From Jeffrey Epstein to Lawrence Krauss to Woody Allen, Chomsky has shown a clear pattern of poor judgment and low moral standards. Hard to express how disappointed I am in him. (2,800 words.)
Whether to cite his work again is a personal choice. I don't think shunning it is necessarily a moral obligation. All art and scholarly inquiry is done by fallible humans. If you had never learned any of these facts about his personal moral failings, you'd have gone on citing his work because you see value in it. Has that value disappeared? Do you no longer respect his ideas? Or is it just that they're now associated with the pain of being disappointed by the man?
I think we all have to navigate this problem at some point. There are authors whose work I greatly admire, but I now read their books a bit differently after revelations about their personal lives. I'll never take quite the same uncomplicated pleasure in the work. But I don't swear off it. The books are as great as they ever were. I'm the one who changed.
Yeah I agree, and I don’t even like Chomsky’s work that much. It’s juvenile to swear off someone’s work because they themselves are a scumbag though. Imagine doing this with something like physics… you wouldn’t disregard gravity if Newton turned out to be a mass murderer or something.
Pedophiles and anyone who associates with them knowingly should be cast into the depths of hell, but ideas are ideas—no matter who they’re from they can be digested and taken for what they are.
You don’t have to wave a flag for someone just because you relate to their ideas or teachings. I think to do so is simply internet pilled activism—shallow, empty, egomaniac.
I totally agree about the ideas, but I don't judge people who grieve when their intellectual heroes turn out to be not very heroic. It's just human to feel a sense of betrayal about that. The challenge is how to incorporate the grief or anger into your relationship with the ideas.
I think it's very telling that Chomsky's justification for socializing with Epstein is framed as a matter of fairness: Epstein paid his debt and so he should be welcomed back into society. This framing — though it's profoundly blinkered in this case — is consistent with Chomsky's longstanding ideas about social justice and human rights. He was fully aware the friendship was sketchy and successfully rationalized his way out of the cognitive dissonance.
Yeah I get your point on people being upset. Maybe I’m too cynical. I have never put such faith in an intellectual etc.
In regards to Chomsky’s justification, I think it is absolutely abhorrent and makes him look even more vile than before. The idea of “repaying debt to society” is some legal construction. Morally Epstein can never ever be forgiven. He was a monster of the highest magnitude. I don’t believe any redemption for pedophiles is ever possible and am extremely suspect of anyone who does.
Oh, yes, I think his rationalization is the best evidence of his huge moral blind spot. Speaking as a woman in my 60s, though, I have to say that it's hard for me to be shocked that a high-status man of Chomsky's generation found it easier to sympathize with Epstein than with his victims. (I'm a little cynical, too.)
Wait a minute. Unlike Dershowitz, there is absolutely no evidence that Chomsky was ever involved in the despicable activities Epstein facilitated with underage girls. None.
Well then I just disagree. Abstract ideas do not exist independently of the mind. While it is rarely true that one single mind is solely responsible for a significant new idea... when that happens, the moral character of the mind in question is absolutely relevant.
I don't think he/she/they actually disagree. The moral character of someone having an idea is obviously an irrelevance. The idea only means anything when you/I read its. Morality isn't contagious. Just pseudo-philosophical drivel.
Except that no it doesn’t. Insights (if they are there) have a life on their own and can be good, bad, useful or not, independently on what other things that same individual did or say at another time. The urge to categorize any person as either totally good or totally bad seems a little childish to me, like we were living in an American superhero movie. Indeed sometimes the very concept of “individual” can be problematic but I digress.
He's saying would guilt by association be as easily applied to Newton. It is an interesting challenge because you can't throw out Newtonian physics and calculus if new evidence suggested Newton was a pédophile. For certain high achieving individuals we do and would judge their contributions separately from their character flaws. Therefore, this four geniuses in one as the article claims, Chomsky, may warrant a more nuanced view, especially since he himself is not a pédophile.
Except that he never denied atrocities took place. Read what Chomsky and Herman actually wrote back in 1977 (the link in that Lapkin smear piece doesn't work)
So many people want to defend Chomsky. Back in 90s it was harder to know about his constant refusal to acknowledge literally ANY communist regime was capable of crimes against humanity. Communists are saints, Milosevic is a freedom fighter, and he probably blames Ukraine for getting itself invaded.
He even found ways to defend ISIS. Did this or that terrorist eat pork and drink alcohol? Well then he wasnt REALLY Muslim... and therefore we shouldn't believe ISIS claims of responsibility! Its not ISIS!
When Chomsky praises the likes of Mearsheimer and his foolish takes on "realism", blaming the west for Russian aggression, it deflects culpability from Russians and agency from Ukrainians.
Like Mearsheimer, Chomsky sees non-"great powers" as being little more than puppets.
I liked what Mearsheimer said...at first. Why expand NATO eastward? I learned all about 🇷🇺 and its imperialism.
Eastern Europe's deep knowledge of Russian Imperialism, and fervent desire to be allied; doesn't matter. Basically I now know nato didnt expand far and fast enough. I support a
Chomsky was deeply skeptical of the what the refugees were saying. He casts aspersion with words like “dubious,” “sensational,” “fanciful,” and “loose with the truth” on any and all evidence preferring reasons to conclude the stories untrue. He whatabouts to the guilt of America, emphasizing that is where attention ought to be directed. If denialism is strictly taken to mean “he never said it didn’t happen,” then sure, he was not a “denialist.” But he sid everything but utter that one sentence. https://chomsky.info/19770625/
Chomsky was deeply skeptical of the what the refugees were saying. He casts aspersion with words like “dubious,” “sensational,” “fanciful,” and “loose with the truth” on any and all evidence preferring reasons to conclude the stories untrue. He whatabouts to the guilt of America, emphasizing that is where attention ought to be directed. https://chomsky.info/19770625/
Thanks for the link to an old letter by a bunch of finance professors (one of whom worked for Goldman Sachs almost immediately post-2008) and a link to a bibliography entry in the NY Public Library. You sure convinced me
Chomsky's scumbaggery is related to his being a Jewish supremacist tribalist and agent of the Genocidal Zionist Entity. His entire political career was spent running cover for Israel, by posing as pro-Palestinian while using his enormous influence to steer public opinion away from icebergs that could have sunk "Israel" such as the JFK assassination, 9/11, and acknowledgement of the Kosher Nostra's stranglehold over the US in general and Mideast policy in particular. Chomsky is just Epstein in intellectual drag. See: https://www.unz.com/kbarrett/why-chomsky-is-wrong-about-9-11/
Chomsky has never been a politician. He's done a lot of good over the years. He's not going to commit career suicide by exposing 911 etc, he's not that stupid.
