this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
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Chapotraphouse
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I'm so glad he got to live long enough to see his reputation ruined.
Valeria Chomsky arranged for an associate of Epstein to mail a $20,000 check meant to help “administering the Chomsky challenge in linguistics” at another juncture.
When Chomsky's elderly first wife died, he instantly hooked up with Valeria (a Brazilian lady that was decades younger than him), it was a bit odd at the time, but now with the whole Epstein connections...
Perhaps most strikingly, in late February 2019, Epstein represented to an associate that he had gotten advice from Chomsky over how to navigate “the horrible way you are being treated in the press and public”.
“The best way to proceed is to ignore it,” Chomsky wrote, according to text signed under his first name that Epstein sent to a lawyer and publicist. “That’s particularly true now with the hysteria that has developed about abuse of women, which has reached the point that even questioning a charge is a crime worse than murder.”
How did anyone ever consider this guy an intellectual giant of the western left is beyond me.
The actual answer and reason why he’s an intellectual giant in the west is he made a significant contribution to the field of linguistics. I even studied him briefly in college because the Chomsky hierarchy is useful for understanding programming language theory and development, and notably Chomsky was not a computer scientist. It’s rare to have cross-discipline reach.
Oh, I don't disagree with that, I'm more peeved at all the Western leftists that continue to uphold someone who has always held a complete and utter distain towards AES in the same vein Slavoj Zizek does.
Because he wrote hugely important works for informing people in their understanding of how much of empire and media manipulation works AND in language development theory?
His seminal works are lauded for a reason, and while we like to say he's palatable to liberals these days, at the time his work was important, well researched, and quite bold. Go watch him dismantle Thomas Buckley - he used to have the sauce. Furthermore, a large amount of his credit also comes from his work in Linguistics - which he arguably contributed more to than politics.
Ok, sure, he's now been shown to be a pedophile sympathiser, and in his later years had a bunch of shit takes, but that doesn't really affect how he rightly came to be known as a prominent public intellectual.
EDIT: got a lot of replies here, not going to reply to each individual one, but briefly:
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Ok, Herman wrote a lot of Manufacturing Consent. Chomsky wrote about 10 other books that have been pathways for people to 'get into' knowing more about US hegemony.
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No, he wasn't a socialist visionary or anything. He was just an active chronicler of some of the darker parts of US history, and I think that's where his comfortability and relevance lies. He never really suggests anything new apart from something vaguely demsoc/anarchist, and that's fine. He never really claimed to come up with a better framework.
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RE Michael Parenti - love the guy, have read most books by him. Hot Take however, he's a much better orator than writer, and as a writer a much better polemicist than documentarian. I find Parenti more fun to read/listen to, and it makes me want to get off my couch and do something - but he doesn't have the same sustained analysis with citations that Chomsky has. Chomsky is generally drab but very information dense, and as he proposes no real ideology of his own, his work rarely slides into emotive writing. No, he's not a Marxist or anything - but his information is useful for Marxists to use.
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Yeah alright, this Epstein stuff is damning. But I suppose in response to the original commenter, I only meant to say that he rose to prominence a long time ago with a heap of accolades, so it's not hard to see why he became a prominent 'left' academic.
I feel like a lot of people's beliefs and core values twist/fall apart with age bc after 40, human brains gradually shrink/stiffen and become less empathetic/open-minded over the decades
Chomsky's def beyond saving, but sometimes I wonder if someone like Angela Davis would become a proper communist again if she took shrooms to reactivate youthful neuroplasticity
Manufacturing Consent, by Chomsky's own admission, was mainly written by Edward S. Herman, but he ends up more associated with it because he's more famous. He was also a bastard with a malignant influence on "the left" for several decades now.
I don't think he's that different from Dawkins, where he was a serious figure in his field but parlayed that into being a reactionary pseudo-intellectual in political commentary.
Later years? The krakker was against protesting the Vietnam war, he has always been a barbarian, even congratulating the new CIA director
Yeah 'in his later years', and not always and constantly. He didn't even actually write the section about media manipulation.
