The Responsibility of Intellectuals

Originally published in the New York Review of Books, Chomsky s essay eviscerated the 'hypocritical moralism of the past' and exposed the shameful policies in Vietnam and the role of intellectuals in justifying it. Also included in this volume is the brilliant 'The Responsibility of Intellectuals Redux,' written on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, which makes the case for using privilege to challenge the state. As relevant now as it was in 1967, Chomsky reminds us that 'privilege yields opportunity and opportunity confers responsibilities.' All of us have choices, even in desperate times.

Praise for The Responsibility of Intellectuals:
One of Newsweek's "14 nonfiction books you'll want to read this fall"

Praise for Noam Chomsky:
"Chomsky is a global phenomenon. . . . He may be the most widely read American voice on foreign policy on the planet."
The New York Times Book Review

"America's most useful citizen."
The Boston Globe

"With relentless logic, Chomsky bids us to listen closely to what our leaders tell usand to discern what they are leaving outAgree with him or not, we lose out by not listening."
Businessweek

"For anyone wanting to find out more about the world we live inthere is one simple answer: read Noam Chomsky."
The New Statesman

"[He] undermine[s]the distinction between'what we stand for' and 'what we do.' His views are held not only by American critics on the left but also by many people around the world."
The New York Review of Books

Auteur
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor (Emeritus) in the MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. Widely credited with having revolutionized the field of modern linguistics, he is also a political dissident who has written more than one hundred books. His New Press books include Understanding Power, On Anarchism, and The Essential Chomsky. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Texte du rabat

Originally published as a special supplement by The New York Review of Books on the 23 February 1967. Includes second essay: The responsibility of intellectuals, redux.

Résumé

In one of his most famous essays, Noam Chomsky lays out the idea that intellectuals’ relative privilege imbues them with greater responsibility—one that was to be the guiding principle of his intellectual life

“Chomsky is a global phenomenon. . . . He may be the most widely read American voice on foreign policy on the planet.” —The New York Times Book Review

As a nineteen-year-old undergraduate in 1947, Noam Chomsky was deeply affected by articles about the responsibility of intellectuals written by Dwight Macdonald, an editor of Partisan Review and then of Politics. Twenty years later, as the Vietnam War was escalating, Chomsky turned to the question himself, noting that “intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments” and to analyze their “often hidden intentions.”

Originally published in the New York Review of Books, Chomsky’s essay eviscerated the “hypocritical moralism of the past” (such as when Woodrow Wilson set out to teach Latin Americans “the art of good government”) and exposed the destructive policies in Vietnam and the role of intellectuals in justifying them.

Chomsky then turns to the “war on terror” and “enhanced interrogation” of the Bush years in “The Responsibility of Intellectuals Redux,” an essay written on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. As relevant now as it was in 1967, The Responsibility of Intellectuals reminds us that “privilege yields opportunity and opportunity confers responsibilities.”