It wasn't only the anarcho-syndicalists who got excited. In lending his support to Scottish independence, Noam Chomsky generated a palpable buzz among yes activists: "Noam" even started to trend among Glasgow's twitterati.

"My intuition favours independence," Chomsky told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti, adding that he had "been following the debate with interest". But that, apparently, was the limit of his contribution. Voters looking for further nuance might have been left a little underwhelmed, not least by the expectation that world-famous analytic philosophers tend not to rely on anything as touchy feely as intuition.

The story is at once strange and predictable. Strange in that Chomsky's interview was given to the state-owned news agency at about the same time as another arm of the Russian state despatched two Tupolev Tu-95 strategic bombers for a cheeky incursion into the Nato-protected zone off Scotland's north coast.

The predictable part is that Chomsky is an inveterate taker of sides in any geopolitical contest, particularly if it involves compromising a US strategic ally. And it's only to be expected at this stage in the indyref game that a salvo from an A-list cultural figure would be deployed; it is return fire, perhaps, for David Bowie's surreal "Scotland, stay with us" moment at the Brit awards. In neither case, of course, was anything of consequence actually said.

But in another sense, Chomsky's intervention is rather more significant than it first appears. Where Bowie has never been shy of wrapping himself in the union jack, Chomsky is well known for being a passionate critic of nationalism in its many guises. "Nationalism has a way of oppressing others," he once cautioned an audience in Govan back in 1990.

So what has changed? Probably nothing, and that's why it's interesting. Chomsky is giving an entirely consistent nod to the anti-nationalist case for Scottish independence, a view that is widely held on the ground but has had almost no expression in the media or among the campaign leaders. Remember that the question before voters is not about nationalism but about independence, and you don't have to be the founder of modern linguistics to see that these political phenomena, though invariably conflated, are not the same.

It's remarkable given the high stakes involved that such a basic distinction is so seldom made. In short, nationalism is the belief – held by Alex Salmond and David Cameron alike – in nationhood as the appropriate foundation for territorial sovereignty; independence is about the territorial enactment of self-determination. In Scotland's case, admittedly, self-determination and nationhood will likely be coterminous, but they needn't be so in principle.

The literary theorist Terry Eagleton once remarked that the Enlightenment gave birth to two doctrines distinguished only by the letter "s". The first was that the people had the right to self-determination; the second was that peoples had such a right. "The former belief," said Eagleton, "is the keystone of modern democracy, and indeed of socialism; the second is a piece of romantic mystification."

In other words, Scottishness is not in itself a qualification for sovereignty. I won't vote yes as a Scot; I'll vote yes because the territorial arrangement we call Great Britain has become so dysfunctional that it appears unwilling to sustain its own postwar achievements. That's a sad situation to which I can see no plausible redress other than through a smaller independent state, differently organised, that preserves the best of British healthcare, education and welfare. The potential benefits of such decentralisation and democratic renewal, as Billy Bragg noted, would be felt on both sides of the Tweed.

But I'm not sure that the intervention of #Noam is likely to catalyse this change. He's a Marmite-y kind of intellectual, and as with any serial backer of causes, some of his judgments (agreeing to an interview with Ali G) look in retrospect better than others (his cameo in MIT Gangnam Style). His comments have been a timely reminder that the campaign for Scottish independence shouldn't be reduced to mere nationalism. But it won't be the anarcho-syndicalists – never the most reliable voting bloc – who are likely to swing it on 18 September.