Chomsky, I think, would say just go check the White House and Pentagon press releases, etc. He's always said we're a very open society, we just don't pay much attention.
Too big of a question. You should narrow down your question and make it more concise. In terms of research methodology, I would need some clarification; are you talking about linguistics (his field), political research and or any science - because he/ the scientific community doesn't have "a whole unified research methodology".
gm679 Global Financial Markets: Read Immanuel Wallerstein's World Systems Analysis and then read Chomsky's Profit Over People. You'll be able to tell that Chomsky is just reading, and drawing logical conclusions. "Power structures" is a bit broad, read his book Understanding Power and "Chomsky on Anarchism" then read the footnotes. The footnotes tell you exactly for what, how, and where he got his information. If you come across a book in the footnotes that seems intriguing, don't hesitate to read it. There's nothing special about what he does, there is something very special about the level at which he does it. There's no trick, you just read the right things, a lot. The library he calls his bookshelf belongs in a museum.
gm679 You've got the entire internet at your disposal to help you figure out what to read my friend. Chomsky even has reading lists online with hundreds of books compartmentalized into different subjects. As for the "original source" it quite well depends on the subject. Historians may use first hand accounts and every written record from the time that they can scrap up. Philosophers may combine views from many arguments in order to form a unique perspective, or even have the rare but often profound "original thoughts." In fact, with all of these questions of foundation we may be plunging into infinite regress ourselves (must be the nerdiest joke I've made in a while).
It is quite simple to follow Chomsky's logic. All you have to do is learn Left Wing Marxism and Anarchism. Learning these philosophies will make you see the world through a different lens; then, learn any subject and apply Marxist and Anarchist principles, and you will arrive to Chomsky's conclusions. The difference between Chomsky and other Marxists/Anarchists is that he seems to have some kind of photographic memory.
"How can one man retain so much knowledge. Just remarkable!" In a 2005 poll is was ranked 3rd in a list of 27 most intelligent people on the planet, thats how.
He travels the world giving lectures and answering people's questions. If you watch enough videos of him you will see that his responses to people's questions are always the same or very similar. This is clearly because NC has it all boiled down to simple truths. Simple truths which took a years of learning, research, observation and reasoning to arrive at. It seems to me that traveling to do these lectures should no longer be necessary for Prof. Chomsky. They may serve as inspiration for people, but he has given us all we need regarding what we need to do.
He should start his own youtube channel. Hire a technical producer to do all the computer and video stuff, and have topics for discussion, even based off of youtube comment questions.... It would be so simple yet very helpful for spreading his information even more so than he already has largely done.
You fail to realize that Noam Comsky is getting very old, so to rely on him to do all the work now is just selfish. Also, he said himself once that he wants to bring people together in their communities, our society is very atomized and asocial, so to give talks is to bring people together in one spot so that they know they exist and can organize themselves. Also many people don't know he exist, so giving talks is also a good way to say "I exist".
well said mercoid i recently heard him lecture on education. lets just say after 65yrs at MiT he qaulifies like no other to comment on the subject.He goes on to state that the purpose of education is not to cover a subject but to discover . God i wish i could have taken at least one of his classes at MIT
*If you watch enough videos of him you will see that his responses to people's questions are always the same or very similar.* That's because despite his years of doing it most people's questions are rather simple and the same and are an almost incredulous pleading for inquiry into a forbidden line of reasoning, namely rejecting the powerful status quo mind set. It'd be like an apostate going around the middle east speaking to groups of people who are always asking "is god really not real?' Whats more interesting though is if you find him among groups of people who are more liberated intellectually. When he speaks to groups of socialists or anarchists its far more interesting as their questions already show a rejection of some of the basic dogmas that his liberal audiences are still struggling to deal with.
Chomsky is a big proponent of repetition, something that most intellectuals fail to see the positives of. People learn through repetition in every walk of life. He's also not a fan of useless jargon that academia tends to wrap itself around. If laymen can't understand social sciences, it is entirely worthless.
