Comment by zby | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zby | Hacker News Reader

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Not entirely convincing. I personally prefer Falkenstein as my Chomsky critic:

The spread is a debating tactic where you present a set of supporting arguments so wide and particular your opponents are unable to rebut them all because 1) they have day jobs and 2) they have limited space or time to address them in any particular forum. A champion spreader is Noam Chomsky, who selectively recites facts of world history from Indonesia, Russia, to El Salvadore and 200 places in between, which no one but a professional in Comparative Economic Systems would be familiar with (indeed, comparative economic systems was a flourishing economic subdiscipline precisely because it couldn't be easily refuted because those communist countries didn't have a free press and made up their production data, but after 1989 it was obvious this field was simple wishful thinking dominated by deluded Marxists-note:of the ones I knew!).

http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/economists-love-sprea...

Well that's a new one: the evidence he cites is so voluminous and wide-ranging, there must be something wrong with him.

The problem is the amount, it's the fact that it's wide-spread (i.e. horizontal) but when you examine deeply any one piece you find it to be quite weak, i.e. shallow.

It's a similar technique used by conspiracy theorists and Creationists.

The author is quite explicitly saying that the problem is the volume and variety of information. There is no mention of the 'shallowness' of any one particular reference.

The author justifies this by saying no reader can reasonably be expected to be "familiar with" the references Chomsky uses. So what? The references are all there and available for the reader to look up. Once looked up, the reader is familiar with it. No problem. Incredibly weak argument and one that can only be accepted if we accept lazy reading as a given.

I think it is quite obviously implied that Chomsky's understanding of all his examples is quite shallow and that they are being used mainly to add weight to a predetermined world view. falkenstein's point is that it is almost impossible to understand such a variety of examples in real depth and it is also unlikely that Chomsky himself is using them all correctly. To dismiss this criticism as simply an acceptance of "lazy reading" seems a little naive.

> it is also unlikely that Chomsky himself is using them all correctly.

That's low hanging fruit then, go for it. After all proving Chomsky decisively wrong on a large number of things is something a lot of people would like to be able to do, by reading you I get the impression that this is easy. After all criticizing Yehudi Menuhin does not even require one to be able to play the violin.

The criticism is laughable. It amounts to saying that because most people aren't Chomsky, and I am not Chomsky, Chomsky must not be Chomsky either. But the man is simply prodigious, as even his detractors routinely admit. There are countless examples.

I've had occasion to examine "any one piece" a few times and found Chomsky's citations to hold up quite well. This sort of criticism has been around as long as he's been publishing on politics and is almost invariably completely determined by pre-existing ideology.

Never read the guy, but this is a real:

Shotgun argumentation - the arguer offers such a large number of arguments for their position that the opponent can't possibly respond to all of them [1]

Gish has been characterized as using a rapid-fire approach during a debate, presenting arguments and changing topics very quickly [2]

Also, this might be relevant (?):

Proof by intimidation (or argumentum verbosium) is a jocular phrase used mainly in mathematics to refer to a style of presenting a purported mathematical proof by giving an argument loaded with jargon and appeal to obscure results, so that the audience is simply obliged to accept it, lest they have to admit their ignorance and lack of understanding. [3]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop#Debates

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_by_intimidation

I had a history professor notorious for assigning dense reading. Students would often complain about it. His response was that it's not the author's fault the reader is too lazy and unwilling to keep up.

   > your opponents are unable to rebut them all because
   > 1) they have day jobs and 2) they have limited space
   > or time to address them in any particular forum.

There are plenty of people on the right whose day jobs involve addressing the issues that Chomsky addresses. They do not lack space, either in terms of disk storage on Web servers, and column-inches on hard copy publications. What they lack are logic, facts, and a cohesive conceptual framework.

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