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[Chomsky] has now been impeached by his own standards, since scrutiny of the evidence does not bear him out on Serbia or Afghanistan or Iraq. It didn't bear him out on Cambodia either, though he was never a 'Holocaust denier' or anything like it. And he has, I think, ceased to be of any use to young people who might pardonably doubt the official story. 2004

Christopher Hitchens#83

CriticismChomskyEvidenceIntellectuals

About this quote

What does it mean?
Hitchens criticizes Chomsky for failing to meet his own standards of evidence.
In plain terms
Chomsky is unreliable because his claims lack evidence.
What can you take from it?
Chomsky has lost credibility due to factual errors.

Where it applies

  • academic debate
  • political analysis
  • media critique

Putting it to work

  • fact-checking critics
  • evaluating public intellectuals

Questions to consider

  • How should we weigh errors in public intellectuals work?

Another view

Chomsky has also produced accurate work on other topics.

More from Christopher Hitchens

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  2. [I am persuaded by] the materialist conception of history. [11]

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  3. If there is a sectarian war in Iraq today, or perhaps several sectarian wars, we have to understand that this was latent in the country, and in the state, and …

    Permalink to quote #81

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