Noam Chomsky

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at M.I.T., public intellectual, wobbly, anarcho-syndicalist, libertarian socialist,Depending on the definition... and political dissident. He is usually identified with the rationalist or nativist tradition in psychology.
As a linguist, Chomsky made his name with his work on syntax, and is considered one of the most important figures in and cognitive science. Over the course of his storied career, Chomsky became increasingly famous as a political writer, perhaps even more than as a linguist, with writings on US imperialism and mass media. Chomsky is notable for his emphasis on domestic accountability for consequences abroad and has been a vocal critic of US excesses in foreign policy. However, he has a history of focusing on US foreign policy to a fault, leading to selective denials of atrocities.
==Linguistics and cognitive science==
Chomsky has made essential contributions to the field of linguistics, most prominently his ideas of generative grammar (in which the grammar of a language is described by sets of rules transforming one grammatical construct into another) and the Chomsky hierarchy, classifying languages based on restrictions imposed upon the form of these rules. Several of the classes of grammar in the Chomsky hierarchy have proven useful in computer science, so next time you write a regular expression, you'll know whom to thank.s/t[a-z]{4}/curse/g His work in the philosophy of linguistics and the philosophy of mind made him one of the leading figures of the cognitive revolution. This contributed so much to the field of psychology that he was listed as the 38th most influential figure in the 20th century in the field in the Review of General Psychology despite his specialization in linguistics.The 100 Most Eminent Psychologists of the 20th Century Even many who despise Chomsky's work on politics are forced to admit his linguistic work is genius, with one famous 1979 article from The New York Times by Paul Robinson saying:
 
That Chomsky has significantly dominated his field is reflected in his prominence in the most widely used book in introductory linguistics by Fromkin et al., now in its 10th edition. Additionally, Chomsky heavily influenced linguists and fellow public intellectuals such as Steven Pinker. Regardless of how you feel about his theories, Chomsky remains perhaps the most influential linguist of all time, and is sometimes referred to as "the father of modern linguistics."Fox, Margalit (December 5, 1998). "A Changed Noam Chomsky Simplifies". The New York Times.
===Generativism and the Minimalist program===
Generativist linguistics is complicated, storied, and filled with jargon, but the layman's version of the general idea behind it might be described as follows: according to Chomsky, language is something humans have an innate capacity for. Even languages unintelligible to one another, underneath all their differences, share common features, deep under there. So Chomsky theorizes that there is a structure or algorithm in our brains that all humans share which allows us to generate coherent language – a Universal Grammar. A Universal Grammar hardwired into us would explain how we can express ourselves through language so creatively, despite all those complicated rules, and even do so at such an early age.
Chomsky argued against the behaviorism of B.F. Skinner on the topic of language acquisition. One of his most famous arguments is the "poverty of the stimulus," i.e., that children acquire language with insufficient input from the environment for language to be learned entirely by a behaviorist stimulus-response mechanism. This argument remains a topic of controversy, especially among psychologists and linguists who take a more empiricist approach.Stephen Laurence and Eric Margolis. The Poverty of the Stimulus Argument. British Journal of the Philosophy of Science, vol. 52, 2001, pp. 217-276 Chomsky posited an innate "language acquisition device," a "mental organ" that allowed for the derivation of syntactical structure and grammatical rules of language.Language Acquisition Device, J-Rank These phenomena were thought to play a central role in a Universal Grammar."Linguistic Universals and Universal Grammar in the MIT Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science However, Chomsky has subsequently modified some of his arguments, reformulating generative grammar in terms of what became known as the "minimalist program,"The Minimalist Program: A Bridge Principle in Biolinguistics, Garrett Neske. Dead link.The hunt for language universals has been going on since before Chomsky. The results for absolute universals have been of the variety: All known languages possess pronouns. That is truly universal, but not exactly revolutionary. Everything more specific has to date been an implicational universal that is if a language has feature X then it also features Y. There are also tendencies, such as the overwhelming majority of languages possess the vowel [a]. inspired Imre Lakatos' idea of a research program, an attempt to synthesize the positions of Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn.
