This post contains the transcript (made by Kelly Patrick Gerling) of the joint public statement by Matilde Marcolli, Robert C. Berwick, and Riny Huijbregts, Statement about Noam Chomsky that we posted as YouTube video on June 11, in response to a news article published the day before by the British journal "The Independent".
Matilde Marcolli: Okay, so we're getting here together to make a personal statement in response to news articles that have been circulating about Noam Chomsky yesterday and today. We are going to introduce ourselves briefly. All of us here are scientific collaborators of Chomsky. I'm going to introduce myself first. I'm Matilde Marcolli. I'm a mathematician and theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology. I have been a recent collaborator of Noam Chomsky starting in January of 2023. So my personal knowledge of Noam is only recent, but I've been deeply involved in this research work with him over this last year. Bob, do you want to introduce yourself?
Robert Berwick: Right. I'm Professor Robert Berwick at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Department of Computer Science. I've been a longtime friend and collaborator of Chomsky’s. We've written a book together. We've written and thought about many of the same areas together for over, well, I think now nearly four decades. So, I've had very, very close connections to him.
Matilde Marcolli: You've also been his student, right?
Robert Berwick: Yes, and also a student. I think we're all students of Chomsky. Riny, do you want to introduce yourself also?
Riny Huijbregts: Yes, I'm Riny Huijbregts from Utrecht University. I'm retired, and I've known Chomsky since, well, since '73, I guess, when he came to Holland. I have been in contact with him very frequently since 2014 with the publication of "Projections, Extensions, and Problems of Projection." Our contacts intensified during his work on Minimalist Theory, especially since 2018. He’s been a great friend, very loyal. He was never tired of explaining to me for the fifth time why I didn't understand some things. He was great in that. I owe a lot to him. I'm very happy to have been able to be a co-author of some of his works on minimalism but also on other topics. This is what I want to say.
Matilde Marcolli: Okay, thank you. So, as I said at the beginning, this is a kind of public statement that we want to make in response specifically to a news article that was published yesterday, June 10, by the British newspaper “The Independent,” on Noam Chomsky's current personal situation. This article has already been picked up and amplified by a large swath of international press, as is to be expected. It's an article that unfortunately does not even try to be factually accurate, is grossly insensitive, and also absolutely unnecessary.
So yes, Noam Chomsky is currently recovering from a serious medical problem. As is well known, he is 95 years old, though this fact is actually easy to forget given the enormous energy, productivity, and powerful, sharp, inquisitive mind with which he continues to produce amazing scientific results and, as you all know, continuously engages with matters of pressing public interest. So it does not require the notorious acumen of British tabloids to realize that at 95 years of age, recovering from a serious illness is a very delicate process.
It should also be completely clear to everyone who is not a British journalist that he deserves the respect and privacy that would grant him and his family the peace of mind to go through this slow recovery process undisturbed. Yes, of course, journalists are invested with the task of informing the public of important matters. So, to those journalists out there who think that they want to have a good run with this story, if you really want so much to write about Chomsky to the general public, why don't you inform them about all the great scientific work that he is doing?
Here you have a scientist who has a record of 70 years of uninterrupted work, one breakthrough after the other, for seven decades. It's not just that, which is already an incredibly rare and amazing achievement, but also consider the fact that just in these last few years, well into his 90s, Noam has developed an entirely new scientific model of language. This is one that is attracting attention from across many different fields of science right now.
All three of us here are just coming from a workshop that took place this weekend here at Caltech that was entirely dedicated to Chomsky's new theory and which drew together an unprecedented collaboration between linguists, mathematicians, theoretical physicists, and computer scientists. Isn't this something that is worth writing about in the press? Isn't this something that the general public should know?
Chomsky's new theory is now published. It's a book called “Merge and the Strong Minimalist Thesis.” It appeared in print with Cambridge University Press just this last December, exactly as Noam was turning 95. There are several more of his scientific contributions around this theory that are right now in the publication process. This is the news. Of course, in the public eye, Noam is known much more for his engagement with pressing social themes and for his political activism, which is always supported by his deep scholarly investigations of themes like international relations and the pressing concerns that threaten the survival of our planet and of humanity.
Over the years, through many decades, he has consistently provided the informed and reliable counter-narrative to the voice of power. His absence from the public scene is certainly very noticeable, especially in the context of the current crisis in Gaza, a theme that, as everyone knows, has been for a very long time of great importance to him.
So, I want to also say a few words, this time not as his scientific collaborator but as an anarchist, as Noam also is. While many misinformed people out there tend to view anarchism at best as some kind of unrealistic utopian dream and at worst as some kind of chaotic rebellion, in fact, anarchism is first and foremost an ethical project. It's the building, one difficult step at a time, of a world better than our own, one that maximizes agency and opportunity for all, a world that is worth inhabiting.
In many of his books addressed to the general public, Noam concludes with the same recommendation to his readers: even when the circumstances seem impossibly difficult, one should always choose to act with hope and with optimism because what is really the alternative? Pessimism and inaction can only guarantee the worst outcome.
So, the only recommendation that I really have for all those out there who are concerned and who would like to be helpful in this circumstance is to actually be supportive. Be supportive of Noam's work and ideas both in science and in the realm of social concerns, and continue to develop and enrich those ideas and to build on them in the best way we can. This is pretty much all that I can say as my personal statement, and I just want to leave it now to Bob and to Riny, who, in addition to being scientific collaborators of Noam, have also been his very close friends for a really long time, to say something more about this.
Robert Berwick: Well, I think Noam would endorse every single word that Matilde has put forward and would like everyone, as she said, to remember this work that he developed both along the lines of social action and along the lines of science, and that he has continued this down to the present moment, as she said, for over seven decades. That's what I would like to add to that.
Riny Huijbregts: Yes, I agree with both of you. Noam was very happy and very pleased with people, you know, finding him, and he was very enthusiastic about developing his new theory. The contacts were very intense in the last year, in the months of May and June. He was very fanatical about elaborating on his theory. He was convinced that it was going somewhere, and he instilled that enthusiasm in almost everyone who talked with him about that. This is what is very vivid in my memory. He would have liked his students to continue the work as best as they can.
Matilde Marcolli: Okay, so this is, of course, our own personal decision to run this kind of public statement. But, yeah, I would like to invite the people who are close to Noam, his friends, and collaborators, to show their support for him at this time and also continue to contribute to the work that he is doing. Thank you.
