Manufacturing Consent  

As a life long right winger (I imagine that phrase makes most regular readers gasp, but its true, although the common meaning of "right wing" and some of my own views, to a lesser extent, do seem to have drifted a lot over the last decade) I'd never really given much thought to the writings of Noam Chomsky.

Last year a friend asked why I never quoted Chomsky at all, given that I tend to rant frequently about a lot of the topics he's spent the last 40 years talking about. My answer was basically that I'd never read anything of his beyond the odd brief quote here and there - and I suspect thats true of most people - particularly of lot of his critics.

While I've linked to the odd article and interview here and there over the past few months, I've never read any of his books, so when I came across this DVD recently I thought the time had come to watch it and see what he has to say.

Chomsky understands the mechanics of language better than anyone (which is why he is known as the father of modern linguistics) and this means he is a remarkably clear and easy to understand speaker. "Manufacturing Consent" is made up of a comprehensive collection of interviews with Chomsky over an extended period from the 1960's to the 1990's (incidentally, Mark Achbar, who directed it, also has another great documentary called "The Corporation" out that's worth watching - or better, read Joel Bakan's book).

Chomsky mostly concentrates on the use of the media as a propaganda system, and in particular how this is used to promote US foreign policy in the third world. But his address at the end of the film (Necessary illusions) sums up the ideas behind peak oil remarkably well.

"Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilization has been individual material gain, which is accepted as legitimate, even praiseworthy, on the grounds that a private license yields public benefits, in the classic formulation.

Now, it has 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 it is possible to pretend that the destructive forces that humans 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 its own destiny and will 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, it is going to set policy in the special interests that it serves. But the conditions of survival, let alone justice, require rational social planning in the interests of the community as a whole, and by now that means the global community.

The question is whether privileged elite 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."

Wikiquote also had this snippet just below the one above - its not from "Manufacturing Consent", but I thought I'd throw it in anyway just because I'm sick of hearing George Bush abuse the words "freedom" and 'democracy" so much (Chomsky uses them above in their traditional sense, whereas Bush tends to mean the exact opposite).

"I mean, what's the elections? You know, two guys, same background, wealth, political influence, went to the same elite university, joined the same secret society where you're trained to be a ruler - they both can run because they're financed by the same corporate institutions. At the Democratic Convention, Barack Obama said, 'only in this country, only in America, could someone like me appear here.'

Well, in some other countries, people much poorer than him would not only talk at the convention - they'd be elected president. Take Lula. The president of Brazil is a guy with a peasant background, a union organizer, never went to school, he's the president of the second-biggest country in the hemisphere. Only in America? I mean, there they actually have elections where you can choose somebody from your own ranks. With different policies. That's inconceivable in the United States."

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