Did you even listen to the video here to write that Tom? 0:50 to 1:00. That is not humanism, but its opposite. Maybe if you gave your definition of "humanism" it could help understand your mistake.
One thing that frustrates me is that everyone agrees with this sentiment and also thinks "Yeah, I'm not one of those fools being tricked or misinformed by the ruling class." The point is that we all are victims of our thoughts, desires and expectations being manipulated in this way. Our own arrogance stops us from truly reflecting on our beliefs and maybe admitting that they were formed though this manipulation. We just keep all of our same beliefs and say, "Good point Noam, but that surely does not apply to me."
I get what you're saying. But, speaking for myself, I think he resonated with me because I DID see myself in his talks. Before listening to him, I remember wondering if I was doing something wrong because my experience didn't line up with the 'crawl', at the bottom of my TV telling me how great the economy was. Before him, my expectations of the political system had been set so low that I actually believed someone like Clinton (the first one) was the best we could expect - that someone like Bernie was pie in the sky unrealistic. I mean I was really caught up in the propaganda - even though I believed I had an enlightened view. And I'm still learning. Anyone who's not a little humbled by his observations, I think, is missing the point.
Trusting for un-englightmented politics from the tickle eye of enlightmented people there is a dychotonomy, who are converted themselves into the antinomy.
But nevertheless ignorance is relative across any society . And at the very least no one in this comment section will be in the unfortunate position of having to rely on the most salacious and sensational outlets of the media to entirely inform their opinions .
So do you say you should just be uninformed because you think people are too stupid to apply what they learn to themselves? What is your point, even if you are right in many cases, are you saying we shouldn't watch it or we should but won't get it or just leave it as it is as we are to ignorant to change it, and ourselves. What are you getting at? Also where do you take the justification from to unilatterally claim something like that, isn't that in it's own way quite arrogant. Always criticize, but do it constructively, nobody is helped by just pointing out failure without means to overcome it.
A good first step for making the world a better place is to volunteer 3-4 hours a week with a local cause that is important to you. You will meet other caring people and can begin discussing the pressing needs of your community. No matter which group is controlling the larger political scene, the issues close to home still must be solved. Start in your own community.
I wish it was higher, I hope this isn't an echo chamber I'm a part of heh. I'm honestly looking for criticisms of Chomsky because I feel like I have to be skeptical instead of just taking material in because it came from an intellectual
@@321ian some of their criticism is a joke. Remember Sowell talking about Chomsky in the Hoover institute saying he has no right to talk about economics because he hasn’t specialised in it and the host agreed and said he couldn’t understand any of Chomsky’s writing anyway.
The thing is that this point is true for all societies, whether capitalist or socialist, statist or anarchist, and anything in between. Even an anarchist society relies on the fact that people continue to remember that they desire freedom and justice above all, and that no authority is inherently justified, and so on. As soon as ideologies begin to build that bestow inherent authority on certain people or groups, and inherent legitimacy on certain violations of freedom or suspensions of justice, anarchism will break down. So anarchism requires people to have certain beliefs and systems to maintain those beliefs just as much as any other system. Now we can argue about whether the beliefs that anarchism requires are more natural or more moral, or whether anarchism itself is more beneficial and free and just and so on, but we can't get around the need for some sort of binding component of culture to act as a substrate that holds everything else up. Now I don't think a lot needs to be there, I think a general love for freedom and justice and the general acceptance of other people even if they are different from you, for whatever reasons those are generated, is enough to foster a lasting anarchist society, but nevertheless those common elements would have to be in almost everyone's minds. Another important point that I think Chomsky is forgetting here, or at least since he's a very smart man he might be aware of it and is just glossing over it, is that power is always with the *majority*. When he says that the masses have power, that's what he means, and the reason they have power is purely because they completely outnumber those who wish to hold power in a sort of hierarchical system, and if they simply refuse to cooperate those who hold such power would be completely overwhelmed. But the reason the masses have power over the elites is because there are more of them, and so the masses can equally have power over minorities who we would not desire them to have power over. This is what is called the tyranny of the majority. Thus the mass having power is not always a good thing, because in some cases it can lead to good things, such as the overthrow of a tyrant or an oppressive system, but in some cases it can also be very bad, so such as when minorities are oppressed.
