Chomsky basically says that intellectuals have a responsibility to expose the lies said by those in power. Hard to argue with, but maybe kind of a platitude.
I think I’d answer this question differently in 2026. The responsibility of intellectuals to society at large today, in an era overwhelmed with information, propaganda, immensely complex issues, etc. is – communicate the issues of the day in a way that is clear and accessible. With the assumption that intellectuals are “experts in ideas.”
I say this because so many contemporary debates seem really mangled and unclear, which makes them basically impossible to solve intellectually. Instead they just turn into battles of will where one side seeks to defeat the other in toto, not actually arrive at a solution that overcomes the conflict.
Unfortunately the academic system is explicitly designed to create specialists, not people that can effectively communicate to the Everyman.
The article was hilarious to me. To whom are we responsible? And who manages the "truth" supply?
If we're assuming a postmodern stance that there is no objective truth, or even a utilitarian stance that truth is a consensus, then life is reduced to some extended chemical reaction, and there is no difference between a Stalin and a Mother Theresa.
If one posits some religious definition of an objective truth, then at least there is a definition to measure against beside "Do as thou wilt".
I'm not a huge Chomsky fan anyway. Despite his appeal to truth, he tends to ring false for me.
Yet, we are bombarded with easily-falsifiable claims (“assassin”) by government officials and ridiculously-framed accounts (“officer-involved shooting”) from certain news outlets.
This sort of contrarianism is especially grating given the amount of distancing from social responsibility occurs here as a forum of what should be mostly intellectuals.
Put differently, intellectuals and technologists wield more power to enact both positive and negative change than the average citizens in a democratic society. I would agree with Chomsky that there is some relationship to exposing truth in an information-based society.
Responsibility is to those that give status. Duty of the pro-social sort is what you buy status (regard) with.
Neither subjective or consensus accounts of truth (neither of which correspond with postmodernism or utilitarianism in the way you imply) are obviously inconsistent. Philosophers would not bother talking about them if that were the case.
Funnily enough, I can't tell which of Stalin and Mother Theresa you are worried will be confused with the other, given that many people have opposite ideas of which was moral and which was immoral.
Modern religions define objective morality, not objective truth (excluding metaphysical assertions, which are not what one usually means by truth).
US involvement was unnecessary in Vietnam because unlike the Koreans, communist Vietnam hated China, and was in no danger of being their ally (puppet.)
Mcnamara actually explained this at some point. That’s why we are allies with Vietnam today and not North Korea.
Truth exists and matters. Even for far-away events like news, where "truth" is impossible to prove beyond doubt like hard science. Even for informally-defined concepts like justice, where "truth" is ambiguous and partly subjective. There are answers for the former that are more probable, and for the latter that resonate with more people, and those tend to correlate with the answers that are more conducive to whatever goals one has (even greed), and especially (utilitarian) long-term human prosperity.
The truth is unfathomably complex yet coherent. White lies lead to bigger lies that eventually unravel, because the implications of a lie are more lies. Sometimes even lies that seem like they'd never "blow up in your face", because humans aren't perfect. Some obvious lies one can accept and pretend are the truth, and it does work...until it doesn't, because those lies have implications that can't be accepted.
Unfortunately it can take a long time, until the lie no longer matters and/or the liar is dead. But truth practically always wins in the long-term, even historically for the losers (yes it's impossible to disprove that people and groups have been erased, and random nobodies are forgotten; but today we can even read burnt scrolls and know lots about the "Lost Colony" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roanoke_Colony)). More importantly, I believe truth wins more often and faster than most people argue, to the point where one should generally assume it matters. Though I can't prove it, like the events/concepts I'm describing, assume otherwise at your own loss...
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Related to the recent ICE shooting: even some conservatives oppose the MAGA narrative, look at https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/. Others will never defy MAGA, but they aren't the majority; Trump won but with barely over 50%. Truth exists and matters.
Sycophantic idealism mixed with political Brand analytical-blindness is incompatible with functional democratic processes. Verifiable facts are the core responsibility of the Scientific process, and a lot of people still fail that minimal standard.
Modern corruption is just unsustainable populist negligence, that coincidentally also collapsed many empires in history. Suggesting Academic bureaucracy is a functional Meritocracy is naive wishful thinking, and ignores why these structures usually still degenerate to merge with poorly obfuscated despotic movements.
I agree with your suggestion, but I wonder if it is enough. Look at what happened today. Moments after the shooting, there was a coordinated campaign to flood the zone with misinformation. Twitter accounts for Trump, DHS (Kristi Noem), Vance, Miller all said someone tried to assassinate ICE officers and was shot in self defense. This was completely the opposite of what happened and given how quickly they put out these messages, they had no way of knowing either.
