Noam Chomsky - Conformity and Control

the mass-media are our first in the first place major corporations you know that's what they are they are some of the biggest corporations in the country and they're closely interlocked with other corporations in fact they're they are part of the small network of individuals and interests which effectively own the private economy and and staff the state executive if you look at the people who hold the high planning positions in the state executive under any Administration they come from corporate boardrooms investment banks half a dozen law firms that cater to corporate interests and so on there are number of studies of this if you're interested that's the same group of people the same interests who own the media so naturally they share a perception of the world and general interests that's at the top level now I suppose you down to the editorial level of the reporters level well you know at that point you find pressures to conform a journalist a young journalist will quickly learn that certain things are reportable and other things aren't you can say things in a certain way and you can't say things in other ways and you learn it from your editors or the people right above you and they've learned it from the people right above them remember corporations are the private equivalent of what we call fascism in the political realm the decision-making structure in a corporation is top-down you give orders and they get executed by down below and so on and so forth and the orders ultimately come from the owners furthermore the media have a market that market is other corporations the media the market for the media is advertisers remember the media do not make their money on sales to you and me in fact every purchase of a newspaper or journal usually costs the money right that's the way the economic political economy of the media work their market is advertisers which imposes yet another constraint they want to maintain a relationship to the state which is their friends you know that's the kind of interpenetration up and back in fact even the individuals flow up and no burner Cal the Leslie Gelb etc etc of course they flow up and back because they represent the same interests there's a constant flow between corporate boardrooms state managers media executives and top-level media people University elites who play the game by the rules and so on they all belong to the same privileged elite they all benefit the same way they perceive the world the same way if any of them get out of line they're excluded and that can happen even at a very high level so for example a couple of years ago the top editorial staff of the New York Times was essentially thrown out john oaks and others because they were beginning to deviate a little bit time and how do if you look at the mechanisms very clear a couple of year I think there's about mid seventies there began to be reports in the business press The Wall Street Journal the Businessweek saying noting pointing out subtly that New York Times stock was declining on the stock market they pointed out here I'm quoting they said if the New York Times doesn't realize that it's a business soon it won't be in business any longer well when in fact they didn't replace a good part of the top editorial board at that time what was the great crime that the New York Times was committing at that point well if you look back it turns out that they were they were editorially supporting some very mild fiscal reform measures that business didn't happen to like and that was enough to set in motion the technique of control you'll notice that the state is under exactly the same technique of control in a capitalist democracy suppose that the state in fact is staffed by those have resources but suppose it tried to deviate suppose it started to pursue policies that didn't conform to the interests of those who make the investment decisions who essentially own the place well what would happen in fact does happen is a decline in investment the beginning of capital flight just a little bit enough to tell them that the country is going to go down the tube unless they go back to the main course now what that means is that we and true decision-making powers in private hands the political system is marginal and the ideological institutions are limited and instantly these conditions almost never arise because they're all staffed by people with the same interests in the same background in the same perception anyway getting back again to the reporter they just shape up or else they're out and what typically inside this happens in universities to those of you who are going on in the ideological professions the social sciences and so on you'll learn this you'll learn that you got to conform now it's not a hundred percent you know the system is willing to tolerate statistical error but it's it's got to be enough so that there isn't any significant deviation and you do come under pressures to conform all sorts of pressures you find out what they are if you don't know already and those pressures are effective they what they do is weed out independent people and for the people who decide to can also something very interesting which you might as well be aware of if you're haven't faced it yet because it will happen what happens is that if you decide well I'll conform a little you know I'll do what they say but I'll keep my independence of mind as soon as you begin to do that you're lost unless you're a very rare individual because what happens is you begin to conform you begin to get the privilege of conformity you go at you soon come to believe what you're saying because it's useful to believe it and then you've internalized the system of indoctrination and distortion and deception and then you're a willing member of the privileged elites that control thought and indoctrination that happens all the time all the way to the top you know I mean it's a very rare person very rare almost to the point of non-existence who can tolerate what's called cognitive dissonance you know saying one thing and believing another you start saying third certain things because it's necessary to say them and pretty soon you're believing because you just have to there is no atrocity in my view that is that we know of that has been carried out in the world that wasn't justified by its perpetrators as highly moral that includes incidentally Nazi genocide you know you read Himmler's Diaries to go to the sort of extreme and it's all full of how noble this is and how much strength it requires and so on and so forth slavery was justified by the slave owners with moral arguments if we had records from Matilda the Hun we'd probably find out that what he was doing was highly moral you know same with Stalin and every mass murderer in history and it happens at a much lower level for individuals incidentally you're all familiar with this from your personal lives and it's worth bearing in mind so like they're I doubt if there's anybody here who hasn't done pretty rotten things in their life at some time but I also I'm willing to bet that every one of you has figured out a way to make that exactly the right and moral and proper thing to do okay and that's what happens when you go when you become parts of institutions too so that's the way the indoctrination works on the participants and it ends up being a very effective system ultimately rooted in control over resources as exactly as it expect some very mysterious some people talk about it as this is conspiracy theory that's really idiotic it's not a conspiracy you know like if the board of managers of General Motors decides to maximize profit that's not a conspiracy in fact if they didn't do it they'd be thrown out you know that's the institutional role they have to play and the the ideological institutions also have a role that they have to play within a nexus of institutions and if they don't play that role or if individuals within them don't play that role that will be replaced by others who do because these are institutional facts like the arms race

Channel: Chomsky's Philosophy

Views: 110,954

Keywords: Chomsky, Propaganda, Power, Corporations, Media, Manufacturing consent, Propaganda model, State power, War, Conformity, Instituion, hierarchy

Id: N11tcnPBwf4

Length: 8min 18sec (498 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 08 2016