===Criticism===
Chomsky's theories have not been without immense controversy. They're considered revolutionary for a reason, after all. A lot of the disagreements, however, come from specific elements of these syntactic theories, such as the so-called "" that started in the late '60s. Many early versions (such as ) have been overturned and replaced. Modern linguistics sees left generativism in a precarious spot, with some research seeming to contradict these theories.https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/evidence-rebuts-chomsky-s-theory-of-language-learning/ 
Michael Tomasello maintains that language does have a biological basis, but that this basis is in the ability to imitate rather than in any mechanisms designed explicitly for verbal language.Michael Tomasello. Language Is Not an Instinct. Cognitive Development, 10, 131-156 (1995)Nobody denies that humans have an inherited capacity to learn languages. That is trivially true, as can be seen by the tautology: We speak, hence we can speak. Nor does anyone deny that the brain takes care of language processing. Alternatively, Chris Knight, in his book , argues that Chomsky's theories were only so abstract so he could avoid guilt, due to MIT's involvement with the military.
While the behaviorism Chomsky rejected is out of vogue, functionalist linguistics, though not necessarily contradictory, remains a prominent opposing paradigm, as does cognitivism which emerged alongside generativism.
====The Everett/Chomsky debate====
The Everett/Chomsky debate, appearing in a 2007 article from The New Yorker,The Interpreter is a controversy that puts Chomsky's theories under scrutiny, which has given rise to headlines like "Challenging Chomsky: Universal grammar is the most important theory in linguistics. Has the language of one tribe now disproved it?"Challenging Chomsky and "Linguists at War."Linguists at War Noam Chomsky believes all human beings have the ability to learn languages with . However, the Pirahã, a tribe found deep in the Amazon by a linguist named Daniel Everett, does not contain recursion in their language.1000 Ways To Misrepresent Noam Chomsky However, that does not necessarily disprove what Chomsky claimed, as he never said all languages have recursion, that is a strawman presented to make Everett's findings sound more contradictory to Chomsky's positions than they actually are. 
This debate has sometimes been used politically. Many have tried to attack Chomsky's linguistics since his rise to fame, primarily due to their disagreement with his politics; however, few have actually understood the ideas Chomsky puts forward. Norbert Hornstein & Nathan J. Robinson discuss this situation while reviewing the anti-Chomsky book The Kingdom of Speech by Tom Wolfe. Whenever these complaints are brought to Chomsky, it is common for him to point out how little this information does to discredit his beliefs. On the notion Everett had debunked him, Chomsky once said "Everett hopes that readers will not understand the difference between UG in the technical sense (the theory of the genetic component of human language) and in the informal sense, which concerns properties common to all languages""Ele virou um charlatão", diz Chomsky Even so, Pirahã remains a unique and hotly-debated language, with anomalous features and lack thereof.
