🚀 go-pugleaf

>>>>> "Peter" == Peter Seebach <seebs@plethora.net> writes:


  Peter> In a way.  However, keep in mind the principle of
  Peter> self-reference.  Look at all the stuff Chomsky has written
  Peter> about how entities make people believe things.  Now,
  Peter> remember, he's *smart*.  He's playing the same game; he says
  Peter> things because he believes that, if he says these things, the
  Peter> resulting belief systems and values will be the ones he wants
  Peter> to see.

        It seems to me that what you are saying here is that when 
Chomsky writes something he is trying to convince people of his view
point. I would say that this is a perfectly rational and reasonable
thing to want to do when writing something.

  Peter> This is completely orthogonal to any concept of "truth".
  Peter> It's propaganda, and well-done propaganda, but you have to
  Peter> evaluate his goals independant of his reasons for them,
  Peter> because the reasons themselves are manufactured to "support"
  Peter> the goals.

        This is true of everyone's writing. There are some people in
the world who feel that they alone can sit down and pontificate
unaffected by their circumstances and their belief systems, and using
this god given ability can divine their way towards the "truth". Its
total crap of course. Personally I feel that I may be biased, I may
base my view points on a series of self maintaining internal
consistant arguments which bear no relationship to reality, and I may
only be seeking to propagandise others to my view point, but I am at
least aware that I am doing this, and more over quite open about it. I
tend to respect Chomsky for the campaigning aspect of his work, which
would have a lot less impact if he did not allow his humanity to come
through in the name of some bogus search for "academic truth".



        Phil