Happy Noam Chomsky day, everyone.
I imagine that many of you have no idea what to celebrate, who we’re celebrating, or what I’m talking about at all.
Coined in a tongue-in-cheek fashion by the Academy Award-nominated film “Captain Fantastic” (which is a fantastic film if you’ve never watched it), the holiday is entirely fictitious. However, the significance that the fictional characters assign to the day coincides with perhaps one of the most viscerally real, unfortunately widely unknown forces to occupy the space of the modern age. December 7th is — actually, in the real world — the birthday of renowned linguist, activist, and public academic Noam Chomsky.
Professor Chomsky is most likely the most powerful intellectual force that the 20th and 21st centuries have been graced with. Besides his vast contributions to the field of modern linguistics, including the theory of universal grammar, he has likely served as an inspiration for thousands of individuals through his lifelong dedication to truth and activism. Few throughout human history have served the selfless role of the public intellectual, but Chomsky has done so with grace and uncanny focus. I hardly consider myself qualified in the slightest to illustrate the significant impact that he has left on humanity — for one, simply because his contributions are so vast, and so precise that anyone interested really must take a journey into them on their own.
Censoring Chomsky may be one of the greater, yet most specific, crimes of the modern media system.
With all of this praise I’m heaping on one person, it must seem to the uninitiated that I’m talking about some intellectual god among men. Where has this person been throughout all our lifetimes? Unfortunately, despite the depth and breadth of his work, Chomsky himself will be the first to admit that it is nowhere near as publicized as even that of other intellectuals — let alone political commentators in general. How could this be?
Well, it also just so happens that his work as an activist is more often than not calling out a structure of power that seems wholly unqualified to exist and exert its influence. He has launched acerbic critiques of — to name a few: the United States, the corporate media, corporate power and neoliberalism in general, and the list goes on… and on… and on. The man was even on Nixon’s list of political enemies. Suffice to say, when you make so many enemies inside of existing power structures, your work is likely to be suppressed.
Censoring Chomsky may be one of the greater, yet most specific, crimes of the modern media system. There is no doubt in my mind that future generations (if they exist, given the potential species-ending consequences of climate change — which, of course, Chomsky discusses) will revere Chomsky as the greatest intellect of our time; akin to the greatest philosophers to grace each respective era of humanity. But many of my personal friends have never read Chomsky, never heard him speak — some have even just never heard of him. It’s actually pretty easy to go your entire life without knowing a single thing about him. In fact, I used to be one of those people.
I remember first learning about Chomsky in an anthropology class I took at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He was discussed in relation to his contributions to linguistics, and universal grammar. I vaguely recall that my professor, who was a very wide-eyed, enthusiastic man, spoke of him with a reverence that seemed very strange to me at the time. I filed a mental note. Years later, as I entered my later years of college, some of my newer friends were much more intellectually-oriented than friends I had had in the past; the kinds who read journals for fun. They too spoke of Chomsky as an intellectual force that more should really know about.
Okay, this time, I have to look into the guy.
This sort of knowledge can be addictive. You can get addicted to his unique brand of truth.
What an incredible, life-changing journey that moment brought me on — that I am still very much taking today. I can only attempt to pitifully describe the effect that truly diving into the work of Chomsky has had on me as purely enlightening. It’s really as if listening to Professor Chomsky speak, reading his books, watching interviews with him, brought me into an entirely parallel world that I had no idea existed previously. Chomsky was my gateway drug to the real world.
Professor Chomsky may just simultaneously be the instructor I’ve always wished I had, have never spoken to in real life, and have learned the most from. It probably sounds paradoxical and creepy — I’ll fully acknowledge that — but I imagine that Chomsky has had that effect on many others around the world as well.
As a philosopher and political critic, he offers a view of the world that makes so much more sense than anything you learn at school, read in the mainstream media, or are taught by some daily superficial experiences. His works (to name a few: his recounting of Latin American history, or of the war in Vietnam) may seem so at odds with what we are told all the time that they must simply be false. But when you look into his claims, they are frighteningly well-sourced. His ability to cut through Beaudrillard’s simulacra is unparalleled. This sort of knowledge can be addictive. You can get addicted to his unique brand of truth.
So today, on Professor Noam Chomsky’s 90th birthday, I want to wish him a truly great day. The world owes so much to him that I question whether even his immense intellect can comprehend such a debt. Surely, he would be too modest to even think about such a thing.
If you have never read or listened to Chomsky, I urge you to do so. It may not change your life as it has mine, but you will surely be in for an intellectual treat regardless. Spread the word of this great mind to anyone who may be interested. Even at 90 years old, he is still writing, traveling, and speaking out against injustices across the world. His words today are just as cutting and relevant as ever. He deserves to be heard by as many ears as we can throw at him.
