By popular demand we rebroadcast this recent interview with Noam Chomsky for Alternative Radio.
Noam Chomsky, by any measure, has led a most extraordinary life. In one index he is ranked as the eighth most cited person in history, right up there with Aristotle, Shakespeare, Marx, Plato and Freud. The legendary MIT professor practically invented modern linguistics. In addition to his pioneering work in that field he has been a leading voice for peace and social justice for many decades. Chris Hedges says he is “America’s greatest intellectual” who “makes the powerful, as well as their liberal apologists, deeply uncomfortable.” At 87, he is still active, lecturing and writing. He is the author of scores of books, including Masters of Mankind, Power Systems and What Kind of Creatures Are We?
I’m often asked about Noam Chomsky. How did I connect with the legendary MIT professor? Very simply, I wrote him a letter around 1980 and to my surprise he responded. A correspondence ensued. We did our first interview in 1984. Two years after that I decided to launch Alternative Radio as I was determined to get his voice on the air. Since then we’ve done many programs and a bunch of books. Chomsky is easy to work with. He is patient and practices the egalitarianism he preaches. But behind his soft-spoken voice is an extraordinary intellectual acumen. In our latest interview he covers a lot of ground, in typical Chomsky fashion, from Latin America to India to elections to where he sees signs of hope to creating a better society.