A couple weeks ago, a British newspaper broke the story that the acclaimed MIT professor emeritus Noam Chomsky had suffered a serious stroke sometime in 2023. According to that newspaper, and then other news sources, he had initially been hospitalized here in the U. S., but is now under the care of physicians in his wife’s native country, Brazil.

Even though I knew that Professor Chomsky was 95 years old, the news stunned me. For one thing, he was still incredibly productive: still writing books and articles, still doing pathbreaking scientific research, and still being a singular voice against tyranny and oppression.

He has been arguably the most important public intellectual in American history. He is the author of more than 100 books, and he is widely considered the father of the field of modern linguistics.

Professor Chomsky at the University of Toronto, 2011. Photo by Andrew Rusk

Few scholars have contributed in such a profound way to so many fields of learning. Over a span of 70 years, Professor Chomsky has been making landmark contributions to the fields of linguistics, cognitive science, computer science, psychology, and philosophy. For a good part of his professional life, he was the single most cited living author in the world.

Just a few weeks ago, a unique gathering of linguists, theoretical physicists, mathematicians, and computer scientists convened at Cal Tech to discuss Professor Chomsky’s latest book.

Published last year, on the eve of his 95th birthday, that book presents his recent work developing a new scientific model for language.

Professor Chomsky is not only a scientist, however. Since the Vietnam War, he has also been one of this country’ s most important critics of U. S. foreign policy– and particularly of its devastating impacts on democracy and human rights in the Third World.

I took Professor Chomsky’s class on the history of U. S. foreign policy since World War Two at MIT many years ago, when I was just a lad.

By that time, he had written perhaps half a dozen major books critical of U. S. military intervention in the Third World and of the human costs of U. S. support for some of the world’s most oppressive regimes.

He had also spoken on the damaging aspects of U. S. foreign policy in many hundreds of public lectures, debates, and panels.

In his class, I always got the impression that he saw that part of his life simply as a moral duty– the kind of thing one does to live right in the world.

The class was brilliant. The intellectual content, the rigor of Professor Chomsky’s thinking, the carefulness and open-mindedness with which he approached historical problems– it was frankly breathtaking.

On a personal level, I was struck by Professor Chomsky’s humility, his disinterest in celebrity, his openness to debate, and his conviction that a life well lived was one devoted to understanding our world more deeply and building a world that is more just, humane, and free.

I do not believe that I have used this space previously to write about any topic other than the history of eastern North Carolina. It is where I grew up, I still have strong roots there, and in my own explorations of history, it has always been my “world in a grain of sand.”

But Professor Chomsky is a special person to me, and I am hoping that you might forgive me for saying a little about him at this time in his life.

I will be saying prayers for his speedy recovery and for his family. I will also be hoping that, even in these last years of his life, Professor Chomsky’s example may continue to inspire us never to lose hope and never to stop working heart and soul to make this a more just and decent world.

Prof. Chomsky, 2023. Courtesy, MasterClass