This is why we need something like a monarchy. Destroy politics, remind the people they certainly aren't free, and leave the rest to the ruler(s). This is freedom in an unfair world.
he is so calm and methodical almost everything he speakes of he gives you facts and examples when it his purely his opinion he states that 'well this is my opinion" but ill take his opinion anyday
You can start by understanding his philosophy. He speaks critically of public relations and he really believes it far more than most who would still agree. I think he believes that persuasion is almost a form of violence, that instead you should do your best to merely give them the truth in as rational a way as possible and that's why not only is he heavily about facts and references but also avoids a lot of bluster or rhetoric and tries to keep as even a tone of voice as possible, except in a few exceptional situations. I actually find people who say they get annoyed he isn't more bombastic and energized and basically want someone who's trying to manipulate them through rhetoric. These would be the people who are taken in hook line and sinker by a guy like Hitchens who could clearly be seen to increase his rhetoric and his aggressiveness when he clearly was on shakier ground than normal yet those moments become some of his _classic comebacks_.
Everything I say will be manipulate it , for you know that you have the power to crucify and power to release. But greater love has no one than this, than to lay down once life for his friends. Therefore to You who believe, He is Precious, but to those who are disobedient, has become the chief cornerstone for stumbling and offense ! Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you !
through Chomsky, i have learned how to detect the motivations and mechanisms of power. it is going to be so hard to go through all of the data he goes through if this man is not around. I still use him for references
The 'views' counter on this and similar videos are examples of his point. Compare it to posts that are trivial - entertaining/distracting - but for the most part, 'tales told by idiots; full of sound and fury signifying nothing'. Bread and circus's. Meanwhile, the wealthiest among us continue to set the scope and limits of our politics; determining what is or isn't 'politically possible/realistic.' So, democracy is reduced to a joke. But, only if we let it.
What may solve Hume's paradox is understanding that the potential power that the lower class has is not monolithic and is not able to fight back by definition in the natural world. I rather see it as a relationship between predator and prey. Predator being the upper class that is designed by nature to hunt down and kill and get what they want, they have tools: mindset + teeth. Pray is the huge lower class herbivores that don't possess that drive to kill and in result can't fight back because organizing to resist requires so much more understanding, intelligence if you don't have natural tools. This is why huge herds of wildebeest run away leaving some behind to be eaten instead of facing a few big cats in an organized way. To me, it is encoded in nature. In civilized societies, we live in homes with addresses and possessions and loved ones. It is so easy to go after and scare people. The light at the end of the tunnel is that we are able to understand that paradox and therefore face the problem properly.
I went from watching Pee Wee Herman on Conan O'Brien to this. And I gotta say, that's a big contrast. But what's even more intriguing is, did RU-vid's algorithm suggest this to me because Chomsky co-authored a book with Edward S. Herman? A computer thinking _is_ analogous to a submarine swimming.
What keeps the masses from exercising power, in addition to propaganda, is the intellectual laziness and low IQ of many components of the masses. For example the 150 million voted against their true interests by voting for Trump or Biden. They should have voted for Bernie Sanders and the progressives.
It sticks in my mind, that F.D.R's first election campaign fireside chats only reached six million listeners. Now, it's 18 candidate's for Republican primary, all the time, prime time, and, All, the rest of the time. America's Republican primary in 2016 broadcast immense hours of repetition news, dwarfing the coverage of the Vietnam War !
