In his younger days Chomsky spoke in that nasal voice that most intellectual men now display. For several decades his delivery has been soporifically flat, and at 88 he seems more and more like an old lady, though without the inner liveliness that old Jewish women often show. In his manner he has always conveyed a lack of healthy male vitality, like virtually every man on MSNBC and CNN, to say nothing of those uniquely pitiable men in academia. Such a man, though he can work up an ingenious argument that sees the U.S. as to blame for virtually everything, is far less valuable to the state than are the uneducated, coarse men who needn’t turn away from the world as it is, and who are in fact quite willing to risk their lives for their country: a sacrifice one can hardly imagine Chomsky the critic making, even if, per impossible, his beloved “democratic socialism” were on the line.
When I challenged Chomsky about his trust, he suddenly started to sound very bourgeois: “I don’t apologize for putting aside money for my children and grandchildren,” he wrote in one e-mail. Chomsky offered no explanation for why he condemns others who are equally proud of their provision for their children and who try to protect their assets from Uncle Sam. Although he did say that the tax shelter is okay because he and his family are “trying to help suffering people.” (…)
When I asked Chomsky about his investment portfolio he reverted to a “what else can I do?” defense: “Should I live in a cabin in Montana?” he asked. It was a clever rhetorical dodge.
Here, Noam Chomsky denies that there are anti-free speech enforcers on university campuses:
