Noam Chomsky Quotes

"Moreover, the institutions of the transnational state largely serve other masters, as state power..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 19:12:27 -0400

“Moreover, the institutions of the transnational state largely serve other masters, as state power typically does; in this case, the rising transnational corporations in the domains of finance and other services, manufacturing, media and communications—institutions that are totalitarian in internal structure, quite unaccountable, absolutist in character, and immense in power. Within them, a participant takes a place in a fairly rigid hierarchy of domination, implementing orders from above, transmitting them downwards. Those outside may try to rent themselves to the masters and may purchase what they produce, but few other options are open to the great mass of the population.”

- World orders, old and new - By Noam Chomsky

"In fact, power is very highly concentrated, decision-making is highly concentrated in small..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 16:47:30 -0400

“In fact, power is very highly concentrated, decision-making is highly concentrated in small interpenetrating elites, ultimately based on ownership of the private economy in large measure, but also in related ideological and political and managerial elites. Since that’s the way the society effectively functions, it has to have political theology that explains that that’s the way it ought to function, which means that you have to establish the pretense that the participants of that elite know what they are doing, in our interest, and have the kind of understanding and access to information that is denied the rest of us, so that we poor slobs ought to just watch, not interfere. Maybe we can choose one or another of them every few years, but it’s their job to manage things, not ours.”

- Noam Chomsky - The Chomsky Reader

"But we can - and should - certainly begin pointing out that corporations are fundamentally..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 05:02:00 -0400

“But we can - and should - certainly begin pointing out that corporations are fundamentally illegitimate, and that they don’t have to exist at all in their modern form. Just as other oppressive institutions - slavery, say, or royalty - have been changed or eliminated, so corporate power can be changed or eliminated. What are the limits? There aren’t any. Everything is ultimately under public control.”

- How the World Works - Noam Chomsky

ebonyatx: Noam Chomsky - Media Control #Chomsky #propaganda...

Sun, 19 May 2013 19:12:36 -0400

ebonyatx:

Noam Chomsky - Media Control #Chomsky #propaganda #anarchy #resist #nightcap

katherinexia: Met Noam Chomsky the other day… Quite an...

Sun, 19 May 2013 16:09:55 -0400

katherinexia:

Met Noam Chomsky the other day… Quite an interesting guy… #linguistics #mit #chomsky #chomskystyle (at MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy)

"Let me begin by referring to something that we have already discussed, that is, if it is correct, as..."

Fri, 17 May 2013 19:12:39 -0400

“

Let me begin by referring to something that we have already discussed, that is, if it is correct, as I believe it is, that a fundamental element of human nature is the need for creative work, for creative inquiry, for free creation without the arbitrary limiting effect of coercive institutions, then, of course, it will follow that a decent society should maximise the possibilities for this fundamental human characteristic to be realised. That means trying to overcome the elements of repression and oppression and destruction and coercion that exist in any existing society, ours for example, as a historical residue.

Now, any form of coercion or repression, any form of autocratic control of some domain of existence, let’s say, private ownership of capital or state control of some aspects of human life, any such autocratic restriction on some area of human endeavour, can be justified, if at all, only in terms of the need for subsistence, or the need for survival, or the need for defence against some horrible fate or something of that sort. It cannot be justified intrinsically.

”

- Noam Chomsky, 1971 (via noonereadstheurl)

"Getting money out of politics is a very crucial matter; it has been for a long time. It’s..."

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:47:13 -0400

“Getting money out of politics is a very crucial matter; it has been for a long time. It’s gotten much more extreme now. For a long time, elections have just been public relations extravaganzas where people are mobilized every four years to get excited to go push a button and then go home and forget about it.”

- Occupy - Noam Chomsky

Introduction to Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman and...

Tue, 14 May 2013 19:12:21 -0400

Introduction to Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky

pax-loveandwar: Manufacturing Consent.. My first edition copy,...

Tue, 14 May 2013 17:20:02 -0400

pax-loveandwar:

Manufacturing Consent.. My first edition copy, bought NEW in 1988.

