Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928)
is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive
scientist, historian, political activist,
and social critic. Sometimes described as
"the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky
is also a major figure in analytic philosophy
and one of the founders of the field of cognitive
science. He holds a joint appointment as Institute
Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT) and laureate professor
at the University of Arizona, and is the author
of over 100 books on topics such as linguistics,
war, politics, and mass media. Ideologically,
he aligns with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian
socialism.
Born to middle-class Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants
in Philadelphia, Chomsky developed an early
interest in anarchism from alternative bookstores
in New York City. He began studying at the
University of Pennsylvania at age 16, taking
courses in linguistics, mathematics, and philosophy.
From 1951 to 1955, he was appointed to Harvard
University's Society of Fellows. While at
Harvard, he developed the theory of transformational
grammar; for this, he was awarded his doctorate
in 1955. Chomsky began teaching at MIT in
1957 and emerged as a significant figure in
the field of linguistics for his landmark
work Syntactic Structures, which remodelled
the scientific study of language. From 1958
to 1959, he was a National Science Foundation
fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study.
Chomsky is credited as the creator or co-creator
of the universal grammar theory, the generative
grammar theory, the Chomsky hierarchy, and
the minimalist program. Chomsky also played
a pivotal role in the decline of behaviorism,
being particularly critical of the work of
B. F. Skinner.
Chomsky vocally opposed U.S. involvement in
the Vietnam War, believing the war to be an
act of American imperialism. In 1967, Chomsky
attracted widespread public attention for
his anti-war essay entitled "The Responsibility
of Intellectuals". Associated with the New
Left, he was arrested multiple times for his
activism and was placed on Nixon's "Enemies
List". While expanding his work in linguistics
over subsequent decades, he also became involved
in the Linguistics Wars. In collaboration
with Edward S. Herman, Chomsky later co-wrote
an analysis, which articulated the propaganda
model of media criticism, and worked to expose
the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. Additionally,
his defense of freedom of speech—including
free speech for Holocaust deniers—generated
significant controversy in the Faurisson affair
of the early 1980s. Following his retirement
from active teaching, Chomsky has continued
his vocal political activism by opposing the
War on Terror and supporting the Occupy Movement.
One of the most cited scholars in history,
Chomsky has influenced a broad array of academic
fields. He is widely recognized as a paradigm
shifter who helped spark a major revolution
in the human sciences, contributing to the
development of a new cognitivistic framework
for the study of language and the mind. In
addition to his continued scholarly research,
he remains a leading critic of U.S. foreign
policy, neoliberalism and contemporary state
capitalism, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict,
and mainstream news media. His ideas have
proved highly significant within the anti-capitalist
and anti-imperialist movements. Some of his
critics have accused him of anti-Americanism.
== Early life ==
=== Childhood: 1928–45 ===
Avram Noam Chomsky was born on December 7,
1928, in the East Oak Lane neighborhood of
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father was
William "Zev" Chomsky, an Ashkenazi Jew originally
from Ukraine who had fled to the United States
in 1913. Having studied at Johns Hopkins University,
William went on to become school principal
of the Congregation Mikveh Israel religious
school, and in 1924 was appointed to the faculty
at Gratz College in Philadelphia. Chomsky's
mother was the Belarusian-born Elsie Simonofsky
(1904–1972), a teacher and activist whom
William had met while working at Mikveh Israel.
Noam was the Chomsky family's first child.
His younger brother, David Eli Chomsky, was
born five years later. The brothers were close,
although David was more easygoing while Noam
could be very competitive. Chomsky and his
brother were raised Jewish, being taught Hebrew
and regularly discussing the political theories
of Zionism; the family was particularly influenced
by the Left Zionist writings of Ahad Ha'am.
As a Jew, Chomsky faced anti-semitism as a
child, particularly from the Irish and German
communities living in Philadelphia.Chomsky
described his parents as "normal Roosevelt
Democrats" who had a center-left position
on the political spectrum; however, he was
exposed to far-left politics through other
members of the family, a number of whom were
socialists involved in the International Ladies'
Garment Workers' Union. He was substantially
influenced by his uncle who owned a newspaper
stand in New York City, where Jewish leftists
came to debate the issues of the day. Whenever
visiting his uncle, Chomsky frequented left-wing
and anarchist bookstores in the city, voraciously
reading political literature. He later described
his discovery of anarchism as "a lucky accident",
because it allowed him to become critical
of other far-left ideologies, namely Stalinism
and other forms of Marxism–Leninism.Chomsky's
primary education was at Oak Lane Country
Day School, an independent Deweyite institution
that focused on allowing its pupils to pursue
their own interests in a non-competitive atmosphere.
It was here, at the age of 10, that he wrote
his first article, on the spread of fascism,
following the fall of Barcelona to Francisco
Franco's fascist army in the Spanish Civil
War. At the age of 12, Chomsky moved on to
secondary education at Central High School,
where he joined various clubs and societies
and excelled academically, but was troubled
by the hierarchical and regimented method
of teaching used there. During the same time
period, Chomsky attended the Hebrew High School
at Gratz College. From the age of 12 or 13,
he identified more fully with anarchist politics.
=== University: 1945–55 ===
In 1945, Chomsky, aged 16, embarked on a general
program of study at the University of Pennsylvania,
where he explored philosophy, logic, and languages
and developed a primary interest in learning
Arabic. Living at home, he funded his undergraduate
degree by teaching Hebrew. However, he was
frustrated with his experiences at the university,
and considered dropping out and moving to
a kibbutz in Mandatory Palestine. His intellectual
curiosity was reawakened through conversations
with the Russian-born linguist Zellig Harris,
whom he first met in a political circle in
1947. Harris introduced Chomsky to the field
of theoretical linguistics and convinced him
to major in the subject. Chomsky's B.A. honors
thesis was titled "Morphophonemics of Modern
Hebrew", and involved his applying Harris's
methods to the language. Chomsky revised this
thesis for his M.A., which he received at
Penn in 1951; it would subsequently be published
as a book. He also developed his interest
in philosophy while at university, in particular
under the tutelage of his teacher Nelson Goodman.From
1951 to 1955, Chomsky was named to the Society
of Fellows at Harvard University, where he
undertook research on what would become his
doctoral dissertation. Having been encouraged
by Goodman to apply, a significant factor
in his decision to move to Harvard was that
the philosopher W. V. Quine was based there.
Both Quine and a visiting philosopher, J.
L. Austin of the University of Oxford, would
strongly influence Chomsky. In 1952, Chomsky
published his first academic article, "Systems
of Syntactic Analysis", which appeared not
in a journal of linguistics, but in The Journal
of Symbolic Logic. Being highly critical of
the established behaviorist currents in linguistics,
in 1954 he presented his ideas at lectures
given at the University of Chicago and Yale
University. Although he had not been registered
as a student at Pennsylvania for four years,
in 1955 he submitted a thesis to them setting
out his ideas on transformational grammar;
he was awarded his Ph.D. on the basis of it,
and it would be privately distributed among
specialists on microfilm before being published
in 1975 as part of The Logical Structure of
Linguistic Theory. Possession of this Ph.D.
nullified his requirement to enter national
service in the armed forces, which was otherwise
due to begin in 1955. George Armitage Miller,
a Professor at Harvard, read the Ph.D. and
was impressed; together he and Chomsky published
a number of technical papers in mathematical
linguistics.
