Joshua Cohen Joel Rogers
“Knowledge, Morality and Hope: The Social Thought of Noam Chomsky,” New Left Review 187 (May-June 1991): 5-27. With J. Cohen. Reprinted as “Conocimeiento, moralidad y esperanza: el pensamiento social de Chomsky,” El Otro Derecho 7 (Winter 1991): 71-99; and “Knowledge, morality and hope: Chomsky’s social thought,” in C. Otero ed., Noam Chomsky: Critical Assessments (New York: Routledge, 1994): 554-577.
Knowledge, Morality and Hope: The Social Thought of Noam Chomsky
In his first published essay on politics, Noam Chomsky announced his conviction that ‘[i]t is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies.’1 Acting on that conviction, Chomsky has long supplemented his work in linguistics with writing on contemporary political affairs, focusing principally on the politics of the Middle East, the immorality of us foreign policy, and the role of American mass media and intellectuals in disguising and rationalizing that policy.2 By contrast with his work in linguistics, which is principally theoretical, Chomsky’s political writings in the main address more straightforwardly factual questions. As he emphasizes, these can be settled without special methods or training, and their significance can be appreciated through the application of common-sense norms and beliefs (for example, that aggression is wrong, concentrated power is dangerous, and citizens have greater responsibility for the policies of their own country than for those of other states), as aided by ‘a bit of open-mindedness, normal intelligence, and healthy scepticism.’3 5