Chomsky Voted World’s Number One ‘Leading Intellectual’

Via the Scotsman:

NOAM Chomsky, the renegade linguistics professor who has become the lone voice of the left in the United States, has been voted the world’s No 1 living intellectual.

In a poll organised by Prospect magazine in conjunction with the US publication Foreign Policy, Chomsky was voted the most influential thinker of the times.

[…]

The poll, which was largely conducted over the internet, asked participants to pick five intellectuals from a list of one hundred. An astonishing 20,000 people voted.

The US thinker won by a wide margin with more than 4,800 votes, while Eco had just under 2,500 votes.

David Goodhart, the editor of Prospect, said he had been surprised by the number of entries and by the results.

“We did one for Britain last year, but this is the first time we have done it for the whole world. I was surprised that Chomsky won so easily. I think it is to do with the fact he represents an old fashioned romantic idea of an intellectual as almost deliberately impotent.

“Chomsky has no influence at all on modern American politics but he has a massive following.”

That’s a scary thought, considering his hatred for America, as evidenced here in a speech he made just two months after 9-11 :

To place the enterprise in proper perspective, we should recognise that the Crusade is not new, contrary to what’s being said. In fact, the phrases just quoted are from President Ronald Reagan and his Secretary of State, George Schultz, twenty years ago. They came to office at that time – Reagan, and shortly after, Schultz — proclaiming that the struggle against international terrorism would be the core of U.S. foreign policy. And they responded to the plague by organising campaigns of international terrorism of unprecedented scale and violence, even leading to a condemnation by the World Court of the United States for what the Court called “the unlawful use of force,” meaning international terrorism. This was followed by a U.N. Security Council Resolution calling on all states to observe international law, which the United States vetoed. It also voted alone, with one or two client states, against successive similar U.N. General Assembly Resolutions.

So the “New War on Terrorism” is, in fact, led by the only state in the world that has been condemned by the International Court of Justice for international terrorism and has vetoed a resolution calling on states to observe international law, which is perhaps appropriate.

THIS guy is the world’s ‘leading intellectual’? I think not.

Ace comments on this as well.

(Cross-posted at Blogs For Bush)