Some twenty years ago I had a correspondence with Noam Chomskythat lasted for several months. The issues are familiar, and theseletters will not add to anyone's knowledge or insights on them.I present the letters now not for their ostensible content butfor their style.
The correspondence of academicsis generally marked by great courtesy. Sometimes this courtesyis exaggerated so that mockery can be suspected. Sometimes thetone lapses into cool formality and, rarely, thinly veiled incivility.But these deviations from the norm of courtesy are rare.
Professor Chomsky's style,however, is something altogether different and, I believe, unique.Here I was, a perfect stranger, somebody he is unlikely to everhave heard of, somebody who could not have mattered much in hislife or work, and yet he invests this correspondence with manicenergy, lengthy persistence, and most puzzling of all, with averbal violence that is almost universally shunned by adults.
A truly outstanding person.
(The following PDF file isbest viewed by pressing on the magnifier [zooming key] a numberof times)
Werner Cohn
May, 2006
Sendan e-mail to Werner Cohn This e-mail link maynot work for you if you use a web-based e-mail service. If so,please use my direct e-mail address as follows: wernercohn@mac.com