S&DH, I'm not sure of the figures for Henry VIII but I know religious executions dropped dramatically when Elizabeth I took over from Mary. Elizabeth forbade the discussion of religion in parliament : she wanted folks to simply do their thing and leave others alone. The puritans were the fanatics stirring the pot. And it didn't help that reports of Catholic assassination plots were often true. The Venetian (or Spanish ,I forget) ambassador said, "The country folk don't know whether they're coming or going. They're neither the old faith nor the reformed faith." (I paraphrased) It was this uncertainty, coupled to the radical ideas of the Civil war, that made folk lose interest and hardly take it seriously. Also, the Anglican clergy were so clearly in it for the easy living and money that they were generally hated.
S&DH, that is the most partisan reading of history I've come across in many a year. You are correct on the following :- a) Henry VIII was Catholic until the day he died. He simply replaced the Pope as head of the English Church but maintained the faith. He wasn't Protestant. b) The Catholic institutions did provide alms and succour and they were sorely missed. However they were replaced by a more humane injunction on civil authorities to provide for the poor in their parish. You are mistaken on the following :- a) Church land had been divided up long before Elizabeth. b) Cromwell spoke for toleration (although he didn't display it in Ireland) However the non-conformists were persecuted under his rule. c) Elizabeth had questionable morals by today's standard but she simply didn't prosecute a 'vicious program'. A cast iron fact is this :- Catholic Bloody Mary executed ten times as many protestants as Elizabeth I (and Elizabeth reigned for four times as long). Also the Catholics never led the way in moral matters. Trial by ordeal was abolished by rulers throughout Europe and then 50yrs later by the Pope. Torture was abolished by rulers across Europe and then 80yrs later by the Pope. The infallible Pope has always been behind civil humanism. That is evident today in the Child Abuse scandal. Civil humanists have forced the clergy to stop abusing young children.
@@vinm300 If the truth is partisan, then let us be partisan. The Anglos gave up their claim to good religion when they abandoned the genuine practice of Catholicism. Like the German's, the English gave up proper religion for atheism and paganism, and a distorted protestant version of "Christianity".
@@InHerHonor , Catholicism was founded on a lie : the Donation of Constantine, followed by a rogue's gallery of Popes. Finally, with the Enlightenment, folks could witness the pernicious effects of Catholicism ; contrasted with Northern Europe (protestant), which was advancing with huge strides. That's why the Jesuits (counter-reformation crusaders) were expelled from every country. The Austrian (Habsburg) minister saying "before they ruin future generations".
@@vinm300 No, Catholicism was founded on Christ and his early Church. The enlightenment was a failed project, and the beginning of the end (the modern and post-modern period). About the only good thing that came from it were some inventions to satisfy our hedonism. The "Enlightenment" was really just British empiricism vs German rationalism in terms of philosophy. Both extremes. Both lead to modernism (relativism) or worse: materialist/atheist communists vs. pagan socialist Nazis. Yeah, the minister of Austria wanting Jesuits out of his Protestant country only proves my point. No one has surpassed the Greeks in philosophy, nor Catholics in matters of religion, or beauty, truth and goodness. Chomsky is just a secular moralist with no convincing way to justify his moralism, hence Foucault wiped the floor with him in their debate. However, believe what you like, the truth cannot be altered and I cannot be bothered in writing you paragraphs and corrections you will likely dismiss without earnestly seeking to investigate my claims.
How is the power in the hands of the people, if for example, we as a group have elected one person to become president of a government. Yet, the government appoint someone totally different? Power is the hands, in this country, of the few.
It's a matter of principle: dictators don't have superhuman strength, and neither do their soldiers. Ordinary people could easily win by outnumbering the ruling class. The hard part is getting people to work together.
his contrast of the reading habits of people in Franco's Spain with contemporary America is ahistorical. With that said I always enjoy listening to what he has to say.