In 1947, Chomsky entered into a romantic relationship
with Carol Doris Schatz, whom he had known
since they were toddlers, and they married
in 1949. After Chomsky was made a Fellow at
Harvard, the couple moved to an apartment
in the Allston area of Boston, remaining there
until 1965, when they relocated to the suburb
of Lexington. In 1953 the couple took up a
Harvard travel grant in order to visit Europe,
traveling from the United Kingdom through
France and Switzerland and into Italy. On
that same trip they also spent six weeks in
Israel at Hashomer Hatzair's HaZore'a Kibbutz.
Although enjoying himself, Chomsky was appalled
by the Jewish nationalism and anti-Arab racism
that he encountered in the country, as well
as the pro-Stalinist trend that he thought
pervaded the kibbutz's leftist community.On
visits to New York City, Chomsky continued
to frequent the office of Yiddish anarchist
journal Freie Arbeiter Stimme, becoming enamored
with the ideas of contributor Rudolf Rocker,
whose work introduced him to the link between
anarchism and classical liberalism. Other
political thinkers whose work Chomsky read
included the anarchist Diego Abad de Santillán,
democratic socialists George Orwell, Bertrand
Russell, and Dwight Macdonald, and works by
Marxists Karl Liebknecht, Karl Korsch, and
Rosa Luxemburg. His readings convinced him
of the desirability of an anarcho-syndicalist
society, and he became fascinated by the anarcho-syndicalist
communes set up during the Spanish Civil War,
which were documented in Orwell's Homage to
Catalonia (1938). He avidly read leftist journal
politics, remarking that it "answered to and
developed" his interest in anarchism, as well
as the periodical Living Marxism, published
by council communist Paul Mattick. Although
rejecting its Marxist basis, Chomsky was heavily
influenced by council communism, voraciously
reading articles in Living Marxism written
by Antonie Pannekoek. He was also greatly
interested in the Marlenite ideas of the Leninist
League, an anti-Stalinist Marxist–Leninist
group, sharing their views that the Second
World War was orchestrated by Western capitalists
and the Soviet Union's "state capitalists"
to crush Europe's proletariat.
=== Early career: 1955–66 ===
Chomsky had befriended two linguists at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT),
Morris Halle and Roman Jakobson, the latter
of whom secured him an assistant professor
position at MIT in 1955. There Chomsky spent
half his time on a mechanical translation
project, and the other half teaching a course
on linguistics and philosophy. Chomsky had
been recruited to MIT by Jerome Wiesner, an
influential scientist who, at this time, was
also involved in getting the US's nuclear
missile program established Having brought
such missile research to MIT, Wiesner then
became a nuclear strategy adviser to both
Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, before
returning to MIT to oversee research programmes
at the Institute. However, despite its military
involvement, Chomsky has described MIT as
"a pretty free and open place, open to experimentation
and without rigid requirements. It was just
perfect for someone of my idiosyncratic interests
and work." In 1957 MIT promoted him to the
position of associate professor, and from
1957 to 1958 he was also employed by Columbia
University as a visiting professor. That same
year, Chomsky's first child, a daughter named
Aviva, was born, and he published his first
book on linguistics, Syntactic Structures,
a work that radically opposed the dominant
Harris–Bloomfield trend in the field. The
response to Chomsky's ideas ranged from indifference
to hostility, and his work proved divisive
and caused "significant upheaval" in the discipline.
Linguist John Lyons later asserted that it
"revolutionized the scientific study of language".
From 1958 to 1959 Chomsky was a National Science
Foundation fellow at the Institute for Advanced
Study in Princeton, New Jersey.In 1959 he
published a review of B. F. Skinner's 1957
book Verbal Behavior in the journal Language,
in which he argued against Skinner's view
of language as learned behavior. Opining that
Skinner ignored the role of human creativity
in linguistics, his review helped him to become
an "established intellectual", and he proceeded
to found MIT's Graduate Program in linguistics
with Halle. In 1961 he was awarded academic
tenure, being made a full professor in the
Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics.
He went on to be appointed plenary speaker
at the Ninth International Congress of Linguists,
held in 1962 in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
which established him as the de facto spokesperson
of American linguistics. He continued to publish
his linguistic ideas throughout the decade,
including in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax
(1966), Topics in the Theory of Generative
Grammar (1966), and Cartesian Linguistics:
A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought
(1966). Along with Halle, he also edited the
Studies in Language series of books for Harper
and Row, and extended the theory of generative
grammar to phonology in The Sound Pattern
of English (1968).He continued to receive
academic recognition and honors for his work,
in 1966 visiting a variety of Californian
institutions, first as the Linguistics Society
of America Professor at the University of
California, and then as the Beckman Professor
at the University of California, Berkeley.
His Beckman lectures would be assembled and
published as Language and Mind in 1968. In
this period, military scientists were also
interested in Chomsky's linguistics. As former
Air Force Colonel, Anthony Debons, said: "much
of the research conducted at MIT by Chomsky
and his colleagues [has] direct application
to the efforts undertaken by military scientists
to develop … languages for computer operations
in military command and control systems."
Indeed, between 1963 and 1965, Chomsky was
a consultant for a military sponsored project
"to establish natural language as an operational
language for command and control." One of
Chomsky's students who also worked on this
project, Barbara Partee, says that this research
was justified to the military on the basis
that "in the event of a nuclear war, the generals
would be underground with some computers trying
to manage things, and that it would probably
be easier to teach computers to understand
English than to teach the generals to program."However,
these scientists eventually found Chomsky's
theories unworkable for their computer systems.
Other subsequent difficulties with the theories
led to various debates between Chomsky and
his critics that came to be known as the "Linguistics
Wars", although they revolved largely around
debating philosophical issues rather than
linguistics proper.
== Later life ==
=== Anti-Vietnam War activism and rise to
prominence: 1967–75 ===
Chomsky first involved himself in active political
protest against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam
War in 1962, speaking on the subject at small
gatherings in churches and homes. However,
it was not until 1967 that he publicly entered
the debate on United States foreign policy.
In February he published a widely read essay
in The New York Review of Books entitled "The
Responsibility of Intellectuals", in which
he criticized the country's involvement in
the conflict; the essay was based on an earlier
talk that he had given to Harvard's Foundation
for Jewish Campus Life. He expanded on his
argument to produce his first political book,
American Power and the New Mandarins, which
was published in 1969 and soon established
him at the forefront of American dissent.
