The Responsibility of Intellectuals- Noam Chomsky has brought back the issue once again . In 1967, during Vietnam War, Noam Chomsky wrote The Responsibility of Intellectuals, rebuking scientists and scholars for their subservience to political power.
Chomsky says we face a similar situation and has published an article in the Boston Review .
In the article Chomsky says “The concept of intellectuals in the modern sense gained prominence with the 1898 “Manifesto of the Intellectuals” produced by the Dreyfusards who, inspired by Emile Zola’s open letter of protest to France’s president, condemned both the framing of French artillery officer Alfred Dreyfus on charges of treason and the subsequent military cover-up.” .
What are the obligations of intellectuals in this day and age?
Chomsky is very critical of President Obama’s dispatch of 79 commandos into Pakistan on May 1 which he says was to carry out “what was evidently a planned assassination of the prime suspect in the terrorist atrocities of 9/11, Osama bin Laden. Though the target of the operation, unarmed and with no protection, could easily have been apprehended, he was simply murdered, his body dumped at sea without autopsy. The action was deemed “just and necessary” in the liberal press. There will be no trial, as there was in the case of Nazi criminals—a fact not overlooked by legal authorities abroad who approve of the operation but object to the procedure.”
See also the reply to this article by Archon Fung The Constructive Responsibility of Intellectuals
You can also watch Chomsky’s talk live “The Responsibility of Intellectuals in the 21st Century”
on Thursday, September 22, 2011 (MIT Wong Auditorium)
4:30–6 p.m. (Boston Time)
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