==Politics==
===The Chomsky Rule===
The "Chomsky Rule" is an informal name for the ethical position of prioritizing political criticism of that country (usually where one is a citizen) where one has political influence instead of criticizing other nations where one has little or none. The concept became especially controversial around 2015.“Limits of Discourse” by Sam Harris, May 1, 2015“Noam Chomsky undresses Sam Harris”, Salon, May 5, 2015“Chomsky Rule or minding one's business”, interview with Sam Harris, Oct 17, 2015 The Chomsky quote that generated the rule is:
This is an extension of a belief Chomsky has held since he first entered the realm of politics. Chomsky first got on the map for a 1967 essay in The New York Review of Books called "The Responsibility of Intellectuals," arguing that intellectuals had some blame for the then-ongoing atrocities that the US was creating in Vietnam, primarily through their rationalization of these events.The Responsibility of Intellectuals
Activist journalist Glenn GreenwaldGreenwald was researching a book on Chomsky's role as a public intellectual vis-a-vis his treatment in establishment media, when he was interrupted by something else. He and Chomsky are friendly and have appeared together for public discussions. often invokes the Chomsky rule and has popularized it, which has garnered attacks on both men who are frequently targeted together.World Affairs, Academia (kind of) Goes to War: Chomsky and His Children, by Alan Wolfe Winter 2008.http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/219814/glenn-greenwald-raving-leftist-matthew-vadumhttp://www.skepticink.com/nocrossnocrescent/2014/01/26/my-revulsion-for-noam-chomsky-explained-by-two-ex-muslim-apostates/ In the context of the American and British press's frenzied orgy of condemnations of Ecuador's poor record on press freedoms — prompted by that nation's offer of asylum to Julian Assange — Greenwald writes:
Detractors sometimes accuse those invoking the Chomsky Rule of secretly supporting everyone from Putin to Al Qaeda to DAESH. This is fallacious. Criticism is one area does not necessarily imply support for another position. Focusing on the wrongdoing of the world's only superpower and its allies might be a critically missing addition to the public discussion in the country where the wrongdoing can be stopped or reined in by an informed citizenry. Relatedly, whataboutery is commonly deployed against those who follow the Chomsky Rule.
However, it is not always true that a greater positive impact can be achieved by criticizing one's own government. Activists, writers, and journalists can help improve situations and increase pressure on foreign governments, either directly through international media or by influencing their own governments to speak out against human rights violations in other countries. It depends on the circumstances. There is, however, a tendency to ignore human rights violations coming from the U.S. and its allies, and their alleged good intentions are all too often readily accepted and regurgitated by the American media.
Some of Chomsky's supporters have questioned if his decision to criticize his home country to the exclusion of all other nations would be controversial if his home country was anything but the United States. While responding to an attack on Chomsky from Noah Smith, who framed Chomsky as if his worldview was nothing more than the United States being bad, Nathan Robinson says the following:
Given the United States is essentially the global hegemon and has been for the entire time Chomsky has been writing, criticizing them could be seen as inherently more valuable if only because they are the ones setting the rules. While defending Chomsky in 1985, Christopher Hitchens wrote the following:
====Misunderstandings====
Although Chomsky has been rather clear regarding what he means in reference to his ethical standards, some still misunderstand what he means. Carl Beijer notes that multiple people have accused Chomsky of simply viewing the United States as the only evil in the world, or have claimed that he only criticizes the United States to the exclusion of all other nations.No, Chomsky's politics aren't "America bad" Nathan Robinson, who had recently completed a book with Chomsky regarding United States foreign policy, notes that he criticized several other nations in his political writings.Before Smearing Chomsky, Try Reading Him
===Manufacturing consent===
Perhaps Chomsky's most famous political book (co-authored with Edward Herman, who Chomsky credits as the man most responsible for the bookManufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media by Peter Wintonick and Mark Achbar) is Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, (ISBN 0-375-71449-9) published in 1988, and which many on the left consider "canonical" on the proposition that "what goes viral in the U.S. media...[is] what is politically convenient for the U.S. government."http://www.salon.com/2016/01/18/sieges_by_western_enemies_get_big_headlines_while_larger_u_s_backed_blockades_are_ignored/ Somewhat surprisingly, the New York Times gave the book a generally positive review, although also stating the book contains "overstatements".WHOSE NEWS?
The book shares its title with a documentary filmhttps://archive.org/details/dom-25409-manufacturingconsentnoamchomsk that has become a popular introductory text to Chomsky's work, even though Chomsky finds aspects of it irritating.http://www.chomsky.info/books/power02.htm The film effectively makes his anarcho-syndicalism seem like a political parliamentarian stance, which he opposes. He has also written dozens of books critical of United States foreign policy.
Chomsky believes that major corporations, investment firms, and the federal government occupy a concentrated political ruling class which owns mainstream media outlets. He believes they operate collectively for their own selfish interest, putting constraint on the breadth of political discourse found in mainstream media. Chomsky states that smaller media outlets follow the lead of larger outlets, and so also play a role in servicing elite interests. To the extent markets play a role in media indoctrination, Chomsky believes that the advertising nature of mass media outlets also skews the content of mass media to serve wealthy interests. Chomsky says this happens because of the higher purchasing power of wealthy Americans.
