Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 19:21:01 EST
Subject: Re: PKF: Would Feyerabend have defended Wittgenstein and Whorf


     I disagree with your critique of Chomsky. Chomsky's work has involved 
the 
analysis of the centralization of media, with the incestuous connections 
between 
the media corporations and their multinational, geopolitical interests, 
sometimes at the expense of human rights, etc. To accuse Chomsky or Chomsky's 
cronies of 
advocating a tyrannical, monopolistic power apparatus is completely unfounded,
given their advocacy of a decentralized, representative media that would 
incorporate 
previously marginalized views. How are these views consistent with a 
totalitarian,
tyrannical agenda? In short, Chomsky is wary of centralized power, evidenced 
in 
his work (The New American Mandarins, Manufactured Consent, etc.). 
     As for Chomsky's critiques of Wittgenstein, it seems that the two 
thinkers have 
separate domains of expertise. Wittgenstein was an analytic philosopher, 
while 
Chomsky was a linguist, who participated in political and media critiques in 
his spare time. Is Chomsky, as a linguist, qualified to critique 
Wittgenstein's philosophical work? If Chomsky criticizes Wittgenstein as a 
relativist, thus a quietist,  does this critique have any legitimacy? In my 
view, these cross-discipline analyses have no academic significance and 
should be disregarded. 
                 
                           T Vannoy
                           Seattle, Washington   
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