In what wasn’t he? He worked the jewish nepotism network so hard he gave Jeffrey Epstein a recommendation letter after he had been convicted of sex crimes.
Show men a dozen instances where Chomsky actually did something that harmed jewish interests or the interests of Israel.
All his ‘analysis’ is directed away from the jews and toward ‘corporations’.
It’s all so generic and banal.
Which is a sure sign that a jewish propagandist is at work.
I never thought that Chomsky was particularly smart even when I was a shitlib. I always thought he was merely good at talking and not saying musch I was right.
He is asinine when it comes to JFK, Vietnam, and the assassination. Also asinine about 9/11. His lesser evil support of Clinton was gross. His stance over the Covid injection was/is heinous and beyond despicable.
I did the interview you linked here with Chomsky on the dunc tank podcast. I asked that question after a long discussion about climate change and nuclear war, and he seemed to kind of dismiss Epstein's importance relative to those concerns, which I could sort of understand. I walked away feeling kind of foolish for having asked him if he had ever met Epstein, but now I feel like anytime I talk to someone famous I should ask, just to cover my bases, "hey, crazy question, but any chance you were friends with Jeff Epstein?"
"[Epstein] quickly became a . . . regular source of intellectual exchange and stimulation."
What in the world. . . . The many verbatim snippets from Epstein's correspondences make it very clear that the man was functionally illiterate, an immoral conman, and an intellectual void. To understand this fawning praise, one only needs to follow the money. The paragons of higher education have dug themselves a deep hole.
YES!! "Functionally illiterate" was the term I was looking for, but didn't find, when writing this! I totally agree. How on Earth does he actually write like that? How did people like Krauss and Chomsky respect him? Wild stuff, lol.
Firstly- my sympathies. It’s a shit feeling finding out stuff like this.
But - and I can’t exactly articulate why - I find articles like this somehow… dispiriting. They’re true, and important, and it’s good and courageous that they’re written.
But - the truthiness of Chomsky’s (political) work isn’t changed by that, any more than the horror of Hitler’s work is changed by his vegetarianism. And I’m sure no one here is saying it should be affected, but I’m equally sure that “Chomsky? You mean Epstein’s friend?” will be used to discredit his ideas.
Anyway - it’s still good writing. And hopefully I’m wrong.
I get this. Your point at the end of paragraph #3 is yet another reason that, tbh, I'm _angry_ at Chomsky (not just disappointed, etc.). Putting aside, for a moment, the stunning moral lapses revealed by his friendship with these people, he gave critics a fantastically effective rhetorical tool to dismiss his body or work. What incredibly poor judgment the guy has! His whole legacy is now in the shadow of his friendship with the most notorious sex offender of the 21st century. GRRR!!
If you were one of a thousand trafficked girls whose bodies were raped and beaten, whose spirits were tormented and lives upended, you would view his crimes more seriously.
So now there’s “thousands”? So you reckon ghislaine and Jeff managed to pimp “one thousand” (your estimate?) women, flying them all to Bond villain island, to have cocktails
, and trips on luxury yachts - how did they manage this incredible operation?
The victims’ estimate, some disappeared. Girls who were minor children. Not cocktails and luxury for them- intimidation, fear, imprisonment and rape. On the island, in Manhattan, in Florida, in Paris, in London, in New Mexico. Maxwell’s flow charts of ppl appeared in her criminal trafficking trial.
This is the classical evaluate the work not the man. I think it’s worth pondering about to decide for oneself where the lines stand.
Personally I seem to discover along the years that those things are largely indissociable and most of the time when the men is corrupt the work is very likely to be as well even if it isn’t clear on first pass.
And I want to add that every single vegetarian I know is somewhat of an authoritarian wanting to impose a totalitarist ideology on others. Being vegetarian doesn’t makes one a nazi but to me it seems like the line is blurry.
I was terribly disappointed as well. It’s like he was missing the integrity he accused the US of missing over the course of his career. Intellectually dishonest- taints his whole body of work for me.
Bravo. Thank you for your work here and your broader TESCREAL scholarship which I have appreciated tremendously.
Have you seen the critiques which have emerged over the last 15 years into Chomsky’s linguistics theories too? It’s not my field so I am hesitant to take sides, but the more recent research in the field seems to put his theories further into doubt.
I get the sense that Chomsky has a real hard time changing his mind or admitting he could have been wrong about something important…
Not really followed the linguistics literature, but I know that his Universal Grammar theory is a minority view. Chomsky himself has trimmed down the threat a lot over the years: from Universal Grammar to the principles and parameters view to literally saying that the only thing unique about human language is recursion (in an article coauthored with Marc Hauser, who was later found guilty of pretty massive scientific fraud, lol. Whoops!). But yeah, Chomskian linguistics is struggling. My sense, though, is that one can be completely wrong about something while still making a huge contribution to a field -- i.e., his theory, which looks to be false, nonetheless revolutionized linguistics (and cognitive science) for the better! But that's just my take, as a lowly philosopher! :-)
You know literally nothing about the linguistics. At least be honest yourself. P&P is an instantiation of UG, and the comments about recursion are an instantiation of UG. And it very explicity don't not say that recursion is the only thing that unique about human language. It's a comment on the faculty of language, and it's a suggestion. There is no such thing as 'his theory': he has made endless insights. The point you are taking as his theory is (a) not really his, as he says endlessly, (b) assumed as a truism by everyone in the field. It ushered out a nihilism over the entire inquiry in the human mind from a naturalistic perspective. And that was in 1959. He's done a lot you clearly know nothing about since. (Hauser's scientific misconduct had nothing to do with these papers whatsoever and wasn't even a whisper at the time. Loading it into your gun is a tiresome piece of rhetoric.)