Chomsky believes the college educated class, for example white collar professionals, are particularly indoctrinated by elite interests. He says this happens because the American ruling class feels they need their consent in political decision making. He also believes that all those outside the college educated class are propagandized instead to not care about political decision making.
He states that the American mainstream media has a rationale to pretend to lean liberal, as they fear liberal progress beyond what they sanction. He suggests this is why American mainstream media appears to have a liberal bias.
The American right-wing has recently reiterated themes present in Chomsky's media analysis. Particularly themes about college student indoctrination and "NPC" society being only supportive of the "current media thing". They depart from the book however in their analysis of this alleged phenomena, instead insinuating that programmed media narratives are there to promote "runaway liberalism" rather than to stifle liberal progress.
===Anti-postmodernism===
Chomsky is opposed to postmodernism,Chomsky on Postmodernism to put it mildly, going as far as to compare postmodernist critiques of "white male science" to the Deutsche Physik of Nazi Germany and its attack on "Jewish physics". He is, additionally, opposed to Slavoj Žižek.The Slavoj Žižek v Noam Chomsky spat is worth a ringside seat In an interview in 2013, he expands:
===On conspiracies===
Chomsky does not accept Illuminati conspiracy theories or the conspiracy theory surrounding the September 11 attackshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwZ-vIaW6Bc and regards the Federal Reserve, Trilateral Commission, and Bilderberg Group as organizations of no real significance or threat. This has led to many wingnut conspiracy theorists arguing that Chomsky is, in fact, a tool of the New World Order, being used to brainwash the masses into accepting leftist ideas. Or something like that. A few members of the conspiracy idiot squad We Are Change even once went to the extent of protesting a Chomsky speaking engagement, expressing these sentiments.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaeD_mY83Bo
===Geopolitics and selective genocide denial===
When atrocities were done and still happening, Chomsky was reluctant to apply the word "genocide" to the massacres of Srebrenica and Kosovo.http://www.monbiot.com/2011/06/13/naming-the-genocide-deniers/ He once stated:http://www.monbiot.com/2012/05/21/2181/ 
The Srebrenica case, in fact, was the first case in which an individual, Bosnian Serb general Radislav Krstic, was found guilty of the crime of genocide.ICTY press release Chomsky argues that there has been a 'vulgar politicization of the word "genocide"', which is now 'so extreme' that he rarely uses the word at all.http://www.monbiot.com/2012/05/21/2181/ Chomsky defended Milosevic from blame for the Srebenica massacre,https://chomsky.info/20060619/ and he elaborated on his views on the conflict in his 1999 book The New Military Humanism: Lessons from Kosovo. This seems to be due to his own use of the aforementioned "Chomsky Rule" in which he blames the U.S. and NATO intervention first and foremost.
