How the nazis won the war

[Jan Klimkowski]

Like David and Peter, I too have met, corresponded with and interviewed Noam Chomsky.

He gave me a key research lead for the film that became the BBC documentary The Human Laboratory, exposing Big Pharma, private foundation and USAID development and funding of unethical human trials on the poorest women in the world.

More on the The Human Laboratory, including a transcript, can be seen here.

In my judgement, the Rosetta Stone to Noam Chomsky can be seen in his pioneering linguistic work.

Understand the following passage in all its resonance, and I believe you understand Chomsky:

Chomsky first came to prominence in 1959, with the argument, detailed in a book review (but already present in his first book, published two years earlier), that contrary to the prevailing idea that children learned language by copying and by reinforcement (ie behaviourism), basic grammatical arrangements were already present at birth. The argument revolutionised the study of linguistics; it had fundamental ramifications for anyone studying the mind. It also has interesting, even troubling ramifications for his politics. If we are born with innate structures of linguistic and by extension moral thought, isn't this a kind of determinism that denies political agency? What is the point of arguing for any change at all?
"The most libertarian positions accept the same view," he answers. "That there are instincts, basic conditions of human nature that lead to a preferred social order. In fact, if you're in favour of any policy reform, revolution, stability, regression, whatever if you're at least minimally moral, it's because you think it's somehow good for people. And good for people means conforming to their fundamental nature. So whoever you are, whatever your position is, you're making some tacit assumptions about fundamental human nature … The question is: what do we strive for in developing a social order that is conducive to fundamental human needs? Are human beings born to be servants to masters, or are they born to be free, creative individuals who work with others to inquire, create, develop their own lives? I mean, if humans were totally unstructured creatures, they would be … a tool which can properly be shaped by outside forces. That's why if you look at the history of what's called radical behaviourism, [where] you can be completely shaped by outside forces when [the advocates of this] spell out what they think society ought to be, it's totalitarian."
Chomsky, now 84, has been politically engaged all his life; his first published article, in fact, was against fascism, and written when he was 10. Where does the anger come from? "I grew up in the Depression. My parents had jobs, but a lot of the family were unemployed working class, so they had no jobs at all. So I saw poverty and repression right away. People would come to the door trying to sell rags that was when I was four years old. I remember riding with my mother in a trolley car and passing a textile worker's strike where the women were striking outside and the police were beating them bloody."