That is a very diplomatic way of putting it. I come more from the George Carlin school of linguistics - I know euphemisms when I see them. My inclination tends to be toward much more blunt terms to describe this stuff but I am trying to be polite amongst the more academically minded. https://www.lingq.com/en/learn-english-online/courses/87644/george-carlin-euphemisms-447260/
By random chance, I listened to a presentation that Chomsky gave in Toronto in the 1970’s. I had no idea who he was at the time, but what I heard sitting slightly outside the open door of the venue provided me with sufficient inspiration to continually question the narratives of power and privilege.
I find that as one gets older, the collapse that invariably happens with characters one had previously held in high regard becomes less shocking. Hersh, Obama… the list is endless. I had started to feel uneasy about Chomsky in the late 90’s, though my current level of disgust goes far beyond standard disappointment to a complete loss of moral credibility.
I understand that celebrities exist in a bubble of sycophancy, but there’s no rationalizing what has been revealed, and especially his miserable response to questions regarding the situation.
Thus, again, here we are.
I think I’m down to Albanese on my still-great credibility list. That’s a list of one.
Vonnegut and Orwell are still holding strong on the deceased inspirations.
I appreciate your willingness to dismantle an image you once held of Chomsky. That is never easy, especially when someone’s work has shaped you for years. What you describe, though, is less a collapse of Chomsky and more the end of a reification that had quietly taken hold. At some point he became, for you, something more than a human being — a symbol of rationality, integrity, and clarity.
But rational human beings do not exist as stable types. Human beings can act rationally, sometimes brilliantly, and then fail in entirely ordinary ways. Intelligence, scholarship, and moral judgement rarely move in perfect alignment. When we attribute enduring rationality or lasting moral insight to another person, we build an expectation that cannot survive contact with their full humanity.
So congratulations are in order, though not in a trivial sense: you have ended an idealization that no person could live up to. What remains is clearer and more realistic — a man with remarkable contributions, and a man with obvious blind spots. Keeping those two together without turning either into a myth is the harder, and more honest, stance.
I appreciate the detailed research here, but I think there's an important logical distinction being overlooked. To be clear: Epstein's crimes were horrific and the victims deserved far more justice than they received.
That said, this article seems to conflate "associated with someone who committed crimes" with "shares their moral character" - which is the guilt-by-association fallacy. Serial predators are often skilled at compartmentalizing, presenting entirely different personas to colleagues versus victims. That's how they operate undetected for so long.
The more interesting question isn't whether Chomsky associated with Epstein after his conviction, but why he did - and his stated reasoning appears consistent with his decades of writing on criminal justice reform and rehabilitation. He's articulated a principle: that once someone serves their legal sentence, society should allow reintegration. You can disagree with applying that principle here (many would), but it's philosophically coherent with his broader work.
Similarly, his statement about meeting "war criminals" and valuing intellectual exchange regardless of moral character suggests he compartmentalizes ideas from actions. Again, reasonable people can find this troubling, but it's different from endorsing the actions themselves.
The article presents three associations out of literally thousands Chomsky has had over 70+ years. That's cherry-picking to support a predetermined conclusion.
I think the stronger critique would be: Chomsky's philosophical consistency on rehabilitation, even when applied to powerful predators, shows poor practical judgment about power dynamics and victim impact.
It advocates for a stateless, classless, moneyless society in which private property is abolished and governance is accomplished through federations of worker's councils. How, to you, is this not a form of communism?
Well you should ask an anarchist and a communist- just like maybe protestants and catholics may look the same from the persoective of say, an atheist. If they have defined each other as opposing based in different ideas, they are different- They are right and you re wrong.
Think of two ideas that you think are different and how someone else might say capitalism and religious fundamentalism are generally the same thing (see for example saudi arabia, us support for mujahedeen, israeli settlers) would you agree that capitalism generally needs a state to enforce a freemarket? Could us capitalism function without 850 military bases and the dollar system to back it up? Seems like theyre the same thing to me :)
Not even in practice that is borderline historically illiterate. See for example: spanish civil war, revolution of 1917. But hey maybe the union and the confederacy were basically the same thing?
History has nothing to do with it. It is just an ideology adjacent to communism, that has the same pretense of fairness and egalitarian utopia and always end up in generally poor results. Hilariously it ends up impoverishing its followers more than the other ideologies that at least have some credentials gained from the results.
It's like arguing that all business should actually be an "association" (as in a non profit organization) but all you are doing is changing the shape of work organisation and actually giving more power to those who are better at politics instead of those who are better able to produce successful results.
I have spent enough time in those type of organisation to know it draws the worst people and systematically misallocate resources and fail to produce actually long lasting value. In fact most of those organisation can not ever survive without generous government subsidies and fail into the ground the moment the free money flow is cut off.
You can argue about history and your personal interpretation of it all you want, there are some characteristics of human nature that makes those type of ideologies an inevitable failure and generally a waste of time.
But I guess it must be nice to still be a hopeless utopian, in some ways.
How many coups/regime changes and illegal wars has the us government forced on people since the phillipines? How many have been done by luxembourg, mongolia or i dunno, almost every country? How many military bases does the us have vs other countries?
So from a data driven perspective? If you think backing death squads and fascism and perpetual war are bad it actually does make sense to say that. If you like those things, or think anything is worth it for the greater utopia of a free market, ("real capitalism has never been tried, man") then maybe america is actually the best country for you.
Not really concerned with chomsky here so much as the very interesting switch people make from "rational science man" to "if the government tells me there's a tooth fairy, who am i to question" - and where they make that switch or don't from "rationalism" to why do you hate america man is probably points to some interesting hidden biases. Maybe you should do a study on it lol
He functions on the fundamental theory that America is THE bad guy and works backwards from there. Of course there are negative aspects of any given country, and especially America. But I’m pretty sure Choamsky and his type are completely incapable of saying anything positive about the US. With that level of far left bias, it’s hard to take anything he says at face value.
I mean, yeah, but I assume that Emile basically agrees with Chomsky on this, and I cannot prove or disprove a moral intuition. Whereas I can prove other things. I want Emile to acknowledge that the reasons he thought Chomsky was right about things was because C appealed to E's biases. I can't do that by getting bogged down in whether or not America is the Great Satan
Sorry but "disproven by LLMs"? What have LLMs proven besides the ability to inflate a tech bubble to idiots by claiming that AGI is the same thing as search engine slop?
