The Monkey King's Used Primate Emporium and Book Reviews

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Noam Chomsky, et al., "The Cold War & the University: Toward an Intellectual History of the Postwar Years"

Started March 23 � Finished March 26, 2002; 290 pages. Posted 26 March 2002

Sheesh. I was given this as a present about four years ago by a former crazy girlfriend (at the time she was a current crazy girlfriend). Four years. You can tell I was really looking forward to reading this, huh?

I just saw Noam Chomsky speak in Berkeley a couple of days ago. I�ve already said he fails to emote when he talks, and his low monotone voice is extremely conducive to sleep.

I know it wasn�t just me, because I started to look around at the crowd in order to fight off closing my eyes and saw several other people nodding off, doing that slow head droop that leads to the sudden snap-jerk, with people nearly shouting out �Fluffenutter!� as they awoke, most likely from an elbow in the ribs. Others fortunate enough to have aisle seats got up occasionally and walked around while he talked.

This is not to say that the lecture wasn�t interesting. It was, but it was very hard to stay focused for such a lengthy period. But the annoying thing came from the crowd. Since this was Berkeley, land of the unwashed political anarchist hippie, people would occasionally burst into applause as if saying, �Yay! You�re saying something that we agree with! Good for you!�

Since this was an informational talk and not a rally, it was annoying because if you�re attending, you�re supposed to be there to learn something, not just listen for catch phrases that you like.

Noam obviously didn�t like the bursts of applause either, since he wouldn�t wait for the noise to die down. Instead he continued to talk over the crowd, which of course meant we were missing what he was saying.

Weirder still was that this lecture was at a theater that held 3,300 people and it sold out in six hours. I thought that kind of shit was reserved for people like Paul McCartney.

Chomsky himself has stated that he dislikes the nature of celebrity, but I think it�s getting harder and harder to avoid it. Even this book, which is really a collection of essays from various members of the academic world, only lists Chomsky on the spine as the author, following it with the Latin �et al� phrase. (Granted, Chomsky is the first name listed alphabetically, but one has to wonder if the book editors made sure not to commission anybody whose name starts with an �A� or �B.�)

These suspicions become stronger when you realize that Chomsky has the smallest contribution in terms of page numbers, writing only 24 pages worth of material when the average essay is about 33. Furthermore, other authors specifically wrote essays about how the Cold War affected their individual areas of study in economics, anthropology, biology, linguistics, history, and English, but Chomsky�s piece was extracted from a previous interview.

Again, I have to wonder if the editors weren�t just trying to get his name on their project by any means necessary.

Finally, since these are all members of the academic world, I just have to wonder why they write so painfully dully. (Note, historian Howard Zinn, Earth Science professor Ray Siever and surprisingly enough, Chomsky are the exceptions to this statement.)

I�ve helped plenty of people write essays, and the one thing I always advise is to never be scared of having your personality come through. Professors have to wade through mountains of poorly written tripe every semester, so they�re going to appreciate something that has a distinct voice.

It also ensures you won�t be brought up on charges for plagiarism, since everybody else in academia is so dull and flat.

When I turn in papers, I fill them up with jokes and puns, and even curse in them if I think I can get away with it and for the most part, it�s worked. There�s only been one time that I can remember that an instructor handed me a paper with a low grade (not even a particularly low grade, but lower than I thought I deserved), saying, �You�re not nearly as funny as you think you are.�

The point is, and I said this at the Chomsky lecture, is that if anybody needed to open with a joke, it�s these guys.


Rating: Worth used prices for you. Worth me getting for free in exchange for dating somebody really fucking crazy for about six months.

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