Listed below are a few of the scholars and researchers works that helped my understand my keyword to a further degree. These sources in particular have helped in uncovering the depth of my keyword and opened my mind up to new perspectives with regards to the keyword itself.
—————————————————————————————————————
Beachler, D.W. (2009) “Arguing about Cambodia: Genocide and Political Interest”. Holocaust and Genocide Studies, vol.23 (2):214–38. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/hgs/dcp034
In this seminal article, Beachler provides an extensive historiography on the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge and analyses the politically motivated attempts by scholars and journalists to downplay or deny these crimes. Most noticeably, Beachler indicts Chomsky for his persistent campaign to deny the perpetration of genocide in Cambodia, which went from countering public assertions of genocide to deterring journalists from publishing their evidence. Beachler’s central thesis—and the reason that persuaded us to include the study in our annotated bibliography—is that the dissemination of the “Truth” is politically motivated. Left-wing and right-wing writers, journalists and politicians alike tend to obscure or censor reports of military atrocities that discredits their political alignments or implicates them in war crimes.
Bechara, A. et. al. (1996). “Failure to Respond Automatically to Anticipated Future Outcomes Following Damage to Prefrontal Cortex”. Cerebral Cortex, vol. 6 (2): 215-25. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/6.2.215
In this article, Bechara and associates (including Antonio Damasio) argue that lesions to specific areas of the prefrontal cortex cause defects in rational decision-making in spite of apparent normalcy in intellectual activity. This article was consulted to further elucidate Damasio’s theory of consciousness and its implications on language and social life. To substantiate this thesis, Bechara and associates measured skin conductance responses (SCRs) among 7 injured patients and 12 uninjured patients (as their control variable) in real-time application of the Iowa gambling test (IGT). Their study appears to corroborate the established hypothesis that damage to the prefrontal cortex led to riskier, more impulsive behaviour. This would appear to validate the hypothesis that emotionally-sound, rational decision making occurs at the cortical and subcortical structures of the brain. However, as outlined under Controversies, Bechara and Damasio’s study is not easy replicate and their volume of data is insufficient. This compromises the accuracy and reliability of their data.
Beyer, C. et. al. (2019). “Manufacturing Monsters (The Propaganda Model after 30 Years)”. Nordlit, vol. 42: 1-420. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7557%2F13.5001
In this study, Beyer and associates updated Chomsky and Herman’s propaganda model to apprehend the scope of corporate news companies and social media in the rhetorical strategy of Othering (i.e., stigmatizing and villainizing a specific individual or demographic as alien and/or dangerous). They argue that the manufacture of monsters is applicable in geopolitical policy and military strategy against dictators and armed insurgents who pose a threat to the United States’ (and Capitalism’s as a whole) sphere of influence and hegemony. As elucidated by Beyer and associates, this strategy applies a complex web of linguistic and cognitive operations that channel social hysteria and obscuring the root causes that enabled the “monsters” to flourish.
As a contemporary actualization and application of Chomsky’s propaganda model, this study provides a valuable case study for the kinetic flow of information wherein the political instrumentalization of social and mass media is concerned.
Blumenthal, M. & Norton, B. (2018, 1st June). “Exposing the OAS’ anti-Venezuela, pro-US bias and right-wing hypocrisy”. The Gray Zone. https://thegrayzone.com/2018/06/01/oas-anti-venezuela-pro-us-bias-right-wing-hypocrisy/
In this news transcript study, Blumenthal and Norton indict the Organization of American States for its “extreme bias” in news reporting and its politically motivated promotion of the United States’ political interests despite its (flimsy) self-representation as an impartial organization. This transcript was doubly relevant to our research proposal. On surface level, Blumenthal and Norton’s report verified the surface level thesis of the propaganda model, wherein geopolitical interests and spheres of influence are built and consolidated by othering the US’ rivals as enemies of democracy. However, on deeper examination, the paper confirms Beachler’s sociopolitical analysis (in indictment of Chomsky) on the rhetorical means, including the suppression of information, by which the world’s superpowers dictate reporting to suit their interests.
Chomsky, N. & Herman, E.S. (1977, 6th June). “Distortions at Fourth Hand”. The Nation. https://chomsky.info/19770625/
In this now infamous article, Chomsky and Herman disparaged the mainstream media’s reporting of the Khmer Rouge’s perpetration of genocide as a result of Pol Pot’s pursual—and brutal enforcement—of an agrarian socialist society. Chomsky and Herman’s article is an exemplar of politically biased journalism, doublespeak and should be taken as a case study on ethics in reporting. Over the course of the article, Chomsky and Herman provide tepid sympathy for the casualties but preach “caution” in the reporting of the atrocities. Their stated motivation is fear that indictment of Pol Pot’s regime would stir sympathy for US’ interventionism or validate the US’ course of action in the Vietnam War. Disregarding the controversies that arose after the fact, this article constitutes genocide denial: it provides no serious effort to debate public rhetoric and its refutations of serious reporting of the War is unconvincing at best and intellectually dishonest at worst.
Chomsky, N. & Herman, E.S. (1988). Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Pantheon Books
Chomsky and Herman’s book is an angular stone in the contemporary study of Politics, Economics and Communications. Their book is a summation of the propaganda model within free market and democratic societies and is one of the most influential studies in the discussion of identity and social hysteria as linguistic phenomena. Our choice of edition includes new forewords by the authors which updated the model to account for the transformation of the U.S., the fall of the Soviet Union and the union between corporate media and the Internet since the initial publication.
Cohen, N. (2014, 2nd March). “Noam Chomsky in the Crimea”. The Spectator. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/noam-chomsky-in-the-crimea
In this 2014 article, Cohen provides another extensive indictment of Chomsky and his adepts and apologists within elite academia, within the context of Russia’s invasion and annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. Cohen disparages Chomsky for his questionable rhetoric on solidarity and his persistent overemphasis on US foreign intervention and willful ignorance of crimes committed by “left-leaning” regimes (even though Russia under Putin is a politically different entity from the Communist Soviet Union). In light of the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, and the impact left on global politics and the world economy, this article was a strongly prescient and necessary read.
Damasio, A.R. (1998). “Investigating the biology of consciousness”. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 353 (1377), 1879-82. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098%2Frstb.1998.0339
In this landmark article, Professor Damasio approached the phenomenon of private, individual consciousness as bestowed of distinct behavioural patterns. In application of cognitive and neurobiological methodology, Damasio differentiated individual consciousness into core and extended consciousness. The former deals with the instantaneous assimilation of external stimuli to generate an immediate sense of self. The latter deals with the prolonged construction of an autobiographical self through the building of conceptual memories from past experience and anticipation of one’s environment. This succinct essay provides a vital framework to understand how a stagnant body generates knowledge and configures its identity by the kinetic flow of information and stimuli.
Damasio, A.R. (2010). Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain. Pantheon Books
Self Comes to Mind is one of the most definitive books in Damasio’s bibliography. Over the course of this three-part volume, Damasio provides an extensive analysis of cognitive consciousness and the construction of Self Identity on a neurological level. In Part I “Starting Over”, Damasio briefly encompasses the biological value of the brain and the conscious self on a neuronal level. In Part II “What’s In A Brain That A Mind Can Be?”, the full scope and extent of the theory of consciousness is established. Damasio analyses the translation from the bodily stimulus to brain processing; he defines “emotion” and “feeling” in their neurological acceptation and the “architecture” of memory as the accumulation of past experience and the roadmap of future behaviour. In Part III, “Being Conscious”, Damasio rounds out the study with his theory’s notion of the Autobiographical Self.
Dunn, B.D. et. al. (2006). “The somatic marker hypothesis: A critical evaluation”. Neuroscience & Behavioural Reviews, 30 (2), 239-71. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2005.07.001
In this article, Dunn and associates provide a thorough breakdown of the Iowa gambling test conducted by Bechara, Damasio and associates in their aforementioned article. Their refutation of the somatic marker hypothesis lies on the principle that the experiment was not reliable for replication and that its data was too ambiguous and susceptible to a multitude of interpretations. As outlined in our main body, the somatic marker hypothesis focuses almost exclusively on lesion in the frontal region of the brain as a cause of emotionally reckless behaviour. By doing so, it overlooks other plausible explanations behind risk-taking personality traits and excludes other pathologies.
Hauser, M. et. al. (2002) “The Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who Has It, and How Did It Evolve?”, Science, vol. 298 (5598): 1569-79. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.298.5598.1569
In this article, Hauser, Chomsky and Fitch proposed an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the faculty of language. They drew from evolutionary biology, anthropology and psychology to analyse the social function and development of language. They differentiate language between its broad sense (which encompasses the motor and sensory systems) and its narrow senses (in the capacity to transform a finite dataset into an infinite repertoire of expressions).
This article was incorporated to provide further nuance for Chomsky’s linguistic theories and his definition of “language” and “identity”. Upon close reading of it and placing it in dialogue with Damasio’s theory of consciousness, Chomsky’s writing is found to be extremely ambiguous and demonstrate a superficial grasp of neuroscience hidden beneath post-modernist academic language. His theory of universal grammar does not survive contact with serious neurological studies.
Hitchens, C. (1985). “The Chorus and Cassandra: What Everyone Knows about Noam Chomsky”. Grand Street, 5(1), 106–31. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/25006809
In this article, Christopher Hitchens, the famous author and outspoken atheist, provides a defence of Chomsky and Herman’s stance on Cambodia, as outlined in “Distortions at Fourth Hand”. Hitchens argues that the authors made a rigorous intellectual effort to distinguish the objective evidence that was available to the public from the (politically motivated) subjective interpretations that the media and the public made of them. This article was included with the intent of elucidating Chomsky’s political positions within our bibliography. Our conclusion is that, by defending Chomsky, Hitchens is perpetuating his intellectual dishonesty and genocide denial, both committed under the guise of “journalistic integrity”.
Hurford, J.R. (1995). “Nativist and Functional Explanations in Language Acquisition”. In I.M Roca (Ed.). Logical Issues in Language Acquisition, (pp, 85-136). Dordrecht, Holland and Providence
In this chapter for Logical Issues in Language Acquisition, Professor Hurford provides a thorough analysis on the dichotomy between nativist and functional theories of language acquisition, as well as debates between acquisition of language and acquisition of communication. By reviewing the available literature, Hurford elucidates the extent and limitations of the popular theories of language and provides a brief review on how volatile (and confusing) linguistic academia has demonstrably been. Hurford’s chapter is strongly illuminating on the controversies surrounding linguistics and provides further scientific and sociocultural bases to discredit the theory of a universal grammar.
Khul, P.K. & Damasio, A.R. (2013). “Chapter 60. Language”. In Kandel, E.R. et. al. (Eds.), Principles of Neural Science, (pp. 1353-72). McGraw Hill (5th Edition)
In their contribution to Kandel and associates’ Principles of Neural Science, Khul and Damasio provide the most thorough and complete analysis of language as the quintessential determinant of human (self)identity and expression within modern neurology. Their chapter covers the social and biological functions of language, the specific age thresholds and social experiences by which humans can learn multiple languages, and the specific areas of the brain that are damaged during aphasia. Khul and Damasio deliver a neurological framework by which our analysis of kinetic flow and information processing can be understood.
Our referral to Damasio and Khul was essential to the construction of this paper. Besides providing a substantive scientific basis for our discussions of flow and information, their systematic analysis of language development corrects and supersedes the gaps and inaccuracies of Chomsky’s theory of universal grammar which were referred to in our Controversies section.
MacLeod, A. (2019). “Chavista ‘Thugs’ vs. Opposition ‘Civil Society’: Western Media on Venezuela”. Race & Class, vol. 60 (4), 46-64. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0306396818823639
MacLeod’s study compliments Blumenthal and Norton’s analysis of Venezuela as a case study of US rhetoric and foreign intervention. Whereas Blumenthal and Norton indicted the OAS’ self-demonstrating political bias in their stigmatization of Venezuela, MacLeod provides extensive social and rhetorical analysis of the country’s representation within media and literature since the tenure of Hugo Chavez, Maduro’s predecessor. MacLeod argues that support and opposition to Chavez’ policies and style of government—and its ensuing representation in international media—was clearly defined by race and socioeconomic class, wherein rich, educated and affluent whites opposed Chavez whereas dark-skinned, underprivileged and working-class citizens were supportive or sympathetic to the regime. The study partially corroborates Chomsky’s propaganda model to the extent that it effectively demonstrates the scope and influence of the media in dictating the narrative of complex social conflicts and reducing them to simple moral standards (“good guys” versus “bad guys”).
Maia, T.V. & McClelland, J.L. (2004). “A reexamination of the evidence for the somatic marker hypothesis: What participants really know in the Iowa gambling task”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 101 (45): 16075-80. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073%2Fpnas.0406666101
Maia and McClelland provide an additional refutation to Bechara and associates’ somatic marker test and the validity of the Iowa gambling test by replicating the original experiment. As outlined in Assumptions and Controversies and elucidated in the entry for Dunn and associates’ article, Damasio and Bechara’s experiment overlooked critical explanations and pathologies that would have refuted their conclusions, or at the very least demanded experimental re-evaluation. Maia and McClelland found that test subjects are much more cognizant and self-aware during the Iowa gambling test than Bechara and associates gave them credit for. As stated above, a savvy participant can calculate their probability and pursue a risk strategy to yield a greater reward.
Mehr, N. (2009, 9th of June). “Grievable and ungrievable lives”. Red Pepper. https://www.redpepper.org.uk/grievable-and-ungrievable-lives/
Mehr reviews Judith Butler’s book Frames Of War: When is Life Grievable? (2009). The term “grievable” is a neologism, and clearly derived from Chomsky and Herman’s delineation of the grieving for human life within rigid “moral” (i.e., political) standards as per the propaganda model. Just as Butler’s far-left political activism and social critique are consistent with Chomsky’s, this criticism of Butler’s writing is consistent with our paper’s criticism of Chomsky’s theories on the grounds that a “multidisciplinary” theory lacks serious historical, economic and scientific bases. In his review, Mehr excoriates Butler for the persistent use of neologisms and malapropisms, and the use of pseudo-academic language to obscure the banality of her social analysis.
Mullen, A. (2009). “The Propaganda Model after 20 Years: Interview with Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky ”. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, vol. 6 (2): 12-22.
This interview commemorated the 20th anniversary of the publication of Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Since publication, the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, 9/11 occurred, the United States invaded Iraq, the Patriot Act was enforced, Barack Obama begun his presidency and corporate social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter were in their infancy. As a result, Islamophobia superseded the Red Scare as the dominant social fear of the American population and the strength and influence of the media over mundane language and daily lives reached unimaginable levels. In the interview, Chomsky and Herman stood by their initial conclusions and advocated a major political/economic revolution to achieve a truly democratic society.
Skipper, J.I. (2022). “A voice without a mouth no more: The neurobiology of language and consciousness”. Neuroscience & Biobehavioural Reviews, vol. 140, 104772, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104772
This study delineates the language of inner speech (in a neurological context) and analyses the generation of self-awareness which becomes higher-order consciousness. Skipper developed a holistic model of neurobiological language which encompasses sensory, motor and emotional representations of external stimuli and their corresponding interpretations (and responses) within the human brain.
Skipper’s holistic model and the implications it carries for subjective, solipsist, cognition is strongly prescient to our study of kinetic flow because it exposes the tension and psychological impact within individuals whose bodies are stagnant and whose minds are overexposed to external stimuli and the persistent assimilation of novel information.
Sowell, T. (2010). Intellectuals and Society. Basic Books
In this seminal book, Professor Sowell provides an extensive historiography of the socioeconomic and political influence Ivy League intellectuals and academics have exercised within US government policy (especially under Democratic presidents) and the dangers they pose. Professor Sowell argues that intellectual status has been commodified as a symbol of power and prestige and that public intellectuals take no responsibility for the consequences of the academic policies they implement. He also argues that any economic policy that promotes self-resiliency leads to economic growth and social mobility, whereas protectionist policy endangers it. Chomsky is explicitly cited as a radical, far-left intellectual who has become “influential” (i.e., popular) by preaching in areas far beyond his field of expertise.
