One can try to divine what Chomsky really thinks, believes and means, but one thing remain that always annoyed is is repated absolute stances and the way he express is viewpoint as being the only right one. Often expressed with disdain or dismissal of the opposition. You can disagree with someone, but doing it elegantly is of higher value to me.
This is generally the philosophical tradition: you present ideas, wholly and completely, as an explanation or a solution to a problem. You do not pre-suppose disagreements for your opponents (this will almost certainly end up being a straw man, if you let them make their own arguments they will make them more favorably than you could. It is a sign of respect). You express your idea as a firm, unyielding truth and wait until it is appropriately refuted, then reassess.
And when it is refuted, you assert something akin to:
"Linguistic theory is mentalistic, since it is concerned with discovering a mental reality underlying actual behavior. Observed use of language ... may provide evidence ... but surely cannot constitute the subject-matter of linguistics, if this is to be a serious discipline."
There is no value in that. If you have a unique perspecitve, you MUST be outspoken and opinionated. Being quirky also helps. Otherwise, no one gets to hear about your unique perspecitve.
If you don't consider your viewpoint the most correct of all viewpoints known to you, why would you even have it?
As for disdain, while I agree he can be overly dry sometimes, seeing the kind of stuff he often has to put up with, around political subjects anyway, I'd say he shows a lot of patience, too. If more people would do their part most of the more unpleasant subjects he debates people on wouldn't even be an issue. He wouldn't be able to use harsh words for, say, war criminals and their apologists, if those didn't exist in the first place. It's not actually his or anyone's job to try and help clean up the mess others are making, they do that on the side because it's required to look in the mirror.
^ This is what and who matters. Without a (decent) world, all the rest ain't happening anyway. He's the kind of person I'd imagine to be rather friendly to, say, a cleaning lady, and that to me are the more significant bits of the number that makes up grace. At least from what I see, he's sometimes a dick to people who are used to be lauded (and well paid), he's a champion of people who are used to get shit on.
Furthermore:
> "Courage is indispensible because in politics not life but the world is at stake." -- Hannah Arendt, "Between Past and Future"
We're now at the point where we're not just worried about dying, or getting jailed, or losing a friend or two; but about merely being offended. Crooks and madmen aren't content anymore with merely getting away with it, now they want respect, too. I'm not even sure how polemic or exaggerated that is. Criminals are tired of laundering money so to speak, they just want to whitewash the crimes themselves and do them in the open. You can respectfully disagree in a way that leaves room for you not actually being sure of what you're saying, and that's it.
Also, saying "this house is on fire" is not an "absolute stance" on fires or building safety, and if the house is on fire, and as long as no serious efforts are made to change that, it's simply principled to repeat this over and over, instead of coming up with something "new" for the sake of it. Hannah Arendt again:
> The ceaseless, senseless demand for original scholarship in a number of fields, where only erudition is now possible, has led either to sheer irrelevancy, the famous knowing of more and more about less and less, or to the development of a pseudo-scholarship which actually destroys its object.
I think this could also be applied to discussion of politics. Every time a government or the NSA does something, a bunch of people say "why does this surprise anyone?", as if something that sucked on day 1 would somehow be less alarming on day 50, with the same or even increased levels of suckage.
Same for Chomsky criticizing his own, which is still valid. Why does it have to be new, or elegant, or otherwise pleasing? If a society shits its pants, that's already not something pleasant to point out, but the more years pass, the longer it keeps sitting in and adding to it, the less pleasant it becomes. It's not anyone's job to add sugar to the medicine, or give it with a big smile, or anything. I think it's awesome if they do, but still perfectly fine if they don't. Insofar his or anyone's arguments have merit, you can always repackage it without any vitriol or snark, and they stay intact. That is what really matters, and that kind of elegance is also in the ear of the listener.
I hold some viewpoints that I know are less likely correct than others I know about, because the benefit of being right (if it is correct) is far larger than the cost of being wrong (if it's not correct). I find I have to embrace a viewpoint in order to think through all the consequences of it and arrive at an insight, which could either be a contradiction (and thus a proof of it's falsity) or a good strategy if it turns out to be true.
