Forum Post: Noam Chomsky Or The Beaver (of Leave it to Beaver)? Who has the greater influence?
Posted 12 years ago on Jan. 13, 2012, 4:40 p.m. EST by ThelardedOne
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No doubt about it: the Beaver hands down!
Chomsky has 2% name identification. The Beaver? 87% name ID, much higher than Joe Biden.
Still the Beaver. The influence of the Beaver is probably less then what it once was. Chomsky's influence in his field has been large, but hasn't effected many. He's better known for his political beliefs and that influence is minimal.
True. I laugh more at Chimpsky than at the Beave, but the Beave has more cultural relevance and political influence.
As adults we know most families weren't like the Cleavers, but it gave us an ideal to work toward. Good behavior and family love overcoming problems.
As for Noam Chomsky, truly a brilliant mind, but i find his sort of anarchistic socialism too optimistic to ever actually work.
Hard to say they both offer us a fantasy world. In the end it's probably the Beaver, most people feel that ideal can be attained.
I don't think Chomsky offers us a fantasy world. In fact, in this interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se-Nq_rBQHk) he offers a very rational vision of society. He argues that is is unrealistic for us to demand revolution, as there are "no limits to what reform can accomplish).
I see him as an very bright articulate man. His political views however while well thought out strike me as naive. I don't see anarchy as being a workable form of government. It's my belief, people are not going to just get along with each other once we remove authority.
He responds to this possible critique about human nature in video. Last 3 minutes or so
His response is more a deflection of the proposition, he apparently believes humans are good and could make anarchy work. My belief is different.
I think he makes it very clear that we know very little about human nature. It's fine to believe in anything, but when you try to turn your belief into an argument you must present evidence. Neither he nor you can really present any evidence to codify human nature. But, what I think his larger point is- even if there are certain limitations to human nature we don't know about - then fine - but it does not mean we should stop the goals of creating democracy - and if there's somehow a limit to what kind of democracy we can accomplish then that's fine too...but at least we're striving to certain achievable goals.
All well and good, but if he's the one proposing a change in the system it would fall to him to demonstrate that it would actually work, and be an improvement to what we have now. If he can't offer proof that mankind has the altruistic nature to make his system work he shouldn't expect me to accept it on faith.
Are you a good human being?
To be honest I have my flaws, I've never committed a crime, beyond say sliding through a stop sign or speeding. You want to conclude that if I am then everyone else must be also? I've known people that I recognized as sociopathic and later read of their incarceration.
I doubt I could be motivated in a socialistic society for long, it would only take a few slackers to make me feel I was foolish to work hard for the same rewards they got. The problem is bigger though. When I see Chomsky dodge the question, I get the impression that he does believe mankind could make it work. Using his own argument against him, if he can't prove that belief, why should I trust an economy of any size to his untested vision?
No, I wanted to conclude that there are probably more decent people than not. There will always be bad apples, but you originally made it sound like no humans are good.
There may be, but the worst elements seem to be the ones that rise to the top in things. We have a tendency to only look at the short term, and be more interested in ourselves then in humanity in general. I see us as still tribal in some ways, watching out for self, family, tribe, last would come that nebulous group called "them". Not exactly qualities that would make socialism or anarchy work.
Based on that thinking, no large scale societal structure beyond tribal will ever work for the reasons you stated. So, socialism or anarchy wouldn't be any worse or better than capitalism. Inherent in your argument, all -isms are doomed to fail via the inherent shortcomings of humans.
Any large society requires more then a dependance on altruism. There has to be some social contract or set of laws with consequences established to force everyone to live within a certain acceptable code of behavior.
All life tries to get the most it can for the least amount of effort, that tendency leads to socialism's failure as greed and corruption can lead to capitalism's failure. So yes, society is most likely always going to be a work in progress, trying to strike a balance.
Noam Chomksy is a very good speaker and very enjoyable to listen to. And I share a lot of his "evolutionary" belief.
In reference to governance, the very fact that his ideas are considered outside the norm, codifies the norm. These "free radicals" are very important on the evolutionary scale - they offer us other options, and so begins the process of natural selection.
I personally believe that our Founding Fathers asked themselves these very same questions - do we need government; to what extent are laws and governance necessary? Having declared themselves independent, as living without, and in a state of nature, and having concluded that some organizational structure was necessary, and possessed of the experience of governance by covenant, they eventually opted for a Constitutional Republic as the closest thing to ANARCHY that human nature would permit.
The problem with American government today is that it is ALL so corrupt. If we look at the problems of just the past few years, had none of our current six hundred Congressman ever existed, we would have been much better off.
The problem is not governmental structure - it's that the free hand of their authority has permitted unethical practice and the continuous growth of a corrupt machine. And at the moment, Obama is the head of this very corrupt machine.
Chomsky offers a different opinion, fine, he thinks a socialist anarchy is workable, I disagree. Are you trying to imply that a republic was chosen because it was as close to anarchy as they could get? They turned down direct democracy, considering the level of knowledge of the typical voter today that may have been a wise decision. We've got the government we deserve. As long as people vote through ignorance and motivated by the fear generated by a 15 second ad, things will remain as they are. It won't matter what format you operate under, there will be corruption when most of the population doesn't pay attention.
