 An attack on the intellectual culture in the U.S., Chomsky argues that it is largely subservient to power.He is particularly critical of social scientists and technocrats, who he believed were providing a pseudo-scientific justification for the crimes of the state in regard to the Vietnam War.He notes that those who opposed the war on moral rather than technical grounds are "often psychologists, mathematicians, chemists, or philosophers, ... rather than people with Washington contacts, who, of course, realize that 'had they a new, good idea about Vietnam, they would get a prompt and respectful hearing' in Washington."