Noam Chomsky Quotes on Justice
Noam Chomsky's conception of justice, reflected in the quotes gathered here, is inseparable from his critique of power and privilege. Chomsky repeatedly exposes the way the language of fairness is bent to serve the powerful, observing that tough love in practice means love for the rich and privileged, tough for everyone else. He ties justice closely to truth and to honest reckoning with the historical record, summing up one lecture in the formula no peace without justice, no justice without truth. His sardonic remark that there is a good reason why nobody studies history, namely that it teaches you too much, points to the same conviction: that a just politics depends on citizens willing to confront uncomfortable facts about their own societies. Drawn from his talks and writings, these passages treat justice less as an abstract ideal than as a demand for consistency, truthfulness, and accountability.
Quotes
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“"Tough love" is just the right phrase: love for the rich and privileged, tough for everyone else.”
1995–1999 | Powers and Prospects , 1996, p.137 -
“Lenin was a right-wing deviation of the socialist movement and he was so regarded...by the mainstream Marxists... Bolshevism was a right-wing deviation.”
1980s | Speech on “Lenin, Trotsky and Socialism and the Soviet Union”, (March 15, 1989) [1] -
“There's a good reason why nobody studies history. It just teaches you too much.”
2003 | KGNU benefit at the University of Colorado at Boulder , April 5, 2003 (context: João Goulart ) [71] -
“”Some Elementary Comments on The Rights of Freedom of Expression”, preface to Robert Faurisson Mémoire en défense (October 11, 1980)”
1980s -
“Delivered at the First Annual Maryse Mikhail Lecture “No peace without justice; no justice without truth” The University of Toledo , March 4, 2001. [49]”
2001 -
“[The "liberal media"] love to be denounced from the right, and the right loves to denounce them, because that makes them look like courageous defenders of freedom and independence while, in fact, they are imposing all of the presuppositions of the propaganda system.”
1995–1999 | Interview by Ira Shorr, February 11, 1996 [25] -
“Talk titled "The Idea of Universality in Linguistics and Human Rights" at MIT, March 15, 2005 [84]”
2005