It started with Piers Morgan’s trademark sycophancy, introducing the giant left-wing intellectual Noam Chomsky as “in my view, one of the great minds of our generation”. Which is of course, hard to argue – Chomsky is a genius. But before you could say ‘UK phone hacking scandal’, things started to head south as it became clear Morgan was in way over his head.
Without wishing to spoil any of Chomsky’s slap downs of Morgan for asking extraordinarily stupid, loaded ‘alternative fact’ style questions, as an example, when asked about China’s ‘intent’ to ‘invade’ Taiwan, Chomsky replied: “I would suggest distinguishing between western propaganda, and the facts.” And when Morgan had a second crack at it, “But I would like to describe the world situation as it is, not as its presented by US-British propaganda.”
Morgan also raised “mad man” Vladimir Putin’s motivations for the war in Ukraine (which he claimed were about ‘restoring the great Russian empire’), asking Chomsky ‘what should we do’? “The first thing we do is try to be clear about the facts. Vladimir Putin said it was a disaster for the Soviet Union to be destroyed, but he added ‘Anyone who thinks it can be restored is out of his mind.’ That part of the quotation is not given in the West.”
So Morgan tried to switch to more familiar ground – the culture wars, and specifically, the ‘assault on free speech’, with things like ‘teaching critical race theory to children’. You can guess how that went.
The interview was going so badly, Morgan was forced to retreat to questions like, ‘What big unanswered question do you have about the universe?’
Needless to say, Chomsky made it clear he was uninterested in talking himself or his private life. The video is almost 40 minutes long, but it’s a masterclass in what happens when a right-wing fluff merchant tries to interview someone with deep knowledge of global politics.
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