Day at Night: Noam Chomsky, author, lecturer, philosopher, and linguist

Views on political and social matters are offered by linguistics expert Noam Chomsky. Topics include his involvement in the antiwar movement of the '60s.
CUNY TV is proud to re-broadcast newly digitized episodes of DAY AT NIGHT, the popular public television series hosted by the late James Day. Day was a true pioneer of public television: co-founder of KQED in San Francisco, president of WNET upon the merger of National Educational Television (NET) and television station WNDT/Channel 13, and most recently, Chairman of the CUNY TV Advisory Board. The series features fascinating interviews with notable cultural and political figures conducted in the mid 1970's.
Watch more at www.tv.cuny.edu/series/dayatnight

[@Expatsunleashed]

A giant intellectual and a noble man.

[@EMACK2K10]

You are a giant extrateresterial and a nob of a man

[@samitabbakh8409]

@@EMACK2K10 lol

[@DerFrischkopf]

@@EMACK2K10 Well youre a compliant heterosexual and have a job in japan

[@muhammadyaseen2876]

Its painful to see him grow old :( All my heroes getting too old.

[@theempyrean1227]

he lives on in your heart

[@PkSage89]

The internet's becoming like a time machine, ha..

[@meddlesomemusic]

Still as sharp as ever in 2021

[@SuperOlds88]

Mine are too and there doesn't appear to be anybody to replace them.

[@michaelangelo7310]

Beats the alternative

[@virechevarria1804]

Love him.

[@wystanisles4094]

By no means an unhandsome man in his youth either.

[@safyan9442]

Nobody's gonna talk how good the man looks ?

[@ELACAnatomyHelp]

He certainly has beauty, but I don't know if it's as much a physical thing as the beauty of his thinking. I don't know.

[@mourdebars]

I noticed he always wear a good stuff. Not fashinable, no new, but stil not démodé. The same with his haircut within the years. I supposed it had some connection with his first wife, Carol. After her death, thats change somehow, he put on waight and so on. Credits to our ladies!

[@bksocha292]

I’ve always picked up on a certain sense of depression after his first wife died. I don’t know if he talks about her anywhere or if she has ever gotten her due but it seems like a fascinating relationship.

[@daimon00000]

He's certainly a high spirit who gathers science, wisdom and goodness.

[@kennethmarshall306]

“The actual rules of language are certainly not taught in school because nobody even knows them”

[@nicholasdedless4881]

Never heard of this guy doing the interview but after the first few minutes I'm very impressed. His opening question is exactly one of the ones I've always wanted to hear Chomsky answer and can't recall him being asked so clearly. It gets to the question of whether there is a "language of thought" that precedes human language as Fodor has said. Or at least I think Fodor said that, I like his writing some times but he can be very opaque compared to Chomsky.

[@francisapple]

He's wonderful ...

[@francisapple]

In fact, after this interview, I proceeded to watch the veritable trove of James Day interviews, featuring everyone from the likes of Noam Chomsky to Muhammad Ali.

[@francisapple]

He doesn't once interrupt-- not once ... . And in watching all of these interviews, the same is true.

[@joetursi9573]

Better to say"one that" rather than "one of the ones."

[@f-xdemers2825]

It is dizzily ironic that so much intellectual power and knowledge must be put to task just to illustrate that we know so little on the subject and on presumably all others as well.

[@gymnosophy]

The organ at the end.....Chomsky was playing that with his mind power.

[@sadamhussien7169]

Good interview.

[@michaelschiffmann]

Extraordinary!

[@Zainiology]

Damn I really enjoyed that

[@buddinganarchist]

Greatest American.

[@patrickvonjanicke658]

"How do you do?"

[@MaartenvanRossemLezingen]

I wonder if "How are you" is originally a 'correction' of that sentence.

[@evanokeroa4877]

Back noam

[@curtismurphy3207]

Great interview. Wow they used to sit people close together back then.

[@isahera6473]

Curtis Murphy the interviews were for the people back then, instead of the peanut gallery

[@theonlygoodlookinghabsburg2081]

There was no Covid 19 back then.

