My Chat With Noam Chomsky
I’ve had the pleasure of putting some questions to some of the most incredible people in the past - Alexei Sayle and Jeremy Corbyn being particularly memorable.
But Noam Chomsky?
Noam Chomsky, 93, is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist - I am a ranty forty-something Twitter woman from North Wiltshire.
Noam Chomsky is the father of modern linguistics - I am the mother of two moody teenagers.
Noam Chomsky argues that individuals are born with a predisposition to learn language - I just tend to argue and my language is often somewhat ‘colourful’.
Noam Chomsky believed that it was more than a coincidence that the majority of human languages follow simple rules and patterns when it comes to grammar - When it comes to grammar I would be put to shame by an 11-year-old.
So what could possibly go wrong?
I’ll leave that for you to decide…
Mr Chomsky, you have offered your critique of countless US administrations, from Presidents Nixon to Trump. You once described Trump as the “worst criminal in human history”.
Who was the best US President, and how do you see America’s role in the world in 2021?
I suppose I’d pick FDR. (Franklin D. Roosevelt).
On America’s role in the world in the years ahead – it’s very much an open question.
The US remains by far the world’s most powerful state, in virtually every dimension, though it lags badly in social justice. It therefore has unparalleled influence on world affairs. What this influence will be depends on what happens within. Prospects are not auspicious. The political system, never very healthy, is now in a process of self-destruction, along with much of the social order.
The prime reason is the destructive impact of the 40-year neoliberal assault on the population sharply escalated by Reagan and Thatcher, with deleterious impact well-documented elsewhere. In the political domain, one of the two factions of the ruling business party, the Republicans, has gone off the rails and hardly resembles a parliamentary party by now.
Their driving goal is to ensure that they will be able to rule indefinitely as a minority party dedicated with fervor to enhancing the interests of private wealth and corporate power, with little concern for the human consequences – even consequences for survival of organized human society. All too easy to demonstrate.
A survey of standard reference work - the Arts and Humanities citation index - revealed you are the most often cited living author.
(I’d take that with a large grain of salt) - NC
It would be easy for me to write a blog about the many people influenced by Noam Chomsky, but can you tell me:
Who were and are your influences?
I could list names, but it would be misleading. Some would be unknown. Some of the names I don’t even know. That includes people around the world living in conditions of suffering and terror, some of whom I’ve been privileged to visit and to try in a very minor way to help, and who continue to struggle with courage and commitment for justice and freedom.
Sometimes achieving astonishing success, given the grim circumstances of their existence, a true inspiration.
And if you could make an internet meme with a quote, who would be on the meme, and what would the quote say?
Beyond my talents.
In your latest book, The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic and Urgent Need for Radical Change, which is a series of highly informative interviews with CJ Polychroniou, you argue that the choice between optimism and despair is really no choice at all.
Looking at the state of mainstream British politics, where the only thing on offer is despair, how do we go about building a new optimism that is not only true to our socialist principles, but an electable force?
If there are any novel answers to such questions, they have been kept a dark secret for millennia. The only way we know is hard work, efforts to encourage understanding, to organize, to act as appropriate and constructive. That we all know. The hard and significant part is spelling it out for particular circumstances.
British politics is a hard case – but by comparative standards, one of the easiest. In speaking about the problems and working to alleviate them, one is not sent to torture chambers or concentration camps. There are ample means available.
The British Labour Party had a huge opportunity to become an authentic political party during the Corbyn years - a party that truly represented the many, and not the few - and not the slightly-less-Tory version of the Conservative Party that we see today.
Britain is currently facing a cost-of-living crisis, a supply of goods crisis, an energy supply crisis and our NHS is allocating billions of Pounds worth of services to the private sector. Our government thrives on cronyism and dodgy deals, they think climate change is an optional extra that comes with their ministerial gas-guzzling cars, and Covid-19 is still tearing its way through our communities.
To make matters worse, the official opposition, headed up by Keir Starmer, is more comfortable attacking and criticising socialists than they are in holding the Conservative government to account.
Just over two years on from Labour’s general election defeat in 2019, do you think a Corbyn-government would have been better equipped to deal with the many crises we face today, and why do you think Corbyn’s relatively mainstream proposals were sold to the British people as a ‘hard-left’ threat to our national security?
Corbyn’s proposals were indeed relatively mainstream and also quite popular, as shown by polls and even voting. Precisely for that reason they were threatening to powerful interests, and had to be crushed.
The first resort of scoundrels is “harms national security,” which translates as “harms our dominance and wealth”.
Almost entirely unfounded claims of anti-Semitism were used to attack Jeremy Corbyn and his leadership. While Corbyn never denied the existence of the poison of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, it was undoubtedly exaggerated to attack Mr Corbyn and many of his supporters - people such as the founder of the Resist Movement, Chris Williamson, and the award-winning film director Ken Loach have seen anti-Semitism utterly vulgarised and politicised to be used against them.
I know you experienced anti-Semitism during your childhood, so can you explain how it felt seeing malicious accusations of antisemitism being used as a weapon to discredit political opponents (such as Corbyn) so frequently, and now Starmer’s regime has kicked out more Jewish Labour Party members than every other Labour leader, combined.
For the same reason they had no interest in this largely fabricated tale before the Corbyn threat to privilege appeared, or in Tory anti-Semitism.
Once the wrecking-ball had achieved its objective of stamping out the threat of an authentic Labour Party that would be dedicated to the interests of its constituents and the larger world, there was no reason to continue with the disgraceful game.
In the UK we are seeing progressively invasive attacks on our democracy, both on an individual and national level.
The introduction of the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill, the proposed banning of anonymous online accounts, voter ID and censorship of journalism appear to be less about national safety and more about state control.
Do you think this is the case and if so, what can we do to counteract it?
You know better than I whether it is the case. From where I sit, more remotely, it seems to be.
What can we do? The old familiar answers. No magic keys.
And finally…
I rarely go a day without seeing and reading a Noam Chomsky quote, usually on social media. These quotes will be shared far and wide, because of the respect that is held for you and your decades of work. But I am wondering:
Have you ever seen one of these internet memes with a quote attributed to yourself and thought, “I’m pretty sure I never said that”?
Yes, and often “I know I never said that.”
Mr Noam Chomsky, thank you very much.
Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts, if you want to chip in towards improving my ongoing campaign, and it would cause you *no hardship*, you can do so here:
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