Not qualified to judge linguistics one way or another but anyone claiming that AI research has proven anything or can pove anything about human nature needs to look up "how to argue with an AI booster" before they play the "i'm smart" card.
Thanks for an insightful article. If you wouldn't mind, what happened with Sam Harris that caused you to add him to the list? I've read a few of Sam's books and wasn't aware of anything that would put him in the same category with Krauss and Chomsky, let alone Epstein. Thanks.
He became an anti-woke culture warrior! There was a slip within the New Atheism movement between those who cared about social justice issues (Atheism+), and those who were dismissive of them. Harris was part of the latter group. After my name appeared in the Buzzfeed article, he called me a "psychopath" on his podcast -- for being critical of New Atheism: https://www.salon.com/2017/07/29/from-the-enlightenment-to-the-dark-ages-how-new-atheism-slid-into-the-alt-right/ (this happened to be one of the most-viewed articles on Salon of the year!! :-0 )
Thanks for the response, Emile. I'm no intellectual but I too was a fan of Sam's in the early aughts. He was only one of many in a long list of "thinkers and philosophers" I tried to read regularly. By regularly I mean that he and a few others were the writers I would read when life didn't get in the way...maybe once a week or so. Over the years I let Sam fall off the list, almost unconsciously, but looking back on it, the reasons were just as you articulated. I got uncomfortable with some of his positions. He and his cohort seemed to me to be skewing right, stepping right up to the line and making excuses for what appeared to me as racist or adjacent ideology. I was too busy to delve deeply into the issue and simply stopped reading or following him. It's clearer now. Thanks for the explanation!
The fallout in New Athiesm being referenced here absolutely included incidences of sexual harrasmemt and assault, and apologia of it by Harris, Dawkins, and others.
A lot of people bonded over shared disillusionment with what happened to “social justice”. I think some were good people who didn’t agree with for instance, Intersectionality theory for various reasons. Unfortunately though, others who were anti-woke went all-out maga. Sam is of the former in my opinion.
Yes that’s algorithm mistake. But to be honest, he kind of has a good point even though it is not intentional. Chomsky is full of shit and promote ideologies that are highly repressive and corrupt.
It is not surprising to me that the man has no moral backbone and is probably himself corrupt. You can’t really have without the other in my experience.
Please include the girls he raped. Minors under 18 are children, girls and boys. Any sexual act with a child who cannot consent is rape. A person who commits this crime is a rapist. Epstein committed heinous crimes against young women, as you reported, and also against children.
Well considered, well written, well done.
Chomsky is not alone is dismissing sexual violence and tolerating virulent misogyny. They are crimes of impunity and universal acceptance. Humanity must change.
I share your immense disappointment! Chomsky really helped me (like so many other readers of his) figure out how to think. So many ironies here with Chomsky's old arguments about the venality and cowardice of professional intellectuals and so on and so on. Oofa
Whether to cite his work again is a personal choice. I don't think shunning it is necessarily a moral obligation. All art and scholarly inquiry is done by fallible humans. If you had never learned any of these facts about his personal moral failings, you'd have gone on citing his work because you see value in it. Has that value disappeared? Do you no longer respect his ideas? Or is it just that they're now associated with the pain of being disappointed by the man?
I think we all have to navigate this problem at some point. There are authors whose work I greatly admire, but I now read their books a bit differently after revelations about their personal lives. I'll never take quite the same uncomplicated pleasure in the work. But I don't swear off it. The books are as great as they ever were. I'm the one who changed.
Yeah I agree, and I don’t even like Chomsky’s work that much. It’s juvenile to swear off someone’s work because they themselves are a scumbag though. Imagine doing this with something like physics… you wouldn’t disregard gravity if Newton turned out to be a mass murderer or something.
Pedophiles and anyone who associates with them knowingly should be cast into the depths of hell, but ideas are ideas—no matter who they’re from they can be digested and taken for what they are.
You don’t have to wave a flag for someone just because you relate to their ideas or teachings. I think to do so is simply internet pilled activism—shallow, empty, egomaniac.
I totally agree about the ideas, but I don't judge people who grieve when their intellectual heroes turn out to be not very heroic. It's just human to feel a sense of betrayal about that. The challenge is how to incorporate the grief or anger into your relationship with the ideas.
I think it's very telling that Chomsky's justification for socializing with Epstein is framed as a matter of fairness: Epstein paid his debt and so he should be welcomed back into society. This framing — though it's profoundly blinkered in this case — is consistent with Chomsky's longstanding ideas about social justice and human rights. He was fully aware the friendship was sketchy and successfully rationalized his way out of the cognitive dissonance.
Yeah I get your point on people being upset. Maybe I’m too cynical. I have never put such faith in an intellectual etc.
In regards to Chomsky’s justification, I think it is absolutely abhorrent and makes him look even more vile than before. The idea of “repaying debt to society” is some legal construction. Morally Epstein can never ever be forgiven. He was a monster of the highest magnitude. I don’t believe any redemption for pedophiles is ever possible and am extremely suspect of anyone who does.
Oh, yes, I think his rationalization is the best evidence of his huge moral blind spot. Speaking as a woman in my 60s, though, I have to say that it's hard for me to be shocked that a high-status man of Chomsky's generation found it easier to sympathize with Epstein than with his victims. (I'm a little cynical, too.)
Oh totally same. I wasn’t shocked either. This has been a great exchange. Rare these days online, thank you.
Thank you!
Wait a minute. Unlike Dershowitz, there is absolutely no evidence that Chomsky was ever involved in the despicable activities Epstein facilitated with underage girls. None.
Yeah, I suspect no one is feeling disillusioned today about Alan Dershowitz...
Gravity isn't an idea. It preceded Newton, and would be equally true regardless of Newton's character, or with no Newton ever.
The same cannot be said for Chomsky's work, or anyone dealing with abstractions of culture such as art or politics.
Agreed. If your personal morality raises questions, we have cause to question your ideas.
Which idea is impacted? Just one.
Semantics. You know what I mean.
