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If scientists and scholars were to become collectively self-organised and consciously activist today, they would probably devote themselves to service to state and private power. Those who have different goals should (and do) become organized and activist.

Noam Chomsky

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Noam Chomsky
Age: 95
Born: 1928
Born: December 7
Anthropologist
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East Oak Lane
Philadelphia
Avram Noam Chomsky
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More quotes by Noam Chomsky

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The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don't know how to be submissive, and so on -- because they're dysfunctional to the institutions.
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Resistance is feasible even for those who are not heroes by nature, and it is an obligation, I believe, for those who fear the consequences and detest the reality of the attempt to impose American hegemony.
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It doesn't matter what we cover, it matters what you discover.
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I'm sorry to say it has some historical analogs. It's kind of reminiscent of what happened in Germany in the late Weimar years.
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One of the real problems of society is that its far too atomized, what sociologists call secondary associations.
Noam Chomsky
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Democracy is always harmful to elite interests. Almost by definition.
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In the case of [Antonio] Gramsci, the Fascist government agreed that he was a model intellectual in [Edward] Said's sense, and for that reason determined, in their words, that we must stop this brain from functioning for twenty years.
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It’s ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society dominated by huge corporations. What kind of freedom is there inside a corporation? They’re totalitarian institutions - you take orders from above and maybe give them to people below you. There’s about as much freedom as under Stalinism.
Noam Chomsky
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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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One measure for promoting both stability and fairness across financial market segments is a small sales tax on all financial transactions.
Noam Chomsky
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A basic principle of modern state capitalism is that costs and risks are socialized to the extent possible, while profit is privatized.
Noam Chomsky
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Anatomically modern humans are found up to 200,000 years ago behaviourally modern humans appear very recently in evolutionary time, as far as evidence now exists, perhaps within a window of 50-100,000 years ago, a flick of an eye in evolutionary time.
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There certainly are those who worship the state much as divinities are worshipped. Not just the state but even leaders.
Noam Chomsky
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To construct a scientific theory from the data and to be able to recognize that it is a reasonable theory is possible only if there are some very sharp restrictive principles that lead you to go in one direction and not in another direction. Otherwise, you wouldn't have science at all, merely randomly chosen hypotheses.
Noam Chomsky
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I hope that a move toward clemency with Judge Afiuni would be a step towards the importance of maintaining a properly functioning justice system.
Noam Chomsky
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Some kind of settlement in Kashmir is crucial for both countries [Pakistan and India]. It's also tearing India apart with horrible atrocities in the region which is controlled by Indian armed forces.
Noam Chomsky
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I think such an inquiry will reveal a rather different picture: namely, it will reveal a very strong tendency for the intellectuals who are respected and privileged to be those who subordinate themselves to power.
Noam Chomsky
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The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn't betray it I'd be ashamed of myself.
Noam Chomsky
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Every great power, every aggressive power has always regarded itself as exceptional and as doing things only for the most moral ends.
Noam Chomsky
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The term intellectual is used conventionally to refer to people who happen to have unusual opportunities in this regard, and as always, opportunity confers moral responsibility.
Noam Chomsky