Preface
I wrote this not because I've reached some final moral insight, but because I noticed a moment of clarity I didn't want to lose.
Reading about Chomsky recently, specifically his associations with Epstein, I recognized a pattern. Even the most morally articulate among us can fail to turn the lens inward. This isn't really about Chomsky. It's about something I recognize in myself, and probably in everyone.
Certain beliefs sit unexamined for years, quietly shaping how we see the world. Occasionally, something forces a re-examination. This is an attempt to record one such moment.
The Chomsky Case
I found Chomsky's work influential. For years, I held him up as an exemplar, someone who demonstrated that rigorous moral analysis was possible, that power could be named and critiqued systematically.
I don't do that anymore. Not because Chomsky failed some purity test, but because I no longer think exemplars work that way. Humans are fragile, partial, shaped by circumstance. Worthy of moral consideration, not pedestals.
Still, the Epstein association is worth examining. Not to condemn, but to understand. What does it reveal about moral blind spots?
Systemic vs. Personal Violence
Chomsky has spent decades documenting systemic violence: state power, imperialism, manufactured consent. His work is incisive precisely because he sees patterns others miss.
But systemic violence is abstract. You analyze it from a distance. Personal violence, the kind Epstein inflicted, is concrete, embodied, happening to specific people.
A life of academic privilege can insulate you from the second kind. You can see the system without seeing the person in front of you.
The Reintegration Argument
Chomsky's stated position: Epstein served his time, and people who've served their time should be allowed to reintegrate into society. This isn't an unreasonable principle. I'm sympathetic to it. Permanent exile creates its own harms.
But there's a gap between "allowing someone to exist in society" and "praising them, associating with them, elevating them." Who we choose to give credibility matters, to the victims, to society, to the message it sends about what we value.
Epstein's 2008 sentence was itself a product of privilege, a sweetheart deal that obscured the scale of his crimes. Chomsky couldn't have known the full picture then. But by 2019, he could have.
The Post-2019 Silence
After Epstein's arrest and death, the scope became clear. Dozens of victims. A trafficking operation. Complicity from powerful institutions.
This was the moment for Chomsky to turn the lens inward. Not performative apologetics (I share his aversion to theater). But a simple acknowledgment: "I misjudged. By giving him credibility, I may have helped him access victims. That matters."
Instead: silence, or dismissal.
This is the blind spot. Not the initial association, that's forgivable given incomplete information. But the refusal to revisit, to apply the same rigorous analysis to oneself that one applies to power structures.
What This Teaches
Chomsky's failure isn't unique. It's the human condition. We're better at seeing others' errors than our own. Privilege insulates. Moral clarity about systems doesn't guarantee moral clarity about persons.
The lesson isn't "Chomsky is bad." It's: no one is exempt from blind spots, including those who've made careers analyzing them.
Including me.
On Moral Exemplars
Some beliefs form early, before you have tools to interrogate them. Moral exemplars get installed this way. People you treat as evidence that a coherent, good life is possible. They are less chosen than absorbed.
When such figures reveal blind spots, the disappointment feels personal. Not because they're villains. Because you expected too much coherence from a human being.
People aren't unified moral systems. They're messy collections of ad hoc heuristics, shaped by privilege, insulation, and circumstance. Even the most serious among us are partial.
I've written before about moral responsibility as a social technology, useful but constructed. Not a metaphysical fact about persons, but a pragmatic fiction that modifies behavior and enables coordination.
This framing helps here. Chomsky isn't a fallen saint. He's a human who did valuable intellectual work while remaining subject to the same partial vision that affects everyone. His ideas still stand on their own merits. His blind spots don't negate his insights. They just remind us that insights and blind spots coexist in the same person.
The Standard Applied Consistently
Reflecting on Chomsky's failure to turn the lens inward, I notice something in myself.
I've had intrusive thoughts lately. Fantasies of sacrifice, of minimizing burden, of making death "useful." Stage 4 generates these. The logic goes: if time is limited, maybe it should be spent reducing the cost I impose on others.
I don't endorse these thoughts. I recognize them as distortions of something I actually hold: that conscious beings have inherent worth, independent of utility.
I've argued that suffering is self-evidently bad, not because some theory says so, but because the badness is immediately present in the experience. This phenomenological grounding applies universally. To everyone capable of suffering.
Including me.
The same standard I apply to others must apply to myself. If I believe humans have worth independent of their productivity, I can't exempt myself from that principle. If I believe people deserve compassion even when they're burdens, I have to extend that to the person I see in the mirror.
This isn't stoicism or self-affirmation. It's consistency.
What Living Well Means Now
Stage 4 changed the optimization problem. I've written about this before: not maximize lifetime, but maximize meaningful work given uncertain lifetime.
But "meaningful work" isn't the whole picture.
Living well also means: presence, honesty, gentleness. Being human even when that feels incomplete or insufficient.
For myself. For my wife. For those who love me, and whom I love in return.
This isn't heroism. I'm not being brave or inspiring. I'm not fighting heroically or staying positive or finding silver linings.
I'm just:
- Making decisions based on probability
- Trying to remain present
- Accepting uncertainty
- Continuing forward
Cancer doesn't make you wise. It makes you confront tradeoffs explicitly. The goal isn't optimization. It's orientation. Staying pointed in a direction that matters, even without certainty about the destination.
On Forgiveness
Thinking about Chomsky, about blind spots, about the harm we cause without intending to, I keep returning to forgiveness.
Forgiveness isn't absolution. It's not forgetting. It's not pretending harm didn't happen.
It's the refusal to treat suffering as a moral good. It distinguishes justice from vengeance. A compassionate response to harm aims to reduce future suffering, not multiply it.
Even the worst among us are human. Acknowledging that doesn't excuse anything. It prevents moral brittleness. It allows us to see others as fellow sufferers, shaped by circumstances they didn't choose, acting from partial information, failing in ways they may not even recognize.
This applies to Chomsky. It applies to people who've harmed me. It applies to me, when I inevitably fail to live up to my own standards.
Forgiveness isn't about the person who caused harm. It's about refusing to let that harm define everything that follows. It's about maintaining the capacity to see clearly, even when clarity is painful.
What Remains
I don't know how much time I have. The statistics suggest years, not decades. But statistics describe populations, not individuals. I could beat the odds. I could not.
What I know is what I want to do with whatever remains:
- Build things that matter
- Document what I've learned
- Stay present with the people I love
- Notice my blind spots when I can
- Correct course when I notice
- Continue forward regardless
The blind spots will still be there. That's the human condition. Chomsky couldn't see his. I can't see mine. That's what makes them blind spots. The goal isn't perfection. It's the willingness to look, to revise, to apply the same standards to yourself that you apply to others.
Peace in the end, for all, isn't indulgence. It's refusing to let suffering have the final word.
This post was prompted by reading about Chomsky's associations with Epstein, but it's not really about Chomsky. It's about the pattern I recognized: how moral clarity about external things can coexist with moral blindness about ourselves. And about trying, imperfectly, to do better.
