Avram Noam Chomsky:
(Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), 7 December 1928).
American linguist, philosopher, media critic and political activist. Chomsky is professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A founder of generative linguistics, he is the most influential linguist of the 20th century. Between 1980 and 1992, he was the most cited author in scientific journals in all but seven: Marx, Lenin, Shakespeare, Aristotle, the Bible, Plato and Freud.
The general population doesn’t know what’s happening, and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know.
As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, the powerful can do as they please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome.
If workers are more insecure, that’s very ‘healthy’ for the society, because if workers are insecure, they won’t ask for wages, they won’t go on strike, they won’t call for benefits; they’ll serve the masters gladly and passively. And that’s optimal for corporations’ economic health.
It is the responsibility of intelectuals to speak the truth and expose lies.
I don’t know what word in the English language – I can’t find one – applies to people who are willing to sacrifice the literal existence of organized human life so they can put a few more dollars into highly stuffed pockets. The word ‘evil’ doesn’t even begin to approach it.
The clever way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinions, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum. This makes people feel that free thinking is going on, while the system’s assumptions are always reinforced by the limits placed on debate.
