Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media Page #4

for an advanced technological society

in which human beings do not have to be forced

into the position of tools, of cogs in a machine.

Since the 1960s

Noam Chomsky has been the voice

of a very characteristic brand

of rationalist libertarian socialism.

He's attacked the abuses of power

wherever he saw them,

he's made himself deeply unpopular

by his criticism of American policy,

the subservience of the intelligentsia,

the degradation of Zionism,

the distortions of media,

and self-delusions of prevailing ideologies.

Under the liberal administration of the 1960s

the club of academic intellectuals

designed and implemented the Vietnam war,

and other similar, though smaller, actions.

This particular community is a very relevant one

to consider at a place like MI

because of course you're all free

to enter into this community.

In fact,

you're invited and encouraged to enter it.

The community of technical intelligentsia,

and weapons designers,

and counter-insurgency experts,

and pragmatic planners of an American empire,

is one that you have a great deal of inducement

to become associated with.

The inducements, in fact, are very real.

The rewards in power, and affluence,

and prestige, and authority...

Jamie?

This came with the mail.

Be with you in a second.

Oh, God, they've still got their cameras.

OK?

We'll start.

In your essay Language and Freedom,

you write, "Social action must be animated

by a vision of a future society".

I was wondering what vision of a future society

animates you?

I have my own ideas

as to what a future society should look like.

I've written about them.

I mean, I think that we should...

At the most general level, we should be

seeking out forms of authority and domination,

and challenging their legitimacy.

Sometimes they are legitimate -

that is, let's say they're needed for survival.

So, for example, I wouldn't suggest

that during the Second World War...

the forms of authority...

We had a totalitarian society, basically.

I thought there was some justification for that

under wartime conditions.

And there are other forms of...

Relations between parents and children,

for example, involve forms of coercion

which are sometimes justifiable.

But any such... Any form of coercion and...

control requires justification,

and most of them are completely unjustifiable.

Now, at various stages of human civilisation

it's been possible to challenge some of them,

but not others.

Others are too deep-seated,

or you don't see them, or whatever,

so at any particular point you try to

detect those forms of authority and domination

which are subject to change, and which...

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