Noam Chomsky's 1966 essay "The Responsibility of Intellectuals" is along with Peter F. Strawson's "Freedom and Resentment" one of the two best essays that I have ever read. I remember pouring over both essays in the dimly lit Wayne State University library in 1966. The Vietnam war against the Vietnamese people was quite underway and Detroit's 'Insurrection' occurred the following year. Both of these abuses of power were lethal actions brought by the privileged, educated few - Harvard, Yale, Stanford men (mostly), against the unprivileged many. According to Chomsky's recent essay, "The Responsibility of Intellectuals, Redux" (September/October Issue Boston Review, the United States' official version of democracy is quite limited in its extent and in our government's application of its democratic principles. On page five (5) Chomsky writes,
What particularly troubled the Trilateral scholars was the “excess of democracy” during the time of troubles, the 1960s, when normally passive and apathetic parts of the population entered the political arena to advance their concerns: minorities, women, the young, the old, working people . . . in short, the population, sometimes called the “special interests.” They are to be distinguished from those whom Adam Smith called the “masters of mankind,” who are “the principal architects” of government policy and pursue their “vile maxim”: “All for ourselves and nothing for other people.” The role of the masters in the political arena is not deplored, or discussed, in the Trilateral volume, presumably because the masters represent “the national interest,” like those who applauded themselves for leading the country to war “after the utmost deliberation by the more thoughtful members of the community” had reached its “moral verdict.”
By "excess of democracy" Chomsky means "democracy for the rest of us, for those of us down here on the ground (Cornel West's apt phrase) - "All for ourselves and nothing for other people." We've seen this "vile maxim" pursued by our President, by his friends in powerful places, and by his ghosts in Congress - his imaginary opposition.
Noam Chomsky's two essays are very instructive and repay one's attention. Peter Strawson's fine 1960 essay is also worthy of our attention. Lastly The New Yorker profile by Larissa MacFarquhar of the philosopher Derek Parfit offers rewarding reading. Parfit gets quite worked up about human suffering. Thus Chomsky, Strawson and Parfit fit together.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/09/05/110905fa_fact_macfarquhar
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