Note on Noam Chomsky

By the way… before I forget. I just finished reading a book of Noam Chomsky’s on the so-called New Military Humanism and the American intervention in Kosovo, and I’m not entirely convinced that his arguments aren’t mistaken in one way: he speaks a lot about censorship and suppression of knowledge, and seems to think that the general populace actually does care about things like world events and the hypocrisy which he so forcefully lays out on the table for us to look at. He again and again points out that America is not playing fair, is lying to its citizens, and that’s true of course, but I’m not sure if it’s as true as he suggests.

I’m not convinced that most people in general actually would care if their country were playng fair, as long as it benefitted their country (insofar and for as long as unfair play can indeed be considered beneficial nonwithstanding). And I’m not sure that American party-line claims aren’t actually directed at the world political community as much as the American populace because I’m inclined to think the majority of people actually don’t give a damn beyond simple reaction to whatever’s televised. (I’d say that of plenty of other countries too, by the way, including Canada and South Korea.) After all, everyone knows the pols are hypocrites. We’re so tired of complaining about it I think we don’t much care anymore, even.

I’ll have to think of this criticism of Chomsky, and his conception of the populace as, at least latently, a moral body. I’m not sure it is, and that suggests a kind of complicity that Chomsky isn’t ready to assign your average Joe.

Thoughts and suggestions would be welcome.

One thought on “Note on Noam Chomsky

  1. It seems that many Americans are fooled by Bush’s manipulation of information.
    In fact, there is censorship in the USA, even when a bit of information is not against national security. Think about Moveon.org issue.
    To me, Noam Chomsky’s critic explains very well manipulative events that occurred during this “Miserable Bush regime.”

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