AUDIENCE: You've had a chance to look over the syllabus for this course. What value do you think it might have for learners in the outside world, and would you recommend that they take a look at these readings and try to apply them to their own lives?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah, quite definitely. I mean, if we want to have any constructive impact on the world, any interchange with the world that will improve it will deal with the innumerable problems that exist. It has to be based on understanding of social, political, economic reality. Otherwise, you can't act in any serious way, just as you couldn't go into a chemistry lab and conduct an experiment unless you knew something good chemistry. Otherwise, you could mix chemicals and make funny smells and so on.
But if you want to do something serious, you have to understand first. And the syllabus of the course and conduct of the course aimed at and I think succeeds in providing the kind of fundamental understanding and challenge open questions that people have to think about if they want to be able to participate in a meaningful way in the general society.
