<html><DIV> <P> Anybody who would talk in these terms about any serious </P></DIV> <DIV></DIV>>scientific <DIV></DIV>>theory isn't worth talking with himself. Chomsky is one the great <DIV></DIV>>linguistics scholars of all time; his theories many be wrong in <DIV></DIV>>whole or <DIV></DIV>>part, but they are not the starting point for everyone else because <DIV></DIV> <P>>he's a >fool</P> <P>     he knew wh to do and who to attack the way people in seattle knew which windows to break. one ends up with the issue as to whether the time created the context for any individual to tke an action, or whether the great individual just came along with the idea at the right time.  if you go back in math logic it can be noted that the math linguistics had predecessors but none of them actually wrote a logic for language a la chomsky.  </P> <P> </P> <P>.</P> <P>Any anyone who doesn't reaklize that scholarship is the </P> <DIV></DIV>>entirely <DIV></DIV>>proper domain of elitism doesn't know beans about what scholars do <DIV></DIV>>or how <DIV></DIV> <P>>they do it. --</P> <P> </P> <P>i reccomend reading Chomsky's own discussion of scholars in his old 'new mandarins' for the case of 'history scholars' to understand what such 'elites' do in their 'proper domain'.  what they should really do of course some have other opinons on.  (eg get a job). what their 'proper domain' is is equally open to comment.  (go back to wherever , property is theft, etc.)</P> <P>about 50% of 'scholarly' work nowadays is publish-or perish fodder, and another large fraction is commercially driven research which is about as interesting as mengele's ('sic')science.   most of this is borderline thoughtless conformity (a bit like ancient theology); it lacks 'critical thinking'.  however, maybe that is not what you have in mind.  to me it has merit only because amidst the pollution that is common it is cream, or foam.  chomsky too. very little seems complete, because it is 'opiniated' and rarely aclnowledges the existance of alternative views apart from a 'polite' nod.  </P> <P>its interesting that someone who could debate michael levin about race and iq would be so sure that 'elitism' is a wellfounded and obviiusly neccesary concept---though of course down south in Jefferson's times they had no such qualms about such obvious 'Cartesian' (linguistic) categories.. (i mean any 'rational' individual knows what they mean---elite, scholarly, meritous etc   these are obviously innate senses, part of our languge ofthought.   like Nikes and Big Macs,  ).</P> <P>  others have argued that the idea of 'elitism' iis arbitrary and socially constructed as a way of justifying the idea that some should do 'research' or construct paradigms while others do the dishes .</P> <P>  'class' is a sinmilar idea.  are you born with it, or do get assigned to it.   do we need to track people into special classes because of obvous rational constraints of nature (inhomogeneous paritioning of space-time-matter) or not.</P> <P>   well you're the expert so you decide.                                                                                                                                                            &n! bsp;                    </P> <DIV></DIV>>>for chomsky to refer to berwick is like the Pope referring to some <DIV></DIV>>>bishop's <DIV></DIV>>>review of 'islam' or 'atheism' to say this proves its [sic] bs. <DIV></DIV>>>or stalin <DIV></DIV>>>asking one of his crew to criticize a bertrand russel [sic] type. <DIV></DIV>>>despite <DIV></DIV>>>the fact that Chomsky has read Bakunin (a prominent liberal <DIV></DIV>>>anti-elitist) <DIV></DIV>>>he <DIV></DIV>>>still uses the fact that someone is 'prominent' and teaches at <DIV></DIV>>>'MIT' as a <DIV></DIV>>>propogandisitic [sic] tool for criticizing others' arguments---i <DIV></DIV>>>seriously <DIV></DIV>>>dought [sic] chomsky has read any [any what?] in the past 10 years <DIV></DIV>>>of <DIV></DIV>>>people <DIV></DIV>>>who work in different schools---he doesn't have to. <DIV></DIV>>>. . . . <DIV></DIV>>_________________________________________________________________ <DIV></DIV>>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com <DIV></DIV>> <br clear=all><hr>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at <a href="http://explorer.msn.com">http://explorer.msn.com</a><br></p></html>