'The role of the intellectual, so it is said, is to speak truth to power. Noam Chomsky has dismissed this pious tag on two grounds. For one thing, power knows the truth already; it is just busy trying to conceal it. For another, it is not those in power who need the truth, but those they oppress.'
(here)
8 comments:
"Like many an Oxbridge academic, he has spent a lifetime bouncing off other people's ideas, however brilliantly. The Oxbridge tutorial was traditionally a place in which one partner, the student, staggered in clutching huge, unwieldy armfuls of ideas, while the other, the tutor, cut them sarcastically down to size with the rapier of his disinterested intelligence and packed him off poorer but more honest."
:-)
I think the smiley was already implicit in the quote ;)
yes. just smiling back.
Apologies for the blatantplug, but I'm a recent addition to the bloggerati, and was
wondering if you'd mind linking to me. As a point of
fact (and this is not some dreadful attempt to butter
you up) your blog was the first I ever looked at, so
you can claim some responsibility for mine - which
can be found, incidentally, at
awopbopaloobop.blogspot.com. If you like what you
see, a link would be very much appreciated.
Cheers
Rob
Apologies for the blatant plug, but I'm a recent addition to the bloggerati, and was
wondering if you'd mind linking to me. As a point of
fact (and this is not some dreadful attempt to butter
you up) your blog was the first I ever looked at, so
you can claim some responsibility for mine - which
can be found, incidentally, at
awopbopaloobop.blogspot.com. If you like what you
see, a link would be very much appreciated.
Cheers
Rob
Having never heard the Chomsky quote, but annoyed at what seemed to me blatant naivety in the idea of 'speaking truth to power', I had planned to write a short blog post on the subject of 'speaking powerful truths to the powerless'.
But damn that Chomsky, getting in there [a long time] before me! I might have to start hanging around Odious Kamm's site.
I might have to start hanging around Odious Kamm's site.
No need - just read 'tomorrow's Times'
Interesting post. I have mixed emotions about Mr. Chomskey (Doesn;t he realize how little use the Pol Pot regime had for his kind of intellectual), but the man just seems to state it like it is.
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