 years to create a Palestinian State, I think he is a credible observer.
The cause that the terrorists are dying for is to impose the rule of the Sharia on the entire world. To compare the sacrifices made by the civilized world during WW 2 in combatting Hitler with such a cause is beyond the pale.
Actually that wasn’t remotely the comparison I was making. However it’s clear you’ve bought into the black/white us/them meme that is doing the rounds in the US. I foolishly thought that this was more or less the exclusive province the of the religious right in the US. I stand corrected. Yay.
This is the same meme that every militant grouping feeds its constituents in every conflict in every time and place. We are good, they are bad. When we kill them it’s honourable and just, when they kill us, they are inhuman monsters. Jesus, that people still wolf this classic shit down, even HERE. On a site where one would expect at least a modicum of critical thinking. Depressing:-(
Grow up. It facilitates dialouge. When all the killing is over, you’ll need some of that.
Israeli troll SLC comes out with the other zionist smear, “Attached is an article exposing Shahak as a liar and self-hating Jew.”
Then SLC says, “I will refrain from responding in kind to this kind of invective” in responding to a poster who apparently offended him.
Give me a break. Anyway, I am finished with this guy. No use in responding further to troll boy.
jbark writes, “I’m not a huge fan of either Chomsky’s politics or his linguistics.”
That last makes me curious what you have against Chomsky’s linguistics. I realize his theories of how people form language have been surpassed, which is neither surprising nor to his discredit. On the other hand, the formal tools he put in place remain fundamental to understanding language complexity.
Re Barnarda
This was the comment I referred to. I think that any fairminded individual would agree that this constitutes invective.
“I’d just like to chime in to say the SLC is a lying sack of shit. That is all.”
In addition, your promise to refrain from reacting to my comments will cause me to lose perhaps a microsecond of sleep.
PZ, feel free to disemvowel SLC any time. It would have the virtue of cutting his bloated screeds down to a length where they aren’t so irritating to page through.
“I’d just like to chime in to say the SLC is a lying sack of shit. That is all.”
Truth hurts, doesn’t it, SLC?
Sorry, I don’t chop up comments just because they’re incredibly stupid and wrong. The commenter has to demonstrate some kind of obtuse obsessiveness before I’ll step in and crush them like a bug.
When SLC starts ranting about Israel and Chomsky on every thread, then I’ll click on my magic disemvoweling button (I’ve got a little applescript doodad I scribbled up that makes it easy — so easy I have to slap my wrist a few dozen times a day to keep from using it.)
Re Kurt Engels
Apparently, this individual also believes that invective is preferable to intellectual discussion.
Re PZ
I would respectfully suggest that less attention be given to polite comments on subjects such as Israel and Chomsky and more attention be given to invective by and name calling of commenters.
Dawkins now up to #9!
RE: Russell
This is way out of context of the thread, but let’s just say his theories have definately not been surpassed and left behind. That would be good and that would be progress. Instead, his views are still the bedrock foundation of a substantial portion of linguistics (mostly on the East Coast). This despite the fact that precious little progress has been made on what actually constitute the parameters of universal grammar.
Take a course on Syntax anywhere but California and its likely to just be a littany of Chomsky’s successive books and changes-of-mind on the topic. Very strange.
SLC:
“The late Israel Shahak was another Israel hater, even though he lived there.”
Besides being the reason for the conflict between Chomsky and Dershowitz, what has that to do with the problem of using Dershowitz on Chomsky?
Taking my example from Chomsky ( ;-), I would reversely not trust Chomsky on Dershowitz.
And frankly, noting how wrongly you described how Well’s obtained his PhD on another thread, I don’t trust your conspiracy theories either.
“Take a course on Syntax anywhere but California and its likely to just be a littany of Chomsky’s successive books and changes-of-mind on the topic.”
Well, yes, but the surpassing and leaving behind comes from the fact that modern linguistics has revealed that non-syntactical elements play hugely important roles in language production and comprehension. Chomsky pretty much ignores hugely productive fields like pragmatics or psycholinguistics, preferring to address competence rather than performance. That’s his prerogative of course, but many linguists consider that by focusing on syntax he is ignoring things that are central to competence as well.
Re Torbjörn Larsson
1. Please excuse my obtuseness but could you explain why my comment relative to Mr. Wells PhD was in error. I merely said that he was admitted to the UC Berkeley graduate program under false pretenses and that therefore his degree was fraudulent.
2. I believe that you were the one who brought up Israel Shahak. I was merely responding to your using him as a club to beat up Dershowitz with. The fact is that Shahak, Chomsky, and Finkelstein are all self-hating Jews whose antagonism to the State of Israel goes far beyond legitimate criticism. All of them believe that Israel is an illegal country and should be disbanded. By the way, I don’t entirely agree with Dershowitz either. He favors the creation of a Palestinian State. My position is that the Palestinian State is in Amman.
“Dawkins now up to #9!”
Damnations George, you beat me! But you forgot to mention that Harris has moved up to #3.
I’m afraid I won’t be contributing to the ranking since my plan is to just wait until he comes to town and get a signed copy of the book. I will then, without reading a single word, mail it off to Minnesota to get page #69 signed.
;-)
My wife has told me that I’m also mentioned in a footnote later in the book. Shall I sign both pages?
Should I make querulous little notes in the margins pointing out my disagreements?
Dawkins up to #6! Woo Hoo! Harris holding steady at #3.
Sorry PZ. I was in the bookshop on Saturday, and chose PTerry over Dawkins. Does fully intending to buy it in paperback count?
Why do I have the feeling that if we could view SLC’s campaign contributions, most of them would be to the GOP?
Why do I have the feeling that if we could see SLC’s web browser history, sites like Little Green Footballs and Front Page Mag would top the list?
Why do I have the feeling that no amount of debunking of SLC’s cherished “facts” will make a dent in his determination to smear Noam Chomsky?
Likely nobody will see this comment, being the last of 75 or so, but I just received my copy of the God Delusion in the mail today. Perfect timing too: I got married over the weekend in a beautifully secular wedding ceremony (unlike Prof. Myers’) that contained no mention of God, Jesus, their ghostly friend, the word “bless,” or any other nonsense. The judge carried a book of Sir Francis Bacon and (incredibly?) commented on the solemnity of the occasion without reference to any supernatural power.
I look forward to reading the Dawkins during the honeymoon.
Dawkins at #4!
“By now Jews in the US are the most privileged and influential part of the population. You find occasional instances of anti-Semitism but they are marginal. Anti-Semitism is no longer a problem, fortunately. It’s raised, but it’s raised because privileged people want to make sure they have total control, not just 98% control.”
– Noam Chomsky
Sounds like an antisemite to me. Yeah sure, Jews have 98% control.
SLC:
“I merely said that he was admitted to the UC Berkeley graduate program under false pretenses and that therefore his degree was fraudulent.”
No. Specifically you said:
“A fair comment here would be to question why the Un. of California, Berkeley has not revoked Mr. Wells PhD degree, seeing as how it was frauduently obtained.”
PZ’s answered that best: “Wells’ degree was not fraudulently obtained. He had an obliging advisor who let him slip through the degree process — it happens.”
“I was merely responding to your using him as a club to beat up Dershowitz with.”
This demonstrates nicely how a Chomsky-Dershowitz conflict may start. If you read my earlier comment you should easily see that I’m not beting up Derschowitz. Yet you disregard what I’m saying, and instead construe something that isn’t there.