Chomsky

I didn’t “discover” Noam Chomsky until I lived in the USA but that’s the only regret I have about him. Widely regarded as one of the greatest living intellectuals, the MIT Professor Of Linguistics has a remarkable ability to see the wood in spite of the trees. Chomsky must be the most painful thorn in the flesh Bush and his cronies have to suffer, and I shouldn’t be surprised if he was top of a CIA, people-to-assassinate-if-we-could-get-away-with-it hit list.

Of Jewish descent, Chomsky seems to be disliked mostly by his own compatriots, not surprising when you hear his (correct) analysis of the Arab-Israeli situation. When you listen to him talk you are struck by the simplicity of what he says that quite apart from being logical and verifiable, has that special “ring of truth” character about it that makes you realise that of course he’s correct but makes you also wonder why you never thought of it yourself! The lecture he gave a year ago at Edinburgh University made me think for days afterward.

If you are somewhat politically naïve – as I admit I was – then you should maybe give some time to Chomsky, there are lots of multi-media presentations and lectures by him on the Web, just type “Chomsky video” into Google and he’ll pop up everywhere.

You will also find plenty of anti-Chomsky material on the Web, some of it very well written, but well written garbage is still garbage and fools only those prone to being duped by intellectual impostures - a subject I plan to blog about very shortly.

Noam Chomsky is not a young man but I hope he lives a long time yet, the world will be a much worse place without him.