Tim Blair (permalinks bloggered) points to an attack by Keith Windschuttle on Noam Chomsky, as does Andrew Norton at Catallaxy.
Apparently, Chomsky
- plays down evidence of mass killings
- applies moral standards inconsistently
- cites evidence selectively to support his own ideological agenda; and
- claims that social scientists who don’t share his views are engaged in a conspiracy to distort the truth
I’m shocked!
John Quiggin 
Yes, it just makes me weep. If only Noam would learn to reason like this:
Today, when actors, rock stars, and protesting students mouth anti-American slogans for the cameras, they are very often expressing sentiments they have gleaned from Chomsky’s voluminous output.
Hence, to examine Chomsky’s views is to analyze the core mindset of contemporary radicalism, especially the variety that now holds so much sway in the academic and arts communities.
So logically tight and carefully crafted and thoroughly grounded … oh, if Noam could be as rigourous …
Yes, it just makes me weep. If only Noam would learn to reason like this:
Today, when actors, rock stars, and protesting students mouth anti-American slogans for the cameras, they are very often expressing sentiments they have gleaned from Chomsky’s voluminous output.
Hence, to examine Chomsky’s views is to analyze the core mindset of contemporary radicalism, especially the variety that now holds so much sway in the academic and arts communities.
So logically tight and carefully crafted and thoroughly grounded … oh, if Noam could be as rigourous …
But check out Keith’s dog! Cutest ever!
Fancy, Keef has a white fluffy thing: is he now transmogrifying self parody? The question is, has he had it de-barked?
Sometimes playground philosophy sums it up best. In this case, *it takes one to know one*.
youre shocked, but did you read the article?
c8to, given Windschuttle’s past performances, it would have been easy enough to predict the content without reading the article. But, yes, I did read it.
It never ceases to amaze me that those who have shifted so dramatically from their earlier ideology can spend so much time criticising others for things they said or wrote 30-40 years ago.
There is absolutely no point in getting involved in discussion with the neo-con writers.
Anybody with a browser can check the US papers and see exactly the same ideas, same words, same jokes about “height disadvantaged”, “black lesbian whale” made up PC laguage.
I’ve yet to see an original idea from any of them and they (pretty successfully) have prevented much discussion with the ideas of the cleverer neo-cons by creating a lot of heat and smoke.
So what if Keith Windschuttle thinks every blackfella in Australia drank themselves to death rather than take up an honest whitefella job.
Why follow Tim Blair’s sad attempts to imitate PJ O’Rourke. Let him wear his father’s trousers and puff and blow in the mirror.
Discuss, think, explain what is important and ignore the running dogs yapping