In a 2009 interview by George McLeod of The Phnom Penh Post, Chomsky was ambivalent about international trials for perpetrators of the Cambodian Genocide by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge (KR), saying "after all, an international trial that doesn’t take into account Henry Kissinger or the other authors of the American bombing and the support of the KR after they were kicked out of the country – that’s just a farce".http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20090327.htm Chomsky frequently objects to the West — and the United States in particular — not being held accountable for war crimes or crimes against humanity, while less powerful nations are. For instance, the US was a signatory member of the 1998 , which instituted an international tribune, the ICC, dedicated to prosecuting war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The US later withdrew, attempting to shield war criminals and crimes against humanity perpetrated by US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
On the other hand, Chomsky did write shortly after the Vietnam War ended "the record of atrocities in Cambodia is substantial and often gruesome", as well as that "When the facts are in, it may turn out that the more extreme condemnations were in fact correct."http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/1985----.htm Whatever responsibility he laid at the feet of the United States, he did not deny that a large atrocity had taken place in Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge. However, he claims that 1.2 million were killed by the Khmer Rouge and the other 800,000 were killed by American bombings,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3IUU59B6lw&t=338s excavation of mass graves indicates at least 1,386,734 were executed by the Khmer Rouge and outside of those graves 2.18 million were killed by the Khmer Rouge overall Sharp, Bruce (April 1, 2005). "Counting Hell: The Death Toll of the Khmer Rouge Regime in Cambodia" http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/deaths.htm and "only" between 30,000 and 500,000 were killed in the U.S. bombing of CambodiaValentino, Benjamin (2005). Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century. Cornell University Press. p. 84. ISBN 9780801472732. James A. Tyner, The Killing of Cambodia: Geography, Genocide and the Unmaking of Space (Routledge, 2017) Rummel, Rudolph. "Statistics Of Cambodian Democide: Estimates, Calculations, And Sources". Retrieved 2018-02-06. "FRONTLINE/WORLD . Cambodia - Pol Pot's Shadow . Chronicle of Survival . 1969-1974: Caught in the crossfire | PBS". www.pbs.org https://books.google.com/books?id=LQfeXVU_EvgC&q=30%2C000-150%2C000#v=onepage&q=30%2C000&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=NgokDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT97&dq=nixon,+cambodia,+killed,+civilians&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjXnbKPua7YAhUikeAKHW1VAd0Q6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=over%20500%2C000&f=false https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP4.HTM http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/cambodia/tl02.html so Chomsky's statistics are still wrong. Chomsky's fans have defended this by claiming that those interred in the mass graves known as could actually have been killed by American bombers.Look at comment section: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3IUU59B6lw&t=338s He has been heavily criticized for this, particularly due to downplaying the number of dead long after they had been definitively confirmed.Averaging Wrong Answers: Noam Chomsky and the Cambodian controversy
===Freedom of expression and the press===
Chomsky's essay, 'Some Elementary Comments on the Rights of Freedom of Expression', appeared as an introduction to a Holocaust denial book by French writer Robert Faurisson, without Chomsky's knowledge or approval. Responding to a request for comment in a climate of attacks on Faurisson, Chomsky defended Faurisson's right to express and publish his opinions on the grounds that freedom of speech must be extended to all viewpoints, no matter how unpopular or fallacious.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faurisson_affair#Petition_signed_by_Chomsky
In the wake of the 2015 Charlie Hebdo massacre, Chomsky controversially compared the media and public reactions to those shootings on the one hand, and on the other, the 1999 NATO bombing of Radio Serbia's headquarters during the Kosovo War. Chomsky accused the Western media of hypocrisy for denouncing only the former. But his analysis of media double standards in rallying to the cause of press freedom went well beyond Kosovo:
===Anarchistic pragmatism===
Despite his stance as an anarchist, Chomsky has been known to advocate things that make him polarizing within anarchist circles. He for instance opposes the classical left-libertarian position of anti-electoralism in favor of active political involvement with state political systems, believing the best way to an anarchist society is through working with systems of power. This militant adherence to pragmatism has resulted in him supporting some very horrible people which has fueled the polarizing effect he has on other anarchists.
