A thread to ask about cultural stuff you should know

[OneFrenchEgg]

Ok so there's loads of stuff other people know and stuff I know.
Where do I start with Noam Chomsky and why? Is he left wing? Why is he so relevant?

Never heard of him. Should I have done?

Who is he?
Is he that relevant?

Noam Chomsky. Wrote a big theory about how language works which is wrong. Lots of people spent a long time showing it was wrong.

Also left wing, dunno why.

Thank you! I thought maybe we could ask questions and have them answered because Google just brings up far too much!
Interesting the language thing. I've seen a lot of his stuff referenced online by people.

An icon to many Guardian readers if their comments page is anything to go by. More influential in the USA than outside it IMO.

He is a linguistics professor. He is an anarchist but is followed a lot by left wing types. He wrote a lot about democracy and the media etc. recently has gone a bit crazy like many

Noam Chomsky's left wing political career began when he wrote an influential essay criticising the Vietnam war, and eventually he ended up arrested and on a list of malevolent political opponents under Nixon. He has also had a significant influence on linguistics, but his thinking in this area is also far from uncontroversial.

Thank you - a linguistics professor that got it wrong? And now political/philosophical? Worth reading?

Also: Keanes? Economics?

Oh cross post, thank you.

Thanks everyone who gave a bit of insight.

Aside from his seminal works about language (not wrong, just now superceded with new and more modern theories - and his universal grammar theory was only ever that- a theory) he's probably most well-known for his books on US Foreign Policy over the decades, a lot of political science departments have him on their reading lists. Quite an eye-opener regarding where US money goes, and why, and how many indigenous workers die making basketballs etc. It's important to remember a lot of the stuff which is now out in the open and common knowledge wasn't when Chomsky was writing about it.

He's a very accessible writer, both about linguistics and politics.

Also known for his 'propaganda model' of the media - how it props up elites and 'manufactures consent'. Essentially we are all brainwashed 🙂

Cultural stuff I know I should know

please explain the offside rule to me

Keynes - John Maynard Keynes - economist. Milton Keynes named after him.
Left-wing, mates with Bloomsbury Group (Virginia Woolf etc), big proponent of state intervention to boost the economy - a relatively radical idea in the early twentieth century.

John Maynard Keynes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes

No time to explain in my own words right now, but I'd agree that knowing about his thinking is really important if you want a well-rounded view of how the world works.

This is a good question

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky?wprov=sfti1#

Oh I do know loads about Vita et al so joining up the dots to the Bloomsbury set is helpful! (Keynes).
I shall try the wiki link

Offside rule, when the football is kicked there needs to be 2 opponent players somewhere on the pitch between the ball and the goal. They don't have to be in a direct line.
It's to stop strikers hanging around by the goal waiting for the ball to come to them.

Milton Keynes named after him.

^ Common misconception. It wasn’t, it was named after a earlier settlement in the area, from Norman times

Keynes is an interesting guy. Basically bankrolled the Bloomsbury set, gay until he met and married a Russian ballerina to the astonishment (and in some cases horror) of his friends.

There’s a novel, Mr Keynes’ Revolution, about him I enjoyed if you want a nice introduction to who he was and why he matters

In what way has Chomsky's language model been discredited?

I need this update from 1990s psychology uni course.

"When the facts change, I change my mind"

John Maynard Keynes

It's to reduce the number of goals. I mean who doesn't want 90 minutes of a no-score-draw?

Not a football fan. Can you tell.

My theory on cultural knowledge
No one can ever know everything
What is important is accepting this and knowing how to find things out if they become relevant

Never easier now we basically have a massive encyclopaedia in our pockets.

Offside rule demonstrated perfectly in the Full Monty 😂

https://www.girlsgospel.com/football-offside-rule-for-dummies/

Not suggesting you are a "dummy" at all. It just explains it simply.