Garden of Daisies

A couple of angles of Chomsky

November 7th, 2007

Tonight I am studying for a test in my course on the Psychology of Language, and I’m not convinced it will go well, but what can ya do.

The text book is really bad. It contains information about studies that demonstrate the types of sentences that are most difficult for people to read (convoluted with usage of the passive voice), and uses them everywhere. It’s also full of false claims, bad assumptions, and has the odd spelling error.

I also have complaints about Chomsky. Which is odd, cause generally when I interact with him it’s in books on American policy etc., and I love him. But from time to time I have to deal with his linguistics and I just get all irritated and frustrated and ranty. Yes you beat Skinner and the behaviourists–and for that I love you…but goddamn, what’s the use of a linguistic model with no basis in psychological reality? How can you not even aspire to have your model be tested, potentially falsified and built on? Are you really content just building big towers of hypothetical linguistic theories that depend on everyone going “shhhhhh…don’t listen to the psychologists….they just don’t understand..”???? ARGH! I would love linguistics to be a science, I would. But it’s not anywhere close right now.

My textbook juxtaposes linguistics and psychology by saying that linguistics comes from the tradition of rationalism, while psychology is rooted in the tradition of empiricism and that this is at the root of their disagreements. …as if psychology could really get by without philosophical frameworks (not that it doesn’t try sometimes), and as if anything (including linguistics) can aspire to being a science if it doesn’t function empirically.

Other things that are atrocious:
1. This whole thing about waterboarding…It’s everywhere I look right now. Protesters in the states. Matt Good is writing about it. Jon Stewart is talking about it. The CBC is reporting on it. Seriously people (read: certain American politicians) there’s nothing to debate. There’s no semantic ambiguity. Waterboarding is torture and you are actively using it. That is disgusting. Seriously, it makes me feel rotten and disgusting in the pit of my stomach. Liberty? Human Rights? …fucking hell. BESIDES WHICH, it has been proven that torture does not yeild accurate information. It just yeilds whatever it takes to get the torture to stop. So do you just do it for the kicks? My god we can be sick, sick animals.

2. Canada now allows Drug companies to advertise. Lovely eh? Isn’t that just what you want? We don’t have enough commercialization as it stands, I think it would be fantastic to have drugs advertising directly to people. Cause really you want people to choose their own drugs. Med school doesn’t really make you any more aware of how the body works and how illnesses ought to be remedied. Besides it’s important that a large portion of the income drug companies have get directed into marketing and advertising (over 50% for some companies in the US), because, after all–you wouldn’t want them to redirect that money into research and development….

So, while I’m linguistically ticked off at him, in the spirit of my last two complaints I’d like to direct you to Chomsky’s new book: Failed States. It’s really brilliant. The main premise is that using the standards that America uses to assess states to declare them “failed” and thus justify their involvement in their administration, America itself is a failed state. Well written. Lots of interesting information–like did you know that of all the countries which sent doctors to the region affected by the Tsunami Cuba sent the most government sponsered ones? And that of those something like 47.9% were female? …anyway. I think it’s his strength.

Entry Filed under: University (Studies and Classes), Psychology, Politics