The best illustration of this is Chomsky being a supporter of the regime of Hugo Chávez.Strangely enough, the late Chávez and George W. Bush would have become fast friends under other circumstances, as evidenced by their reading, shown above. His praise didn't go unnoticed as when, during the 2006 UN session, Hugo Chávez recommended Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival as an important text on the subject of American imperialism. The mention helped give the author some renewed publicity.http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/23/books/23chomsky.html?_r=1 The two later hit it off, with Chomsky traveling to visit Venezuela in 2009 as an honored guest.http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/4748 Even after the death of Chávez, Chomsky still continues to speak highly of him and his government.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6BiNppcnaI
While some anarchists disapprove of Chomsky's affinity for people like Chavez — who wasn't an anarchist — Chomsky holds that many political terms are imprecise. Of anarchism, he declares: "It resists any characterization." Moreover, he accepts the need for some pragmatism:
Another famous example of his pragmatism came when he endorsed Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump after Bernie Sanders lost the primary. He believed in stopping the spread of neo-fascism in America first and foremost because he found fascism to be so dangerous to society that working with the establishment is preferable. Put simply, the Democrats are opportunists who follow the way the wind blows; Republicans are demagogues who work with reactionaries and monsters, so Chomsky, by default, prefers Democrats. Although it should be known that Chomsky only encouraged people to do so if they lived in a swing-state,Noam Chomsky: Why People Should Vote for the Lesser of Two Evils and Spend 5 Minutes Making the Decision similarly he said regarding the election of 2008:
Chomsky also had some harsh words regarding those who refused to vote for Joe Biden in 2020, saying:
Most other anarchists though reject this kind of approach, holding that consistently working with the establishment actually helps to perpetuate state societies and elitism via complicity rather than demolishing them.
But the most outspoken, needless to say, is much more radical. These include, unsurprisingly, hard green anarchists like John Zerzan who not only dislike Chomsky for working with the establishment but hate him even more for his embrace of technology as a means to improve things, including the environment.http://www.primitivism.com/chomsky.htm The fact Chomsky is himself a green anarchist who is well-known for being a staunch advocate of protecting and fixing Earth's ecology is utterly lost on them, or they don't feel he's radical enough.http://isreview.org/issue/76/human-intelligence-and-environment That's because Zerzan is an anarcho-primitivist, which Chomsky is not.http://www.johnzerzan.net/
===Chomsky and feminism===
One issue that at times has been raised about Chomsky by those who support him (or would otherwise) is his comparably lukewarm attitude towards feminism. Indeed, he's only ever tangentially discussed it in any real sense, much to the chagrin of anarcha-feminists. While it's very safe to say that he is in no way anti-feminist or against feminism, he doesn't seem interested in exploring it to the same degree he has with other movements, whatever connotations that might carry. 
Responding to an accusation from a former student of his that he was an "old-fashioned patriarch" and "has never really understood what the feminist movement is about", Chomsky chose to contest the idea that feminism constitutes a single movement. He instead stated that he believes it a multitude of separate movements, each with their own goals, and worthy goals. He also implied he had disinterest in the topic and they he may not be familiar enough with the topic.
In a Salon piece, Chomsky is quoted as saying that liberal movements of the 1960s had good goals but were poor in carrying many of them out. He implies that racial desegregation and gender equality movements weren't properly thought out in tactics. With regards to feminism, Chomsky states that a removal of the breadwinner role for many white working men should have come with a worthwhile social role to replace it, but instead the relevant men were faced with increased atomization from broader society. He states this atomization is ok with college professors, but not ok for working class solidarity. Chomsky ultimately thinks that the liberalization tactics of the 1960s didn't take into consideration long-term solidarity concerns.https://www.salon.com/2013/12/01/noam_chomsky_america_hates_its_poor_partner/
===Chomsky on LGBT rights===
Chomsky has stated that LGBT rights were pushed through during the Obama years in spite of the initial opinions of Obama and of Republicans. He stated that Obama "evolved" on the topic due to public opinion, and was willing to concede because it's an "easy concession". Chomsky claimed that LGBT rights don't fundamentally challenge elite power, due to an alleged lack of a class component of LGBT rights. Chomsky claims corporations and big business have no fundamental reservations about LGBT rights as a whole. Chomsky called LGBT rights important, but also said someone having commitment to LGBT rights isn't necessarily displaying commitment to overall civil liberties.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92nK92Xv0tA Chomsky notably sued the Obama administration on constitutional civil liberties matters, for Obama approving indefinite detention of any suspected terrorist without charge or trial.https://www.latimes.com/science/la-xpm-2012-apr-18-la-me-gs-activists-sue-obama-over-new-terror-laws-20120417-story.html
===Chomsky on cancel culture===
Noam Chomsky called cancel culture a common mainstream tactic. Chomsky claims that segments of the American left are appropriating these mainstream tactics to censor right-wing speech, and that this aids right-wing causes. Chomsky claims that much of this type of censorship gives unnecessary publicity to the right-wing and gives them a opportunity to present themselves as reasonable via free speech concerns. Chomsky says that, for example, denying a far-right-winger a speaking opportunity on a college campus is essentially giving them a gift. He instead advises those on the left to set up counter-meetings and rationally work through the individual arguments on the right-wing.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLOu9grBsJ8
In other interviews, Chomsky has stated this tolerance should not extent to tolerance for explicit calls to violence in private households, but other than that, Chomsky generally encourages against censorship of political argumentation.
