Lately I've been thinking about one of my favourite Chomsky quotes:

'If you are not offending people who ought to be offended, you’re doing something wrong [...] if I was asked by the New York Times to write op-eds regularly, I’d think I’m probably doing something wrong, because obviously they would be seeing what I’m doing as supportive to the power systems that they try to defend. And that’s not what I would like to be doing.'

The financial aspect of his epstein relationship whereby it seems that because a lot of other MIT staff were using him for money problems, he thought he'd do the same makes me think that he never really applied the above line of reasoning to academia or the institution which employed him. It all seems so cosy and chummy, all the old boys helping one another out, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, "don't worry Noam, I know a guy who can help you out with that" etc. He seems comfortable being part of the furniture there, and doesn't appear willing to subject what goes on there to his otherwise formidable critical scrutiny. Institutionalised, in other words.

Why did he never cause offense at MIT enough for them to bounce him out? More to the point, why did he not find anything in epstein that he needed to offend? I guess it's an irresistible part of being a social animal that we can't go through our whole lives alienating the people around us - there's always a strong need to smooth things over and make compromises or sacrifices in order to make things easier for the group we find ourselves in. But you still have the choice of the group you want to belong to. For all that Chomsky befriended the oppressed and undeniably kept them at the forefront of his thinking, he made also the choice to tie himself long term to the elite, MIC-adjacent institution of MIT. I think what we're seeing in the epstein files is evidence of what that choice resulted in.

cheers,
I