Review: Free to be Human

David Edwards Free to be Human: intellectual self-defence in an age of illusions Green Books 1995, £9.95: This book is an attempt to talk about "spiritual values" in the framework of the writings of Noam Chomsky. This is a big mistake. Much ill-defined talk of "thought control" (like the fact that unwitting students are forced to study such evil fellows as Shakespeare and George Orwell, as opposed to, yes, Noam Chomsky), harnessed to a sort of sub-Buddhism (actually he fails to distinguish clearly between Buddhism and Taoism, which he refers to as if they were more or less interchangeable). The Threefold Fire of Delusion is illustrated by explaining why people might in their weakness and foolishness reject the writings of Noam Chomsky.