Well then I just disagree. Abstract ideas do not exist independently of the mind. While it is rarely true that one single mind is solely responsible for a significant new idea... when that happens, the moral character of the mind in question is absolutely relevant.
It’s fine to disagree. Have a good day 🫡.
I don't think he/she/they actually disagree. The moral character of someone having an idea is obviously an irrelevance. The idea only means anything when you/I read its. Morality isn't contagious. Just pseudo-philosophical drivel.
His work is trash anyway. Never understood the attraction.
Except that no it doesn’t. Insights (if they are there) have a life on their own and can be good, bad, useful or not, independently on what other things that same individual did or say at another time. The urge to categorize any person as either totally good or totally bad seems a little childish to me, like we were living in an American superhero movie. Indeed sometimes the very concept of “individual” can be problematic but I digress.
I think you put it very well :)
No idea what you’re saying but we probably disagree and that’s fine. Have a good day.
"The books are as great as they ever were. I'm the one who changed."
Or perhaps the books were never as great as thought.
Sure, but in that case it's still the reader's thinking that has changed. The book is just sitting there on the shelf, minding its business.
How many of them have you read? Can you explain the main thesis of a single one?
How many of the authors Maria Browning formerly admired have I read? I have no idea.
No, Chomsky's. Explain one thesis of his and how his morals impacts on it.
He's saying would guilt by association be as easily applied to Newton. It is an interesting challenge because you can't throw out Newtonian physics and calculus if new evidence suggested Newton was a pédophile. For certain high achieving individuals we do and would judge their contributions separately from their character flaws. Therefore, this four geniuses in one as the article claims, Chomsky, may warrant a more nuanced view, especially since he himself is not a pédophile.
Neither of those things are even crimes. Are you an agent of the thoughts police?
Noam Chomsky was a scumbag for a lot longer. The man indulges in genocide denial to this day.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-06-09/lapkinchomsky/2751644
https://www.nypl.org/research/research-catalog/bib/hb990061245080203941
https://www.e-flux.com/notes/470005/open-letter-to-noam-chomsky-and-other-like-minded-intellectuals-on-the-russia-ukraine-war
That ABC piece on Noam’s denial of genocide for seemingly simple political motivations is insightful.
Thank you for sharing!
Except that he never denied atrocities took place. Read what Chomsky and Herman actually wrote back in 1977 (the link in that Lapkin smear piece doesn't work)
https://chomsky.info/19770625/
As for what genocide denial really looks like, here is Ted Lapkin denying genocide in Gaza.
https://tedlapkin.substack.com/p/war-is-hell-but-israel-right-to-fight
More than one person can engage in genocide denial.
Chomsky is one of them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide_denial
So many people want to defend Chomsky. Back in 90s it was harder to know about his constant refusal to acknowledge literally ANY communist regime was capable of crimes against humanity. Communists are saints, Milosevic is a freedom fighter, and he probably blames Ukraine for getting itself invaded.
He even found ways to defend ISIS. Did this or that terrorist eat pork and drink alcohol? Well then he wasnt REALLY Muslim... and therefore we shouldn't believe ISIS claims of responsibility! Its not ISIS!
His fans will hear none of it though.
When Chomsky praises the likes of Mearsheimer and his foolish takes on "realism", blaming the west for Russian aggression, it deflects culpability from Russians and agency from Ukrainians.
Like Mearsheimer, Chomsky sees non-"great powers" as being little more than puppets.
https://lens.monash.edu/@politics-society/2022/04/13/1384606/what-we-lose-by-westsplaining-the-russian-invasion-of-ukraine
I liked what Mearsheimer said...at first. Why expand NATO eastward? I learned all about 🇷🇺 and its imperialism.
Eastern Europe's deep knowledge of Russian Imperialism, and fervent desire to be allied; doesn't matter. Basically I now know nato didnt expand far and fast enough. I support a
Have you read his comments on the Soviet Union? I mean, as a claim, it's not terribly hard to reject. Read the books.
Have you read the room? Go away; you Epstein buddy genocide denialist defender. Go find some friends in a Serbian genocide denial group somewhere.
Read the book, not wikipedia.
Fucking guy literally tried to explain away ISIS terrorism as not being ISIS. You read his trash, good for you, we're all really proud of you.
Chomsky was deeply skeptical of the what the refugees were saying. He casts aspersion with words like “dubious,” “sensational,” “fanciful,” and “loose with the truth” on any and all evidence preferring reasons to conclude the stories untrue. He whatabouts to the guilt of America, emphasizing that is where attention ought to be directed. If denialism is strictly taken to mean “he never said it didn’t happen,” then sure, he was not a “denialist.” But he sid everything but utter that one sentence. https://chomsky.info/19770625/
Chomsky was deeply skeptical of the what the refugees were saying. He casts aspersion with words like “dubious,” “sensational,” “fanciful,” and “loose with the truth” on any and all evidence preferring reasons to conclude the stories untrue. He whatabouts to the guilt of America, emphasizing that is where attention ought to be directed. https://chomsky.info/19770625/
Fwiw, the habit of whataboutism pervades his arguments in linguistics too.
Name one example.
Thanks for the link to an old letter by a bunch of finance professors (one of whom worked for Goldman Sachs almost immediately post-2008) and a link to a bibliography entry in the NY Public Library. You sure convinced me
I notice that you don't say that they're incorrect. Attacking sources is handy that way.
It sure is apropos on a post about scumbags! You can read his thorough response here if you're inclined, though I doubt you're much into learning about things: https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Open_letter_Chomsky_correspondence-final-version-5-27-22.pdf
I disagree that Chomsky "refuted" the arguments presented to him.
I can understand that it's hard to accept that your idol could be deeply flawed and a hypocrite.
https://vatniksoup.com/en/soups/181/
I'm sorry that you feel that way about your efforts.
You're still getting a block though, for those reasons you project onto others.
That is not his problem.
You're correct. Chomsky's genocide denial is not *his* problem.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1369&context=gsp
People who simply post links and repeat propaganda…
Attacking the person posting doesn't make Chomsky's propaganda any better.
Don't be stupid.
Read the book. 1979 - After The Cataclysm. This is just palpable nonsense.
If it's "just palpable nonsense", then it should be trivial for you to refute it.