[@theonlygoodlookinghabsburg2081]

@@waswaswad You don't say.

[@arniesart4356]

And currently (October 10, 2020) interviews are conducted behind plexiglass and have seats on opposite sides of the room. Some even talk through their masks.

[@bigbowlowrong4694]

In the 1950s interviewees commonly sat on the interviewer’s lap

[@harrykirk7415]

To paraphrase quickly... Day: You have said that the future of the United States very much depends on what we have learned from the experience in the Vietnam War. What would say we have learned? Chomsky: I would say very little. Uh Oh. That was not at all optimistic - was it. Seems to have nailed it however. Now we look around in 2020 and we can't help but realize that our militaristic non stop acts of third world adventurism, the non stop wars of aggression, have virtually wrecked us.

[@bradynorris1653]

The name Noam means “pleasantness”.

[@josefschiltz2192]

I suspect that is how my own father became multi-lingual, speaking, first the three languages that were used locally in the town of Sighisoara, Hungarian, Rumanian and German, then Italian and English later on. I'm interested in Noam's friends who said that, as children, they weren't even "aware" that they were speaking different languages. Very interested.

[@TeaParty1776]

Virtually all posters discussing Chomsky evade identifying his ideas about language.

[@divertissementmonas]

So, it becomes much more difficult to learn a different language from adolescence. This is the time when new languages are taught within the education system. If this is known, then why is it not introduced much earlier when there is a much better chance of assimilation?

[@samlee3039]

Something I've always wondered about too.

[@zackwhite501]

They actually are starting it in kindergarten and earlier now, at least at my daughters school.

[@pavgreen440]

Funding mostly

[@zachflame123]

the introductory narration means well, but Chomsky has NEVER been a "polemicist". His books are carefully, deeply researched and closely argued. He does not speak or write in rhetoric.

[@coreycox2345]

I had that same thought, Z.F.A. I can't stand polemics.

[@rtmordecai1]

Rhetoric is the style or manner of presentation of your arguments, so in fact all intellectuals engage in it. Polemicists use a certain type of rhetoric that is confrontational but concise. Your representation of Chomsky is actually a pretty good definition of polemicist if it were to include the fact that he determinately undermines the criticism of his position in the same way.

[@rtmordecai1]

@@coreycox2345 he is literally a wikipedia featured example of polemicist. It’s an oft misunderstood term.

[@coreycox2345]

​@@rtmordecai1 Maybe you should read his books rather than form your opinions off Wikipedia.

[@rtmordecai1]

@@coreycox2345 There’s a definition of Polemics and polemicists are simply people who regularly employ them. Chomsky is one of this country’s best examples of a polemicist and it really doesn’t matter what the Wiki article says the definition is there for you to learn whenever you’d like from any number of other sources.

[@oscarclarke2653]

He looks like the perfect version of Nite Owl from Watchmen

[@mattb3043]

Lol this made my day

[@mindeyi]

It feels like Noam Chomsky's moral compass is a formal model built with obsession for harmony in diversity, and his mind speaks of its implications.

[@miguelmurill1]

I disagree. I think his moral strength comes from humility. Why is he so humble then? He understands that anything is much more complex than anyone has ever imagined. Much, much more.

[@tonyp3750]

thats a very literate way to say you're intolerant

[@edwardjones2202]

I know people who are fluent in a second language to an almost native degree...don't think about it. Anyone here pick up a language in early adulthood and now think in it?

[@manglem10]

Sitting at punching distance,no social distancing

[@evanokeroa4877]

Mind games poker

[@touatitbelkais6072]

the interviewee should 've let chomsky finish his ideas .. he kept cutting his talk

[@WintersWar]

I didn't see that at all, Day let Chomsky express himself totally. Day does ask a lot of questions, which is ideal.

[@miguelmurill1]

Chomski and his one dreadlock. That's radical. Literally.

[@mattb3043]

That was a pretty unexpected reveal at the end that they were playing footsies that whole interview

[@rtmordecai1]

Why does he say he was engaged in zionism, what would be called today anti-zionism?

