Modern-Day Socrates : Noam Chomsky on Speaking the Truth

"I don't like the phrase 'speak truth to'. We don't know the truth - at least I don't. We should join with the kind of people who are willing to commit themselves to overthrow power, and listen to them (they often know a lot more than we do), and join with them to carry out the right kinds of activities."

Noam Chomsky talks about the idea of "speaking truth to power".
Excerpt from "Power and Terror" (2002).

Chomsky elaborated on this point in a recent interview:
"First of all, you don't have to speak truth to power, because they know it already. And secondly, you don't speak truth to anybody, that's too arrogant. What you do is join with people and try to find the truth, so you listen to them and tell them what you think and so on, and you try to encourage people to think for themselves. The ones you are concerned with are the victims, not the powerful, so the slogan ought to be to engage with the powerless and help them and help yourself to find the truth. It's not an easy slogan to formulate in five words, but I think it's the right one." http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2010/1001/intrvw.htm

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