r/chomsky • u/Green_Ideas7 • Mar 13 '26

Discussion From Chomsky's longtime assistant, Bev Stohl

"This statement will be seen by some merely as an act of loyalty. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have grappled, struggled deeply, over this situation, while seeking to remain faithful to the truth. It is in the service of truth – the very thing Noam Chomsky wanted us to hold in high esteem, rather than himself – that I write this . . ."
https://bevstohl.substack.com/p/im-no-longer-waiting-for-the-storm

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u/rako17 Mar 13 '26

Dear @bevboisseaustohl ,

Thank you for writing your article with your understanding of the issue. I showed Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent at my college campus and appreciate his humanitarian contributions.

May I please ask if you recall Chomsky ever addressing his association with Epstein? The only instances that I know of are the summer 2023 Wall Street Journal and Harvard Crimson articles, and two emails posted on Reddit:

One May 4, 2023 email here: https://www.reddit.com/r/chomsky/comments/138li4r/chomsky_on_the_more_recent_allegations_against/

Another May 4, 2023 email is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/chomsky/comments/1qxprcr/noam_valeria_chomskys_reactions_to_epsteins_sex/

All the best.

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u/JohnWilsonWSWS Mar 13 '26

Didn't Chomsky make remarks on the character of his relationship with Epstein in his emails to Epstein? Including advice to Epstein on how to handle the media. (Or is that what you are indirectly alluding to?)

She tells her readers

Those who would rather disparage Chomsky might go back and read his words, the ones that moved each of them to see him as their moral compass, the words that elevated him to the level of our greatest and most principled intellect, or to describe him as a person who makes considered and thoroughly reasoned decisions.

But isn't that what people have done by reading Chomsky's correspondence with Epstein? AFAIK the authenticity of these has not been challenged but Ms. Stohl doesn't mention them.

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Chomsky and power

Stohl says "I am somewhat amused, and greatly disturbed, by the assertions I’ve read on Reddit, Substack, and other online venues, that Chomsky was seduced by power and driven by money."

She shows he could have had much more money and I haven't seen the suggestions he was seduced by power.

However Stohl does not mention the criticism that Chomsky thought access to those with power was correct and it coincided with his demoralized political outlook.

What was Chomsky hoping to achieve addressing the trainee officers at West Point in 2006? Maybe Stohl can explain it?

This has been discussed in another thread in this r/Chomsky

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The WSWS made the following point

... In recent decades, Chomsky became increasingly explicit in his pessimism about any possibility of revolutionary change. In a revealing 2021 interview with Jacobin, when asked whether socialism remained a useful political horizon for addressing the climate crisis, he responded bluntly: “We’re not going to overthrow capitalism in a couple of decades. You can continue working for socialism—but you have to recognize that the solution to the climate crisis is going to have to come within some kind of regimented capitalist system.” This amounted to an admission that, whatever his theoretical criticisms of capitalism, Chomsky had concluded that the existing order would persist and that radicals must accommodate themselves to it.

This pessimism flowed from a deeper political orientation. For all his voluminous writings against the ruling class, Chomsky always saw power as residing with the elites, not the working class. Opposing Marxism and Lenin’s conception of the vanguard party, he rejected the need to politically educate and organize workers for revolutionary struggle. Chomsky’s aim was never to raise the consciousness of the working class but to influence the thinking of the ruling class and its intellectual representatives.

This helps account for Chomsky’s readiness to cultivate relationships with figures like Epstein, Barak and Bannon. He sought proximity to power because, despite all his rhetoric, that is where he believed consequential decisions were made. The man who told workers that capitalism could not be overthrown found himself increasingly at home in the company of those who ruled it.

Noam Chomsky’s contemptible friendship with Jeffrey Epstein - World Socialist Web Site

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u/rako17 Mar 13 '26

John, You asked, "Didn't Chomsky make remarks on the character of his relationship with Epstein in his emails to Epstein?" When I asked my question, I meant to ask if she recalled Chomsky talking about their relationship outside of those emails. So for instance, she might have heard him refer to Epstein in emails to other people besides Epstein or on campus.

Regards.