Values for a New World: An Interview with Noam Chomsky. Part Two.

In the midst of the pandemic, the John Albert Hall Lectures presented a special online series under the title “Values for a New World.” We were delighted when distinguished writers and thinkers like Esi Edugyan, Miroslav Volf, Thomas Homer-Dixon and Linda Woodhead offered to help us reflect on how fundamental changes in our shared values and assumptions might be both a possible and necessary part of our emergence from these apocalyptic times.
We were particularly thrilled when Noam Chomsky agreed to join our lineup of speakers. Linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, political activist: Chomsky is all of these, and much more. He is the author of more than a hundred books, and Professor Emeritus at MIT. He is also something of an intellectual rock star; his talk for us last February, entitled “Confluence of Challenges: The Fate of the Human Experiment,” has had over 13000 hits to date, and counting.
Professor Chomsky generously returned for the closing panel discussion of the series. More recently, he consented to sit down for two extended interviews, following up on some of the themes first raised in his original presentation. The conversations cover a typically wide range of Chomskyan preoccupations: language and politics, values and beliefs, hope and despair, the nature of human consciousness, the existential threats of nuclear arms and the climate crisis, and some quite personal reflections.
Chomsky’s interlocutors are: Professor Martha McGinnis, a former graduate student and long-time friend of Noam’s, now Chair of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Victoria; and Canon Ian Alexander, retired CBC broadcaster, and until recently Co-Chair of the John Albert Hall committee for the Anglican Diocese of Islands and Inlets.
Edited transcripts of these encounters will appear in future editions of the Bulletin for the Study of Religion. In the meantime, we’re so pleased that Noam Chomsky has given permission to post the full recordings here and now. Enjoy!