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  "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/noam-chomsky/the-chomsky-reader/i-am-personally",
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  "text": "I am personally quite convinced that no matter what training or education I might have received, I could never have run a four-minute mile, discovered Gödel's theorems, composed a Beethoven quartet, or risen to any of other innumerable heights of human achievement. I feel in no way demeaned by these inadequacies. It is quite enough that I am capable, as I think any person of normal endowments probably is, of appreciating and in part understanding what others have accomplished, while making my own personal contributions in whatever measure and manner I am able to do so. Human talents vary considerably, within a fixed framework that is characteristic of the species and that permits ample scope for creative work, including the creative work of appreciating the achievements of others. This should be a matter for delight rather than a condition to be abhorred. Those who assume otherwise must be adopting the tacit premise that people's rights or social reward are somehow contingent on their abilities. As for human rights, there is an element of plausibility in this assumption in the single respect already noted: in a decent society, opportunities should conform as far as possible to personal needs, and such needs may be specialized and related to particular talents and capacities. My pleasure in life is enhanced by the fact that others can do many things that I cannot, and I see no reason to want to deny these people the opportunity to cultivate their talents, consistent with general social needs. Difficult questions of practice are sure to arise in any functioning social group, but I see no problem of principle.",
  "language": "en",
  "author": {
    "name": "Noam Chomsky",
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  "book": {
    "title": "The Chomsky Reader",
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  "page": 198,
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    {
      "name": "equality",
      "slug": "equality",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/equality"
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    {
      "name": "talent",
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      "id": "f84e8d1d-b81e-4d90-b0a5-c27b485de9ea",
      "slug": "being-able-to",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/noam-chomsky/the-chomsky-reader/being-able-to",
      "text": "Being able to do as one pleases is the natural goal of the libertarian, but having nothing to do is not. While it may be correct to say that the human species is badly prepared for having nothing to do, it is quite a different matter to say that it is badly prepared for the freedom to do as one pleases. People who are able to do as they please may work very hard, given the opportunity to do interesting work.",
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      "page": 179,
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      "topics": [
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      "slug": "when-im-driving",
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      "text": "When I'm driving, I sometimes turn on the radio and I find very often that what I'm listening to is a discussion of sports. These are telephone conversations. People call in and have long and intricate discussions, and it's plain that quite a high degree of thought and analysis is going into that. People know a tremendous amount. They know all sorts of complicated details and enter into far-reaching discussion about whether the coach made the right decision yesterday and so on. These are ordinary people, not professionals, who are applying their intelligence and analytic skills in these areas and accumulating quite a lot of knowledge and, for all I know, understanding. On the other hand, when I hear people talk about, say, international affairs or domestic problems, it's at a level of superficiality which is beyond belief.In part, this reaction may be due to my own areas of interest, but I think it's quite accurate, basically. And I think that this concentration on topics such as sports makes a certain degree of sense. The way the system is set up, there is virtually nothing people can do anyway, without a degree of organization that's far beyond anything that exists now, to influence the real world. They might as well live in a fantasy world, and that's in fact what they do.",
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      "page": 33,
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      "topics": [
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          "name": "politics",
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      "id": "cc08184c-5ebc-4f87-b3b1-f6e0c0912429",
      "slug": "my-guess-is-that",
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      "text": "My guess is that you would find that the intellectual elite is the most heavily indoctrinated sector. It's their role as a secular priesthood to really believe the nonsense that they put forth. Other people can repeat it, but it's not that crucial that they really believe it. But for the intellectual elite themselves, it's crucial that they believe it because, after all, they are guardians of the faith. Except for a very rare person who's just an outright liar, it's hard to be a convincing exponent of the faith unless you've internalized it and come to believe it.",
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      "chapter_parent": null,
      "page": 35,
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      "topics": [
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          "name": "propaganda",
          "slug": "propaganda",
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        {
          "name": "intellectuals",
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