How Are Human Language And Rights Related ? Noam Chomsky Explains The Connection

In the September issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics Noam Chomsky explores the link between human language, which is regarded as the factor that stimulated the great leap forward and our conception of fundamental human rights. The paper is based on the address delivered by Professor Chomsky while receiving his honorary degree in Psychology at the University of Bologna, April 1, 2005.

In this paper Chomsky describes how his work in linguistics and his concern with human rights were always strictly intertwined. He reminds that “we are not merely engaged in seminars on abstract principles, or discussing remote cultures that we do not comprehend We are speaking of ourselves, and the moral and intellectual values of the privileged elite communities in which we live. If we do not like what we see when we look into the mirror honestly, we have every opportunity to do something about it.”