OK. I admit that I queued Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without a Pause for the very most shallow reason ever on the planet: because Chomsky’s video was next to mine on the Authors at Google page.
Eeek. How shallow can you get? Very, it seems.
Now, I knew who Chomsky was, of course. At least I thought I did, having studied English for-fucking-ever. You can’t do that and not know him as A Famous Linguist, right?
But I knew nothing of his other life, the life of the mind that his wife says is another complete career. What does this career entail? Reading: he reads six newspaper a day. That’s just the newspapers. Not the journals. Not the books. Just the newspapers.
And thinking. And then talking to people. About the power of the media, about the ulterior motives of the US going to war with Iraq and why they had to call it a “war,” rather than what they really wanted to call it. About what we did in Colombia, and what we’ve done around the world. About why people are content to let these things happen and how we’re so very skillfully manipulated into supporting things that are most definitely not in our best interests. Or in our interests at all.
The man is brilliant. Just amazing. In the video, he kept saying these things that I’ve been ranting about forever. I’ve never heard him saying these things. Why? He says, simply, that he’s interviewed much more widely by reporters from other countries, where he’s heard much more often. Here? Not so much. He rankles, is what it is.
Today I ordered four of his books. I’ll report back.
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making do
2 days ago
4 comments:
I LOVE Chomsky. *Love*
If you want more reading advice-
Howard Zinn. I keep several of his by my bed. I use quotes from his book in my artwork.
I LOVE Howard Zinnn. **Love**
There are lots of links on my blogs for like minded folk like Chomsky and Zinn...they're after all the art ones ;)
Last comment-
more Chomsky love, go here-
http://www.democracynow.org/features/noam_chomsky
I chuckled until I realized that's pretty much how I found out about Chomsky: Ling 101 in college, then found out about his activism after college (courtesy of a guy I once dated). So you're not alone.
Speaking of Howard Zinn, he wrote the American history book I had in high school -- "A People's History of the United States." Boy, was that an eye-opener. But then, I was taught by hippies who'd infiltrated the public school system. With that background, it's kind of surprising that I didn't have Chomsky in the hs curriculum.
OOOOH! OH! OW! MY! i got so caught up in the other post that i missed this one. i am a linguistics NUT. FREAK. PSYCHO. i'm almost finished re-reading one of my favorite books on linguistics, the language instinct by steven pinker. he's
in the chomsky camp, a brilliant linguist, who sends my mind to the brink of explosion every time i dig into one of his books.
i'll have to hop over to kelly's blog and check out her links...
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