Chomsky's scumbaggery is related to his being a Jewish supremacist tribalist and agent of the Genocidal Zionist Entity. His entire political career was spent running cover for Israel, by posing as pro-Palestinian while using his enormous influence to steer public opinion away from icebergs that could have sunk "Israel" such as the JFK assassination, 9/11, and acknowledgement of the Kosher Nostra's stranglehold over the US in general and Mideast policy in particular. Chomsky is just Epstein in intellectual drag. See: https://www.unz.com/kbarrett/why-chomsky-is-wrong-about-9-11/
Chomsky has never been a politician. He's done a lot of good over the years. He's not going to commit career suicide by exposing 911 etc, he's not that stupid.
Chomsky is political. He always has been. He's said some useful things, but I don't see what ‘good' he's done.
Basically, your argument is that it's okay for a jewish supremacist to be a jewish supremacist.
Do you feel the same about other ethnic supremacist figures?
In what way is he a Jewish supremacist?
In what wasn’t he? He worked the jewish nepotism network so hard he gave Jeffrey Epstein a recommendation letter after he had been convicted of sex crimes.
Show men a dozen instances where Chomsky actually did something that harmed jewish interests or the interests of Israel.
All his ‘analysis’ is directed away from the jews and toward ‘corporations’.
It’s all so generic and banal.
Which is a sure sign that a jewish propagandist is at work.
I never thought that Chomsky was particularly smart even when I was a shitlib. I always thought he was merely good at talking and not saying musch I was right.
I actually find him to be a terrible orator too. Dull and borderline rambling at times.
He is asinine when it comes to JFK, Vietnam, and the assassination. Also asinine about 9/11. His lesser evil support of Clinton was gross. His stance over the Covid injection was/is heinous and beyond despicable.
I did the interview you linked here with Chomsky on the dunc tank podcast. I asked that question after a long discussion about climate change and nuclear war, and he seemed to kind of dismiss Epstein's importance relative to those concerns, which I could sort of understand. I walked away feeling kind of foolish for having asked him if he had ever met Epstein, but now I feel like anytime I talk to someone famous I should ask, just to cover my bases, "hey, crazy question, but any chance you were friends with Jeff Epstein?"
Update: I wrote about my experience talking to Chomsky about this here: https://tenminutestopingpong.substack.com/p/when-i-asked-chomsky-about-jeffrey
"[Epstein] quickly became a . . . regular source of intellectual exchange and stimulation."
What in the world. . . . The many verbatim snippets from Epstein's correspondences make it very clear that the man was functionally illiterate, an immoral conman, and an intellectual void. To understand this fawning praise, one only needs to follow the money. The paragons of higher education have dug themselves a deep hole.
YES!! "Functionally illiterate" was the term I was looking for, but didn't find, when writing this! I totally agree. How on Earth does he actually write like that? How did people like Krauss and Chomsky respect him? Wild stuff, lol.
Not just gossip, blackmail. Epstein had cameras hidden everywhere and a huge inventory of tapes. A grotesque source of his unlikely great fortune.
Firstly- my sympathies. It’s a shit feeling finding out stuff like this.
But - and I can’t exactly articulate why - I find articles like this somehow… dispiriting. They’re true, and important, and it’s good and courageous that they’re written.
But - the truthiness of Chomsky’s (political) work isn’t changed by that, any more than the horror of Hitler’s work is changed by his vegetarianism. And I’m sure no one here is saying it should be affected, but I’m equally sure that “Chomsky? You mean Epstein’s friend?” will be used to discredit his ideas.
Anyway - it’s still good writing. And hopefully I’m wrong.
I get this. Your point at the end of paragraph #3 is yet another reason that, tbh, I'm _angry_ at Chomsky (not just disappointed, etc.). Putting aside, for a moment, the stunning moral lapses revealed by his friendship with these people, he gave critics a fantastically effective rhetorical tool to dismiss his body or work. What incredibly poor judgment the guy has! His whole legacy is now in the shadow of his friendship with the most notorious sex offender of the 21st century. GRRR!!
Believe me - Epstein is not the most notorious sex offender of the century - he's not fucking Jeffrey Damer.
Epstein is to progressive white liberals, what pizza gate is to Qanon Maga types.
It's clearly turning into a myriad of rabbit holes - nothing will ever be revealed, that indicts anyone of the visitors to the bond villain island.
It will make for a very mediocre fictitious movie one day!
If you were one of a thousand trafficked girls whose bodies were raped and beaten, whose spirits were tormented and lives upended, you would view his crimes more seriously.
So now there’s “thousands”? So you reckon ghislaine and Jeff managed to pimp “one thousand” (your estimate?) women, flying them all to Bond villain island, to have cocktails
, and trips on luxury yachts - how did they manage this incredible operation?
The victims’ estimate, some disappeared. Girls who were minor children. Not cocktails and luxury for them- intimidation, fear, imprisonment and rape. On the island, in Manhattan, in Florida, in Paris, in London, in New Mexico. Maxwell’s flow charts of ppl appeared in her criminal trafficking trial.
It’s not the 20th century anymore dude, it’s a new century
Whatever mr neuro-detergent.
This is the classical evaluate the work not the man. I think it’s worth pondering about to decide for oneself where the lines stand.
Personally I seem to discover along the years that those things are largely indissociable and most of the time when the men is corrupt the work is very likely to be as well even if it isn’t clear on first pass.
And I want to add that every single vegetarian I know is somewhat of an authoritarian wanting to impose a totalitarist ideology on others. Being vegetarian doesn’t makes one a nazi but to me it seems like the line is blurry.
I was terribly disappointed as well. It’s like he was missing the integrity he accused the US of missing over the course of his career. Intellectually dishonest- taints his whole body of work for me.
Bravo. Thank you for your work here and your broader TESCREAL scholarship which I have appreciated tremendously.
Have you seen the critiques which have emerged over the last 15 years into Chomsky’s linguistics theories too? It’s not my field so I am hesitant to take sides, but the more recent research in the field seems to put his theories further into doubt.
