From: David Hawkes via Normblog (edited)
Anyone following the career of Noam Chomsky is soon confronted with a problem.
Chomsky has achieved eminence in theoretical linguistics and political commentary.
The "Chomsky problem" is that his approaches to these fields appear to contradict each other.
In politics Chomsky is a radical, but in linguistics he takes positions that can easily be characterized as reactionary.
He traces language to a "Universal Grammar" resident in the physical brain.
He believes that our linguistic nature is hard-wired into our genes.
Because they diminish the influence of environment on human behaviour, such claims can be used to suggest that certain modes of social organization are natural and immutable.
As a result, they have often been associated with conservative politics.
Comment: Can the same be said of success?
