Win Win World

Stanley Greenspan in his new book, First Idea, proves that language development and the ability to reason are founded on emotional responses between an infant and its environment. This disproves Noam Chomsky's assertion that language skills are genetically hardwired into the human brain. That's two down, Noam seems to have lost a lot of credibility, first in his avocation, now in his vocation.

John Perkins wrote Confessions of an Economic Hit Man which portrays America as profiting at the expense of other peoples. While I believe he gets the analysis all wrong (even though his experiences were I am sure as described) he is right about the solution. In his discussion on CSPAN he describes the need to help other nations become prosperous and to reach out to them with our hearts. He reveals his real passion about this and in this regard he is very right. We need to be compassionate and care about our neighbors and when they know this we will see real success. This is a win-win world we live in.

Comments

[Dan]

Stuart,

Thanks for the info on Greenspan. Any other links on the subject?

What makes Chomsky's far-Leftism so surprising, and so dangerous, is the fact that he is a genius in linguistics. Every undergraduate Computer Scientist, for example, takes a languages course that uses Chomsky's ideas ("Backus Naur Form"). Further, as a linguish Chomsky was very willing to go after Leftist "sacred cows." His work effectively disproved the idea that animals could talk -- ever. His skepticism of gorilla's using sign language, etc, helped nip that brance of animal rightism in the bed.

I'm interested in Greenspan because of this. Chomsky's work on human grammar is small-c conservative. Ever since Rousseau progressives have been set on the "blank slate" agenda. If humans are blank slates at birth, than anything human can be rationalized or otherwise "perfected." This belief fueld the French, Bolshevik Russian, and Maoist Chinese revolutions. The reverse, that men are not and can never be angels, is at the heart of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and even the Magna Carta.

So here, philosophically, I'm sympathetic to Noam. All mammals share an amazing affinity for conditioning, but none are born blank and all posses certain facilities from birth, given to them by their Creator.