Truth isn't the reward of free spirits, the child of protracted solitude,
nor the privilege of those who have succeeded in liberating themselves...
Each society has its regime of truth, its `general politics' of truth:
that is: the type of discourse which it accepts and makes function as
true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true
and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the
techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth;  the
status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true.

                --  Michel Foucault

When Foucault says this as an intellectual, everyone understands him. When
Chomsky says this as an activist and outlines the 'general politics', he's
vilified as a strident, crackpot.