Chomsky is an American anarchist-turned-liberal who made his name with his theory of deep grammar, then he wrote that book about the five filters mass media goes through (I think it was called Manufacturing Consent). He’s a well known critic of US foreign policy in the classic leftist mould. He has recently been sighted fellating Michael Moore in a cubicle in a taco bar toilet in New York.
Fukuyama is a rightwing intellectual who was made famous by The End of History (and the Last Man), an article-turned-book that outlined the theory that liberal capitalist democracy is the best possible form of society and, having triumphed over Soviet Communism, had no real ideological enemy anymore, thus constituted the End of History. He then became a neoconservative and became involved with the current Bush administration, most obviously via PNAC.
His theory of the End of History was roundly rebuffed by poststructuralist Jack Derrida in his book Spectres of Marx. He illustrated how the logic of Fukuyama’s theory was essentially circular, and constituted an ideological confidence trick, i.e. that it succeeds if enough people believe in it, regardless of whether or not it is actually true at the time of writing.
So be it. Personally, I want to write about things in ways that people will understand, admire and be affected by, so I’m perfectly willing to use pop culture as a means to aiding their understanding of what really matters to me. You see, it’s a literary strategy, an application of Darko Suvin’s ideas on formalism, estrangement, ostranenie and so on to the liquid conception of the relation between high and pop culture that Barthes talked about. Then actually applied to the world, with varying success and failure.
But if you want to make a massive series of assumptions about me purely on the basis of me comparing Paris Hilton to Noam Chomsky then go ahead, make my day…
Your assumptions speak volumes for the emotional baggage you are bringing to this conversation. I’ve discussed these very ideas on this very forum…
They were the only two that I recognised with which I took issue. I refuse to discuss Searle, so I didn’t bother mentioning him.
You stick with making massive (and incorrect) assumptions about people with whom you argue. It seems to be the limit of your abilities with language.