His other political books of the time included
At War with Asia (1971), The Backroom Boys
(1973), For Reasons of State (1973), and Peace
in the Middle East? (1975), published by Pantheon
Books. Coming to be associated with the American
New Left movement, he nevertheless thought
little of prominent New Left intellectuals
Herbert Marcuse and Erich Fromm, and preferred
the company of activists to intellectuals.
Although The New York Review of Books did
publish contributions from Chomsky and other
leftists from 1967 to 1973, when an editorial
change put a stop to it, he was virtually
ignored by the rest of the mainstream press
throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s.Along
with his writings, Chomsky also became actively
involved in left-wing activism. Refusing to
pay half his taxes, he publicly supported
students who refused the draft, and was arrested
for being part of an anti-war teach-in outside
the Pentagon. During this time, Chomsky, along
with Mitchell Goodman, Denise Levertov, William
Sloane Coffin, and Dwight Macdonald, also
founded the anti-war collective RESIST. Although
he questioned the objectives of the 1968 student
protests, Chomsky gave many lectures to student
activist groups; furthermore, he and his colleague
Louis Kampf began running undergraduate courses
on politics at MIT, independently of the conservative-dominated
political science department.During this period,
MIT's various departments were researching
helicopters, smart bombs and counterinsurgency
techniques for the war in Vietnam and, as
Chomsky says, "a good deal of [nuclear] missile
guidance technology was developed right on
the MIT campus". As Chomsky elaborates, "[MIT
was] about 90% Pentagon funded at that time.
And I personally was right in the middle of
it. I was in a military lab ... the Research
Laboratory for Electronics." By 1969, student
activists were actively campaigning "to stop
the war research" at MIT. Chomsky was sympathetic
to the students but he also thought it best
to keep such research on campus and he proposed
that it should be restricted to what he called
"systems of a purely defensive and deterrent
character". MIT had six of its anti-war student
activists sentenced to prison terms. Chomsky
says MIT's students suffered things that "should
not have happened." However, Chomsky has also
claimed that MIT has "quite a good record
on civil liberties". In 1970 Chomsky visited
the Vietnamese city of Hanoi to give a lecture
at the Hanoi University of Science and Technology;
on this trip he also toured Laos to visit
the refugee camps created by the war, and
in 1973 he was among those leading a committee
to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of
the War Resisters League.
As a result of his anti-war activism, Chomsky
was ultimately arrested on multiple occasions,
and U.S. President Richard Nixon included
him on the master version of his "Enemies
List". He was aware of the potential repercussions
of his civil disobedience, and his wife began
studying for her own Ph.D. in linguistics
in order to support the family in the event
of Chomsky's imprisonment or loss of employment.
However, MIT – despite being under some
pressure to do so – refused to fire him
due to his influential standing in the field
of linguistics. His work in this area continued
to gain international recognition; in 1967
he received honorary doctorates from both
the University of London and the University
of Chicago. In 1970, Loyola University and
Swarthmore College also awarded him honorary
D.H.L.'s, as did Bard College in 1971, Delhi
University in 1972, and the University of
Massachusetts in 1973.In 1971 Chomsky gave
the Bertrand Russell Memorial Lectures at
the University of Cambridge, which were published
as Problems of Knowledge and Freedom later
that year. He also delivered the Whidden Lectures
at McMaster University, the Huizinga Lecture
at Leiden University in the Netherlands, the
Woodbridge Lectures at Columbia University,
and the Kant Lectures at Stanford University.
In 1971 he partook in a televised debate with
French philosopher Michel Foucault on Dutch
television, entitled Human Nature: Justice
versus Power. Although largely agreeing with
Foucault's ideas, he was critical of post-modernism
and French philosophy generally, believing
that post-modern leftist philosophers used
obfuscating language which did little to aid
the cause of the working-classes and lambasting
France as having "a highly parochial and remarkably
illiterate culture". Chomsky also continued
to publish prolifically in linguistics, publishing
Studies on Semantics in Generative Grammar
(1972), an enlarged edition of Language and
Mind (1972), and Reflections on Language (1975).
In 1974 he became a corresponding fellow of
the British Academy.
=== Edward Herman and the Faurisson affair:
1976–80 ===
Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, Chomsky's
publications expanded and clarified his earlier
work, addressing his critics and updating
his grammatical theory. His public talks often
generated considerable controversy, particularly
when he criticized actions of the Israeli
government and military, and his political
views came under attack from right-wing and
centrist figures, the most prominent of whom
was Alan Dershowitz. Chomsky considered Dershowitz
"a complete liar" and accused him of actively
misrepresenting his position on issues. During
the early 1970s Chomsky began collaborating
with Edward S. Herman, who had also published
critiques of the U.S. war in Vietnam. Together
they authored Counter-Revolutionary Violence:
Bloodbaths in Fact & Propaganda, a book which
criticized U.S. military involvement in Southeast
Asia and highlighted how mainstream media
neglected to cover stories about these activities;
the publisher Warner Modular initially accepted
it, and it was published in 1973. However,
Warner Modular's parent company, Warner Communications,
disapproved of the book's contents and ordered
all copies to be destroyed.While mainstream
publishing options proved elusive, Chomsky
found support from Michael Albert's South
End Press, an activist-oriented publishing
company.
In 1979, Chomsky and Herman revised Counter-Revolutionary
Violence and published it with South End Press
as the two-volume The Political Economy of
Human Rights. In this they compared U.S. media
reactions to the Cambodian genocide and the
Indonesian occupation of East Timor. They
argued that because Indonesia was a U.S. ally,
U.S. media ignored the East Timorese situation
while focusing on that in Cambodia, a U.S.
enemy. Taking a particular interest in the
situation in East Timor, Chomsky testified
on the subject in front of the United Nations'
Special Committee on Decolonization in both
1978 and 1979, and attended a conference on
the occupation held in Lisbon in 1979. The
following year, the Marxist academic, Steven
Lukes authored an article for the Times Higher
Education Supplement accusing Chomsky of betraying
his anarchist ideals and acting as an apologist
for Cambodian leader Pol Pot. Laura J. Summers
and Robin Woodsworth Carlsen replied to the
article, arguing that Lukes completely misunderstood
Chomsky and Herman's work. The controversy
damaged his reputation, and Chomsky maintains
that his critics deliberately printed lies
about him in order to defame him.Although
Chomsky had long publicly criticized Nazism
and totalitarianism more generally, his commitment
to freedom of speech led him to defend the
right of French historian Robert Faurisson
to advocate a position widely characterized
as Holocaust denial. Without Chomsky's knowledge,
his plea for the historian's freedom of speech
was published as the preface to Faurisson's
1980 book Mémoire en défense contre ceux
qui m'accusent de falsifier l'histoire. Chomsky
was widely condemned for defending Faurisson,
and France's mainstream press accused Chomsky
of being a Holocaust denier himself, refusing
to publish his rebuttals to their accusations.
