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afddceb The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.... acceptable-opinion lively-debate obedient limit passive debate opinion control passivity obedience Noam Chomsky
d7c1d2b Education is a system of imposed ignorance. public-education homeschooling ignorance Noam Chomsky
509ea2e For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit. politics war-crimes hypocrisy double-standards power Noam Chomsky
cbdd13a Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state. mass-media repression totalitarianism propaganda Noam Chomsky
85e7917 Do you train for passing tests or do you train for creative inquiry? learning inspiration education inspirational Noam Chomsky
463b722 Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilization has been individual material gain, which is accepted as legitimate, even praiseworthy, on the grounds that private vices yield public benefits in the classic formulation. chomsky anarchism brainwashing indoctrination authority propaganda democracy Noam Chomsky
139f22b It's only terrorism if they do it to us. When we do much worse to them, it's not terrorism. Noam Chomsky
496d26b We still name our military helicopter gunships after victims of genocide. Nobody bats an eyelash about that: Blackhawk. Apache. And Comanche. If the Luftwaffe named its military helicopters Jew and Gypsy, I suppose people would notice. blackhawk comanche Noam Chomsky
6834143 Hamas is regularly described as 'Iranian-backed Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.' One will be hard put to find something like 'democratically elected Hamas, which has long been calling for a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus'--blocked for over 30 years by the US and Israel. All true, but not a useful contribution to the Party Line, hence dispensable. gaza-war israel-united-states-relations iran hamas consensus dissent israeli-palestinian-conflict terrorism united-states democracy israel Noam Chomsky
4a187b2 In my own professional work I have touched on a variety of different fields. I've done work in mathematical linguistics, for example, without any professional credentials in mathematics; in this subject I am completely self-taught, and not very well taught. But I've often been invited by universities to speak on mathematical linguistics at mathematics seminars and colloquia. No one has ever asked me whether I have the appropriate credential.. Noam Chomsky
012df1a The very design of neoliberal principles is a direct attack on democracy. neoliberalism democracy Noam Chomsky
44baed9 No honest journalist should be willing to describe himself or herself as 'embedded.' To say, 'I'm an embedded journalist' is to say, 'I'm a government Propagandist. war journalism propaganda Noam Chomsky
e2ee577 We need not stride resolutely towards catastrophe, merely because those are the marching orders. Noam Chomsky
ed222b1 State propaganda, when supported by the educated classes and when no deviation is permitted from it, can have a big effect. It was a lesson learned by Hitler and many others, and it has been pursued to this day. Noam Chomsky
3857a0d The two main criminals are France and the United States. They owe Haiti enormous reparations because of actions going back hundreds of years. If we could ever get to the stage where somebody could say, 'We're sorry we did it,' that would be nice. But if that just assuages guilt, it's just another crime. To become minimally civilized, we would have to say, 'We carried out and benefited from vicious crimes. A large part of the wealth of Franc.. wealth history french-imperialism reparations civilisation imperialism united-states apologies haiti crime france guilt Noam Chomsky
ad0547a There are few genuine conservatives within the U.S. political system, and it is a sign of the intellectual corruption of the age that the honorable term 'conservatism' can be appropriated to disguise the advocacy of a powerful, lawless, aggressive and violent state, a welfare state for the rich dedicated to a lunatic form of Keynesian economic intervention that enhances state and private power while mortgaging the country's future. violence politics keynesianism welfare-states conservatism united-states politics-of-the-united-states economics law intellectuals Noam Chomsky
7dfc6e6 The new crimes that the US and Israel were committing in Gaza as 2009 opened do not fit easily into any standard category--except for the category of familiarity. gaza-strip gaza-war israel-united-states-relations war-crimes israeli-palestinian-conflict united-states israel Noam Chomsky
3b3a6a9 reading a book doesn't mean just turning the pages. It means thinking about it, identifying parts that you want to go back to, asking how to place it in a broader context, pursuing the ideas. There's no point in reading a book if you let it pass before your eyes and then forget about it ten minutes later. Reading a book is an intellectual exercise, which stimulates thought, questions, imagination. reading books occupy how-to occupy-wall-street book Noam Chomsky
f0c1178 The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfil this role requires systematic propaganda. Noam Chomsky
e53c064 Look, part of the whole technique of disempowering people is to make sure that the real agents of change fall out of history, and are never recognized in the culture for what they are. So it's necessary to distort history and make it look as if Great Men did everything - that's part of how you teach people they can't do anything, they're helpless, they just have to wait for some Great Man to come along and do it for them. history culture power Noam Chomsky
faf6fed There are growing domestic social and economic problems, in fact, maybe catastrophes. Nobody in power has any intention of doing anything about them. If you look at the domestic programs of the administrations of the past ten years-I include here the Democratic opposition-there's really no serious proposal about what to do about the severe problems of health, education, homelessness, joblessness, crime, soaring criminal populations, jails, .. Noam Chomsky
62ba8e1 Of course all such conclusions about appropriate actions against the rich and powerful are based on a fundamental flaw: This is us, and that is them. This crucial principle, deeply embedded in Western culture, suffices to undermine even the most precise analogy and the most impeccable reasoning. 2006-lebanon-war 2009 thomas-friedman the-new-york-times western-world lebanon other reasoning hypocrisy israel Noam Chomsky
