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[Isaiah] Berlin's observation is accurate enough, and applies at home as well, and even more harshly for the reasons already mentioned: the apparatchiks and commissars could at least plead fear in extenuation.

Noam Chomsky

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Noam Chomsky
Age: 96
Born: 1928
Born: December 7
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More quotes by Noam Chomsky

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We have to be irrational and vindictive, because that's going to frighten people. And we have to maintain this for years. And then we'll be able to carry out the actions that we want to carry out.
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The tendencies are considerably weaker in the natural sciences, which, for the past several centuries, have survived and flourished through such constant challenge, and therefore, at best, seek to encourage it. Serving the status quo in political and socioeconomic realms is a different matter.
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There is a considerable polarization taking place here, increasing the gap between rich and poor. It's most dramatic in Third World countries, of course, but in the rich countries it's also very noticeable.
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When I am at home, I never watch TV, but when I am abroad in a hotel I take a look at the BBC to find out what's going on.
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My position is that we should not succumb to irrational belief.
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Pakistan is not a unified country. In large parts of the country, the state is regarded as a Punjabi state, not their (the people's) state.
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The basic principle is that the losers have to confess, not the victors. When they do it, it's a crime. When we do it, it's not. And more generally, it's the defeated who are tried, not the victors.
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Maybe the science is uncertain, maybe we don't have to worry about it. Climate change is the worst, but there's others.
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The Democrats have pretty much given up on the white working class. That would require a commitment to economic issues and that's not their concern.
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...if you ask me whether or not I'm an atheist, I wouldn't even answer. I would first want an explanation of what it is that I'm supposed not to believe in, and I've never seen an explanation.
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Isaiah Berlin described the intellectuals of [Mikhail] Bakunin's Red bureaucracy as a secular priesthood.
Noam Chomsky
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Colombia was a big wheat producer in the 1950's. That was eliminated by what sounds like a nice plan, called Food for Peace. It's a plan by which US taxpayers subsidized US agribusiness to send food to poor countries. This, of course, destroyed the domestic agricultural markets of these countries, opening these markets to US agribusiness.
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Obama's primary constituency was financial institutions. They were the core of the funding for his campaign. They expect to be paid back. And they were. They were paid back by coming out richer and more powerful than they were before the crisis that they created.
Noam Chomsky
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I've often been struck by the extensive knowledge that people have of sports, and particularly, their self-confidence in discussing it with experts. . . . In contrast, when discussing matters of concern to human lives - their own and others - people tend to defer to experts.
Noam Chomsky
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It was during the Reagan years that defiance of international law and the U.N. Charter became entirely open.
Noam Chomsky
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As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.
Noam Chomsky
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Moral cowardice and intellectual corruption are the natural concomitants of unchallenged privilege.
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There are two problems for our species' survival - nuclear war and environmental catastrophe - and we're hurtling towards them. Knowingly.
Noam Chomsky
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I don't use the social media but I can see the effects in my own correspondence. I get a ton of correspondence. It used to be hard copy and now it's a very limited amount of actual letters people write. So it's mostly email.
Noam Chomsky
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The rise of what's called Islamic fundamentalism is to a significant extent a result of the collapse of secular nationalist alternatives which were either discredited internally or destroyed, leaving few other options. Something like that may be true of American society.
Noam Chomsky