“Is it Chomsky’s intellectual competence which deserts him when he criticizes the powerful, or is it the willingness of Chomsky’s critics to perceive that competence which deserts them?”

Source: Burning All Illusions (1996), p. 6

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Is it Chomsky’s intellectual competence which deserts him when he criticizes the powerful, or is it the willingness of …" by David Edwards?
David Edwards photo
David Edwards 4
british journalist, born 1962 1962

Related quotes

George Orwell photo

“I consider that willingness to criticize Russia and Stalin is the test of intellectual honesty.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Letter to John Middleton Murry (5 August 1944), published in The Collected Essays, Journalism, & Letters, George Orwell: As I Please, 1943-1945 (2000), edited by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus
Context: Of course, fanatical Communists and Russophiles generally can be respected, even if they are mistaken. But for people like ourselves, who suspect that something has gone very wrong with the Soviet Union, I consider that willingness to criticize Russia and Stalin is the test of intellectual honesty. It is the only thing that from a literary intellectual's point of view is really dangerous.

Prevale photo

“Criticizing without having the slightest competence on a subject is the first sign of a person's immaturity.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) ​Criticare senza avere la minima competenza su un argomento è il primo segno di immaturità di una persona.
Source: prevale.net

Irving Kristol photo

“An intellectual may be defined as a man who speaks with general authority about a subject on which he has no particular competence.”

Irving Kristol (1920–2009) American columnist, journalist, and writer

Foreign Affairs, July 1967.
1960s

Abu Nuwas photo
Paulo Freire photo
Paulo Freire photo
Betty Friedan photo
Kazimir Malevich photo

“When, in the year 1913, in my desperate attempt to free art from the ballast of objectivity, I took refuge in the square form and exhibited a picture which consisted of nothing more than a black square on a white field. The critics and, along with them, the public sighed, 'Everything which we loved was lost. We are in a desert... Before us is nothing but a black square on a white background!”

Kazimir Malevich (1879–1935) Russian and Soviet artist of polish descent

But the desert is filled with the spirit of non-objective feeling.. ..which penetrates everything.
In 'The Non-Objective World: The Manifesto of Suprematism', 1926; trans. Howard Dearstyne [Dover, 2003, ISBN 0-486-42974-1], 'part II: Suprematism', p. 68
1921 - 1930

Related topics