===Chomsky on antifa===
Chomsky has called self-described 'antifa' a "miniscule fringe" of the left. He states that self-described antifa groups don't aid in anti-fascism, are "gifts" to the right-wing, and are self-destructive. He's criticized their use of censoring tactics as well as violence. Like his comments on cancel culture, Chomsky believes these tactics are simply playing out right-wing desires, and that the right-wing is exuberant when given the opportunity to present themselves as a more tolerant force.https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/noam-chomsky-antifa-is-a-major-gift-to-the-right In other interviews, Chomsky has also stated the right-wing is more brutal in their application of violence than the left, and so testing the right-wing on this matter is usually a bad idea. Instead Chomsky advocates that the left appeal to the common populace and use non-violent tactics whenever possible.
===Wingnuts who hate Chomsky===
Noam Chomsky has been the bête noire of right-wingers for going on five decades. Batshit crazy David Horowitz detests Chomsky, largely because the latter deeply opposes Horowitz's neoconservative and mindlessly pro-Israel positions. Horowitz runs a site called Discover the Network wherein he lists all the evil libruls plotting to destroy All that is Good and True. Chomsky, of course, enjoys an entry.http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/noamchomskyprofile.html Additionally, Horowitz and his long-timer partner in lunacy, Peter Collier, edited and published a collection of attacks on Chomsky, a set of tracts titled The Anti-Chomsky Reader, published by Collier's own obscure company.
At his Frontpage magazine site, Horowitz hosts his own anti-Chomsky screeds,http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=10317 as well as those of others. To Horowitz, Chomsky is a man of "psychotic hatred," and a paramount danger to America:
Writing with Jacob Laksin, Horowitz feverishly shriekshttp://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=4437 about "a second Holocaust of the Jews" in which Hezbollah "can count on Muslim support and apparently the support of American radicals as well," which he claims Chomsky is promoting.
Beyond Horowitz's various swamps, there's professional asshole Ben Shapiro, who informs the world that: "A secular humanist, born a Jew, is still a secular humanist. Noam Chomsky is a Jew, but he is also a twisted and evil thinker..."http://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2006/07/26/self-hating_jews_and_the_jewish_state/page/full But on a later occasion, Benny denied Chomsky is a Jew, declaring that Chomsky “is not really Jewish,” and is “Jewish in name only.”http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017106591 (A JINO?) Chomsky is also covered in "vainglorious huckster" Dinesh D'Souza's cheesy, jingoistic Propaganda Film "documentary," America.
Bloviating blowhard Bill O'Reilly would have us know that the kids are not all right! For, because of Chomsky, "many of our children grow up steeped in a toxic brew of negativity, ridicule, and downright anti-Americanism."http://www.billoreilly.com/newslettercolumn?pid=43312
Not all who dislike, detest or disagree with Chomsky are wingnuts. Mere neoliberal, pro-Israel fanatics also loathe him and his politics,https://newrepublic.com/article/74730/i-confess-i-am-member-opus-judaei although some give him credit when they believe it due.https://newrepublic.com/article/79868/wikileaks-cyber-warfare-hacking New Atheists often also detest Chomsky, as one of their leading voices does.http://www.salon.com/2015/05/05/noam_chomsky_undresses_sam_harris_stop_pretending_to_have_a_rational_discussion_partner/
And if that were not enough, some sane people hold St. Noam Chomsky in contempt, or at least disagree with him.