Critiquing Chomsky's position, sociologist
Werner Cohn later published an analysis of
the affair titled Partners in Hate: Noam Chomsky
and the Holocaust Deniers. The Faurisson affair
had a lasting, damaging effect on Chomsky's
career, and Chomsky did not visit France,
where the translation of his political writings
was delayed until the 2000s, for almost thirty
years following the debacle.
=== Reaganite era and work on the media: 1980–89
===
The election of Republican Party candidate
Ronald Reagan to the U.S. Presidency in 1980
marked a period of increased military intervention
in Central America. In 1985, during Nicaragua's
Contra War – in which the U.S. supported
the Contra militia against the Sandinista
government – Chomsky travelled to Managua
to meet with workers' organizations and refugees
of the conflict, giving public lectures on
politics and linguistics. Many of these lectures
would be published in 1987 as On Power and
Ideology: The Managua Lectures. In 1983 he
published The Fateful Triangle, an examination
of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the place
of the U.S. within it, arguing that the U.S.
had continually used the conflict for its
own ends. In 1988, Chomsky then visited the
Palestinian territories to witness the impact
of Israeli military occupation.In 1988, Chomsky
and Herman published Manufacturing Consent:
The Political Economy of the Mass Media, in
which they outlined their propaganda model
for understanding the mainstream media; there
they argued that even in countries without
official censorship, the news provided was
censored through four filters which had a
great impact on what stories are reported
and how they are presented. The book was adapted
into a 1992 film, Manufacturing Consent: Noam
Chomsky and the Media, which was directed
by Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick. In 1989,
Chomsky published Necessary Illusions: Thought
Control in Democratic Societies, in which
he critiqued what he sees as the pseudo-democratic
nature of Western capitalist states.By the
1980s, a number of Chomsky's students had
become leading linguistic specialists in their
own right, expanding, revising, and expanding
on Chomsky's ideas of generative grammar.
By the end of the 1980s, Chomsky had established
himself as a globally recognized figure.
=== Increased political activism: 1990–present
===
In the 1990s, Chomsky embraced political activism
to a greater degree than before. Retaining
his commitment to the cause of East Timorese
independence, in 1995 he visited Australia
to talk on the issue at the behest of the
East Timorese Relief Association and the National
Council for East Timorese Resistance. The
lectures that he gave on the subject would
be published as Powers and Prospects in 1996.
As a result of the international publicity
generated by Chomsky, his biographer Wolfgang
Sperlich opined that he did more to aid the
cause of East Timorese independence than anyone
but the investigative journalist John Pilger.
After East Timor's independence from Indonesia
was achieved in 1999, the Australian-led International
Force for East Timor arrived as a peacekeeping
force; Chomsky was critical of this, believing
that it was designed to secure Australian
access to East Timor's oil and gas reserves
under the Timor Gap Treaty. Chomsky's book
Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global
Order was a Boston Globe and Voice Literary
Supplement bestseller in 1999.
Chomsky retired from full-time teaching, although
as an Emeritus he nevertheless continued to
conduct research and seminars at MIT.After
the September 11 attacks in 2001, Chomsky
was widely interviewed, with these interviews
being collated and published by Seven Stories
Press in October.
Chomsky argued that the ensuing War on Terror
was not a new development, but rather a continuation
of the same U.S. foreign policy and its concomitant
rhetoric that had been pursued since at least
the Reagan era of the 1980s. In 2003 he published
Hegemony or Survival, in which he articulated
what he called the United States' "imperial
grand strategy" and critiqued the Iraq War
and other aspects of the 'War on Terror.'Chomsky
toured the world with increasing regularity
during this period, giving talks on various
subjects. In 2001 he gave the D.T. Lakdawala
Memorial Lecture in New Delhi, India, and
in 2003 visited Cuba at the invitation of
the Latin American Association of Social Scientists.
In 2002 Chomsky visited Turkey in order to
attend the trial of a publisher who had been
accused of treason for printing one of Chomsky's
books; Chomsky insisted on being a co-defendant
and amid international media attention the
Security Courts dropped the prosecution on
the first day. During that trip, Chomsky visited
Kurdish areas of Turkey and spoke out in favour
of the Kurds' human rights. A supporter of
the World Social Forum, he attended their
conferences in Brazil in both 2002 and 2003,
also attending the Forum event in India.His
wife, Carol, died in December 2008.
Chomsky was drawn to the energy and activism
of the Occupy movement, delivering talks at
encampments and producing two works that chronicled
its influence, first Occupy a pamphlet, in
2012, then, in 2013, Occupy: Reflections on
Class War, Rebellion and Solidarity. Both
were published by Zuccotti Park Press. His
analysis included a critique that attributed
Occupy's growth as a response to a perceived
abandonment of the interests of the white
working class by the Democratic Party.In March
2014, Chomsky joined the Nuclear Age Peace
Foundation advisory council and is a senior
fellow there.In late 2015, Chomsky announced
his support for Vermont U.S. senator Bernie
Sanders in the upcoming 2016 United States
presidential election.In early 2016, Chomsky
was publicly rebuked by President Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan of Turkey after he signed an open
letter condemning the Turkish leader for his
anti-Kurdish repression and for holding double
standards on terrorism. Chomsky accused Erdoğan
of hypocrisy and added that the Turkish president
supports al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, the
al-Nusra Front. Chomsky also criticized the
U.S.'s close ties with Saudi Arabia and U.S.
involvement in Saudi Arabian-led intervention
in Yemen, highlighting that Saudi has "one
of the most grotesque human rights records
in the world".In 2016, the documentary Requiem
for the American Dream was released, summarizing
his views on capitalism and economic inequality
through a "75-minute teach-in". Requiem for
the American Dream was published as a book
in 2017, and is a furthering of the ideas
put forward in the 2016 documentary (Seven
Stories Press).In an interview with Al Jazeera,
Chomsky called Donald Trump an "ignorant,
thin-skinned megalomaniac" and a "greater
evil" than Hillary Clinton. Asked about claims
that Russia interfered in the U.S. presidential
election through hacking, Chomsky said: "It's
possible, but it's a kind of strange complaint
in the United States. The U.S. has been interfering
with, and undermining, elections all over
the world for decades and is proud of it."In
August 2017, at age 88 and retired since 2002,
Chomsky left MIT to join the linguistics department
of University of Arizona in Tucson as part-time
faculty, officially starting a few weeks later,
and teaching in spring 2018. His salary is
covered by philanthropy funds. Chomsky will
maintain an office in Cambridge.
In July 2018, Chomsky said in an interview
with Democracy Now! that "it's hard to think
of a more brutal and sadistic policy" about
the Trump administration family separation
policy. In the same interview Chomsky also
said that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's victory
of the 2018 New York primary election "was
a quite spectacular and significant event".