b071a41 the qualifications that I have to speak on world affairs are exactly the same ones has, and has, or anybody in the Political Science Department, professional historians--none, none that you don't have. The only difference is, I don't pretend to have qualifications, nor do I pretend that qualifications are needed. I mean, if somebody were to ask me to give a talk on quantum physics, I'd refuse--because I don't understand enough. But worl.. qualifications world-affairs Noam Chomsky
43bcb91 To begin with, we have to be more clear about what we mean by patriotic feelings. For a time when I was in high school, I cheered for the school athletic teams. That's a form of patriotism -- group loyalty. It can take pernicious forms, but in itself it can be quite harmless, maybe even positive. At the national level, what "patriotism" means depends on how we view the society. Those with deep totalitarian commitments identify the state wit.. Noam Chomsky
03bb557 My intellectual achievement was retarded when I went to high school. I sort of sank into a black hole because I had to go to the high-achieving, academic public high school. Noam Chomsky
44322b8 The beauty of the system, however, is that such dissent and inconvenient information are kept within bounds and at the margins, so that while their presence shows that the system is not monolithic, they are not large enough to interfere unduly with the domination of the official agenda. Noam Chomsky
0ea8bde Historical amnesia is a dangerous phenomenon not only because it undermines moral and intellectual integrity but also because it lays the groundwork for crimes that still lie ahead. Noam Chomsky
0aead25 So what the media do, in effect, is to take the set of assumptions which express the basic ideas of the propaganda system, whether about the Cold War or the economic system or the "national interest" and so on, and then present a range of debate within that framework--so the debate only enhances the strength of the assumptions, ingraining them in people's minds as the entire possible spectrum of opinion that there is." Noam Chomsky
ebf7dac The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum--even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate. politics society sociology media Noam Chomsky
a8c21e9 If you claim to have a theory that deduces unexpected consequences from nontrivial principles, let's see it. Noam Chomsky
e53f9d5 As in the past, the costs and risks of the coming phases of the industrial economy were to be socialized, with eventual profits privatized ... Noam Chomsky
75742c9 What does it mean to be truly educated? I think I can do no better about answering the question of what it means to be truly educated than to go back to some of the classic views on the subject. For example the views expressed by the founder of the modern higher education system, Wilhelm von Humboldt, leading humanist, a figure of the enlightenment who wrote extensively on education and human development and argued, I think, kind of very pl.. Noam Chomsky
35fa669 Earlier in the twentieth century some critics called fascism "capitalism with the gloves off," meaning that fascism was pure capitalism without democratic rights and organizations." -- Noam Chomsky
969fa71 With regard to freedom of speech there are basically two positions: you defend it vigorously for views you hate, or you reject it and prefer Stalinist/fascist standards. It is unfortunate that it remains necessary to stress these simple truths. Noam Chomsky
ced6738 In fact, the belief that neurophysiology is even relevant to the functioning of the mind is just hypothesis. Who knows if we're looking at the right aspects of the brain at all. Maybe there are other aspects of the brain that nobody has even dreamt of looking at yet. That's often happened in the history of science. When people say that the mental is the neurophysiological at a higher level, they're being radically unscientific. We know a lo.. Noam Chomsky
307e894 Plainly, such an approach does not exclude other ways of trying to comprehend the world. Someone committed to it (as I am) can consistently believe (as I do) that we learn much more of human interest about how people think and feel and act by reading novels or studying history than from all of naturalistic psychology, and perhaps always will; similarly, the arts may offer appreciation of the heavens to which astrophysics cannot aspire. Noam Chomsky
3c08132 Globalization is the result of powerful governments, especially that of the United States, pushing trade deals and other accords down the throats of the world's people to make it easier for corporations and the wealthy to dominate the economies of nations around the world without having obligations to the peoples of those nations. Noam Chomsky
a0981df It's not going to be easy to proceed. There are going to be barriers, difficulties, hardships, failures- it's inevitable. But unless the process that is taking place here and elsewhere in the country and around the world, unless that continues to grow and becomes a major force in the social and political world, the chances for a decent future are not very high. Noam Chomsky
b03bcbd The only debatable issue, it seems to me, is whether it is more ridiculous to turn to experts in social theory for general well-confirmed propositions, or to the specialists in the great religions and philosophical systems for insights into fundamental human values. religion philosophy social-sciences Noam Chomsky
f659aba To cite the facts of history is to fall prey to 'moral equivalence,' or 'political correctness,' or 'the error of of atheism,' or one of the other misdeeds concocted to guard against the sins of understanding and insight into the real world. Noam Chomsky
dd8debe Within the reigning social order, the general public must remain an object of manipulation, not a participant in thought, debate, and decision. Noam Chomsky
93b60d1 Well, I'm not sure the politics gossip-magazines the-new-york-times genitalia supermarkets magazines gossip Noam Chomsky
514c00c Another thing they talk about a lot is water--and that's a very crucial thing, which is not discussed very much in the United States but it's probably the main reason why Israel is never going to give up the West Bank. See, this is a very arid region, so water is more important than oil, and there are very limited water resources in Israel. In fact, a lot of the wars in the Middle East have been about water--for instance, the wars involving.. Noam Chomsky
e1822dd As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, and diverted to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome. Noam Chomsky
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