Noam Chomsky says not speaking ill of the dead, ‘imposes a vow of silence.’

A false conversational impulse is for one to say nothing negative or derogatory about an individual who is no longer alive, as that person cannot defend themselves.  Professor Noam Chomsky thoroughly debunks this gratuitous line of thinking by explaining, “There is a convention that you’re not supposed to speak ill of the recently dead, which unfortunately imposes a vow of silence because there is nothing left to say.  There is nothing good to say.”