Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky critiquing the Lord of the Rings movies

[pxib]

I want to see Chomsky and Carlin get into a slapping match at the library.

Carlin is less pedantic, and has a finer wit... but Chomsky is faster on his feet. Noam would run George raw rhetorically, with only an occasional zinger (probably originally penned in 1975) flung the other way. People go out and have random political conversations with Chomsky, transcribe them, and then sell those transcripts as books because they're more interesting than the popular journalism on the subject.

So he's out... but Carlin and Zinn are at about the same speed. Not a slapping match, perhaps, but it'd be fun to watch them tag-team troll the F13 Politics forum.

[schild]

I don't know. I took a linguistics course in college and we had to watch a video which starred both of them. Ironically, it was probably made around 1975, but I have a feeling that putting them both in the same room would be fantastic, like fireworks and cotton candy.

[pxib]

I don't know. I took a linguistics course in college and we had to watch a video which starred both of them. Ironically, it was probably made around 1975, but I have a feeling that putting them both in the same room would be fantastic, like fireworks and cotton candy.

Carlin's smart, and there'd be fireworks, but it wouldn't be rapid-fire hilarious. When he's not monologuing Carlin gets very serious and the humor turns to exasperation. To complement Chomsky you'd need somebody better at improvisation... Robin Williams, Dennis Miller, or Jon Stewart, for example. Has Jon ever interviewed the old man? That'd be sweet fluff and ground blooming flowers.

[BigBlack]

Zinn wrote The People's History of the United States, a great book.

Without derailing this thread, I'll just note that Michael Kazin published aa thoughtful, impressive refutation of Zinn's People's History in the liberal journal Dissent a few years back.  Those who've never read People's History can also get a good sense of it from that article.

As for arguing with Chomsky, I (unintentionally) got the chance to go back and forth with him for about 15 minutes a couple of years back, on the topic of Hugo Chavez's governance in Venezuela.  It ended with him comparing me to Stalin.  When I objected, he amended it to comparing me to John Adams, saying I'd "probably like the sound of it better but it's the same thing in principle."

[Oban]

Why Adams was like Stalin...