Another Chomsky Quote

Another quote, also from Imperial Ambitions:

Why are you putting so much onus on the educated class?

Because responsibility correlates with privilege. If you’re more privileged, you’re more responsible....

The people who are sitting in places like MIT have choices. They have privilege, they have education, they have training. That carries responsibility. Somebody who is working fifty hours a week to put food on the table and comes back exhausted at night and turns on the tube has many fewer choices. Technically, this person has choices, but they’re much harder to exercise, and therefore he has less responsibility. That’s just elementary. The people with the privilege and the education and the training are also the decision makers, either in the government or in business or the doctrinal institutions. So, yes, they’re the ones responsible, far more than those who don’t have any choices.

(pp. 131–132)

I may not be working in a think-tank in Washington, but as an educated, well-to-do, middle-aged white man, I can’t deny that I have a lot more privilege than most of the people in my country. And therefore, I have more responsibility. The readers of this blog have varying levels of responsibility, some less, maybe some more, but I know that I have a lot of responsibility, regardless of what others have.