He means propaganda wasn't as important because you could just sling people in the Gulag. He doesn't mean that you weren't slung in the Gulag for thinking the wrong thoughts I don't know if his statement is true. I'm just saying what he said
Win friends, influence people..lol. You ride it like that or no? It's been since longer than you rely on to see. No, they read minds to understand people opinion to insult or advantage from it..dreams not nightmares, by nightmare I don't mean pleasure..nor illness as reliance is heavily swayed ..no, openness to concern can loosen to no self control or no want of control or suspect some to agreed control..but then the kicker of defiance...do the opposite, irritate intending, see if one can interrogate...it works at opportunity creating by creating crisis or deferral while crisis goes on. Opportunist at large imo
Majority has the power but it doesn't know what to do with it unless some individual tells it how to use it. Even if majority overthrew governments and stopped the propaganda, something has to replace those things. So, majority turns to talented individuals, which are often insane, or have some mental problems which differentiate them from the majority and we are back to step one. Average IQ of humans on planet Earth is around 90. Does anyone expects that that level of IQ is capable of making the right decisions or guide the humanity toward prosperity for all? I don't think so. And we are looooong way from improving that IQ to at least 100. Until then, we have to make the best we can choosing the most beneficial individuals to guide us toward that goal of an average IQ of 100.
I used to repeat this diatribe for years, what Chomsky later called "manufacturing consent". Then one day I realized it was just a very negative way of framing persuasion". In a Democracy, if persuasion isn't the proper tool to convince people of what policies they should support, what tool is exactly> it seems to rely on the idea that people will naturally support the best solutions, when brute force has historically been the method of attaining power. I'll take "manufacture of consent" any day over the alternatives.
@@stevereyyt yes. Bernays was the originator of the phrase. Reportedly was an inspiration to Hitler after he had been so influential on Madison Ave. I understand the negative aspects, but it still begs the question: what is the proper way to influence opinion if clever and effective marketing techniques are ruled out? I suspect the answer is "honesty ", but it is rare that honesty is rewarded by the public due to basic human psychology. most people don't want "truth", they want "their truth" or whichever narrative validates their belief system.
@@earthtoned Bingo. Fascinating topic to try to unravel. The nation state is 300 or so years old but we act as if it had always existed and is the natural state. Without it we have no culture, common identity, etc... I have no answers but such is they way of the social animal. “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.” ― Edward Bernays, Propaganda
Persuasion is the proper tool for sure But lies aren't. And giving the tools of persuasion to a narrow elite is not right The media is more democratic now then when Chomsky was developing these ideas. Nevertheless it's still a good first approximation. Take the world's response to two occupations: Putin invades a land with tons of ethnic Russians in it who have been harassed by Ukrainian neo-Nazis and whose president threatened to site American nuclear weapons on it. Well that's the end of the world. We have to sanction Russia and arm the Ukrainians Israel occupies Palestine for 50 years. It's a crime under the very same law invoked against the Russians. The Israelis go further in breaching the Geneva conventions by settling the occupied territories with their own population. Even non violent protest by the Palestinians is met with murder and brutality. Not a peep from the Americans. No sanctions. In fact they arm the aggressor to the teeth! This can only happen because the propaganda institutions are in place
There's a difference. Persuasion is usually done in good faith, with an interest in truth, whereas manufacturing consent is done in bad faith, misleadingly.
who made this translation in Spanish ffs. He said "Mao's red book", not "red book of malice"... Interesting points by NC otherwise, despite being horribly anti-communist, and hence pro liberal establishment no matter how much he still fancies himself an anarchist (like every other anarchist tbh).
Being opposed to authoritarian socialism does not make him pro-liberalism you nitwit. What kind of idiotic false binary do you imagine the world to be? What a dumb thing to say.
