Last week, I posted a link to Noam Chomsky’s speech “The current crises in the Middle East: What can we do?” A few days ago, I came across a documentary in my local video store about Noam Chomsky called Manufacturing Consent. I highly recommend it.
Noam Chomsky
Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilizations 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. Now its long been understood, very well, that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. It can only persist with whatever suffering and injustice that it entails as long as its possible to pretend that the destructive forces that human create are limited. that the world is an infinite resource and that the world is an infinite garbage can.
At this stage of history, either one of two things is possible. Either the general population will take control of it’s own destiny and concern itself with community interests guided by values of solidarity, sympathy and concern for others. Or alternatively there will be no destiny for anyone to control. As long as some specialized class is in a position of authority its going to set policy in the special interest that it serves. But the conditions of survival, let alone justice, require rational social planning in the interest of community as a whole, and by now that means the global community. The question is whether privileged elites should dominate mass communication and should use this power as they tell us they must. Namely to impose Necessary Illusions. To manipulate and deceive the stupid majority and remove them from the public arena. The question in brief, is whether democracy and freedom are values to be preserved or threats to be avoided.
In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than values to be treasured, they may well be essential to survival.
MANUFACTURING CONSENT
NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE MEDIA
A Riveting Glimpse into the Mind of
One of the 20th Century’s Greatest Thinkers
“Watch out for this film. It can make you think”
-Ralph Nader
Manufacturing Consent explores the political life and times of the controversial author, linguist and radical philosopher, Noam Chomsky. As an outspoken critic of the press and one of America’s leading dissidents, he has unrelentingly dissected how our mu ch-acclaimed democratic freedoms often mask an irresponsible use of power. Shocking examples of media deception permeate Chomsky’s critique of the forces at work behind the daily news. He encourages his listeners to extricate themselves from this “web of deceit” by undertaking a course of “intellectual self-defense.”
Few people have produced a body of work more provocative than Noam Chomsky, whose bibliography contains over 700 entries. Whether you agree with him or not, he directly and tirelessly addresses some of the most important moral, ethical, political and soci al issues of our time, and raises questions that are essential for anyone living in our complex era.
