1. Hitchens vs. Hitchens

Comment #158931 by Inoculatedcities on April 11, 2008 at 7:30 am

Steve as much as I enjoy the discussion I am finding it irritating that you never back up your assertions with any evidence whatsoever. If you have evidence that Chomsky "backed the views himself" please do post because I've been following these matters for some time and have never come across this mythical alleged oft-referenced "evidence" (and nor has anyone else). It seems far more likely to me that you are repeating some slander that you read elsewhere, but certainly not read in anything written by Chomsky himself. If I'm wrong prove it with sources.

To read Chomsky's take on the matter, in only one of the more recent places that this slander has come up, read his Open Letter to The Guardian published in 2005 after Emma Brockes' juvenile and embarrassing hit-piece.

http://www.chomsky.info/letters/20051113.htm

From the letter: "The reporter obviously had a definite agenda: to focus the defamation exercise on my denial of the Srebrenica massacre. From the character of what appeared, it is not easy to doubt that she was assigned this task. When I wouldn't go along, she simply invented the denial, repeatedly, along with others. The centerpiece of the interview was this, describing my alleged views, in particular, that:

....during the Bosnian war the "massacre" at Srebrenica was probably overstated. (Chomsky uses quotations marks to undermine things he disagrees with and, in print at least, it can come across less as academic than as witheringly teenage; like, Srebrenica was so not a massacre.)

Transparently, neither I nor anyone speaks with quotation marks, so the reference to my claim that "Srebrenica was so not a massacre," shown by my using the term "massacre" in quotes, must be in print -- hence "witheringly teenage," as well as disgraceful. That raises the obvious question: where is it in print, or anywhere? I know from letters that were sent to me that a great many journalists and others asked the author of the interview and the relevant editors to provide the source, and were met by stony silence -- for a simple reason: it does not exist, and they know it.
...
The truthful part is that I said, and explained at length, that I regret not having strongly enough opposed the Swedish publisher's decision to withdraw a book by Diana (not "Diane," as the Guardian would have it) Johnstone after it was bitterly attacked in the Swedish press. As Brockes presumably knew, though I carefully explained anyway, there is one source for my involvement in this affair: an open letter that I wrote to the publisher, after editors there who objected to the decision, and journalist friends, sent me the Swedish press charges that were the basis for the rejection. In the open letter, readily available on the internet (and the only source), I went through the charges one by one, checked them against the book, and found that they all ranged from serious misrepresentation to outright fabrication. I then took -- and take -- the position that it is completely wrong to withdraw a book because the press charges (falsely) that it does not conform to approved doctrine. And I do regret that "I didn't do it strongly enough," the words Brockes managed to quote correctly. In the interview, whatever Johnstone may have said about Srebrenica never came up, and is entirely irrelevant in any event, at least to anyone with a minimal appreciation of freedom of speech."

2. Hitchens vs. Hitchens

Comment #158637 by Inoculatedcities on April 10, 2008 at 9:05 pm

Comment #158240 by Steve Zara

"Wasn't there some issue with Kosovan deaths and concentration camps?"

You can only be referring to the controversy regarding Chomsky, Diana Johnstone and the Srebrenica massacre. Johnstone published material alleging that the number of those killed in Srebrenica were exaggerated. As a result she and her publisher were threatened and Chomsky signed a letter supporting her right to publish. As a high profile intellectual with many, many enemies, Chomsky's critics stupidly equated his signing a letter of support for her right to publish with advocating the ideas present in her work. You might remember exactly the same thing happened years before when Chomsky contributed an essay on freedom of research and speech to a volume by holocaust-revisionist Robert Faurrison. Instantly Chomsky's critics all shrieked in unison that he was a vicious anti-Semite (a Jewish one, no less). It seems a Ph.D isn't a guarantee that understands that freedom of speech means freedom of speech for your enemies or it means nothing at all. In both cases Chomsky acted because he felt that a scholar or journalist's write to voice controversial opinions was being attacked, not because he admired their views on one particular matter. Amazing how successful Chomsky's critics have been in planting the seed in people's minds that there's "some issue with" Chomsky and concentration camps. Lunacy, really.

3. Hitchens vs. Hitchens

Comment #157840 by Inoculatedcities on April 9, 2008 at 3:39 pm

In what particular instances would you, Steve or al-rawandi (or anyone here), say Chomsky exhibits this alleged dogmatism? I'm genuinely curious as a longtime Chomsky reader and admirer.

I agree very much with Hitchens' assessment of Kissinger, which makes his sudden cozying up to people like Wolfowitz and Perle all the more puzzling to me as they are his modern incarnations. I can think of quite a few more examples of American aggression for what it's worth.

An ability to change one's mind when appropriate is indeed admirable and a mark of maturity but it seems a logical fallacy to credit Hitchens with more influence and expertise on American foreign policy matters solely on the basis of his changing positions once in a while on some matters. Have you read many of Chomsky's books, Steve? Are you aware of how exhaustively researched and prepared they are? Specific examples in this matter will go a long way toward advancing your proposition.

4. Hitchens vs. Hitchens

Comment #157793 by Inoculatedcities on April 9, 2008 at 2:35 pm

Comment #157785 by Steve Zara

Somehow, (dramatic pause), you've failed to explain yourself.

Have you ever seen Chomsky debate anybody (Foucault, Buckley, Dershowitz, Perle)? Read any of his countless books from the past fifty years?

Do you have a particular ideological axe to grind with Chomsky or are you particularly jubilant about the Iraq war? What exactly is it that leads you to dismiss the possibility that Chomsky might have a lot more to say on the matter of Iraq and American interventionism -- subjects he's studied and published about for fifty years -- than Hitchens?

