The Responsibility of Intellectuals

As for actually revealing falsehoods and discovering unconscious intentions of social bodies, the sole responsibility falls on individuals ultimately. Intellectuals are in a position (supposed to be) better able to expose the lies by speaking truth. Analytic exposition of “deceit and distortion” in representation of Vietnam war based on historical precedent of US following the end of hostilies in European Theatre of World War II; plain, naive ignorance is unwilling to face facts of unjust aggression, often masked under the guise of pseudo-skepticism’s denials. American intellectuals during Vietnam failed to adequately challenge the assumption that “the United States has the right to extend its power and control without limit…” Expertise does not make one immune from criticism. Oftentimes it is a cloak for propaganda posing as patriotism, if not a ‘realistic’ view; in which case it tends to exclude dissent’s interpretations both by over-reacting and entirely dismissing their claims without responding to one. False experts can, at times, in their shamelessly self-serving defense be worked up into an almost psychotic justifications of hostile action. Which the anti-war movement often confuses with appropriate means to justify its own position. Even experts on values derived from social systems and the human sciences use their ‘expertise’ to rationalize conflict, only rather than citing necessity or convenience, they base their lies on ostensibly scientific principles. “To anyone who has any familiarity with the social and behavioral sciences… the claim that there are certain considerations and principles too deep for the outsider to comprehend is simply an absurdity…” The primary responsibility of intellectuals is the formation and critique of ideological constructs. When expertise is valued over intellect, the result is a stagnation of productive, scholarly activity in favor of complacence to support the status quo. With specific relevance to “the Western experience,” there is a question of helping people choose to make sacrifices for improving or whether elitist ideologues shall force them into fascist systems for their own benefit. Development of economic and democratic institutions in the third world involves a great “effort required to raise the level of culture in Western society to the point where it can provide” a means to do this simultaneously abroad while maintaining democracy at home. ‘Intellectuals’ who are bought off tend to be rather homogeneous in their pronouncements. ‘”The government of the world must be entrusted to satisfied nations, who wished nothing more for themselves than what they had. If the world-government were in the hands of hungry nations there would always be danger.”‘ Basically, some people are content to live as if in peace at the cost of war across the globe; they aren’t intellectuals: Those are terrorists. Action’s good intentions, and even precedent, do not ensure just, an equitable outcome. Stop telling lies, or condoning them with silence, in defense of freedom’s truth (not necessarily that we don’t trust you personally to do it, merely that the other ‘experts’ see and think it o.k. for them—gets hard to sort out).

http://www.chomsky.info/articles/19670223.htm