From: blancw@pylon.com
To: jamesd@netcom.com
Message Hash: 4666637970b17f69f6f3dfb6c362a04f038bf59f2d11a6bd36c3c997afd68468
Message ID: <199409260616.XAA16173@deepthought.pylon.com>
Reply To: N/A
UTC Datetime: 1994-09-26 06:15:35 UTC
Raw Date: Sun, 25 Sep 94 23:15:35 PDT
From: blancw@pylon.com
Date: Sun, 25 Sep 94 23:15:35 PDT
To: jamesd@netcom.com
Subject: Re: Chomsky (Thread from Hell)
Message-ID: <199409260616.XAA16173@deepthought.pylon.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Responding to msg by James A. Donald:
>He implies that democratic control of speech and ideas
>would be a vast improvement in our civil liberties,
>that it would make us more free.
But who pays attention to what Chomsky thinks (say, by
comparison to others similarly inclined).
>In other words he is perverting the language so that
>for him "freedom of speech" is democratic control of
>speech and ideas by the people.
Then who is going to understand what he really means?
>He continually describes (and wildly exaggerates) the
>problem using language that implies that only a
>collective, rather than individual, response to
>misinformation can make us free.
He isn't the only one who ever has, or ever will, advocate
such things. He's not on the board of directors of the NII, is
he; or how does he exert influence?
>. . . .Chomsky fans show a notable lack of
>tolerance for other forms of speech, as is most
>noticeable on the net.
So is it Chomsky, or his fans who are the problem? And how do
they succeed in making themselves influential?
>Since there are clearly a great many people who seek
>and desire totalitarianism, with their group at the
>top, we should hardly be surprised to see large
>number of people seeking to achieve this through means
>that are workable and feasible, rather than through
>means that are absurd and impossible.
This type of person is interchangeable: they could follow
someone (like Chomsky) today or someone else tomorrow. It
should always be possible to recognize the difference between
one thing and another - one kind of idea or social system or
another - just as you have, by seeing the contradictions and
actual relations in the expressed statements, proposals,
methodologies, etc.
It looks as though you are simply fighting the ideas which
many people have always found to their advantage to believe,
but I can't see where Chomsky is the only & most important
reason why they are willing to think as they do. So - those
are my comments on Chomsky, about which I will write no more,
as he doesn't sound interesting at all to pursue.
Blanc
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