Noam Chomsky · Politics

The Responsibility of Intellectuals

Chomsky’s 1967 essay on the moral duty of the privileged: because intellectuals enjoy freedom, training, and access to information that most people lack, it is their responsibility to speak the truth and to expose the lies of governments - a duty the era’s celebrated experts were busy betraying.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned that Chomsky argues privilege creates responsibility: intellectuals, who have freedom and access to information, are duty-bound ‘to speak the truth and to expose lies,’ especially the lies of their own government - and that the ‘new mandarins’ who served the Vietnam War betrayed tha…

Leads to Julien Benda.

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