Chomsky talks fear in western society

from ChaoticFate.com by qew

 Activist makes his case to Carleton audience

BY ROBERT SIBLEY, OTTAWA CITIZEN APRIL 9, 2011

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Noam Chomsky delivered a lecture at Carleton University Friday entitled Language and the Cognitive Science Revolution(s). He later took part in a discussion on the topic of Democracy and the Public University.

Photograph by: Jean Levac, The Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Citizen

Students, like many other groups in contemporary society, are being indoctrinated with notions of privatization, efficiency and distorted ideas about capitalism to keep them passive and obedient so rich people who run the corporate world can become even more wealthy.

That, in a nutshell, was the gist of a "conversation" libertarian activist Noam Chomsky offered to a crowd of more than 400 at Carleton University's Southam Hall on Friday.

During the 90-minute gathering, Chomsky proffered a wide-ranging critique of western society touching on topics as diverse as student tuition, the greed of hedge-fund managers and the efforts of corporate elites to make people feel insecure.

Chomsky, a professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is widely acknowledged as the most famous and most cited public intellectual in the world. In academic circles he is famous for his linguistic theory that humans have an innate capacity for language acquisition. However, Chomsky is probably best known for his political activism, particularly his criticism of U.S. foreign and domestic policies.

The 82-year-old delivered an afternoon lecture at Carleton entitled Language and the Cognitive Science Revolution(s). Later, he took part in a moderated discussion on the topic of Democracy and the Public University.

Twice during the session, Chomsky refused to comment on a campaign by a group of Carleton students demanding the university divest itself of the stocks of companies that do business with Israel. He said it would be "completely irresponsible" of him to express an opinion on a situation of which he had no knowledge.

On other topics, however, Chomsky, drew applause, and laughter, particularly when he said "a public university is supposed to be free."

Chomsky defended that view, arguing that efforts to impose more of the cost of education on individuals, along with campaigns promoting the "privatized society," reflected the efforts of corporate elites to dominate society in a way that made people feel insecure and, therefore, more passive and amenable to manipulation. "The business world is basically totalitarian," he said.

Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society, Chomsky suggested. "When you trap people in a system of debt . they can't afford the time to think." Tuition fee increases are a "disciplinary technique," and, by the time students graduate, they are not only loaded with debt, but have also internalized the "disciplinarian culture." This makes them efficient components of the consumer economy.

Those who pump the notion of privatization and efficiency are really looking to line their own pockets, Chomsky argued. "Efficiency is an ideological concept, not an economic concept. The idea that you should privatize for efficiency is another way of saying, 'Give it to us.' "

Behind this mindset, Chomsky sees a culture dominated by the very rich. The top one per cent of U.S. society -"the CEOs and hedge-fund managers," as he put it -have created an economic and political system designed to benefit themselves. "Any good political scientist knows that wealth entails control of the political system, which is used to increase the concentration of wealth."

Chomsky pointed out that U.S. President Barack Obama had picked as his economic advisers "the guys who created the crisis." They, in turn, designed programs -bank bail outs, for example -that benefit those who caused the collapse of the housing market, not the millions of people who lost their homes.

Such a system, Chomsky said, fosters fear and insecurity among people who, burdened by debt, anxious for their jobs or stuck in low-paying jobs, are afraid to question or challenge the system. "This is our version of capitalism: a system of economic policies that benefit the extremely wealthy, and the rest survive as best they can."

Readmore:http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Chomsky+talks+fear+western+society/4587270/story.html#ixzz1J5DinHRe