@@garrett2439 Ur right. It’s also important to remember how different his use of language is compared to the mainstream. If he’s defending liberalism, he’s likely defending classical liberal enlightenment thinkers who we should remember were mostly precapitalist, and held several anarchist-style positions like questioning all structures of authority. In their time they didn’t have as much private tyranny like corporations and stuff, they were mainly criticizing the RCC, the State, and tyranny of the public over individual liberties (which I also kinda find to be important and I think we on the libertarian left can sometimes miss). But if they were alive today, no doubt they’d also be criticizing the fuck out of private tyranny. JS Mill thought that workplace democracy was probably going to be an inevitable development as capitalism breaks down over time. He had an incredible foresight on that stuff.
+fantastic big things cant tell you now ... Well it has to get to the point where everyone you meet says, "I am willing to give up what little I have on the hope of a getting something better. most people will not do that until what little they have is nothing. That's what I meant by. Outrage only drive personal action when that person does Not have to choose self-Sabotage. The only time that is not true is when gangs of well educated young people get together and act towards some ideal. But when you have loved ones and things to lose the rest of the grown ups will not act until it is an actual benefit to the ones they care about. This should make angry, not because people are like this, but because powerful people take advantage of it.
+fantastic big things cant tell you now ...and dead people don't fight causes. Do you think if Chomsky had anything that would actually insight people to revolutionary actions that he would be allowed to keep talking? Do we hear from Nader any more? How many have been silenced, assassinated? Don't blame the rest of us for your inaction and don't look to the sanctioned voices that blather on. Act. Its you choice.
Another reason is moral character and decency. A person with these qualities would have little interest in having power over other human beings. People with power are likely to lack the very think that would prevent their abusing the power.
Noam is saying that Hume was "A Tory", a "tory" is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The Tory ethos has been summed up with the phrase "God, Queen, and Country". - Wikipedia
With all due respect to Chomsky's intellect and academic contributions, he seems to think himself the sole arbiter of what constitutes human happiness and moral values.
I hate that Hume was at the dame time a brilliant philosopher(Hume's Guillotine is, imo, a hugely important idea in moral philosophy) and an authoritarian. Bah.
Wrong, again. The reason that the governed do not express their power is two fold. The first is a basic psychological reality that individuals do not target relative wealth or power in general. They target a specific quality of life. Once that quality of life is attained, the individual interest for aggressive advocacy in their own interest rapidly diminishes. Chomsky makes exactly the same mistake here that the capitalists make, and that is the assumption of unlimited wants. Humans do not have unlimited wants, they have specific wants as represented by their individual nature. The second issue is related to the first issue but extends the effect. Once an individual has attained a standard of living they are comfortable with, they are far more likely to vote and advocate on moral grounds then out of self interest. Most people understand that unequal rewards are primarily the result of unequal productivity and they are willing to sacrifice self interest in the name of morale comfort. He is also wrong about the natural tendency of individuals towards justice and morality. Those are not natural or normal for humans, those are the result of a prosperous society. He is both right and wrong about propaganda in a free society. Propaganda is targeted at the empowered groups, this is just a natural reality that has nothing to do with any kind of nefarious tendency of any group. Argument, threat, and bribe will always be directed at the decision makers. If the target of your manipulation has no power, what is the point of manipulation? This was actually the argument made by many women against women's suffrage, they were fully aware that women were being used as a prop because of they are relatively easy to manipulate. Many women didn't want women to become the target of these often brutal forms of manipulation and so preferred the role of social politicians rather then policy ones.
No one submits willingly to a brutal society. In fact all of your revolutions and popular uprisings are due to the people understanding the brutality of their treatment. Most everything else was true. Also Hume was not in favor of the subversion of the people.
Control of opinion has more variables that Chomsky has ever realized, he should read and understand the mediums used within culture (McLuhan etc.). He has never studies this and always talks about the content of things. Personally, I do not consider Chomsky to be a leading thinker bc of this reason.
Hasn't he lied about the serbian and greater yugoslovian genocides as well denied other genocides in the balkans and form a conspiracy theoru that the us govt interviened in the balkans to end the yugoslavian state but we joined because the 10 states yugoslavia split into all started genociding each othet