== Linguistic theory ==
Within the field of linguistics, McGilvray
credits Chomsky with inaugurating the "cognitive
revolution". McGilvray also credits him with
establishing the field as a formal, natural
science, moving it away from the procedural
form of structural linguistics that was dominant
during the mid-20th century. As such, some
have called him "the father of modern linguistics".The
basis to Chomsky's linguistic theory is rooted
in biolinguistics, holding that the principles
underlying the structure of language are biologically
determined in the human mind and hence genetically
transmitted. He therefore argues that all
humans share the same underlying linguistic
structure, irrespective of sociocultural differences.
In adopting this position, Chomsky rejects
the radical behaviorist psychology of B. F.
Skinner which views the mind as a tabula rasa
("blank slate") and thus treats language as
learned behavior. Accordingly, he argues that
language is a unique evolutionary development
of the human species and is unlike modes of
communication used by any other animal species.
Chomsky's nativist, internalist view of language
is consistent with the philosophical school
of "rationalism", and is contrasted with the
anti-nativist, externalist view of language,
which is consistent with the philosophical
school of "empiricism".
=== Universal grammar ===
Since the 1960s, Chomsky has maintained that
syntactic knowledge is at least partially
inborn, implying that children need only learn
certain parochial features of their native
languages. Chomsky based his argument on observations
about human language acquisition, noting that
there is an enormous gap between the linguistic
stimuli to which children are exposed and
the rich linguistic knowledge they attain
(see: "poverty of the stimulus" argument).
For example, although children are exposed
to only a finite subset of the allowable syntactic
variants within their first language, they
somehow acquire the ability to understand
and produce an infinite number of sentences,
including ones which have never before been
uttered. To explain this, Chomsky reasoned
that the primary linguistic data (PLD) must
be supplemented by an innate linguistic capacity.
Furthermore, while a human baby and a kitten
are both capable of inductive reasoning, if
they are exposed to exactly the same linguistic
data, the human will always acquire the ability
to understand and produce language, while
the kitten will never acquire either ability.
Chomsky labeled whatever relevant capacity
the human has that the cat lacks as the language
acquisition device (LAD), and he suggested
that one of the tasks for linguistics should
be to determine what the LAD is and what constraints
it imposes on the range of possible human
languages. The universal features that would
result from these constraints constitute "universal
grammar".
=== Transformational generative grammar ===
Beginning with his Syntactic Structures (1957),
a distillation of his Logical Structure of
Linguistic Theory (1955), Chomsky challenges
structural linguistics and introduces transformational
grammar.Chomsky's theory posits that language
consists of both deep structures and surface
structures. Surface structure 'faces out'
and is represented by spoken utterances, while
deep structure 'faces inward' and expresses
the underlying relations between words and
conceptual meaning. Transformational grammar
is a generative grammar (which dictates that
the syntax, or word order, of surface structures
adheres to certain principles and parameters)
that consists of a limited series of rules,
expressed in mathematical notation, which
transform deep structures into well-formed
surface structures. The transformational grammar
thus relates meaning and sound.
=== Chomsky hierarchy ===
The Chomsky hierarchy, sometimes referred
to as the Chomsky-Schützenberger hierarchy,
is a containment hierarchy of classes of formal
grammars. The hierarchy imposes a logical
structure across different language classes
and provides a basis for understanding the
relationship between grammars (devices that
enumerate the valid sentences within languages).
In order of increasing expressive power it
includes regular (or Type-3) grammars, context-free
(or Type-2) grammars, context-sensitive (or
Type-1) grammars, and recursively enumerable
(or Type-0) grammars. Each class is a strict
subset of the class above it, i.e., each successive
class can generate a broader set of formal
languages (infinite sets of strings composed
from finite sets of symbols, or alphabets)
than the one below. In addition to being important
in linguistics, the Chomsky hierarchy is also
relevant in theoretical computer science,
especially in programming language theory,
compiler construction, and automata theory.
=== Minimalist program ===
Since the 1990s, much of Chomsky's research
has focused on what he calls the Minimalist
Program (MP), in which he departs from much
of his past research and instead attempts
to simplify language into a system that relates
meaning and sound using the minimum possible
faculties that could be expected, given certain
external conditions that are imposed on us
independently. Chomsky dispenses with concepts
such as 'deep structure' and 'surface structure'
and instead places emphasis on the plasticity
of the brain's neural circuits, along with
which comes an infinite number of concepts,
or 'Logical Forms'. When exposed to linguistic
data, the brain of a hearer-speaker then proceeds
to associate sound and meaning, and the rules
of grammar that we observe are in fact only
the consequences, or side effects, of the
way that language works. Thus, while much
of Chomsky's prior research has focused on
the rules of language, he now focuses on the
mechanisms that the brain uses to create these
rules.
== Political views ==
Chomsky has built a "reputation as a political
dissident". Chomsky's political views have
changed little since his childhood, when he
was influenced by the emphasis on political
activism that was ingrained in Jewish working-class
tradition. He usually identifies as an anarcho-syndicalist
or a libertarian socialist. He views these
positions not as precise political theories
but as ideals that he thinks best meet the
needs of humans: liberty, community, and freedom
of association. Unlike some other socialists,
such as those who accept Marxism, Chomsky
believes that politics lies outside the remit
of science; however, he still roots his ideas
about an ideal society in empirical data and
empirically justified theories.In Chomsky's
view, the truth about political realities
is systematically distorted or suppressed
through elite corporate interests, who use
corporate media, advertising, and think tanks
to promote their own propaganda. His work
seeks to reveal such manipulations and the
truth that they obscure. He believes that
"common sense" is all that is required to
break through the web of falsehood and see
the truth, if it (common sense) is employed
using both critical thinking skills and an
awareness of the role that self-interest and
self-deception plays both on oneself and on
others. He believes that it is the moral responsibility
of intellectuals to tell the truth about the
world, but claims that few do so because they
fear losing prestige and funding. He argues
that, as such an intellectual, it is his duty
to use his privilege, resources, and training
to aid popular democracy movements in their
struggles.Although he had joined protest marches
and organized activist groups, he identifies
his primarily political outlet as being that
of education, offering free lessons and lectures
to encourage wider political consciousness.
His political writings have covered a wide
range of topics, although there are a number
of core themes throughout much of his work.
He is a member of the Industrial Workers of
the World international union, and sits on
the interim consultative committee of the
International Organization for a Participatory
Society.
=== United States foreign policy ===
Chomsky has been a prominent critic of U.S.
imperialism. His published work has focused
heavily on criticizing the actions of the
United States, such as the U.S.-backed state
terror campaign against left-wing dissidents
across Latin America known as Operation Condor.
Chomsky believes that the basic principle
of the foreign policy of the United States
is the establishment of "open societies" that
are economically and politically controlled
by the U.S. and where U.S.-based businesses
can prosper. He argues that the U.S. seeks
to suppress any movements within these countries
that are not compliant with U.S. interests
and ensure that U.S.-friendly governments
are placed in power. When discussing current
events, he emphasizes their place within a
wider historical perspective.
