Tayssir John Gabbour quotes Chomsky (without citing source until a later post):
>
> "It's certainly true that lots of people can't read the books I write. That's not because the ideas or language are complicated --- we have no problems in informal discussion on exactly the same points, and even in the same words...."
Chomsky has been a hero of the anti-imperialist effort in this nation; he is indeed a national treasure as someone once said. I have found his books of great use myself. I hope they will continue to be of use. I admire him this side idolatry.
That said, Tayssir continues to make Chomsky look like a real fool. Or perhaps Chomsky does it to himself. He perhaps too readily assumes that there are no important fields of knowledge or experience outside his ken, and hence does not allow for the existence of such fields of knowledge and/or experience, and hence blunders terribly.
An anecdote, which I may have recounted in the past. About 30 years ago I led a study group in a reading of _Wages, Price and Profit_. Several members of the group were not skilled readers, and though that text was intended for a semi-general readership, it is not easy. Drawing on one of my fragments of knowledge in reference to reading difficulty, as well as Sweet's method of teaching Latin at Michigan back in the '50s, I taped the whole of the book. Then these unskilled readers read as they listened. The pace of the tape forced them (but also allowed them) to read much more rapidly than they ordinarily did. They got along fine in their reading of the work. (Unfortunately, the casette was lost later.) In the quotation above Chomsky appears really naive about what are the barriers many people encounter in reading. He also seems utternly innocent of the fact that many people who either can't or won't read anything of any complexity whatever _can_ follow remarkably complex arguments given orally. That is why Chomsky's lectures are are highly illuminating for many who, quite frankly, would toss his books aside in frustration and/or boredom.
In the language of the old humanism (Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Austen, Wordsworth, Arnold,the New Critics, Chomsky just doesn't know himself, is not aware of his own limitations. He simply doesn't understand at all why so many people can't read his books but can follow him in his lectures or in his conversation.
This difficulty that so many 10s of millions of intelligent people have in reading anything more complicated than a road sign but can follow quite complicated oral presentations is one of the reasons why the natural form of agitation is one-to-one or small group conversation, or extremely brief and grotesquely over-simplified leaflets.
Carrol