Anarchy was, in fact, their preference, yes, in the sense of offering an effective organizational structure affording the maximum possible freedom; in the sense of limited government, of limited intrusion, it was definitely anarchistic in nature ("was" is the key word here).
I think it's stretching things to claim that. Yes they certainly wanted a limited federal government. You could interpret that is different ways, one of which would be that delegates were looking to protect the sovereignty of their states. There was an authority structure established and steps taken to temper popular rule. The model was closer to an oligarchy in some ways then a democracy.
I disagree. The intent was to offer necessary structure while totally eliminating the federal ability to interfere in personal lives. A government without law is anarchistic in nature.
If they wanted a government without law they had a strange way of doing it. The document they gave us had provisions for making all the laws you could dream of with only a few limitations in the Bill of Rights and even those could be eliminated under the amendment process.
At this point none of them are going to tell us what they truly intended so you're free to make any interpretation you want. I just think it's the wrong one.
You should spend more time reviewing history especially in this area of Constitutional ratification.
And that right there is one of the big problems with this country encapsulated in a nutshell. Leave it to Beaver depicts an idealized, heavily romanticized slice of our past. It's nice if you want to reminisce, but the fact that a character from a sitcom that stopped producing new material in 1963 carries far more name recognition than the current vice president is scary. There's no reason that a country's citizenry should be that ill-informed or disconnected from the people responsible for making the policies that shape its future that more of them know who a fifty-year-old TV character is than our current vice president.
beaver cleaver beats chomsky
This is Old F@## Republican platform idiot
I am curious as to why so many, feel chomsky is useless- He is rated as having the best mind, in America and has written over 100 books. He also is ows's biggest supporter. If one has read as many of his books as i have- you will see that Noam started ows.
He's a leader in his field, a brilliant mind, great debater, but his political ideas don't resonate with a majority of people in this country. He's a proponent of anarchy and his preferred form of government would require people to be much more moral then is their nature.
why did he wait until he was 150 years old?
Outside of the media controlled USA Chomsky's books sell around a million copy's each. But the us population has no interest in truth- they only want to be entertained with bull shit.
Thats us. We love the Beave.
USA! USA!
Yes usa! usa! we love to be entertained to sleep- and we hate to be told the truth of how very stupid we have become. we have allowed ourselves to become enslaved-- after chomsky warned us! Now the great chomsky, tell us to demonstrate for our rights, before its to late- we still don;t listen- we just want to watch leave it to beaver- until the grim reaper comes and picks up our worthless dead body.
How have we become "enslaved?" What specifically did Chompsky warn us about?
It's a little tedious to hear all the whining about corporations. I don't see what the problem is. If you don't like their products you don't buy theme the hav. If you like the product you
hit the send button too soon if you like the product you have the option to buy.
If the corporation is publicly traded you have an option to buy a piece of the company and share in its earnings.
Its hard to argue enslavement by corporations.
The lower 50% of the population in terms of income, though, is beginning to enslave the top 50% and in particular top 10% of the population, who are becoming cash cows, milked for the benefit of the lazy, inept, criminals, and non-productive.
Corporations should obey the laws of the nations where they operate. The globalization movement has led to a situation in which nations must obey the laws established by corporations.
I seriously thought the guy was dead then somebody posted a vid where at least the body was propped up if not alive. He was saying the same crap as he did in the 50s so you never know.
Yeah, Chomsky is a shriveled talking corpse. Very Creepy.
STRANGE - when these forums began, he was a god, now he is a shriveled talking corpse - how soon we turn on our gods.
OR should I say, how soon we get a new crop of posters herein.
There are no gods. Only delusions and truth. Gods shrivel up under the light of truth.
Sure been a lot of that going on on these forums has there not?? If you have been posting for over a month - you should be able to name several of them: ModernCapitalist, Struggleforfreedom, etc.
Most of the others represented only delusions and no truth.
Excuse me for assuming - Occupy posters sure made me believe that Chomsky was one by the way they spoke of him. His comments were even maintained at the TOP of several forums for days on end because he was the ONE.
There may not be any gods - except the ones created on these forums.
Correct. No gods. Gods only engender violence and ignorance.
Don't get on a religious kick with me. You don't have your god and I have my God - end of story - not really anything more to discuss is there??
God is dead; actually never lived. Long live the vampires and werewolves of OWS London.
Yeah, I know, you were there when it happened. Your credibility is somewhat absent from your mind. Take your friends and have a good day.
You have a nice day too.
I need to go tend to my very own Universe the Mormon religion is promising me in the afterlife. That's a very nice thought, isn't it?
scumbags like the two above are only useful for understanding what the opposition thinks, how they think, and so on. Corporate stooges.
We merely object to no-name corpses. Do you endorse speaking corpses?
I think at this point Thrassy has proved you can have a BOT generate a subject and have 100's of BOT's follow-up on the discussion.
Any good people coming to this forum, would be gone within minutes and never return.
Give me Beaver Cleaver any day.