Chomsky
Denial or ignorance?
Today’s conundrum: is there any relation between Chomsky’s work and the entirely inappropriate link to Epstein? Surely not...and yet....
...his theory of language is a claim that there is a deep and universal structure to human language. He was not interested in what people actually say or how they say it, in the conditions of their lives. It is in that sense an abstraction of real language and real languages.
Then again, his main place of work for many years was MIT. MIT is one of the humming intellectual centres of the US military-industrial complex. In fact, you could even rephrase that as MIT-military-industrial complex. For some, it was always a mystery as to how this radical, anarchist crap-detecting, debunker of US foreign policy could work in a place so wound up with this ‘complex’.
So there we have two interesting features of Chomsky’s work: the one that seemed to deny or ignore human variation in the actual material world, and the other to deny or ignore the guys next door contributing to the next US invasion.
Are these acts of self-deception? Are they a form of deliberate or unconscious blinkering that match how he viewed his relationship with Epstein? What is hard to believe are the countless men coming away from this Epstein crisis, saying that they had no idea something bad was going on. Don’t people gossip? Don’t people say to each other, ‘I’ve heard xyz about this Epstein guy?’
Perhaps or perhaps not Chomsky heard a whisper or two. Perhaps or perhaps not Chomsky chose to ignore it or deny it.
We will never know.
It is bollocks to think those people didn’t know anything. There is no way colleagues, friends and others had no inkling or opportunity to observe that something toxic was within. Anyone who has worked or been part of large institutions or groups knows there is nowhere to hide and people talk. Some of those people may choose to look away but the insights and knowledge are there. Total bollocks to deny it.
It’s clear to me that anyone who for whatever reason has become engaged in the Corporate Feudal system or any branches of it such as Finance and Investment, the MIC, Big Oil, Big Pharma, etc., at some stage or other have to make a moral choice as to whether to remain or stay within it. Those who chose to remain will be accepting that they will thenceforth be sliding down the razor blade of corruption (to borrow Tom Lehrer’s imagery)