The Responsibility of Intellectuals by Noam Chomsky

The Responsibility of Intellectuals

• Intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments, to analyze actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions.
• It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak truth and to expose lies.
• It is of no particular interest that on man is quite happy to lie in behalf of a cause which he knows to be unjust; but it is significant that such events provoke so little response in the intellectual community.
• In addition to this growing lack of concern for truth, we find, in recent published statements, a real or feigned naivete about American actions that reaches startling proportions.
• No one would be disturbed by an analysis of the political behavior of the Russians, French, or Tanzanians questioning their motives and interpreting their actions by the long-range interests concealed behind their official rhetoric. But it is an article of faith that American motives are pure, and not subject to analysis. Although it is nothing new in American intellectual history--or, for that matter, n the general history of imperialist apologia--this innocence becomes increasingly distasteful as the power it serves grows more dominant in world affairs, and more capable, therefore, of the unconstrained viciousness that the mass media present to us each day.
• The long tradition of naivete and self-righteousness that disfigures our intellectual history, however, must serve as a warning to the third world, if such a warning is needed, as to how our protestations of sincerity and benign intent are to be interpreted.
• American aggressiveness, however it may be masked in pious rhetoric, is a dominant force in world affairs and must be analyzed in terms of its causes and motives.
• There is no body of theory or significant body of relevant information, beyond the comprehension of the layman, which makes policy immune from criticism.
• To the extend that "expert knowledge" is applied to world affairs, it is surely appropriate--for a person of any integrity, quite necessary--to question its quality and the goals it serves.
• I would simply like to emphasize that, as is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent.
• Obviously, one must learn from social and behavioral science whatever one can; obviously, these fields should be pursued as seriously as possible. But it will be quite unfortunate, and highly dangerous, if they are not accepted and judged on their merits and according their their actual, not pretended, accomplishments.
• When we consider the responsibility of intellectuals, our basic concern must be their role in the creation and analysis of ideology.
• It is easy for an American intellectual to deliver homilies on the virtues of freedom and liberty, but if he is really concerned about, say, Chinese totalitarianism or the burdens imposed on the Chinese peasantry in force industrialization, then he should face a task that is infinitely more important and challenging--the task of creating, in the United States, the intellectual and moral climate, as well as the social and economic conditions, that would permit this country to participate in modernization and development in a way commensurate with its material wealth and technical capacity.
• If it is the responsibility of the intellectual to insist upon the truth, it is also his duty to see events in their historical perspective.
• Quite often, the statements of sincere and devoted technical experts give surprising insight into the intellectual attitudes that lie in the background of the latest savagery.