===Influence on Osama bin Laden===
Anti-imperialist Osama bin Laden read numerous secular sources he may have disagreed with to better understand American politics, including Chomsky's commentary on American media.http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/20/osama-bin-laden-library-noam-chomsky-bob-woodward 
Upon bin Laden's death, Chomsky strongly felt it set a very bad precedent that the murderer had not been given a trial and was instead assassinated. Chomsky stated that while Bin Laden committed a crime, his assassination "violat[ed] elementary norms of international law."https://www.guernicamag.com/daily/noam_chomsky_my_reaction_to_os/
===Alex Jones and Chomsky===
Alex Jones had a positive view of Chomsky's media analysis, appreciating how it claimed the government and the elite were running the media. He had brought Chomsky on his show at least once to promote Chomsky's books before Jones became fully enmeshed with the Republican Party. However, as Alex doesn't share Chomsky's overall politics and is combative, he disparaged Chomsky after plugging his work.
Critics of Chomsky call Chomsky conspiratorial, while others claim Chomsky is not alleging conspiracy in his media analysis, but rather informal institutional alliances. Defenders of Chomsky claim there is no need for active conspiracy for Chomsky's analyses to be correct. The difference is that Chomsky is correct in his analysis and Jones is not. 
==The intellectual who hates intellectuals==
One of the most common misconceptions about Chomsky concerns his view of intellectuals. In 2016, Caitlin Flanagan wrote an article for The New York Times which said the following about Chomsky:
Nathan Robinson later wrote an article responding to these claims in Current Affairs, pointing out how anybody who has engaged in Chomsky's writing can find numerous examples of him saying the exact opposite. Not only that, but it's clear his issue with intellectuals is that they commonly have gone beyond their means and have instead decided to do the thing Flanagan is pretending Chomsky allowed them to do. He even makes note of Chomsky acknowledging that hatred of intellectuals in the United States is one of the things he most admires about this nation:
Much of Chomsky's writing about Vietnam is filled with nothing but distaste at the intellectual class for somehow tricking itself into thinking what he views as an atrocity can be justified. On one occasion, he wrote that he didn't feel he needed to defend his position on Vietnam "just as I would not take the trouble to justify my belief that one should assist a child being attacked by a rabid dog."The Responsibility of Intellectuals His 1969 book American Power and the New Mandarins similarly sees him being nothing short of confused as to why he has to explain his objection to Vietnam, writing:
==Chomsky and email==
Part of Chomsky's appeal is that he answers email from just about anyone and has been doing so for decades. This has led to people sending in various pranks and odd questions into Chomsky's inbox over the years, which hasn't deterred Chomsky much from answering emails. Due to Chomsky occasionally stating a politically incorrect or unanticipated opinion in emails about topical issues, the leaders of reddit.com/r/chomsky have at times banned circulation of email responses from Chomsky.
==Chomsky and Epstein==
In April 2023, Jeffrey Epstein's private calendar was revealed to the public, with several high profile individuals revealed to have scheduling meetings with Epstein, such as Woody Allen (film director who is now the epitome of "washed-up has-been") and Ehud Barak (the former prime minister of Israel). Chomsky was also one of the names revealed to be scheduled meeting with Epstein. When asked about this by WSJ reporters, Chomsky responded by email: "first response is that it is none of your business. Or anyone’s. Second is that I knew him and we met occasionally."Katherine Hamilton, Jeffrey Epstein Moved Money For Noam Chomsky, Paid Bard President Botstein $150,000, Report Says. Forbes, 17 May 2023. 
Chomsky reported that he had asked Epstein for financial advice after his (Chomsky's) first wife died, which resulted in Epstein transferring $270,000 between several bank accounts for Chomsky.
==See also==
*William Blum, a critic who, like Chomsky, sees US foreign policy in terms of imperialism.
==Further reading==
*
*
*
==External links==
*chomsky.info
*Chomsky meets Ali G
==Notes==
==References==
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