I get the sense that Chomsky has a real hard time changing his mind or admitting he could have been wrong about something important…
Not really followed the linguistics literature, but I know that his Universal Grammar theory is a minority view. Chomsky himself has trimmed down the threat a lot over the years: from Universal Grammar to the principles and parameters view to literally saying that the only thing unique about human language is recursion (in an article coauthored with Marc Hauser, who was later found guilty of pretty massive scientific fraud, lol. Whoops!). But yeah, Chomskian linguistics is struggling. My sense, though, is that one can be completely wrong about something while still making a huge contribution to a field -- i.e., his theory, which looks to be false, nonetheless revolutionized linguistics (and cognitive science) for the better! But that's just my take, as a lowly philosopher! :-)
You know literally nothing about the linguistics. At least be honest yourself. P&P is an instantiation of UG, and the comments about recursion are an instantiation of UG. And it very explicity don't not say that recursion is the only thing that unique about human language. It's a comment on the faculty of language, and it's a suggestion. There is no such thing as 'his theory': he has made endless insights. The point you are taking as his theory is (a) not really his, as he says endlessly, (b) assumed as a truism by everyone in the field. It ushered out a nihilism over the entire inquiry in the human mind from a naturalistic perspective. And that was in 1959. He's done a lot you clearly know nothing about since. (Hauser's scientific misconduct had nothing to do with these papers whatsoever and wasn't even a whisper at the time. Loading it into your gun is a tiresome piece of rhetoric.)
That is a very diplomatic way of putting it. I come more from the George Carlin school of linguistics - I know euphemisms when I see them. My inclination tends to be toward much more blunt terms to describe this stuff but I am trying to be polite amongst the more academically minded. https://www.lingq.com/en/learn-english-online/courses/87644/george-carlin-euphemisms-447260/
By random chance, I listened to a presentation that Chomsky gave in Toronto in the 1970’s. I had no idea who he was at the time, but what I heard sitting slightly outside the open door of the venue provided me with sufficient inspiration to continually question the narratives of power and privilege.
I find that as one gets older, the collapse that invariably happens with characters one had previously held in high regard becomes less shocking. Hersh, Obama… the list is endless. I had started to feel uneasy about Chomsky in the late 90’s, though my current level of disgust goes far beyond standard disappointment to a complete loss of moral credibility.
I understand that celebrities exist in a bubble of sycophancy, but there’s no rationalizing what has been revealed, and especially his miserable response to questions regarding the situation.
Thus, again, here we are.
I think I’m down to Albanese on my still-great credibility list. That’s a list of one.
Vonnegut and Orwell are still holding strong on the deceased inspirations.
Good article. Thanks for your efforts.
What happened with Hersh?
Hersh may have been a great journalist once. But he got a taste for defending dictators like Assad and Putin.
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/41463/whatever-happened-to-seymour-hersh
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/dangerous-method-syria-sy-hersh-art-mass-crime-revisionism/
https://vatniksoup.com/en/soups/103/
https://euvsdisinfo.eu/nothing-to-see-here-look-over-there/
https://www.polemology.net/p/seymour-hersh-is-likely-a-serial
Big deal.
Maybe not to someone restacking apologia for fascism.
You admitted Obama - wtf for?
Obama was always scum.
I appreciate your willingness to dismantle an image you once held of Chomsky. That is never easy, especially when someone’s work has shaped you for years. What you describe, though, is less a collapse of Chomsky and more the end of a reification that had quietly taken hold. At some point he became, for you, something more than a human being — a symbol of rationality, integrity, and clarity.
But rational human beings do not exist as stable types. Human beings can act rationally, sometimes brilliantly, and then fail in entirely ordinary ways. Intelligence, scholarship, and moral judgement rarely move in perfect alignment. When we attribute enduring rationality or lasting moral insight to another person, we build an expectation that cannot survive contact with their full humanity.
So congratulations are in order, though not in a trivial sense: you have ended an idealization that no person could live up to. What remains is clearer and more realistic — a man with remarkable contributions, and a man with obvious blind spots. Keeping those two together without turning either into a myth is the harder, and more honest, stance.
I appreciate the detailed research here, but I think there's an important logical distinction being overlooked. To be clear: Epstein's crimes were horrific and the victims deserved far more justice than they received.
That said, this article seems to conflate "associated with someone who committed crimes" with "shares their moral character" - which is the guilt-by-association fallacy. Serial predators are often skilled at compartmentalizing, presenting entirely different personas to colleagues versus victims. That's how they operate undetected for so long.
The more interesting question isn't whether Chomsky associated with Epstein after his conviction, but why he did - and his stated reasoning appears consistent with his decades of writing on criminal justice reform and rehabilitation. He's articulated a principle: that once someone serves their legal sentence, society should allow reintegration. You can disagree with applying that principle here (many would), but it's philosophically coherent with his broader work.
Similarly, his statement about meeting "war criminals" and valuing intellectual exchange regardless of moral character suggests he compartmentalizes ideas from actions. Again, reasonable people can find this troubling, but it's different from endorsing the actions themselves.
The article presents three associations out of literally thousands Chomsky has had over 70+ years. That's cherry-picking to support a predetermined conclusion.
I think the stronger critique would be: Chomsky's philosophical consistency on rehabilitation, even when applied to powerful predators, shows poor practical judgment about power dynamics and victim impact.
That's fair.
But "scumbag"?
That's character assassination, not analysis.
He's a guy involved in denail of the Rwandan, Khmer, Kosovan, and Bosnian Genocides whose theories about linguistics are disproven by LLMs.
I dunno man. I think you literally only liked him because you are a communist.
I'm not a communist, and neither is Chomsky!
He is specifically an anarcho-syndicalist. I refuse to believe that you didn't know this about him. He has never been dishonest about his beliefs
https://chomsky.info/19760725/
Anarcho-syndicalism is not communism!!
It advocates for a stateless, classless, moneyless society in which private property is abolished and governance is accomplished through federations of worker's councils. How, to you, is this not a form of communism?
Well you should ask an anarchist and a communist- just like maybe protestants and catholics may look the same from the persoective of say, an atheist. If they have defined each other as opposing based in different ideas, they are different- They are right and you re wrong.
