Alex Morrison
PHIL 1030 #9
Installment #1
Noam Chomsky
Thinking freely has been discussed and encouraged throughout the entire semester. Few know how crucial the ability to think in a manner different from others is, but the few that do can respect the work and philosophies of linguist and activist Noam Chomsky. Over the course of his nearly 90-year lifespan, he has continued to push the envelope with his viewpoints on various aspects of life.
Avram Noam Chomsky was born on December 7th, 1928 to William “Zev” Chomsky, and was the couple’s firstborn. 5 years later, Noam’s little brother David Eli was born. Noam continued to study and at age 16 began his post-secondary education at the University of Pennsylvania. There, he explored topics such as philosophy, logic, and studied languages including Arabic.
In 1947, he married his childhood friend Carol Doris Schatz and moved to Boston while Noam continued his studies at Harvard. They would stay in Boston until relocating to the city’s Lexington area, just before obtaining a travel grant to tour nearly all of Europe. During the journey, he and his wife experienced the new country of Israel and experienced what he viewed as appalling Jewish nationalism and anti-Arabic racism.
When he returned to the United States, he was introduced to Rudolf Rocker who then helped him link significant similarities between classical liberalism and anarchism. Being raised by “normal Roosevelt” style Democrats and being influenced by his far-left leaning Socialist uncle, Chomsky continued practicing his left-leaning ideologies.
After befriending fellow linguists Morris Halle and Roman Jakobson in the early 1950’s, he was secured an Assistant Professor’s position at MIT in 1955. He continued to teach at the higher level at institutions such as Cambridge, Columbia University, University of California and UC Berkeley. Chomsky has continued to teach and is currently a professor at MIT, but has plans to begin teaching at the University of Arizona in 2018.
Chomsky’s examples of political activism reach from present day back to before his public distaste for the Vietnam War. Chomsky was placed on President Nixon’s enemy list, which then prompted his wife to obtain her Ph.D. in linguistics in order to provide for the family in the event Chomsky lost his job or was imprisoned.
During the Reagan era, Chomsky traveled the globe and gave lectures to many about the current state of the nation and the significant growth of the U.S. military. In 1988, Chomsky dissected the mainstream media’s different forms of propaganda in his published work, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. The book took an in-depth look at how stories were reported during that time and what filters were used to chose how the story was conveyed to the public. In 1992, the book inspired a film directed by Mark Achbar.
Chomsky continued to critique political figures and was a part of many social movements. Shortly after the 9/11 terror attacks, Chomsky was interviewed multiple times. He held the view that the war on terror was not at all a new idea, and highly criticized the war in Iraq and other aspects of the “War on Terror”. This caused many to view his ideologies as anti-American.
After endorsing Bernie Sanders during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, he noted that President Trump was “thin-skinned” and “a far greater evil” than Hillary Clinton. When asked about the possibility of an “influenced election” at the hands of Russia, he noted that it was “possible, but a strange complaint” and said that the U.S. had done roughly the same thing to governments across the globe and was proud of it.
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I like the ending especially when he talks about his opinions of the current political election. To be honest I never knew this guy was still alive (I also might have thought his first name was spelled "Gnome," but that shows you what I know). The very last sentence made a mark on how I think of American and world politics.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that Chomsky's political activism seems disconnected to his linguistics scholarship, and indeed the latter has been taken by some to be conservative to the extent that it seems to side with nature, in the perennial nature-nurture debate.
ReplyDeleteHe's surely right, our government has often meddled in other countries' elections while simultaneously and hypocritically praising the electoral integrity of the democratic process. But it doesn't follow that we should acquiesce in the demise of our own democracy, or that we should be resigned to further meddling in our name.
My favorite knock-off name: Nim Chimpsky, a famous lab monkey.