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[T]here is a middle ground which I would like to occupy, and I think people are going to have to find ways to occupy: namely, to try to keep up a serious commitment to the intellectual values and intellectual and scientific problems that really concern you and yet at the same time make a serious and one hopes useful contribution to the enormous extra-scientific questions. Commitment to work on the problems of racism, oppression, imperialism, and so on, is in the United States an absolute necessity. Now exactly how one can maintain that sort of schizophrenic existence I am not sure; it is very difficult. It's not only a matter of too much demand on one's time, but also a high degree of ongoing personal conflict about where your next outburst of energy should go. And unless people somehow resolve the problem I think the future is rather dim. If they do resolve it I think it might be rather hopeful."Soldier, Scholar, Horseman He. . ." The individuals and institutions that have in various ways shaped Chomsky's thinking and his approach to social and linguistic issues have been emphasized up to this point. It may seem odd that we now, at this relatively early stage in Chomsky's life and career, turn to those individuals and institutions that Chomsky has had a hand in forming.
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Schlesinger writes about the political mood of the early 60s |
The primary reason for doing this is that most of the basic philosophy and underlying tendencies that inform Chomsky's work were set in place by 1961, when he was just thirty-three years old. Second, it was at this juncture that Chomsky achieved the stature of established intellectual and became a tenured professor at MIT. Issues relating to the role of the academic, and to the relationship between the academy and the broader social context, now began to take on greater importance for him. Third, Chomsky entered the public debate concerning American foreign policy during this period, and in so doing assumed the role of political observer and "muckraker."His burgeoning involvement in the ongoing critique of domestic and foreign policy provoked a general interest in the relationship between his linguistic work and his political commentary. Although Chomsky himself was quick to dismiss the notion that such a link existed, there was much interesting discussion on the subject, which broadened to include an examination of the relationship between the natural sciences and the social sciences. The discussion also encompassed speculation about Chomsky's engagement at a scientific university, his attraction to Enlightenment thinking, and, ultimately the distinction he drew between the knowable (and therefore worth studying) and the obvious (and therefore worth commenting upon).
In short, Chomsky was now prepared to put his accumulated knowledge to
work for scientific advancement in the field of linguistics and for
social advancement in the realm of the community.
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