Noam chomsky

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, social critic and political activist. An Institute Professor Emeritus at Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Chomsky's main contributions lie in the field of linguistics, with his revolutionary ideas on 'Universal Grammar', 'Transformational Generative Grammar', the 'Chomsky Hierarchy' and more recently, the 'Minimalist Program'. Secondly, he has contributed in political activism, widely publicising his ideas and critiques…

I mean it’s not at all the general image that you described — people running around the streets, you know, breaking store windows — but [anarcho-syndicalism] is a conception of a very organized society, but organized from below by direct participation at every level, with as little control and domination as is feasible, maybe none.Noam Chomsky

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A young Noam Chomsky, ca 1969

rodriguezillustrator | NOAM CHOMSKY by Tony Rodriguez

At the age of 87, and with his seminal work Syntactic Structures about to turn 60, Noam Chomsky is still thinking about linguistics. Tiger Webb learns why some of the mysteries surrounding language may never be solved—and why that might not be such a bad thing.

Noam Chomsky at MIT, 1969 From Life Magazine Photo credit: Lee Lockwood

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.