He believes that official, sanctioned historical
accounts of U.S. and British imperialism have
consistently whitewashed these nations' actions
in order to present them as having benevolent
motives in either spreading democracy or,
in older instances, spreading Christianity;
criticizing these accounts, he seeks to correct
them. Prominent examples that he regularly
cites are the actions of the British Empire
in India and Africa, and the actions of the
U.S. in Vietnam, the Philippines, Latin America,
and the Middle East.Chomsky explains his decision
to focus on criticizing the U.S. over other
countries as being because, during his lifetime,
the country has militarily and economically
dominated the world, and because its liberal
democratic electoral system allows for the
citizenry to exert an influence on government
policy. His hope is that, by spreading awareness
of the negative impact that imperialism has
on the populations affected by it, he can
sway the population of the U.S. and other
countries into opposing government policies
that are imperialist in their nature. He urges
people to criticize the motivations, decisions,
and actions of their governments; to accept
responsibility for one's own thoughts and
actions; and to apply the same standards to
others as one would apply to oneself.He has
been critical of U.S. involvement in the Israel–Palestine
conflict, arguing that it has consistently
blocked a peaceful settlement. Chomsky has
long endorsed the left binationalist program,
seeking to create a democratic state in the
Levant that is home to both Jews and Arabs.
However, acknowledging the realpolitik of
the situation, Chomsky has also considered
a two-state solution on the condition that
both nation-states exist on equal terms. As
a result of his criticisms of Israel, Chomsky
was barred from entering Israel in 2010.
=== Capitalism and socialism ===
In his youth, Chomsky developed a dislike
of capitalism and the selfish pursuit of material
advancement. At the same time, he developed
a disdain for the authoritarian attempts to
establish a socialist society, as represented
by the Marxist–Leninist policies of the
Soviet Union. Rather than accepting the common
view among American economists that a spectrum
exists between total state ownership of the
economy on the one hand and total private
ownership on the other, he instead suggests
that a spectrum should be understood between
total democratic control of the economy on
the one hand and total autocratic control
(whether state or private) on the other. He
argues that Western capitalist nations are
not really democratic, because, in his view,
a truly democratic society is one in which
all persons have a say in public economic
policy. He has stated his opposition to ruling
elites, among them institutions like the IMF,
World Bank, and GATT.
Chomsky highlights that, since the 1970s,
the U.S. has become increasingly economically
unequal as a result of the repeal of various
financial regulations and the rescinding of
the Bretton Woods financial control agreements.
He characterizes the U.S. as a de facto one-party
state, viewing both the Republican Party and
Democratic Party as manifestations of a single
"Business Party" controlled by corporate and
financial interests. Chomsky highlights that,
within Western capitalist liberal democracies,
at least 80% of the population has no control
over economic decisions, which are instead
in the hands of a management class and ultimately
controlled by a small, wealthy elite.Noting
that this economic system is firmly entrenched
and difficult to overthrow, he believes that
change is possible through the organized co-operation
of large numbers of people who understand
the problem and know how they want to re-organize
the economy in a more equitable way. Although
acknowledging that corporate domination of
media and government stifle any significant
change to this system, he sees reason for
optimism, citing the historical examples of
the social rejection of slavery as immoral,
the advances in women's rights, and the forcing
of government to justify invasions to illustrate
how change is possible. He views violent revolution
to overthrow a government as a last resort
to be avoided if possible, citing the example
of historical revolutions where the population's
welfare has worsened as a result of the upheaval.Chomsky
deems libertarian socialist and anarcho-syndicalist
ideas to be the inheritors of the classical
liberal ideas of the Age of Enlightenment,
arguing that his ideological position revolves
around "nourishing the libertarian and creative
character of the human being".
He envisions an anarcho-syndicalist future
in which there is direct worker control of
the means of production, with society governed
by workers' councils, who would select representatives
to meet together at general assemblies. In
this, he believes that there will be no need
for political parties. By controlling their
productive life, he believes that individuals
can gain job satisfaction, a sense of fulfillment,
and purpose to their work. He argues that
unpleasant and unpopular jobs could be fully
automated, carried out by workers who are
specially remunerated, or shared among everyone.
=== News media and propaganda ===
Chomsky's political writings have largely
been focused on the two concepts of ideology
and power, or the media and state policy.
One of Chomsky's best-known works, Manufacturing
Consent, dissects the media's role in reinforcing
and acquiescing to state policies across the
political spectrum while marginalizing contrary
perspectives. Chomsky asserts that this version
of censorship, from government-guided "free
market" forces, is more subtle and difficult
to undermine than the equivalent propaganda
system that was present in the Soviet Union.
As he argues, the mainstream press is corporate
owned and thus reflects corporate priorities
and interests. Although acknowledging that
many American journalists are dedicated and
well-meaning, he argues that the choice of
topics and issues featured in the mass media,
the unquestioned premises on which that coverage
rests, and the range of opinions that are
expressed are all constrained to reinforce
the state's ideology. He states that, although
the mass media will criticize individual politicians
and political parties, it will not undermine
the wider state-corporate nexus of which it
is a part. As evidence, he highlights that
the U.S. mass media does not employ any socialist
journalists or political commentators. He
also points to examples of important news
stories that have been ignored by U.S. mainstream
media because reporting on them would reflect
badly upon the U.S. state: For instance, it
ignored the murder of Black Panther Fred Hampton
with possible FBI involvement, the massacres
perpetrated in Nicaragua by the U.S.-funded
Contras, and the constant reporting on Israeli
deaths while ignoring the far larger number
of Palestinian deaths in the conflict between
those two nations.
To remedy this situation, Chomsky calls for
grassroots democratic control and involvement
of the media.Chomsky considers most conspiracy
theories to be fruitless, distracting substitutes
to thinking about policy formation in an institutional
framework, where individual manipulation is
secondary to broader social imperatives. He
does not dismiss conspiracy theories outright,
but he does consider them unproductive to
challenging power in a substantial way.
In response to the labeling of his own thoughts
as "conspiracy theory", Chomsky has replied
that it is very rational for the media to
manipulate information in order to sell it,
like any other business. He asks whether General
Motors would be accused of conspiracy if they
deliberately selected what they would use
or discard to sell their product.
== Philosophy ==
Chomsky has also been active in a number of
philosophical fields, including the philosophy
of mind, the philosophy of language, and the
philosophy of science. In these fields he
has been highly critical of many other philosophers,
in particular those operating within the field
of cognitive science.
== Personal life ==
Chomsky endeavors to keep his family life,
linguistic scholarship, and political activism
strictly separate from one another, calling
himself "scrupulous at keeping my politics
out of the classroom". An intensely private
person, he is uninterested in appearances
and the fame that his work has brought him.
