Saturday 16 November 2013

Gatekeeping is in the eye of the beholder: a critique of James Corbett's podcast entitled "Meet Noam Chomsky, Academic Gatekeeper"

SUMMARY

In his podcast on the 27th of October 2013,[1] online blogger and current affairs analyst James Corbett aims to show that Noam Chomsky,[2] the influential linguistics professor and political dissident, is an "academic gatekeeper" that is stifling or diverting dissent or critical engagement in three specific areas of public discourse:

  • attitudes towards the Federal Reserve System,
  • attitudes towards the John F. Kennedy (JFK) assassination,
  • and attitudes towards the 9/11 truth movement.

Corbett identifies these three topics as currently lacking sufficiently widespread public examination and proposes that Chomsky's views are a contributing factor in opposing, belittling, or marginalising such public examination of these issues.

In my opinion, Corbett's approach suffers from the following problems that limit diligent exploration of his chosen topic: