>> The Chomsky forum is, as far as I know, perfectly open to free political
> debate - especially as it relates to 'the philosphy and work of'. However
> this freedom is going to waste as no-one's engaging in such
> debate.

The Chomsky forum as it now works, it is true, is perfectly open.  And I
also agree about the waste of freedom the personal attacks make.

I fully
> sympathise with those who feel for their delete keys;
> one-upmanship posited
> on pedantry is not political debate, has nothing to do with Chomsky, and
> was not what I was looking for when I subscribed. I remember fondly the
> posts of Tresy Kilbourn (sp?), which did generate some semblance of
> political debate, but the list has been steadily degenerating and I don't
> remember reading any interesting points in the past while.

Yes, and if we want to raise the level of the debate, it is incumbent on us,
the subscribers, to do it ourselves.  However, the answer is not in
restricting freedom, but rather engaging in a constructive effort to create
a more meaningful and enriching forum.

> So I'm all in favour of restricting freedom of speech in instances where
> the forum or medium is inappropriate, for example pyramid-scheme spammers,
> or hard-core porn in comics. Of course, I fully support the freedom of
> antagonists to express and expound opposing views as long as they
> like, but
> given the reaction of people on the list, it seems obvious that using
> interpersonal email would be more considerate.

Again, I agree with all of the above sentiments, except the restricting of
speech in this case.
Interpersonal email seems to be the considerate way to go, and I haven't
noticed any more "objectionable" posts from the duo in question since people
started weighing in about the topic.

 I think that someone once
> mentioned
> to me that Derrida (or perhaps Foucault?) disagreed with the idea
> of brains
> preprogrammed to be receptive to linguistic structures - anyone know the
> argument for this view?

I'm not an expert, but the general argument of so-called post-structuralists
like Derrida goes something like:  Language plays a crucial role in the
cultural construction of consciousness, and of framing of philosophical,
ontological, and epistemological inquiry.  Language is an arbitrary system
developed as a completely free-standing regime based entirely on difference
and deference.  Language does not "refer" to the Real, it instead acts as an
artificial mediator that separates humans eternally from direct access to
the Real.  Since language is a completely arbitrary, self-contained system
of difference that refers only to itself, producing only gaps and absences,
it cannot be "pre-programmed" in our brains as we are born.  Derrida himself
makes extensive use of word-play, historical musings (in the tradition of
Rousseau), and radical philosophical questioning to make his points about
the nature of language.  He does not rely on cognitive research or a
genuine, diachronic overview of the development of language in humans.
Instead, Derrida, most explicitly in "Of Grammatology", relies on a
synchronic analysis of language as it exists today, attempting to overturn
what he sees as an over-reliance on the spoken word over the written word.
He proposes that all language can be described most usefully using the
written form as a base-- because the written word contains all kinds of
lovely possibilities:  one can see the spaces between words, one can become
distracted by the physicality of the text, the language can be transported
even in the absence (indeed, even after the death) of the originator.
Language is, in an important sense, always somehow divorced from the
utterer, open to misinterpretation and radical questioning of identity.
Derrida is very impressionistic about his theory, which is mostly a fanciful
construction to attack the Platonic roots of Western philosophy.  I'm not
sure how seriously you can take him as a linguist.  Obviously, Chomsky would
take issue with all of these musings, because they are incoherent, patently
false, or utterly useless from a political or scientific perspective.  If
you're not up for "Of Grammatology", a short article called "Signature Event
Context" is a useful introduction to Derrida's peculiar linguistics (or
semiology).

Foucault might also take issue with any idea of pre-programmed linguistic
structures in the brain, but here the disagreement is not so stark or
restricted to linguistics.  An interesting book called "Foucault and his
Interlocutors"  contains a transcript of a lengthy debate between Foucault
and Chomsky in the Netherlands for Dutch TV.

Soren