Haha, don’t worry, he was definitely not some kind of Jordan Peterson. JP intentionally abuses his popularity to spread hatred.
I don’t think Chomsky was as intentional about it. He just had opinions and happened to talk about them in a reassuring, intellectual tone. It’s more of a systemic issue, in that other people spread his ideas without thinking scientifically about them. I think it’s not healthy for the field that people idolize him so much. It makes it harder for linguistics to move toward the scientific method.
I think there is also something structural about academia, at least culturally, that supports the kind of monolithic views of how things work, even when they’ve never been shown to be demonstrated by the evidence. Linguistics is far from the only field where I’ve seen this scenario play out.
Haha, don’t worry, he was definitely not some kind of Jordan Peterson. JP intentionally abuses his popularity to spread hatred.
I don’t think Chomsky was as intentional about it. He just had opinions and happened to talk about them in a reassuring, intellectual tone. It’s more of a systemic issue, in that other people spread his ideas without thinking scientifically about them. I think it’s not healthy for the field that people idolize him so much. It makes it harder for linguistics to move toward the scientific method.
Hope this helps clarify.
I think there is also something structural about academia, at least culturally, that supports the kind of monolithic views of how things work, even when they’ve never been shown to be demonstrated by the evidence. Linguistics is far from the only field where I’ve seen this scenario play out.