I think I’d answer this question differently in 2026. The responsibility of intellectuals to society at large today, in an era overwhelmed with information, propaganda, immensely complex issues, etc. is – communicate the issues of the day in a way that is clear and accessible. With the assumption that intellectuals are “experts in ideas.”
I say this because so many contemporary debates seem really mangled and unclear, which makes them basically impossible to solve intellectually. Instead they just turn into battles of will where one side seeks to defeat the other in toto, not actually arrive at a solution that overcomes the conflict.
Unfortunately the academic system is explicitly designed to create specialists, not people that can effectively communicate to the Everyman.
https://mchankins.wordpress.com/2013/04/21/still-not-signifi...
Modern corruption is just unsustainable populist negligence, that coincidentally also collapsed many empires in history. Suggesting Academic bureaucracy is a functional Meritocracy is naive wishful thinking, and ignores why these structures usually still degenerate to merge with poorly obfuscated despotic movements.
"Despotism" (1946)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaWSqboZr1w
Have a great day, =3
If we're assuming a postmodern stance that there is no objective truth, or even a utilitarian stance that truth is a consensus, then life is reduced to some extended chemical reaction, and there is no difference between a Stalin and a Mother Theresa.
If one posits some religious definition of an objective truth, then at least there is a definition to measure against beside "Do as thou wilt".
I'm not a huge Chomsky fan anyway. Despite his appeal to truth, he tends to ring false for me.
This sort of contrarianism is especially grating given the amount of distancing from social responsibility occurs here as a forum of what should be mostly intellectuals.
Put differently, intellectuals and technologists wield more power to enact both positive and negative change than the average citizens in a democratic society. I would agree with Chomsky that there is some relationship to exposing truth in an information-based society.
Neither subjective or consensus accounts of truth (neither of which correspond with postmodernism or utilitarianism in the way you imply) are obviously inconsistent. Philosophers would not bother talking about them if that were the case.
Funnily enough, I can't tell which of Stalin and Mother Theresa you are worried will be confused with the other, given that many people have opposite ideas of which was moral and which was immoral.
Modern religions define objective morality, not objective truth (excluding metaphysical assertions, which are not what one usually means by truth).
Chomsky never gets around to a teleological argument as to why US intervention in Vietnam was wrong; it's all so much quoting and puffery.
Mcnamara actually explained this at some point. That’s why we are allies with Vietnam today and not North Korea.
They simply put it out there because no matter what, this is what they will say in response to an ICE shooting. It is a way of confusing the messaging and preventing their supporters from being convinced by anyone else or any evidence. Once their base form that initial opinion, it is very hard to change their mind. So will intellectually actually reach those people effectively?
Remember, this base has been told to distrust the academics and distrust science and distrust the news media.
The reason exterminate always go after academics is because they make things harder. The vast majority of academics could make more money than they do as a professor. The authoritarian relies on the religious nature of followers and it's harder for those followers to have faith when it's constantly being questioned. It's why your mental model of an authoritarian regime is where people are afraid to speak freely.
You're right that the strategy is to confuse and overload. It's difficult to counter and I think you're exactly right to say "enough". We need to adapt to this strategy too. I think it's important to remember that truth has a lower bound in complexity but lies don't. They have an advantage because they can sell simplicity. We have the disadvantage when we try to educate. But what we need to do is remind people of how complex reality is while not making them feel dumb for not knowing. It's not easy. Even the biggest meathead who is as anti academic as they come will feel offended if you call them (or imply they're) stupid (are you offended if they call you weak?). We need a culture shift to accept not knowing things and that not knowing things doesn't make one stupid. I have a fucking PhD and I'm dumb as shit. There's so much I don't know about my own field, let alone all the others. I've put in a lot of hard work to be "smart", but the smartest people I know say "I don't know" and that's often the most interesting thing you can hear.
It's no easy task to solve. Don't forget, we're a species that would rather invent imaginary invisible wizards than admit we don't know. We're infinitely curious but also afraid of the unknown.