McGilvray suggested that Chomsky was never
motivated by a desire for fame, but that he
was impelled to tell what he perceived as
the truth and a desire to aid others in doing
so. He also has little interest in modern
art and music. He reads four or five newspapers
daily; in the U.S., he subscribes to The Boston
Globe, The New York Times, The Wall Street
Journal, Financial Times, and The Christian
Science Monitor. He acknowledges that his
income and the financial security that it
accords him means that he lives a privileged
life compared to the majority of the world's
population. He characterizes himself as a
"worker", albeit one who uses his intellect
as his employable skill.Despite having been
raised Jewish, Chomsky is currently non-religious,
although he has expressed approval of forms
of religion such as liberation theology. He
is known for his "dry, laconic wit", and for
the use of irony in his writings, and has
attracted controversy for labeling established
political and academic figures with terms
such as "corrupt", "fascist", and "fraudulent".
Chomsky's colleague Steven Pinker has said
that he "portrays people who disagree with
him as stupid or evil, using withering scorn
in his rhetoric", and that this contributes
to the extreme reactions that he generates
from his critics. Chomsky avoids attending
academic conferences, including left-oriented
ones such as the Socialist Scholars Conference,
preferring to speak to activist groups or
hold university seminars for mass audiences.Chomsky
was married to Carol Doris Schatz (Chomsky)
from 1949 until her death in 2008. They had
three children together: Aviva (b. 1957),
Diane (b. 1960), and Harry (b. 1967). In 2014,
Chomsky married Valeria Wasserman.
== Reception and influence ==
Chomsky's legacy is as both a "leader in the
field" of linguistics and "a figure of enlightenment
and inspiration" for political dissenters.
Despite his academic success, his political
viewpoints and activism have resulted in him
being distrusted by the mainstream media apparatus,
and he is regarded as being "on the outer
margin of acceptability."
=== In academia ===
Linguist John Lyons remarked that within a
few decades of publication, Chomskyan linguistics
had become "the most dynamic and influential"
school of thought in the field. By the 1970s,
his work had also come to exert a considerable
influence on philosophy, while a poll conducted
by Minnesota State University found Syntactic
Structures to be the single most important
work in the field of cognitive science. In
addition, his work in automata theory and
the Chomsky hierarchy has become well known
in computer science, and he is much cited
within the field of computational linguistics.Chomsky's
work contributed substantially to the decline
of behaviorist psychology; in addition, some
arguments in evolutionary psychology are derived
from his research results. Nim Chimpsky, a
chimpanzee who was the subject of a study
in animal language acquisition at Columbia
University, was named after Chomsky in reference
to his view of language acquisition as a uniquely
human ability.The 1984 Nobel Prize laureate
in Medicine and Physiology, Niels Kaj Jerne,
used Chomsky's generative model to explain
the human immune system, equating "components
of a generative grammar ... with various features
of protein structures". The title of Jerne's
Stockholm Nobel Lecture was "The Generative
Grammar of the Immune System". His theory
of generative grammar has also carried over
into music theory and analysis.
An MIT press release found that Chomsky was
cited within the Arts and Humanities Citation
Index more often than any other living scholar
from 1980 to 1992.Despite their respect for
his intellectual contribution, a number of
linguists and philosophers have been very
critical of Chomsky's approach to language.
These critics include Christina Behme, Cedric
Boeckx, Margaret Boden, Rudolph Botha, Vyvyan
Evans, Nicholas Evans, Daniel Everett, Adele
Goldberg, Anna Kinsella, Chris Knight, Stephen
Levinson, Bruce Nevin, Geoffrey K. Pullum,
Barbara Scholtz, Pieter Seuren and Michael
Tomasello.Chomsky's approach to academic freedom
has led him to give support to MIT academics
whose actions he deplores. In 1969, when Chomsky
heard that Walt Rostow, a major architect
of the Vietnam war, wanted to return to work
at MIT, Chomsky threatened "to protest publicly"
if Rostow was "denied a position at MIT".
Then, in 1989, when Pentagon adviser John
Deutch wanted to be the President of MIT,
Chomsky supported his candidacy. Later, when
Deutch became head of the CIA, The New York
Times quoted Chomsky as saying, "He has more
honesty and integrity than anyone I've ever
met.... If somebody's got to be running the
C.I.A., I'm glad it's him."
=== In politics ===
Chomsky biographer Wolfgang B. Sperlich characterizes
the linguist and activist as "one of the most
notable contemporary champions of the people",
while journalist John Pilger described him
as a "genuine people's hero; an inspiration
for struggles all over the world for that
basic decency known as freedom. To a lot of
people in the margins – activists and movements
– he's unfailingly supportive." Arundhati
Roy called him "one of the greatest, most
radical public thinkers of our time", and
Edward Said thought him to be "one of the
most significant challengers of unjust power
and delusions". Fred Halliday stated that
by the start of the 21st century, Chomsky
had become a "guru" for the world's anti-capitalist
and anti-imperialist movements. The propaganda
model of media criticism that he and Herman
developed has been widely accepted in radical
media critiques and adopted to some level
in mainstream criticism of the media, also
exerting a significant influence on the growth
of alternative media, including radio, publishers,
and the Internet, which in turn have helped
to disseminate his work.However, Sperlich
notes that Chomsky has been vilified by corporate
interests, particularly in the mainstream
press. University departments devoted to history
and political science rarely include Chomsky's
work on their syllabuses for undergraduate
reading. Critics have argued that despite
publishing widely on social and political
issues, Chomsky has no expertise in these
areas; to this he has responded that such
issues are not as complex as many social scientists
claim and that almost everyone is able to
comprehend them, regardless of whether they
have been academically trained to do so or
not.
His far-reaching criticisms of U.S. foreign
policy and the legitimacy of U.S. power have
raised controversy. A document obtained pursuant
to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request
from the U.S. government revealed that the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) monitored
Chomsky's activities and for years denied
doing so. The CIA also destroyed its files
on Chomsky at some point in time, possibly
in violation of federal law. He has often
received undercover police protection at MIT
and when speaking on the Middle East, although
he has refused uniformed police protection.
German newspaper Der Spiegel described him
as "the Ayatollah of anti-American hatred",
while conservative commentator David Horowitz
termed him "the most devious, the most dishonest
and ... the most treacherous intellect in
America", one whose work was infused with
an "anti-American dementia" and which evidences
Chomsky's "pathological hatred of his own
country". Writing in Commentary magazine,
the journalist Jonathan Kay described Chomsky
as "a hard-boiled anti-American monomaniac
who simply refuses to believe anything that
any American leader says".His criticism of
Israel has led to him being accused of being
a traitor to the Jewish people and an anti-Semite.
Criticizing Chomsky's defense of the right
of individuals to engage in Holocaust denial
on the grounds that freedom of speech must
be extended to all viewpoints, Werner Cohn
accused Chomsky of being "the most important
patron" of the Neo-Nazi movement, while the
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) accused him of
being a Holocaust denier himself. The ADL
have been accused of monitoring Chomsky's
activities, and have characterized him as
a "dupe of intellectual pride so overweening
that he is incapable of making distinctions
between totalitarian and democratic societies,
between oppressors and victims". In turn,
Chomsky has claimed that the ADL is dominated
by "Stalinist types" who oppose democracy
in Israel. Alan Dershowitz considered Chomsky
to be a "false prophet of the left", while
Chomsky has accused Dershowitz of being on
"a crazed jihad, dedicating much of his life
to trying to destroy my reputation".According
to McGilvray, many of Chomsky's critics "do
not bother quoting his work or quote out of
context, distort, and create straw men that
cannot be supported by Chomsky's text".In
Spring 2017, Chomsky taught a short-term politics
course at the University of Arizona.
