by NOAM CHOMSKY and MICHAEL ALBERT
Years ago you wrote an article, or an essay, called The Responsibility of Intellectuals [1967]. So what is an intellectual?
It’s not a term I use very much, but it’s a term that’s used. It refers to people who have sufficient privilege and opportunity so that they’re able to speak about affairs of human interest and concern and do it with a degree of prestige and authority which may or may not be warranted. And, they are called intellectuals. So, a physicist working in a lab is not called an intellectual, but if he happens to give a talk on, you know, nuclear proliferation, yeah, then he’s an intellectual. A literary critic who writes about English poets in the late nineteenth century is not an intellectual, but if he happens to discuss, you know, cultural changes that are developing in the modern world, well, OK then he is an intellectual. If, say, a shoemaker happens to have a very insightful commentary on international affairs or domestic affairs or human relations, he’s usually not called an intellectual. But it’s not a very meaningful term.
Nevertheless, what’s an intellectual’s responsibility, the focus of your essay?
We start with the fact that the people designated as intellectuals have privileges. Otherwise, they wouldn’t enter into that category. They have a degree of authority, prestige, justified or not. And these characteristics confer responsibility. Privilege yields opportunity. Prestige, deserved or not, yields a degree of credibility. The more opportunity and credibility you have, the more responsibility you have.
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