Think of two ideas that you think are different and how someone else might say capitalism and religious fundamentalism are generally the same thing (see for example saudi arabia, us support for mujahedeen, israeli settlers) would you agree that capitalism generally needs a state to enforce a freemarket? Could us capitalism function without 850 military bases and the dollar system to back it up? Seems like theyre the same thing to me :)
I said nothing about it being bad. I said it was communist.
If you want to argue the semantics. In practice it is similar enough to be classified under communist ideologies.
Not even in practice that is borderline historically illiterate. See for example: spanish civil war, revolution of 1917. But hey maybe the union and the confederacy were basically the same thing?
History has nothing to do with it. It is just an ideology adjacent to communism, that has the same pretense of fairness and egalitarian utopia and always end up in generally poor results. Hilariously it ends up impoverishing its followers more than the other ideologies that at least have some credentials gained from the results.
It's like arguing that all business should actually be an "association" (as in a non profit organization) but all you are doing is changing the shape of work organisation and actually giving more power to those who are better at politics instead of those who are better able to produce successful results.
I have spent enough time in those type of organisation to know it draws the worst people and systematically misallocate resources and fail to produce actually long lasting value. In fact most of those organisation can not ever survive without generous government subsidies and fail into the ground the moment the free money flow is cut off.
You can argue about history and your personal interpretation of it all you want, there are some characteristics of human nature that makes those type of ideologies an inevitable failure and generally a waste of time.
But I guess it must be nice to still be a hopeless utopian, in some ways.
It's actually not the same by the way :) but maybe it seems that way to you!
How many coups/regime changes and illegal wars has the us government forced on people since the phillipines? How many have been done by luxembourg, mongolia or i dunno, almost every country? How many military bases does the us have vs other countries?
So from a data driven perspective? If you think backing death squads and fascism and perpetual war are bad it actually does make sense to say that. If you like those things, or think anything is worth it for the greater utopia of a free market, ("real capitalism has never been tried, man") then maybe america is actually the best country for you.
Not really concerned with chomsky here so much as the very interesting switch people make from "rational science man" to "if the government tells me there's a tooth fairy, who am i to question" - and where they make that switch or don't from "rationalism" to why do you hate america man is probably points to some interesting hidden biases. Maybe you should do a study on it lol
He functions on the fundamental theory that America is THE bad guy and works backwards from there. Of course there are negative aspects of any given country, and especially America. But I’m pretty sure Choamsky and his type are completely incapable of saying anything positive about the US. With that level of far left bias, it’s hard to take anything he says at face value.
I mean, yeah, but I assume that Emile basically agrees with Chomsky on this, and I cannot prove or disprove a moral intuition. Whereas I can prove other things. I want Emile to acknowledge that the reasons he thought Chomsky was right about things was because C appealed to E's biases. I can't do that by getting bogged down in whether or not America is the Great Satan
Sorry but "disproven by LLMs"? What have LLMs proven besides the ability to inflate a tech bubble to idiots by claiming that AGI is the same thing as search engine slop?
Not qualified to judge linguistics one way or another but anyone claiming that AI research has proven anything or can pove anything about human nature needs to look up "how to argue with an AI booster" before they play the "i'm smart" card.
Have fun losing money on AI next year
Thanks for an insightful article. If you wouldn't mind, what happened with Sam Harris that caused you to add him to the list? I've read a few of Sam's books and wasn't aware of anything that would put him in the same category with Krauss and Chomsky, let alone Epstein. Thanks.
He became an anti-woke culture warrior! There was a slip within the New Atheism movement between those who cared about social justice issues (Atheism+), and those who were dismissive of them. Harris was part of the latter group. After my name appeared in the Buzzfeed article, he called me a "psychopath" on his podcast -- for being critical of New Atheism: https://www.salon.com/2017/07/29/from-the-enlightenment-to-the-dark-ages-how-new-atheism-slid-into-the-alt-right/ (this happened to be one of the most-viewed articles on Salon of the year!! :-0 )
I actually just saw a clip of Harris in which he's actually a bit thoughtful about how he aligned with so many rightwing Trump supporters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C37zZ5x_p9U&list=LL&index=3
Anyways!! :-)
Thanks for the response, Emile. I'm no intellectual but I too was a fan of Sam's in the early aughts. He was only one of many in a long list of "thinkers and philosophers" I tried to read regularly. By regularly I mean that he and a few others were the writers I would read when life didn't get in the way...maybe once a week or so. Over the years I let Sam fall off the list, almost unconsciously, but looking back on it, the reasons were just as you articulated. I got uncomfortable with some of his positions. He and his cohort seemed to me to be skewing right, stepping right up to the line and making excuses for what appeared to me as racist or adjacent ideology. I was too busy to delve deeply into the issue and simply stopped reading or following him. It's clearer now. Thanks for the explanation!
I'm a bit confused by your response. It seems like you put mere disagreement with you in the same category as vicious sexual assault?
The fallout in New Athiesm being referenced here absolutely included incidences of sexual harrasmemt and assault, and apologia of it by Harris, Dawkins, and others.
A lot of people bonded over shared disillusionment with what happened to “social justice”. I think some were good people who didn’t agree with for instance, Intersectionality theory for various reasons. Unfortunately though, others who were anti-woke went all-out maga. Sam is of the former in my opinion.
The author is clearly high on the Kool Aid - this a terrible piece - not sure I'd even deem it worthy of "hatchet" journalism.
Yes that’s algorithm mistake. But to be honest, he kind of has a good point even though it is not intentional. Chomsky is full of shit and promote ideologies that are highly repressive and corrupt.
It is not surprising to me that the man has no moral backbone and is probably himself corrupt. You can’t really have without the other in my experience.
Please include the girls he raped. Minors under 18 are children, girls and boys. Any sexual act with a child who cannot consent is rape. A person who commits this crime is a rapist. Epstein committed heinous crimes against young women, as you reported, and also against children.
Well considered, well written, well done.
Chomsky is not alone is dismissing sexual violence and tolerating virulent misogyny. They are crimes of impunity and universal acceptance. Humanity must change.
The problem is not reading Chomsky wrong. The problem is making any intellectual a hero or villain.
I share your immense disappointment! Chomsky really helped me (like so many other readers of his) figure out how to think. So many ironies here with Chomsky's old arguments about the venality and cowardice of professional intellectuals and so on and so on. Oofa