Well-said, even if the sentiment is in-and-of itself somehow condescending. No way around it, really.
To be fair, as well, there are an enormous number of people who do this already. They are educators, they are docents, they are civil servants. They quietly perform this task day in and out without much recognition or fanfare.
The demonization of these people can’t be ignored, either. It’s as if their services run counter to the interests of those who put so much money and effort into that demonization…
A thing I've learned is that often when people are mad they're not mad at you. Maybe you're part of it, but usually you're just at the end of some long chain. It's easier to respond to anger when you realize this.
battles of will where one side seeks to defeat the other in toto, not actually arrive at a solution that overcomes the conflict.
The deeper issue is immigration policy, which is a topic that displays the pattern I mentioned: no real attempt to solve the issue by addressing both sides/various parties, and instead boils it into an us-them struggle of political wills.
The responsibility of intellectuals in this case should be IMO to clearly analyze the immigration debate and discuss the benefits, downsides, likely consequences etc. of various actions.
But we don’t get that. Instead everyone just has an opinion already formed, including the intellectuals. And unfortunately unbiased rational approaches seem to lose (in money, attention) to the loud and opinionated.
So as the problem gets more complicated, people get further and further away from actually solving it.
So, basically, my point is beware getting dragged into debates that clearly only benefit specific parties with specific agendas without first asking yourself more critical questions about the bigger picture.
As a previously homeless veteran, I'd say that is zero. Why should intellectuals, or in fact anyone have any duty to help a system that doesn't help them?
Now I know a lot of people will grandstand and say that if people just started taking on responsibility, then that would improve the system so that it would help more, but again, I did my part and was promised to be taken care of by society with its fingers crossed behind its back.
You can just do nothing and things will get better when others do more than they get, but by you doing nothing you've just shifted your burden to others. The burden of each individual is small. Almost insignificant even. It's not hard to be kinder to others than they are to you. But the burden accumulates and compounds. You don't have to pick up the slack, but you do need to do your part. The future is made by all of us
If the person you are responding to hasn't screwed society over, then it sounds like they have easily cleared that bar, even by doing nothing.
I'd add a quote from the beginning of a famous sci-fi*:
You have to create Good out of Evil, because there is nothing else to create it from.
Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, famous Russian anti-system science-fiction brother duo. Their other notable book is Snail on a Slope.
That's your society, not all societies. People, veterans or not, aren't homeless in mine.
Then, sir, it would be foolhardy to contribute any part to that service because soon it will all collapse.
That's, in a historically commonplace fashioned see today, is what the top 10% are doing when seeing the top 1% abdicate all responsibility.
Low or no taxes? Sounds good ... but it's going to burn down soon.
To not have an obligation to society is to be a drain on it. Even if you don't recognize it you still get a lot of benefit from society. It could be better. It should be better. But that will never happen if you never put in your part.
I'm personally very anti war. But I also am very dissatisfied with how we treat our veterans. To send them to, as Hawkeye says: "worse than hell", and then just abandon them?! That's a high moral sin. Outright unconscionable. But recognize they can only get away with this because we let them. I'm not okay with it, are you?
It isn't our duty to listen and do nothing. It is our duty to get mad and do something. Which is exactly what Droopy said
So called "intellectuals" who do it just to further their own selfish goals, should not be awarded high ranking positions.
Even in the 2000s, one of the most ironic outcomes is that US hegemony forced a bunch of countries into really dominant regional positions (thinking especially of Japan, China and Germany) because they had nothing else to do but fix their own internal problems and it turns out that is a dominant strategy over militarism. Moral positions like peace, law, consistency and fairness aren't vague nice-to-haves, they are principles that lead to better outcomes for the people who stick with them.
"You know, I ran into Henry Kissinger years ago and I asked him if he enjoyed the intellectual stimulation of the work, and he said in effect, 'I am working with the ideas that I formed at Harvard years ago. I haven't had a real idea since I've been on this; I just work with the old ideas."