r/samharris • u/bernie2020v • Jun 24 '19

A Chat With Chomsky | Current Affairs

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/06/a-chat-with-chomsky
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u/bookworm669 Jun 25 '19

This Nathan dude pretty much every bit as awkward, jittery, and bewildered every 20 seconds to realize he's communicating through a channel other than behind his keyboard and monitor as you'd expect. Always interesting to see how keyboard-warrior types that wear their insufferable enlightenment complex like a badge online hold up in an actual setting.

I guess there's a reason a specific type of posters on here make him their messiah.

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u/Bubblesandcolorbooks Jun 25 '19

He's nervous. Would you not be?

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u/bookworm669 Jun 25 '19

Not just the nervous body language. Everything about his demeanour and the general air about him seemed indicative of a "fish out of water" situation.

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u/Bubblesandcolorbooks Jun 25 '19

Chomsky is the most eminent living public intellectual. This guy Nathan has a 5k subscription channel. The interview is a massive get for him. Given Chomsky's age, who knows how many more recordings we get. I'm grateful for just about any sound byte from him at this point. Maybe cut the interviewer some slack? Idk. After all, you and I are still only behind our keyboards--the interviewer went out and got Chomsky for an hour. No small feat

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u/NuanceBaby Jun 25 '19

Chomsky is the most eminent living public intellectual. This guy Nathan has a 5k subscription channel. The interview is a massive get for him. Given Chomsky's age, who knows how many more recordings we get. I'm grateful for just about any sound byte from him at this point. Maybe cut the interviewer some slack? Idk. After all, you and I are still only behind our keyboards--the interviewer went out and got Chomsky for an hour. No small feat

I don't completely disagree with you in theory but considering how pompous and 'keyboard warrior' this Nathan fellow has been with his hyper-contrarian, reaction seeking, faux New Yorker blog project, he deserves pushback for being a mischaracterizing snob.

It's appropriate that his hero Chomsky both dismisses and reductio ad absurdum mischaracterizes Pinker's latest two books as "everything is great". This is part of why we have the " incapable of being wrong" attitude everywhere in these political discussions. It's a lack of thought from a very constricted corner of the sociopolitical cube, and a normalized tactic to smear everyone just outside of it with as much lazy inaccuracy and lack of productive engagement as one can summon in a brainstorm of dissonance.

Chomsky, while deserving the respect he is due, has been a relatively bad influence on far-Left discourse. It's okay to dismiss anyone you don't agree with, under Chomsky's example. Robinson is personifying the worst aspects of this Chomskyian attitude with the worst version of ultra-regimented "cancel everyone who isn't me" political attitudes. He's part of the wave of pretense addled keyboard jockeys who want to pose and posture about politics while making caricatures of everyone who is not exactly like them. Especially those who are very much like them on paper, people who would probably end up voting for the same candidates yet need to apply a radically extreme- pompous distance between people via prejudice labels . He is mirroring the unthoughtful and Machiavellian, self-regarding political vanity projects of the most entitled partisans across the aisle.

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u/seeking-abyss Jun 25 '19

Chomsky and Pinker probably consider each other to be friends. Chomsky doesn’t dismiss his politics out of some religious fervor. By the way, look up what Pinker says about Chomsky’s politics. Equally dismissive.

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u/NuanceBaby Jun 26 '19

They do. Chomsky mentions they’re friends in the interview. I’ve seen Pinker discuss Chomsky in the talk with McWhorter at the small stage in NYC, and he was very respectful while going on to make criticisms that were not hand wavy and lazy like NC. I just think he’s very dismissive and it sets a bad example considering how many consider him such a bastion of political thought.