Norris writes:
[T]here is a measure of agreement between Foucault's and Chomsky's positions. . . .Thus Chomsky goes some way toward conceding the point that our ideas of truth are very largely the product of "internalized preconceptions" ; that subjects may indeed be conditioned to accept certain facts as "self-evident" merely by virtue of their fitting in with some established, consensual, or professionalized code of belief; that censorship often operates not so much "from above" as through forms of self-imposed discipline and restraint that don't involve the exercise of overt, coercive powers; that there may be "honest," "right-thinking" individuals (as Chomsky is willing to describe them) who are none the less involved in propagating falsehoods that service the "political economy of truth" ; and moreover, that resistance to those falsehoods or abuses of power must always be to some extent reliant on the "discourses" the available sources of information that circulate at any given time. (113 14)
While emphasizing, again, the trivial and self-interested character of most political-science theory, Chomsky mentions Foucault's contribution to historical studies:
One can learn a lot from history, as from life, as long as it avoids the pretentious tomfoolery required by intellectuals for career and power reasons. Take Foucault, whom you mention. With enough effort, one can extract from his writings some interesting insights and observations, peeling away the framework of obfuscation that is required for respectability in the strange world of intellectuals, which takes on extreme forms in the weird culture of postwar Paris. Foucault is unusual among Paris intellectuals in that at least something is left when one peels this away. (15 Dec. 1992)
The intellectual a commisarr
http://cognet.mit.edu/library/books/chomsky/chomsky/5/8.html
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