This could have fitted in several threads
Noam Chomsky – friend of Epstein, defender of dictatorships – was no model anti-imperialist. Can we do better?
strangematters.coop
But what you will never find, across decades of interviews and mountains of correspondence, is a single instance of Noam Chomsky admitting he was ever wrong about anything at all.
I had a good laugh at this part in particular. It's a long, verbose article and I'm still digesting bits of it but it is very interesting. I of course have known of Chomsky for many years, but this is the biggest deep dive I've ever read into his political thought process and reasonings.
One thing I've said many times before is that many dumb people can never explain WHY they have a strong opinion. Their opinions just are, and if you were as s-m-r-t as they are, you'd have the same opinion!!! These people think laughing emoji''s and insults are the perfect counter argument!
But this certainly doesn't mean that verbose reasoning is correct. Chomsky is a true genius, but also kind of nuts. When you combine those traits, OH BOY, you get the most convoluted, walls of bullshit. Trying to untangle the web of rationalizations from someone like that is quite a chore.
One false dichotomy that can be very tempting to make is that either people are dumb, or they will be right. Many people with wacky beliefs have very complex and sophisticated rationalizations for them. But buried in the nonsense is a very particular bad assumption they won't let go of, or a very particular cognitive failure they seem to lack the ability to see through.
In Chomsky's case, I think his views seem to be a lot less motivated by compassion, and a lot more so by contrarianism, as the article states. This is how he can flip between expression such compassion for people killed by one government and then kind of shrugging about Epstein victims and often even the victims of specific genocides.
jayapal.house.gov
