Two or more generations of left activists have grown up reading Noam #Chomsky's fearless exposure of the US imperium. Many now feel shattered, duped, and bewildered by the revelations of the extent of his relationship with #Epstein. Chris Knight explains what lies behind this extraordinary paradox, the Two Chomskys
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/02/06/the-chomsky-epstein-puzzle/
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@RadicalAnthro
> Chris Knight explains what lies behind this extraordinary paradox, the Two Chomskys
It's not that confusing. In the late 20th century it was considered normal to separate the public from the private. This was a prerequisite for things like diplomacy to exist. Where one might be horrified by the human rights abuses in a country, but still meet with its diplomats and leaders in a respectful way.
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But it's also a prerequisite for academic freedom. Where one might be highly critical of someone's methods, even horrified by the implications of their theories and the applications they put them to. But still be willing to engage in a respectful formal debate, even though that requires sharing space with them.
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The rise of social media started to dissolve this public/private membrane, and raised a generation unfamiliar with its uses. Leading to a situation where a person's entire creative output can be dismissed out of hand, because of the most flawed thing they've ever done, or even said. Where people's academic work or public activism, regardless of its own quality, can be dismissed on the same basis.
@strypey I've been thinking about this a lot. So many things and people could be discredited due to being associated with child-rapists. But maybe that's what should happen?
I don't know what a proper feminist solution would be, but if it is to cancel most or nearly all powerful and influential men and their ideas and systems and technologies throughout history, I could see dumping what led us to climate change, enshittification, fascism, billionaires, etc being not such a bad thing.
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Turns out that Chomsky isn't a flawless saint, because there's no such thing. He's a flawed human being, just like the rest of us. If we push his entire body of work down the Memory Hole because of these flaws, then sooner or later everyone's work ends up in there.
Like Mums for Liberty's book burning crusade, it's a profoundly regressive, anti-culture project. One of the many ways in which the rise of social media has led to the erosion of our capacity for collective sense-making.
@strypey perhaps you might read the article. It is not so much an attack on Chomsky's morals -- apart from the gaping hole of gender consciousness which isn't there with NC. It's an anthropological analysis of the complete paradox of a guy who could have lunch with the designer of the daisycutters dropped on Vietnam by B52s while going to campaign against the Vietnam invasion and the draft in the evening. That is one very extreme example of how capitalism and imperialism splits people into parts.
Knight has very little time for Chomsky's supposed 'science'. But NC had a woeful effect across the entirety of cognitive science for the whole of the second half of the 20th.C. it suited the US military-industrial machine to a) keep tabs on him by keeping him at work, and let him become this voice and b) fuck up materialist thinking.
@RadicalAnthro
> perhaps you might read the article
Unlike many, I read in full before I comment.
> It is not so much an attack on Chomsky's morals
Where did I say it was? To be clear, I wasn't attacking you or your article, just riffing on its topic.
> It's an anthropological analysis of the complete paradox
This is what I was commenting on, which is why I quoted words to that effect as the jumping off point. I don't think there's a paradox to be explained. For reasons given in my posts.