They simply put it out there because no matter what, this is what they will say in response to an ICE shooting. It is a way of confusing the messaging and preventing their supporters from being convinced by anyone else or any evidence. Once their base form that initial opinion, it is very hard to change their mind. So will intellectually actually reach those people effectively?
Remember, this base has been told to distrust the academics and distrust science and distrust the news media.
The reason exterminate always go after academics is because they make things harder. The vast majority of academics could make more money than they do as a professor. The authoritarian relies on the religious nature of followers and it's harder for those followers to have faith when it's constantly being questioned. It's why your mental model of an authoritarian regime is where people are afraid to speak freely.
You're right that the strategy is to confuse and overload. It's difficult to counter and I think you're exactly right to say "enough". We need to adapt to this strategy too. I think it's important to remember that truth has a lower bound in complexity but lies don't. They have an advantage because they can sell simplicity. We have the disadvantage when we try to educate. But what we need to do is remind people of how complex reality is while not making them feel dumb for not knowing. It's not easy. Even the biggest meathead who is as anti academic as they come will feel offended if you call them (or imply they're) stupid (are you offended if they call you weak?). We need a culture shift to accept not knowing things and that not knowing things doesn't make one stupid. I have a fucking PhD and I'm dumb as shit. There's so much I don't know about my own field, let alone all the others. I've put in a lot of hard work to be "smart", but the smartest people I know say "I don't know" and that's often the most interesting thing you can hear.
It's no easy task to solve. Don't forget, we're a species that would rather invent imaginary invisible wizards than admit we don't know. We're infinitely curious but also afraid of the unknown.
> But what we need to do is remind people of how complex reality is while not making them feel dumb for not knowing.
Well-said, even if the sentiment is in-and-of itself somehow condescending. No way around it, really.
To be fair, as well, there are an enormous number of people who do this already. They are educators, they are docents, they are civil servants. They quietly perform this task day in and out without much recognition or fanfare.
The demonization of these people can’t be ignored, either. It’s as if their services run counter to the interests of those who put so much money and effort into that demonization…
In a complex world the little things matter. We feel unimportant because we're little. But also remember one person cutting you off on your way to work can ruin your whole day. But similarly one person giving you a smile can turn it around. The little things matter because all the big things are made of a thousand small things. That's why it's so important. I'm not asking everyone to go do big things. I'm asking people to do little things. You have to treat people the way you wish they treated you, even when they don't. Do they deserve it? No. But do you?
A thing I've learned is that often when people are mad they're not mad at you. Maybe you're part of it, but usually you're just at the end of some long chain. It's easier to respond to anger when you realize this.
battles of will where one side seeks to defeat the other in toto, not actually arrive at a solution that overcomes the conflict.
The deeper issue is immigration policy, which is a topic that displays the pattern I mentioned: no real attempt to solve the issue by addressing both sides/various parties, and instead boils it into an us-them struggle of political wills.
The responsibility of intellectuals in this case should be IMO to clearly analyze the immigration debate and discuss the benefits, downsides, likely consequences etc. of various actions.
But we don’t get that. Instead everyone just has an opinion already formed, including the intellectuals. And unfortunately unbiased rational approaches seem to lose (in money, attention) to the loud and opinionated.
So as the problem gets more complicated, people get further and further away from actually solving it.
Unfortunately the well was poisoned for this debate when the Republican Party enacted a decades-long campaign of obstructionism and propaganda. No doubt, there are individuals who must be absolutely giddy with excitement that the very “crisis” that they managed to manufacture (both literally through legislative obstructionism, and figuratively through media capture and propaganda) is now the perfect excuse to grab power to enact an authoritarian regressive agenda instead of slowly sliding more progressive due to demographic drift.
So, basically, my point is beware getting dragged into debates that clearly only benefit specific parties with specific agendas without first asking yourself more critical questions about the bigger picture.
> In fact, I think the lack of debate is really hurting today's left.
Moderate left voices are not featured in the current media landscape. The Democrat party is, at best, centrist, if not currently undergoing a conservative transformation parallel to the Republican party’s reactionary transformation. And for that reason:
> And he doesn’t seem to be going after employers, which would be more effective.
this is a complete nonstarter.
In any case, there are plenty of calls for reform from the left. “Abolish ICE” (like “Defund the police”) is not equivalent to “end immigration enforcement” (or likewise “end law enforcement”), even though the histrionics across the media landscape would have you believe that. It’s a core leftwing tenet (imho) that organizations that are rotten must be eliminated, and if appropriate, their leadership and members punished. New organizations can then step in to fulfill the role of the previous organization, sans rot.
In that sense, “Many people want deportations but don’t like how Trump is doing them.” see more eye-to-eye with the “Abolish ICE” people than the media wants them to believe.