[@afonsosousa2684]

He's referring to an older strain of Labour Zionism which supported a binational state and joint Israeli-Palestinian working-class militancy. It was a socialist current, which still had some presence within the wider Zionist movement at the time, and was supported by Martin Buber, Hanna Arendt and I believe Franz Kafka later in his life (although his whole relationship with his Judaism was hard to decipher). These views of course run contrary to what the nation-building project in Israel (Zionism) actually turned out to be, so they'd be readily classed as Anti-Zionist today. The young Chomskys actually lived in a kibbutz for a time, but I believe they left when the racialized/exclusionary nature of the whole thing became clear to them.

[@rtmordecai1]

Hey thanks for replying. That’s basically what I assumed but I have very little knowledge of the formation of modern Israel, and especially those communities, and when you google zionism/anti-zionism, google has become total crap of course, you wind up not finding anything that doesn’t present the terms in their current, surface level connotations.

[@afonsosousa2684]

@@rtmordecai1 Hey, glad I could help! Yeah, it can be tricky to find this stuff since it's mostly disappeared from real political action, and the jumble of information certainly doesn't help.

[@llaurita2]

Esoteric is a polite way to describe something that few people understand yet is meaningless both in a tangible and intangible sense. Folly is an accurate way to describe Chomsky’s views outside linguistics. .

[@mickeylosordo4757]

I think Noam did a few bong hits before this one.

[@isahera6473]

Mickey Losordo approx. 2.5 bong-rips

[@stevenhines5550]

BTW, I think Noam was smoking a little pot on this day

[@WintersWar]

The incessant hand gestures and touching his own cheek while talking, so in love with himself, also, he always thinks he's right on any issue.

[@christopherbremer2192]

i see his gestures as nervous awareness but I would rather hear the opinion of someone who studies such things. you are annoyed by his ability, i believe. he has spent huge hours learning, so don't be jealous

[@WintersWar]

@@christopherbremer2192 Your bizarre, imaginary conclusions regarding my observations of this interview spring from your own head.

[@jameswalker6864]

What the f? Noam Chomsky is not a philosopher. Please change the title name. Chomsky has no Bachelor's degree in philosophy, no Masters degree in philosophy and no Doctoral dissertation in philosophy. Chomsky has not written articles or books about philosophy either. Chomsky is only a linguist and a polytical analyst. It is an insult to real philosophers to call Chomsky a "philosopher".

[@preasail]

And what degree did Arisotle, Socrates, Plato, Mendel have?

[@jameswalker6864]

@@preasail Fallacy of bad analogy. Socrates did not live in an era where you could have a Bachelors Degree in Philosophy. Plus, it is not only about the education. Chomsky has no writings on philosophy. Chomsky has 0 books on philosophy and 0 papers on philosophy. He is a linguist and a political essayist. Nothing less, nothing more.

[@preasail]

@@jameswalker6864 You obviously missed my point. Degrees do not make a philosopher. Degrees from universities are just an arbitrary way of categorizing people and making money at the same time.

[@preasail]

@@jameswalker6864 Forgot the most important point: Chomsky didn't describe himself that way, the person who posted it, or some other entity came up with that title for the video.

[@huntsman8787]

"Chomsky has not written articles or books about philosophy either" . This remark is supremely ignorant. A quick look on Wikipedia will tell you that "Chomsky is a major figure in Analytic philosophy". Why is this so? Well, the answer is that Chomsky has intellectually wrestled with the best philosophers of our generation, namely Saul Kripke (who is considered the greatest living philosopher by the way), Hilary Putnam, Michael Dummett and also W.V Quine (These are analytic ones, he also debated with the French continental philosopher Michel Foucault , you can watch the debate on KZbin) The intellectual wrestling with professional philosophers has taken place through the medium of books, the most notable of these books by Chomsky are "Reflections on Language" and "Knowledge of Language". I suggest you go read these books before claiming "To call Chomsky a philosopher is an insult to real philosophers"