Left of somewhere

I love Noam Chomsky.

Because I was done with exams, and because Netflix offers a certain amount of free movie viewing online, and because no other movie looked particularly engaging, I found myself eating spinach tortellini and watching a documentary about Mr. Chomsky--someone I knew nothing about except a) linguistics, linguistics, linguistics! and b) an affiliation with the University of Chicago. The second appears illusory, as I've found almost no Google evidence supporting this idea, and Wikipedia makes no mention of a connection (except we've given him an honorary degree, along with every other academic institution ever).

The man is brilliant. You can tell he's brilliant, because when he talks, it all comes out naturally, apparently unrehearsed, and without the force of someone fearful of challenge. At the same time, Noam is wonderfully accessible. He refuses to fill his speech with large, obscure words simply because he knows them. He speaks intelligently but normally, to an intellectual audience with an interest in useful, clear information.

Other things charmed me as well. For example, in his pullover grey sweater, clunky outdated glasses, soft voice and sunspots, he looks like he might be your grandfather. Yet, along with this, he delivers scathing (softly scathing) criticism of American foreign policy--not the kind with simplistic platitudes and unnecessary attacks that make you cringe, but rather the sort meticulously researched, well-analyzed and fair-minded. And he isn't just a figurehead of the left--his anarchist ideals alienate him from many who simply wave the party flag, and he's just as willing to honestly analyze leftist problems and faults (NPR, for example, a network he doesn't appear to disrespect but says has even more strict leftist adherence than the ideological strictness of some of its conservative counterparts).

What I especially liked, though, was his willingness to deconstruct the philosophies of right and left a little bit, rather than just blast one side from behind the barricade of the other.

For a while--mainly since my Soc class last year, which inundated me with texts about Society and Culture--I've been trying to look at politics in more of an enduring social light. It's strange, because both the "right" and the "left" seem to have emerged recently, whereas in the past there was usually a blend of the two leading social thought. Early societies, for example, definitely appear to have been more about the care of the social than the freedom of the individual (I'm talking very early, by the way). But few people really think of liberalism as anything traditional.

Noam pointed out that the push in society for privatizing things like social security and education is essentially saying that you're not supposed to care about other individuals and their welfare--only about how many pairs of shoes you have, whether you're comfortable and happy. Social security might be a strain on the government, but it reinforces the idea within our society that it matters whether or not the old lady down the street is fed.

Without the government--essentially the alter which society prays at, with religion playing so marginal a role--establishing the morality and sacredness of social care, we're looking toward a very empty, frightening, apathetic and individualistic society. Personal responsibility, yes. Of that I am a big advocate. But social responsibility, too.

According to Wikipedia, Chomsky's birthday is December 7. I feel so happy to find a fellow December baby--left alone all this time with Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Aaron Carter, I thought I might have been doomed to the least intellectual birth month ever.

Happy Birthday, Noam.