> Moderate left voices are not featured in the current media landscape
The point still stands. Parallel to vying for mainstream news attention, leftists have podcasts like rightists; more should start these, and in them hold debates with centrists and rightists.
> “Many people want deportations but don’t like how Trump is doing them.” see more eye-to-eye with the “Abolish ICE” people than the media wants them to believe.
Don't blame the media for that. "Abolish ICE" sounds like "end immigration enforcement". Although the left has a credibility problem on immigration, because they downplayed Biden's lax immigration policy (there's a lot that mainstream news hasn't covered), so I suspect changing the message would hurt more than help them. Most outsiders will assume the left supports mass immigration, but they can be moved to the left by other policies (like lowering grocery prices) and Trump wrecking the US.
I would say that one has as much responsibility to society, as that society accepts for the individual.
As a previously homeless veteran, I'd say that is zero. Why should intellectuals, or in fact anyone have any duty to help a system that doesn't help them?
Now I know a lot of people will grandstand and say that if people just started taking on responsibility, then that would improve the system so that it would help more, but again, I did my part and was promised to be taken care of by society with its fingers crossed behind its back.
This only results in a race to the bottom. A self fulfilling prophecy. The unfortunate truth is that if you want the world to be better you need to be better to it than it is to you. It's the only way that can even work.
You can just do nothing and things will get better when others do more than they get, but by you doing nothing you've just shifted your burden to others. The burden of each individual is small. Almost insignificant even. It's not hard to be kinder to others than they are to you. But the burden accumulates and compounds. You don't have to pick up the slack, but you do need to do your part. The future is made by all of us
They are helping society not the system. They might fight the system. There is no ignoring, thats supporting the system. There is no silence, the system can produce fake intellectuals. There is no hiding, the system must pursue the individuals because its the ideas that need dying. The intellectuals are pursued even after death.
Of course, anyone always has the option to volunteer to make the world a better place; but the idea that anyone has a responsibility, or moral obligation to help a society that is actively hostile towards them is insanity.
I'll add that this is the whole purpose of a society. The social contract is that of a coalition. Our combined utility is greater than the sum of our individual utility.
To not have an obligation to society is to be a drain on it. Even if you don't recognize it you still get a lot of benefit from society. It could be better. It should be better. But that will never happen if you never put in your part.
Get off your high horse. This person bled for their country and once their service ended, was discarded without a second thought. They are entitled to feel the way they feel and have earned the privilege to voice their outrage. It is our duty to listen.
Their service is commendable and I'll even go so far to say that they were betrayed. But I still don't agree. We all have a duty. Being betrayed gives you every right to be angry, but it is what you do with that anger that matters. Do you use it as an excuse to be self centered or do you recognize that if you're betrayed so have others. That those that betrayed you can only do so because you do not band together. That you do not use your anger to band together and tell them to fuck off. To make them fuck off.
I'm personally very anti war. But I also am very dissatisfied with how we treat our veterans. To send them to, as Hawkeye says: "worse than hell", and then just abandon them?! That's a high moral sin. Outright unconscionable. But recognize they can only get away with this because we let them. I'm not okay with it, are you?
It isn't our duty to listen and do nothing. It is our duty to get mad and do something. Which is exactly what Droopy said
Responsibility of intellectuals, or wise men/women, has always been to guide the tribe towards security, happiness and prosperity. Not to sow dissent inside the tribe by moralizing, while completely ignoring all the ills in other tribes.
So called "intellectuals" who do it just to further their own selfish goals, should not be awarded high ranking positions.
One of the major lessons of the 1900s is that the moral ills of your own tribe are more important than the problems other people might have. You don't live in some other country, you live in your own. Local concerns are by far the #1 issue.
Even in the 2000s, one of the most ironic outcomes is that US hegemony forced a bunch of countries into really dominant regional positions (thinking especially of Japan, China and Germany) because they had nothing else to do but fix their own internal problems and it turns out that is a dominant strategy over militarism. Moral positions like peace, law, consistency and fairness aren't vague nice-to-haves, they are principles that lead to better outcomes for the people who stick with them.
"You know, I ran into Henry Kissinger years ago and I asked him if he enjoyed the intellectual stimulation of the work, and he said in effect, 'I am working with the ideas that I formed at Harvard years ago. I haven't had a real idea since I've been on this; I just work with the old ideas."
Sorry. I see responsibility of the intellectual is first of all to enjoy the stimulation. If not, putting quotes around the term, as you did, is correct.
How far are you prepared to go with the "loyalty to the tribe" argument? If your "tribe" is 1942 Germany and you know about the ongoing Holocaust, does your line of thinking imply that you should keep quiet about it? You know, not to sow dissent by moralizing.
