I don't normally quote Chomsky, but I saw this one and it immediately brought to mind countless "debates" where no progress was made because the group got bogged down in the "right" way to talk - how to phrase things in a way that wasn't microaggressive or privileged or otherwise "problematic".
What makes this association worth noting is that these contexts, where policing language and mindset was more important than actual debate, are almost exclusively the domain of the oft-maligned liberal academic. That is to say, these are almost exclusively the domain where Chomsky resides.
In 2015, neuroscientist and prominent Atheist Sam Harris had an unproductive e-mail exchange with the semanticist and prominent political commentator Noam Chomsky, which Sam Harris later published in full on his blog in an entry fittingly titled "The Limits of Discourse." While the right wing cheered Harris for his militant anti-Islamism and the left wing cheered Chomsky for his militant anti-Americanism, what stood out to me was Noam Chomsky's immediate and steadfast refusal to discuss anything without an a priori acceptance of his terms and his worldview. Chomsky will not consider any criticism of his assumptions or conclusions, and is somewhat famous for a level of "whataboutism" where he shifts goalposts in order to avoid ceding a point.
There is a real danger in all ideologies to create echo chambers and engage in thought policing and ideological purity tests. The academic world already tends to an emphasis on theory rather than practice, (as Yogi Berra said, "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.") but so long as there is commerce between the theoretical and the practical the experiments can have relevance and meaning. There is no harm in pursuing an idea to its logical extremes, so long as we remain cognizant that these conclusions do not necessarily follow. When theory is found wanting in the face of observed reality, the correct answer is not to reject the observations or reality. As it is, reality already seems to have a liberal bias anyhow. We don't need to fudge it in our favor.
If we do that we are no better than the right-wing mouthpieces like Breitbart, Limbaugh, Trump, Hannity, and O'Reilly.
Or Chomsky.
