[Noam Chomsky has] become the guru of the new anti-capitalist and Third World movements. They take his views very uncritically; it's part of the Seattle mood - whatever America does is wrong. He confronts orthodoxy but he's becoming a big simplifier. What he can't see is Third World and other regimes that are oppressive and not controlled by America. --Fred Halliday, January 2001 [215]
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Halliday claims Chomsky is a simplifier, anti-Western, and ignores non-American oppressive regimes.
- In plain terms
- He simplifies issues and ignores oppression outside US control.
- What can you take from it?
- Anti-Western bias can hide other oppressions.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Is he too one-sided?
- Does he see all oppression?
Another view
It ignores his focus on US power as primary source.
More from Noam Chomsky
Chomsky is an irresistible example of the quality problem that besets the market for academic public intellectuals. --Richard Posner, 2001 [214]
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