=== Academic achievements, awards, and honors
===
In 1970, Chomsky was named one of the "makers
of the twentieth century" by the London Times.
In early 1969, he delivered the John Locke
Lectures at Oxford University; in January
1971, the Bertrand Russell Memorial Lecture
at the University of Cambridge; in 1972, the
Nehru Memorial Lecture in New Delhi; in 1975,
the Whidden Lectures at McMaster University;
in 1977, the Huizinga Lecture in Leiden; in
1978, the Woodbridge Lectures at Columbia
University; in 1979, the Kant Lectures at
Stanford University; in 1988, the Massey Lectures
at the University of Toronto; in 1997, The
Davie Memorial Lecture on Academic Freedom
in Cape Town; in 2011, the Rickman Godlee
Lecture at University College, London; and
many others.Chomsky has received honorary
degrees from many colleges and universities
around the world, including from the following:
In the United States, he is a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the
National Academy of Sciences, the Linguistic
Society of America, the American Philosophical
Association, and the American Association
for the Advancement of Science. Abroad, he
is a member of the Utrecht Society of Arts
and Sciences, the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher
Leopoldina, a corresponding fellow of the
British Academy, an honorary member of the
British Psychological Society, and a foreign
member of the Department of Social Sciences
of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
In addition, he is a recipient of a 1971 Guggenheim
Fellowship, the 1984 American Psychological
Association Award for Distinguished Contributions
to Psychology, 1988 the Kyoto Prize in Basic
Sciences, the 1996 Helmholtz Medal, the 1999
Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive
Science, and the Dorothy Eldridge Peacemaker
Award. He is also a two-time winner of the
Gustavus Myers Center Award, receiving the
honor in both 1986 and 1988, and the NCTE
George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution
to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language,
receiving the honor in both 1987 and 1989.
He has also received the Rabindranath Tagore
Centenary Award from The Asiatic Society.In
2004 Chomsky received the Carl-von-Ossietzky
Prize from the city of Oldenburg, Germany,
to acknowledge his body of work as a political
analyst and media critic. In 2005, Chomsky
received an honorary fellowship from the Literary
and Historical Society. In February 2008,
he received the President's Medal from the
Literary and Debating Society of the National
University of Ireland, Galway. Since 2009,
he has been an honorary member of International
Association of Professional Translators and
Interpreters (IAPTI).In 2010, Chomsky received
the Erich Fromm Prize in Stuttgart, Germany.
In April 2010, Chomsky became the third scholar
to receive the University of Wisconsin's A.E.
Havens Center's Award for Lifetime Contribution
to Critical Scholarship.
Chomsky has an Erdős number of four.Chomsky
was voted the world's leading public intellectual
in The 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll jointly
conducted by American magazine Foreign Policy
and British magazine Prospect. In a list compiled
by the magazine New Statesman in 2006, he
was voted seventh in the list of "Heroes of
our time."Actor Viggo Mortensen and avant-garde
guitarist Buckethead dedicated their 2003
album Pandemoniumfromamerica to Chomsky. On
January 22, 2010, a special honorary concert
for Chomsky was given at Kresge Auditorium
at MIT. The concert, attended by Chomsky and
dozens of his family and friends, featured
music composed by Edward Manukyan and speeches
by Chomsky's colleagues, including David Pesetsky
of MIT and Gennaro Chierchia, head of the
linguistics department at Harvard University.In
May 2007, Jamia Millia Islamia, a prestigious
Indian university, named one of its complexes
after Noam Chomsky.In June 2011, Chomsky was
awarded the Sydney Peace Prize, which cited
his "unfailing courage, critical analysis
of power and promotion of human rights." Also
in 2011, Chomsky was inducted into IEEE Intelligent
Systems' AI's Hall of Fame for "significant
contributions to the field of AI and intelligent
systems."In 2013, a newly described species
of bee was named after him: Megachile chomskyi.In
2014, he was awarded the Neil and Saras Smith
Medal for Linguistics by the British Academy:
this medal is awarded "for lifetime achievement
in the scholarly study of linguistics".In
2016, he was awarded the Int'l Courage of
Conscience Award by the Peace Abbey: this
award was bestowed at MIT "for his unrelenting
critique of U.S. foreign policy, capitalism
and the globalization of systems and structures
of profit and greed".In 2017 he was one of
three recipients awarded the Seán MacBride
Peace Prize "for his tireless commitment to
peace, his strong critiques to U.S. foreign
policy, and his anti-imperialism".
== Bibliography and filmography ==
== See also ==
== 
References ==
=== Notes ===
=== Sources ===
== 
External links ==
Official website
Noam Chomsky University of Arizona homepage
includes classes and events
Noam Chomsky at MIT
Noam Chomsky on Charlie Rose
Noam Chomsky: Politics or Science?
Noam Chomsky: Knowledge and Power. Al Jazeera
English, October 2015 (video, 47 mins) – documentary
about the life and work of Chomsky
Appearances on C-SPAN
Noam Chomsky on IMDb
Appearances on Democracy Now!
Interview with Noam Chomsky, "Human nature
and the origins of language", Radical Anthropology
2008.
IWW Interview with Noam Chomsky: Worker Occupations
And The Future Of Radical Labor. October 9,
2009
Noam Chomsky interviewed by Alyssa McDonald
on New Statesman, September 2010.
The Real News interviews with Chomsky: 2007–2010
(11 interviews) and June 2014 (3 interviews)
"Noam Chomsky on Where Artificial Intelligence
Went Wrong" – interview in The Atlantic,
November 2012
Noam Chomsky, "A Brief History of Anarchism",
In These Times. January 9, 2014.
"American Socrates". Interviewed by Chris
Hedges for Truthdig, June 15, 2014.
Noam Chomsky calls US 'world's leading terrorist
state' RT, November 5, 2014.
"The World of Our Grandchildren". Jacobin
interview with Noam Chomsky, February 13,
2015.
Noam Chomsky: Electing the President of An
Empire. Abby Martin interview with Chomsky,
October 24, 2015
Libcom's 'Noam Chomsky – Reading Guide'
Decoding Chomsky – Science and Revolutionary
Politics by Chris Knight
Demonstration at Faneuil Hall to protest indictment
of the Berrigan brothers: Noam Chomsky speaking
with Vern Countryman and George Wald at left
and Howard Zinn at the far right, January
1971 (Photo: Jeff Albertson Photograph Collection
(PH 57)), Special Collections and University
Archives, Library of the University of Massachusetts:
Amherst.