Photo

Tue, 14 May 2013 17:12:56 -0400

thecryingofblog49: A bit of reading before bed. Am I doing it...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 04:48:13 -0400

thecryingofblog49:

A bit of reading before bed. Am I doing it right?

bintbattuta: There’s no way to be informed without devoting effort to the task, whether we have in...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 19:12:34 -0400

bintbattuta:

There’s no way to be informed without devoting effort to the task, whether we have in mind what’s happening in the world, physics, major league baseball, or anything else. Understanding doesn’t come free. It’s true that the task is somewhere between awfully difficult and utterly hopeless for an isolated individual. But it’s feasible for anyone who is part of a cooperative community - and that’s true about all of the other cases too. Same holds for “intellectual self-defense.” It takes a lot of self-confidence - perhaps more self-confidence than one ought to have - to take a position alone because it seems to you right, in opposition to everything you see and hear. There’s even evidence about this: under experimental conditions people deny what they know to be true when they are informed that others they have reason to trust are doing so (Solomon Asch’s classic experiments in social psychology, which were often held to show that people are conformist and irrational, but can be understood differently, to indicate that people are quite reasonable, and using all the information at hand). More important than any of this is that a community - an organization - can be a basis for action, and while understanding the world may be good for the soul (not meant to be disparaging), it doesn’t help anyone else, or oneself very much either for that matter, unless it leads to action.

Noam Chomsky, On Staying Informed and Intellectual Self-Defense

idioverdose: Got this yesterday

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 14:24:39 -0400

idioverdose:

Got this yesterday

"We shouldn’t be looking for heroes, we should be looking for good ideas."

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 09:36:32 -0400

“We shouldn’t be looking for heroes, we should be looking for good ideas.”

- Noam Chomsky (via quotesandnonsense)

mutilatedregurgitator-g-o-e: “The key element of social control is the strategy of distraction that...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 04:48:30 -0400

mutilatedregurgitator-g-o-e:

“The key element of social control is the strategy of distraction that is to divert public attention from important issues and changes decided by political and economic elites, through the technique of flood or flooding continuous distractions and insignificant information.”
― Noam Chomsky

mutilatedregurgitator-g-o-e: “It is quite possible—overwhelmingly probable, one might guess—that we...

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 19:12:31 -0400

mutilatedregurgitator-g-o-e:

“It is quite possible—overwhelmingly probable, one might guess—that we will always learn more about human life and personality from novels than from scientific psychology”
― Noam Chomsky

"The police can go to downtown Harlem and pick up a kid with a joint in the streets. But they can’t..."

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 14:24:17 -0400

“The police can go to downtown Harlem and pick up a kid with a joint in the streets. But they can’t go into the elegant apartments and get a stockbroker who’s sniffing cocaine.”

- Noam Chomsky (via charlesbechillin)

"…lies can become the Truth, if repeated insistently enough."

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 13:47:41 -0400

“…lies can become the Truth, if repeated insistently enough.”

- Noam Chomsky (via diddywahdiddyarchive)

"Investors don’t go down to the television studio and make sure that the local talk-show host..."

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 04:48:31 -0400

“Investors don’t go down to the television studio and make sure that the local talk-show host or reporter is doing what they want. There are other, subtler, more complex mechanisms that make it fairly certain that the people on the air will do what the owners and investors want. There’s a whole, long, filtering process that makes sure that people only rise through the system to become managers, editors, etc., if they’ve internalized the values of the owners.”

- Secret, Lies and Democracy - Noam Chomsky

"If you go to the Third World, the numbers are fantastic. So for example, another UNESCO report..."

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 19:12:20 -0400

“If you go to the Third World, the numbers are fantastic. So for example, another UNESCO report estimated that in Africa about half-a-million children die every year simply from debt service. Not from the whole array of “reforms,” just debt service. About eleven million children are estimated to die every year from easily treatable diseases. Most of them could be overcome by a couple of cents’ worth of materials. But the economists tell us that to do this would be interference with the market system. It’s not new. It’s very reminiscent of British economists during the Irish famine in the mid-nineteenth century, when economic theory dictated that famine-struck Ireland must export food to Britain, which it did, right
through the Irish famine, and should not be given food aid because that would violate the sacred principles of political economy. These principles typically have this curious property of benefiting the wealthy and harming the poor.”

- Keeping the Rabble in Line - Noam Chomsky