I won't deny he made significant contributions to the field of linguistics, although his rationalist position on the Human language is debatable, but in regard to geopolitics and socioeconomics? My guy, Michael Parenti's works and lectures are right there. Hell, there are a plethora of Western Marxist thinkers in the last century that have far better input on how Base and Superstructure operates than Chomsky ever did. Even fucking Einstein had better takes on Socialism than he did.
Just because Chomsky is more popular and his works are cited more by liberals, doesn't mean he should be lauded by anyone on the left as an arbiter of 'socialist' thought. Especially when his views on AES have always been downright reactionary and orientalist (no, not "in his late years" but for decades), calling states like the DPRK "the most horrible regime in Human history" and China "a very brutal society, a brutal government. I don’t feel any particular interest in improving relations with it.".
As someone who descended from a family who came from that "very brutal society" I do not have any qualms denouncing someone like Chomsky who peddles bigoted views against non-western societies.
Also, I think simply calling him a "pedophile sympathizer" is minimizing his complicity don't you think? You're acting as if he just questioned age of consent laws or expressed sympathy to Epstein when what he really did was actively collaborate with and defend a Billionaire paedophile that he was VERY close with. He even received tens of thousands of dollars from Epstein to fund his linguistic academic pursuits lmao. Even if you ignore the whole pedo ring, he was still an active class collaborator with the American bourgeoisie (which honestly, explains his anti-communist views a lot). He may be an intellectual, but an ally of the socialist left he is not.
he was the only intellectual the west had left..,.
what, you'd platform a TANKIE?!
An intellectual that couldnt bother to understand dialectics and that calls Marx description of capital an abstraction? Lmao
shrug apparently when you discount all the unacceptable intellectuals (tankies), this is what you're left with.
So far most speculation of this whole thing from the perspective of Chomsky being such an intellectual that he just can't stop himself from having interesting debate and stimulating conversation even if that happens to be with monsters of facilitated by monsters.
There is however another more negative angle to analyse this from. You could also argue that Chomsky knew what his role in capitalism was, deeply so, more than most people on the planet. I find it somewhat difficult to imagine that Chomsky did not know that he was elevated to stardom by capital, given interviews and exposure and much much more because he was a palatable far-left, an unthreatening far-left, a figure of the left that represents no danger.
If Chomsky knew this, you could also argue that he knew he is a component of capitalism reinforcing capitalism by acting as the furthest left people would reasonably go, and also by publicly saying negative things to anything further left than he was. He thus acted as a prevention of people moving further left. If Chomsky knew this, then he was a willing participant in reinforcing capitalism, and knew his role very well.
If you take this route of analysing the situation, you could draw the conclusion that his friendship with Epstein and "fantasising about the caribbean island" are actually him taking part in the rewards of taking on that role within capitalism, quite knowingly.
This is the most cynical view to take of it, but one that I don't think should be ignored. Given Chomsky's works I find it difficult to believe he never considered his role, he must have had some self awareness.
Noam Chomsky 
Clarence Thomas
him taking part in the rewards of taking on that role within capitalism
I mean, compare this to Finkelstein's appearance in the emails where he said that Dersh and Jeffy both deserve to be strangled.
Finkelstein strikes me as the sort of intellectual that will engage in an exchange with almost anyone and yet even he didn't feel it necessary to offer counsel and consolation to Epstein so where does that leave us with regards to our position on Chomsky?
(Also check out recent posts on R*ddit's r/Chomsky to see people running defense for him in realtime)
Finkelstein is actually someone who would still go on about how great Chomsky is and how good of a friend he was. At least that was true as of a few years ago (podcast interviews come to mind, one of them for sure from RevLeft Radio) and I remember thinking how much better overall Finkelstein turned out as a human being compared to Chomsky, even if he never received the kind of recognition or accolades Chomsky did... which of course he didn't, because Finkelstein had integrity and honesty particularly to stand up to Zionists, all but ensuring his career would be constantly pushed towards obscurity, but nor did Finkelstein work as a sheep dog to corral wayward pinkos back towards liberalism like Chomsky. So it was hard to hear Finkelstein gush about Chomsky so much, but I wonder if he is having more thoughts now about how good of a guy Chomsky really was in light of these recent revelations, or even the ones of a few years ago.
