Noam Chomsky poses in his office at MIT.(Ulf Andersen/Getty Images)
My heart is racing - not a good thing for a person whose faulty mitral valve required open-heart surgery exactly four years ago. As I recovered, Noam checked in with me, emailed jokes and made sure I was healing well. I’ve done a lot of thinking lately about the lessons I learned from Noam Chomsky, and about my good fortune at being able to observe close up his brilliantly observant mind and doggedly unswerving morality.
Through our daily communications, I learned to look at the world in new ways, while recognizing the human being he was off of the pedestal some followers had placed him on. I don’t know how he did it, traveling, speaking and researching to exhaustion even while detractors fabricated another reality of his life’s work, to gain a larger audience, to grandstand, or to further their own political agendas.
The current controversy pits Noam Chomsky against unrelenting media reports presenting a man I don’t recognize. The Chomsky I worked with for two and a half decades never rested, hardly socialized, never hung with elites. Even going to MIT’s Visiting Committee meetings when his status as Institute Professor warranted it, he sighed and promised them ninety minutes of his time. It was that difficult to lift his head from his work. He would rather meet with an inspired group of young activists, every day of the week.
While puzzling out how and whether to respond to the fray, I wrote in detail about my thoughts on the undated, unaddressed, unsigned, uncharacteristic “recommendation letter” that’s been circulating, based on my time as his assistant. Then I deleted it.
What can we believe in the media, especially these days, when truth is buried? With lies, cruelty, and smoke and mirrors front and center, I recall how he taught me to navigate negativity in order to preserve my own sanity. So instead of screaming out what I know to be true about Noam Chomsky, and about the current situation, I choose to share his enduring words of advice to me.
This, I believe, is what he would want me to do. It is without doubt the most respectful thing I can do.
Excerpted and slightly paraphrased, from Chomsky and Me (OR Books 2023):
Weathering the Storm
2011
One of the first emails I read as I opened Noam’s inbox one morning was a nasty rant. He expected, even welcomed disagreement, but the over-the-top rage of some had more to do with their own pre-existing agendas or personal issues, and Noam, having strong and specific political views, seemed a convenient vehicle for their anger. But it was my job to pass all of Noam’s messages on to him, from friend, colleague, or ranter.
I forwarded even those I would rather have trashed with one keystroke. So when I opened this especially ugly email, I jumped from my chair, gathered items for an impromptu meeting, and stormed into his office. I didn’t actually storm. Noam doesn’t respond to drama. I excused myself for interrupting his reading and asked him if we could talk. He looked up with a touch of concern and nodded, and I launched right in.
“Noam, don’t nasty, antagonistic emails from enraged people bother you? Considering how you live your life, how do you keep from blowing up?”
“Do you get angry with a hurricane?” he asked.
“No, I don’t get angry with a hurricane, but I am upset when people are hurt by a hurricane …” I was pacing.
Noam interrupted, “But do you get angry with the hurricane?”
“No,” I said, because I knew it was the right answer. Was this what his students felt—momentarily cluelessness, with a moment of enlightenment lurking?
“Well, people are hurricanes.”
“I’ll think about that,” I said, returning to my desk, undeniably unenlightened.
After giving it some thought I wondered if he was suggesting that you can’t control a hurricane any more than you can a person. If so, what did he do with his frustration? A few days later I wrote to ask him how he kept from reacting to a writer’s fury. Yes, it was the same question, but I worded it in a way that wouldn’t hint that he might be answering a question I was to have figured out for myself.
He wrote: “People usually have reasons for being angry, however distorted and unpleasant. There’s always some hope that they can be dealt with. Sometimes it even works, after a lot of effort. But what’s the point in being angry about it? A three-year-old doubtless has a reason for an annoying tantrum, but do we get angry at the kid?” Most things I heard in our suite circled around again, in a colleague’s email, an overheard conversation, a Skype interview I sat in on as an extra set of ears. In this way I learned that even hostile discourse can be a step toward understanding, and that many lack the ability to control reactions, like anger, rage, or frustration. I decided to follow Noam’s lead and don raincoat and boots to wait out the storm. Finding compassion in anger was no doubt one of my life lessons coming full circle.
Jumping into a storm’s vortex only gives it more energy. It takes more intestinal fortitude to wait for the winds to die down so as to not get sucked in. I’m still learning.
Today is Noam Chomsky’s 97th birthday. If he were able, I know he would do what he did every year: disregard any celebrations and keep on working.
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Bev Boisseau Stohl is a writer and memoirist best known for her nearly 24-year role as administrative assistant and office manager to Noam Chomsky, one of the world’s most prominent linguists, social critics, and political writers. In that capacity she ran his MIT office from 1993 until his relocation in 2017, organizing lectures, managing a stream of visitors and correspondence, and supporting his work across academia and activism.
Her work has appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the MIT Press publications, Stethoscopes and Pencils, and other outlets, and she has spoken about her experiences on radio and in interviews.
Stohl is the author of Chomsky and Me: A Memoir (OR Books, 2023), a book that combines office anecdotes, personal reflection, and insight into Chomsky’s life and work.