Noam Chomsky (Reaktion Books - Critical Lives)

Description

Decent profile of America's chief foreign policy critic, his life and career. It's a slim volume, part of a series called Critical Lives profiling important cultural figures of the past century. Perhaps the most distinguishing feature are the 40 pages on Chomsky the linguist and philosopher. This is the lesser known phase of his intellectual career, but the one that did much to establish his credibility as a policy critic. Author Sperlich strives manfully to give us a taste of Chomsky's contributions to linguistics, but it's pretty heavy weather for the uninitiated. Yet, no profile would be complete without some inclusion.

On the other hand, we get a good idea of Chomsky's formative years and how they bear on his intellectual evolution. It is Chomsky the activist where that evolution largely plays out and it's rather surprising how consistently true to his roots in socialist anachism he has remained over the years. This fidelity also helps explain his distance from the Marxist left and how the anti-imperial undercurrent of his studies has managed over the years to escape the taint of "communist inspired".

Still and all, I wish the text included more on Chomsky's relations with our corporate and media establishment. For although he's well-known among intellectual and activist circles, the broader public (who stands to gain the most) remains largely ignorant of both his name and perspective. Yet daily, the networks parade the same dreary foreign policy spokespeople before the nation, with the same dreary cliches about our role in the world, and the country drifts ever further from the reality. On the other hand, except for Hugo Chavez as his unofficial press agent, the MIT professor never appears as a counterweight. Not that his presence would act as a magic bullet to imperial policies. Rather his absence represents more broadly the deadly absence of any public alternative to present global policy.One positive thing that can be said about this establishment-- they've certainly found more subtle ways of silencing esteemed dissidents than did the old ham-fisted Soviets. I just wish Sperlich had included more of this key aspect in his otherwise informative little account.