5. Hitchens vs. Hitchens

Comment #157784 by Inoculatedcities on April 9, 2008 at 2:20 pm

What I wouldn't give to see a Christopher Hitchens vs. Noam Chomsky debate on the Iraq War. Hitchens is an obviously an extremely intelligent and eloquent man, but Chomsky would undoubtedly mop the floor with him on matters of American history and foreign policy.

6. Cutting Edge: Baby Bible Bashers

Comment #129179 by Inoculatedcities on February 18, 2008 at 8:34 pm

Pure child exploitation, obviously. If these children were being taught to spout neo Nazi rhetoric (a la Prussian Blue), the condemnation of their parents would be universal. Shame on these parents. What terribly hateful, self-righteous, ignorant, obnoxious people these children will likely turn out to be.

Marjoe Gortner apparently taught us nothing.

7. Stop revisionist Christian nation House Resolution 888

Comment #114788 by Inoculatedcities on January 22, 2008 at 8:00 pm

"Here are the current cosponsors of the resolution feel free to contact them if you are a constituent."

Hmm. Texas, Virginia, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Missouri, Alabama... Shocking, isn't it? Why do people insist there is no significant cultural divide crossed at the Mason-Dixon line? Why deny the obvious, out of deference to some equally brainless nationalism? "We're all 'Mericans!"*

*Except people who immigrate and still have an accent.

8. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #92766 by Inoculatedcities on December 1, 2007 at 12:23 pm

D'Souza sounds positively exasperated and overwhelmed. Rather than respond to specific questions regarding his positions, he prefers to promote some vague (and long-disposed of) concept of all religions as institutions that have 'a few bad apples' but are morally superior (self-evidently and by default, it seems) to nonbelief. He never seems to grasp the idea that disbelief requires one to rationalize actively, understanding moral choices and facts on the basis of reason, not prescription. Without dogmatic prescription, D'Souza has said time and again, what's left is nihilism. Apparently crediting people with the ability to reason and think for themselves never occurs to him, maybe for obvious reasons.

Also, what might be worse, D'Souza's jokes are infinitely corny. He seems a rather smug, joyless twit, but excuse the ad hominem.

9. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #82575 by Inoculatedcities on October 26, 2007 at 7:10 pm

"You have literary theorist Christopher Hitchens and biology major Sam Harris positing..."

What a condescending dolt. Notice he didn't challenge Dawkins' or Dennett's or Stenger's credentials. Very telling and pathetic to resort to ad hominem attacks in a formal debate. How about "former Reagan aide and self-proclaimed political, historical and religious 'scholar' Dinesh D'Souza"?

"Modern science itself is based on three Christian assumptions...1) The universe as a whole is rational...2) The universe obeys laws in the language of mathematics..." etc. etc. etc.

What does such a statement mean when discussing the origins of time and space? What is rational about quantum mechanics? I am willing to bet a fair number of cosmologists would have a problem with the blanket statement "The universe as a whole is rational." SOME of the universe can be understood in a way deemed rational TO US (including mathematics) but is the universe as a whole rational to an ant? To a chimpanzee? To a human?

"How does the electron know what to do?!"

Well, clearly a supernatural creator and leader named God tells every electron how to move. Isn't that obvious? And this is the problem with the debate in general: if anything appears to be in doubt, if the jury is out on anything pertaining to the matter, "God" wins by default, without ANY further examination or inquiry. In its scientifically illiterate form it's "No clear record of a perfect gradient of transitional fossils? Then, obviously, GOD did it!!!"

Ugh... I could go on responding but it's just too much nonsense at once to handle.

10. That's not MY God or Religion you're criticising

Comment #81363 by Inoculatedcities on October 24, 2007 at 4:15 pm

How is it that anyone can claim to exclusively know ANYTHING about the supposed creator of the universe? It is presumptuous and arrogant to proceed from the assumption that your god, no matter how benevolent or liberal you describe him to be, even exists and it is this arrogance that nonbelievers detest.

To deny the outrageous specific claims made by major religions regarding his will is to retreat into a sort of abstract deism that resembles religion not at all.

11. War in Heaven: Hitchens Meets D'Souza on Home Turf

Comment #81006 by Inoculatedcities on October 23, 2007 at 10:17 pm

What an awful re-cap. I'm waiting for a video before I judge the proceedings which here are obviously filtered by the tinted glasses of the Observer reporter.

"'According to Hitchens, morality is nothing but a chemical reaction in the brain,' explained Mr. Sorba. 'If right and wrong is determined by instinct, than it means we're nothing more than genetic meat puppets dangling from the strings of our DNA!'"

I hate to make such a sweeping generalization, but it seems as if very very few credulous religious people have read widely or devoted much time to thinking on the matters they speak so loudly and resolutely about. I can almost guarantee this heavily-indoctrinated young man has never read the existentialists (or any twentieth century philosophy for that matter), is not familiar with any secular discussion of the free will vs. determinism problem, and knows not a damn thing about genetics. How can one reasonably be expected to actually converse with this man when he's chanting tired, oft-repeated shibboleths in response to reasoned points and arguments? Every point is a non-starter, every response a slogan.

12. Debate between Michael Shermer and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #80399 by Inoculatedcities on October 21, 2007 at 4:23 pm

Dinesh D'Souza is absolutely insufferable. Remember this is a man who wrote that 9/11 was caused by American liberals' (whom he says includes Hillary Clinton, Britney Spears and Noam Chomsky) "aggressive global campaign to undermine the traditional patriarchal family." The subtext being, of course, that 'we deserved the attack because we weren't as fundamentalist as our enemies'. Just another extreme right-winger who views the world through a Fox News prism where the cultural left is responsible for every ill in the world. Utter nonsense.