Noam on intellectuals
I asked Noam Chomsky to elaborate on his embrace of American anti-
intellectualism, and if he considered himself an intellectual. Here’s
his answer:
In standard usage, “intellectual” means someone who has sufficient
privilege, resources, opportunities, etc., so as to be able to
reach some kind of audience on matters of general human interest.
Has nothing particular to do with insight, knowledge,
intelligence,…. By “anti-intellectualism” I meant the strain in
American culture that doesn’t take intellectuals too seriously,
about the opposite extreme from Paris, where if one of the famed
“intellectuals” sneezes, there’s a front-page story in Le Monde and
everyone gasps with awe. In these terms, I’m an intellectual, and
Americans shouldn’t take me seriously for that reason. I’m all in
favor of that.
Me, I don’t think an “intellectual” is one with privileges,
resources, connections, etc., or shouldn’t be. An intellectual is
someone with specialized knowledge, the capacity to synthesize facts
and ideas into some sort of analysis, the skills to circulate their
knowledge and analysis through words and images. Like Noam Chomsky,
who deserves to be taken seriously.
Doug
February 22nd, 2007 at 7:35 pm
I would not speak for Chomsky, but have read enough of him to take a guess of what his response would probably be. You say “An intellectual is someone with…the capacity to synthesize facts and ideas into some sort of analysis, the skills to circulate their knowledge an analysis through words and images.” I think Chomsky would argue that most people have this ability. He has used the example of a blue-collar worker who has an amazing knowledge of sports, statistics from years back and so forth, and calls into sports radio shows and argues with the host about the host’s opinion. It seems to me most people have this capacity.
The part I left out was “An intellectual is someone with specialized knowledge”. I would think Chomsky would respond that in some fields that is relevant - for example, his role as a linguist and cognitive scientist, or perhaps that of a doctor of biological researcher and whatnot. However, he often says that politics is relatively trivial, that there is no magic theory that will save people, it just comes down to a lot of hard work. He is not a big believer in political specialists, or that politics even need specialists. Didn’t Athens select by lot? I think we can see that idea up through Jefferson. Of course, people concentrating on an area and gaining specialization is not something he is opposed to, but as he has said before, he has met little peace groups in medium-sized Midwest cities whose members collectively have a more realistic and concrete analysis then the reports put out by the CIA. My own experience seems to support that, not just with the example of all the strange trports about Iraq and so forth from the government, but strange reports I’ve read that Rand, SRI etc. put out years ago which are quite bizarre.