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Reluctant Icon
Noam Chomsky on Life, Liberty and Linguistics
by Tim Halle
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 Called "arguably the most important intellectual alive" by The New York Times and "the Elvis of academia -- a rebel without a pause" by U2’s Bono, MIT Professor Noam Chomsky is in the unlikely position of a professor of linguistics who has achieved icon status in popular culture.
Arriving in Cambridge in the early fifties as an already-rising star in academia, Chomsky made his home in MIT’s building 20, birthplace of radar, artificial intelligence and computer hacking. It was here in 1957 that Chomsky proposed a "change of perspective in linguistics, away from the study of phenomena to the study of the internal principles of the mind and the brain, which underlie those phenomena." The result was a new way of approaching linguistic phenomena, allowing for deeper studies of language and cognition which were completely beyond the scope of previous models. They were to have implications in fields as diverse as psychology and computer science.
Chomsky is also well known for his work as a political activist. Starting in 1964 with the publication of The Responsibilities of Intellectuals, Chomsky's political work continues to cover a wide variety of subjects. An early protester of US involvement in Vietnam, Chomsky has written and lectured world wide on US foreign policy, on the role of business and government elites in the construction of dominant ideologies, and on issues of freedom and justice.
While Chomsky's political views on many issues are well-documented, little has been published on why he holds them. Comfortably ensconced in his office at MIT, Professor Chomsky talked to ZineZone on politics, linguistics, and on the philosophical underpinnings of his beliefs.
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In this video, meet Noam Chomsky: "a rebel without a pause."
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Noam Chomsky
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