Finkelstein does the same about Mearsheimer. I think he respects intellectual honesty and also when he does that he's not saying these people are above criticism, whereas Chomsky straight-up says Epstein needs to be treated like an average person without prejudice like a liberal dumbass.
Finkelstein would rather engage with a Holocaust Denier than Epstein
finklestein debated a guy saying that you can't prove genocide intent even if israel just happens to genocide the palestinians and would still call for the public execution of the epstein class
Manufacturing Consent
Ignoring Consent
Manufacturing the age of consent
crushed. obliterated
Chomsky is like:
I keep on coming back to a line in "The Believer," where the intellectual Nazi (Curtis Zampf played by Billy Zane) talks about holding conferences where he invites Chomsky to "build bridges to the mainstream."
I keep coming back to that Spinal Tap line about "working on a sex farm" and "plowing through your bean field" and "pokin' your hay" and assuming that Epstein showed the aforementioned farm to Chomsky, who nodded along and said "yeah, this is normal and good." (But like, in a long-winded academic way.)
The producer from TrueAnon?
God, he's gonna be having a hell of a time right now isn't he?
Really should change his stagename to Young Parenti or Young Finkelstein
At this point, embracing "Racial Jake", could even be an improvement.
Yunk Fink sounds tough
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He should reband to Pre-Epstein Chomsky
Wdym he was always named after the anti-segregation lawyer Judith Chomsky
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never liked him or what he had to say anyways
The smugness with which he spoke of AES is the same smugness he responded to people who asked him about his Epstein connections as if it was stupid of them to even question it. Honestly not surprised about this.
same smugness he responded to people who asked him about his Epstein connections
An example I had on hand if anyone is morbidly curious.
youtube link in case nadeko isn't working: https://youtube.com/watch?v=166857p5R6Y
You know how they accuse us of "Whataboutism"? Well this is some real "public-intellectual"-grade whataboutism for ya.
Worth highlighting a point here:
Chomsky is adopting the polar opposite of a prison abolitionist position here. I make this same point about figures like Beau of the Fifth Column.
Yes, they may have served time.
Was is enough time?
What rehabilitation did they undertake during this time served?
What degree of restorative justice was undertaken during the serving of this sentence and what has occurred since?
Have they shown remorse for their crimes or did they seek to minimize and conceal their crimes?
But most importantly - do you agree with the notion that the current bourgeois judicial-carceral system dispenses justice and rehabilitation?
If you believe that the judicial-carceral system dispenses justice and rehabilitation then go burn your leftist credentials because you have absolutely no credibility. I'm 100% sure that Chomsky has written about the injustice of the judicial system and how the carceral system does not provide rehabilitation nor restoration to victims but I'm not gonna go digging to find quotes. Strange how he sings an entirely different tune when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein. Almost like he considers him as part of an in-group who gets special treatment? Hm.
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I did. But thank goodness I deepened my knowledge enough to leave him behind as an understandable if unfortunate contributor to my early leftism, something to be matured out of. I was fortunate that I did not to end up one of the people who he was put into place deliberately to siphon away from radicalism to be shepherded back to liberalism. But there are many from my age group and older (my father to some extent an example) who did end up like that, just as planned. I'll be curious to see what excuses are made or whether those I know who did idolize him will finally start to grow out of it.
I do think @Awoo@hexbear.net's take on it, cynical as it may be, is accurate - he knew what he was doing. Good on you and others for never falling for it like some of us though.
I should add that I'm not really sure where I stand with it, but that considering the possibility of the most cynical position is a good idea. He may very well have been a completely willing and knowing participant who enjoyed the rewards of being one. It is even easier than ever to see the case for that with this shit.
I think you're on to something. Anyone who's serious about criticizing capital and the U.S. (Chomsky definitely counts) at some point wonders if what they're doing with their life is consistent with their beliefs. I don't see how someone so critical about power can be so close to power and not ask themselves what role they're playing.
I do think it's possible he justified his actions in some way (e.g., "I'm changing things from the inside"), but he had to at least have considered the issue.
It's really hard to make the case for that when "the inside" is fantasising about a pedophile island for trafficked children. There's absolutely no deniability either due to his conviction for it. I would extend benefit of the doubt pre-conviction but post-conviction these people all know.
Fuck. Kill your heroes i guess
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