Forgive me for my fourth post:
The Article is
Knowledge, Morality and Hope: The Social Thought of Noam Chomsky Joshua Cohen & Joel Rogers New Left Review, 187, May/June 1991, pp. 5-27
It is available here http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/199105--.htm
and is well worth reading:
The first 3 paragraphs:
In his first published essay on politics, Noam Chomsky announced his conviction that '[i]t is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies.' [1] Acting on that conviction, Chomsky has long supplemented his work in linguistics with writing on contemporary political affairs, focusing principally on the politics of the Middle East, the immorality of us foreign policy, and the role of American mass media and intellectuals in disguising and rationalizing that policy. [2] By contrast with his work in linguistics, which is principally theoretical, Chomsky's political writings in the main address more straightforwardly factual questions. As he emphasizes, these can be settled without special methods or training, and their significance can be appreciated through the application of common-sense norms and beliefs (for example, that aggression is wrong, concentrated power is dangerous, and citizens have greater responsibility for the policies of their own country than for those of other states), as aided by 'a bit of open-mindedness, normal intelligence, and healthy scepticism.' [3]
The characteristic focus, intensity and hopefulness of Chomsky's political writings, however, reflect a set of more fundamental views about human nature, justice and social order that are not simple matters of fact. This article explores these more fundamental ideas, the central elements in Chomsky's social thought. We begin (section i) by sketching the relevant features of Chomsky's conception of human nature. We then examine his libertarian social ideals (section ii), and views on social stability and social evolution (section iii), both of which are animated by this conception of our nature.
To anticipate what follows, we take Chomsky's social views to be marked by four key claims: (1) human beings have a 'moral nature' and a fundamental interest in autonomy; (2) these basic features of our nature support a libertarian socialist social ideal; (3) the interest in autonomy and the moral nature of human beings help to explain certain important features of actual social systems, including for example the use of deception and force to sustain unjust conditions, as well as their historical evolution; and (4) these same features of human nature provide reasons for hope that the terms of social order will improve from a moral point of view. Thus stated, these four claims are clearly neither concrete nor precise. But neither are they vacuous. They provide what we take to be a distinctive, optimistic perspective on human beings and human possibilities. The exposition that follows aims principally at a sympathetic clarification of this perspective. While our discussion is often critical, the criticisms themselves are intended to clarify Chomsky's views and to underscore deeper points of agreement with them.