Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship by N. Chomsky

Description

Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship is Chomsky’s powerful indictment of a liberal intelligentsia that provided self-serving arguments for war in Vietnam, legitimizing U.S. commitment to autocratic rule, to intervention in Asia and, ultimately, the “pacification” of millions. Over thirty years after their first printing, these are prophetic words, as today America effects “regime change” in Iraq and an increasingly boisterous militarism around the globe. Included here is Chomsky’s classic counter-analysis of the Spanish Civil War as a revolutionary war from below, as he lays bare the hostility of even liberal scholarly elites to engage in mass movements and social change, revealing not objectivity, but its opposite–the use of ideology to mask self-interest and obeisance to power. Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship is a crucial signpost of Chomsky’s searing contribution to our age, and an indispensable lens through which to consider mainstream punditry today.