From [youtube]@3:46
The right, at this point, is simply suicidal.
It’s not a question of going too far. The right is committed to destruction of organized human society. Is that an extreme statement? Maybe, but it’s correct. Just take a look at the Republican Party: what is the Republican Party committed to? They are committed to destroying human life.
And not in the long term. The Paris agreements, a couple years ago – they weren’t fabulous, but they were something, at least. Their original intent was to create a treaty in which there would be verifiable commitments to some measures, to avert the huge threat of global warming. Couldn’t get a treaty; it had to be a voluntary agreement. Why? Republican senators wouldn’t accept it.
Take the Republican primary of 2016. Every single candidate without exception either denied that global warming was taking place or said “maybe it is but we don’t care.” John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, who was considered the real moderate of the group said, “yeah, we recognize that global warming is taking place and it’s serious but we in Ohio are going to use our coal and we’re not going to apologize for it.” That’s the moderate Republican.
It’s far from the best interview I’ve seen with Chomsky. The poor fellow is starting to sound old and tired, and I felt bad for him, getting asked the same questions that he has been answering since the 1960s. The interviewers were not well-prepared and some of their questions were downright stupid, i.e.: “what do you think of postmodernism?” At one point they asked him about Jordan Peterson and he was deliciously dismissive. Chomsky remains a consistent and thoughtful voice of dissent. It’s got to be depressing for him to see how the world has veered into authoritarianism in the last decade.
As you say, Chomsky is looking old. He is old dammit, but still an implacable foe of authoritarians everywhere.
One thing that really riles me still is the way that his critics in the popular press keep writing articles that, in essence, say that they disagree with his politics and furthermore his contributions to linguistics and the theory of formal languages have also been refuted. Apparently it is not enough to disagree with his politics but you must also claim that he isn’t very smart. And this typically from hacks who wouldn’t know a formal grammar if you whacked them with it.
At the other end of the scale William Shockley was a vile racist – but he turned out to be right about electrons and holes in semiconductors.
cafebabe @#1
Personally, I am skeptical of the poverty of the stimulus argument or the idea of universal grammar. Yet I would never even mention those in a conversation about Chomsky’s political opinions. It’s nonsensical to say, “This person was right/wrong about this one idea, therefore he is right/wrong about everything.”
This is what happens when you get a simultaneous revival of Randian economics and religious fanaticism. Let’s shred the environment in the name of Capital; if things go wrong, Jesus will fly in on a cloud, turn a few dials, and everything will be sweet again. If Jesus is a no-show, then it’s rapture time!
Andreas @#2
Exactly. Hence my counter example of Shockley who IMHO deserved his Nobel but was still a vile racist. Well, at least Shockley deserved his Nobel more than Henri Kissinger did.