“Come at me, bro!” ― Noam Chomsky
Someone left this falsely attributed quote on Goodreads — I’m still laughing.
I got an email from Noam Chomsky once — it felt like getting a post-it note from God.
It was just a short note, to say he’d had to cancel his speaking engagements, but it still made my life.
I have nothing but the DEEPEST RESPECT for Noam Chomsky.
Chomsky once said: “It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies.”
And I can’t think of an intellectual heavyweight who has been a better living-embodiment of this than Chomsky himself.
As a writer, I’ve often wondered whether there’s room for fiction in this — can fiction speak the truth and expose lies?
George Orwell comes to mind.
This is the one question I’d most love to ask Noam Chomsky — the one subject I’d most love to discuss with him at length.
How can writers of fiction fight the good fight?
Is fiction important in this regard at all?
I like to think so… I have to!
In lieu of an answer, here’s a sele…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Chapter 23 by James Garside to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.