RIP Noam Chomsky .... not quite

[Postman Pep]

Farewell to a great man. His analysis of power has never been more relevant.

 

[MellowJoe]

I'll wait for Wikipedia to confirm it

 

[urban genie]

RIP

some of his quotes:

"Neoliberal democracy. Instead of citizens, it produces consumers. Instead of communities, it produces shopping malls. The net result is an atomized society of disengaged individuals who feel demoralized and socially powerless.

In sum, neoliberalism is the immediate and foremost enemy of genuine participatory democracy, not just in the United States but across the planet, and will be for the foreseeable future."

"If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged."

"If we do not believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we do not believe in it at all."

"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."

"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...."

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

Ambivalent about him politically, but no doubt he was a great man, with a brilliant mind.

And he definitely led a most worthwhile life. And I believe he was a hugely benign person.

I wonder, given those quotes posted by @urban genie, what he thought about the contemporary predilection for readily taking offence, and the pitiful way that offence is indulged by others.

Anyway, RIP. A life most definitely well lived.

 

[Postman Pep]

Chomsky abided by what one might call a plain-speaking Marxism, even though he generally decried such labels. At the core of it was a simple proposition: in any modern market society, political power flows from economic power, and economic power rests in the hands of the holders of capital. It follows that politics will be dominated by these holders of capital, and they will use their considerable resources to bend the political process to their own ends. And what are these ends? He liked to quote Adam Smith, whom he took to be one of the most perceptive theorists of capitalism: the holders of wealth, Smith observed, follow “the vile maxim of the masters of mankind: all for ourselves, and nothing for other people.” This “vile maxim,” Chomsky pointed out, ought to be the anchor for any political analysis of modern society.

This amounted to a simple and basic theory of the state, both for analyzing domestic affairs and also foreign policy. In both domains, we should expect to find that parties, organizations, and institutions are shaped and reshaped around the economic interests of the ruling class, not the general public. And these interests he took to be the overriding prioritization of profit above all else, whatever its cost — human and environmental.

Let’s Celebrate Noam Chomsky, the Intellectual and Moral Giant

More than any other thinker in the postwar era, Noam Chomsky has embodied Karl Marx’s favorite dictum: “nothing human is alien to me.”

jacobin.com

 

[Postman Pep]

Ambivalent about him politically, but no doubt he was a great man, with a brilliant mind.

And he definitely led a most worthwhile life. And I believe he was a hugely benign person.

I wonder, given those quotes posted by @urban genie, what he thought about the contemporary predilection for readily taking offence, and the pitiful way that offence is indulged by others.

Anyway, RIP. A life most definitely well lived.

Tbf he wrote at length about the Zionist lobby ;-)

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

Tbf he wrote at length about the Zionist lobby ;-)

Did he? Can’t say I noticed that…

 

[urban genie]

Ambivalent about him politically, but no doubt he was a great man, with a brilliant mind.

And he definitely led a most worthwhile life. And I believe he was a hugely benign person.

I wonder, given those quotes posted by @urban genie, what he thought about the contemporary predilection for readily taking offence, and the pitiful way that offence is indulged by others.

Anyway, RIP. A life most definitely well lived.

maybe these shed a bit of light on his view

“If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.”

“Among people who have learned something from the 18th century (say, Voltaire) it is a truism, hardly deserving discussion, that the defense of the right of free expression is not restricted to ideas one approves of, and that it is precisely in the case of ideas found most offensive that these rights must be most vigorously defended.”

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

maybe these shed a bit of light on his view

“If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.”

“Among people who have learned something from the 18th century (say, Voltaire) it is a truism, hardly deserving discussion, that the defense of the right of free expression is not restricted to ideas one approves of, and that it is precisely in the case of ideas found most offensive that these rights must be most vigorously defended.”

Yes, the first one is what I was referring to.

 

[manimanc]

He's got a class name.