Noam Chomsky - The youth and the mass media's false reality and history

I think kids are ready for they just have to pay attention the most most people just don't attention either because they think Irene's hopeless I'm it's kind of driven into your heads that everything is hopeless there's nothing you can do the powers are too great you know and in fact the sense of hopelessness in the country is astonishing so for example you look at polls over half the population thinks that Congress ought to be totally thrown out and replaced by your neighbors you know they'll do a better job approval of Congress's and single digits nobody thinks I can do anything about it it's like these peasants in Brazil you know how can somebody like me do anything about it in fact some you take a look at some of the you know then take say the 911 movement which is kind of interesting not the content but just the phenomenon you know the bush blew up World Trade Center that kind of thing it appeals it has a sympathy at least of I forget the numbers I think it's about a third of the population a huge part of the population that means that a large part of population is willing to accept the possibility that we're run by a bunch of homicidal maniacs or trying to murder us all but they don't think they can do anything about it so I'll lift a finger to do anything okay its way it is we'll kind of hide in the corner wait till it happens but when people are kind of what does the most effective the kinds of propaganda are the kinds that allow you to see what's going on so you see 99 percent 1 percent but to feel I can't do anything about it I'm now isolated alone I don't talk to anybody people like me can't do anything we're just we just have to suffer there that's really effective propaganda oh that's the way yeah that's how slavery could last forever without many slaver rebellions it's how women were oppressed so like they say my grandmother's raishin if my grandmother had been asked if she's oppressed she would have even known what you're talking about that's life you know women her doormat that's life you get to my mother's generations still plenty of oppression but and she was bitter about it but you didn't think you could do anything about it my time you get to today it's quite different that's very much like the peasants and Brazil or the indigenous people in Bolivia or you know the blacks and the South after the early days of the civil rights movement yeah we can do something about it even if it's brutal and harsh we might get killed we can do something yeah and it's that that transition is very I think when you get back to your question for a lot of young people I think it's you know it's called apathy but I suspect it's more hopelessness powerlessness and people can learn you're not powerless just take a look at what's been done take a look what other people have done under much harsher conditions than you'll ever face and what's been done right here in your own country you know the 60s really did civilize the country and it's a very different country from what it was in 1960 and it's just it's mainly young people who just didn't give up and didn't feel okay we can't do anything actually sometimes it's kind of dramatic like for years what's called McCarthyism which did intimidate people tremendously I remember I would lived through it and people were just scared of it which they couldn't do anything the house on American Activities Committee if people are cold they just trembled and fear what do you do but in the 1960s that people like Abbie Hoffman I started just making fun of them and they collapsed you know it's a very thin structure of power I mean as soon as you submit it to ridicule you dismiss it it can collapse and this has been understood for centuries so you go back to say David Hume who was one of the great founders of classical liberalism and great philosopher but he wrote a book that he called I think was called the foundations of the theory of government or something like that and in it he poses a kind of a paradox he says in every society whether it's you know the feudal dictatorship military dictatorship of parliament semi parliamentary system like England whatever it is he says power is always in the hands of the governed those are those are being ruled powers always in their hands so how come they just don't overthrow the rulers and take things for themselves I says well the secret is as always every societies control of opinion and attitudes if you can convince people if the powerful can convince people you just you're you have to stay in your slot that's where you belong and that's that's your role in life there's nothing to be changed and then the rulers can control them now you take a look at the history of you know revolutions significant changes it's when people broke out of it so not long before him and he may have had this in mind in England the century before there was a major conflict between Parliament the king the prominent is basically the bourgeoisie and you know landowners and so it wasn't the general population and the question is is the king of over the law King Charles and sista that he was above the law the Parliament led by jurists and others was saying a Magna Carta determined that the king is subject to the law to the to the that time the nobles in the Parliament and it was real major conflict about in fact later led to him soon led Civil War but the part of it stuck it out and compelled the King to sign something conceding that he was not above the law he was but it was very very at that time the king was regarded as a representative of God and you didn't fiddle around with God you know that serious business so the it was essentially standing up against a kind of divine authority not our society that meant something that and breakthrough that was very difficult but they did that led to constitutional Parliament not you know to a parliamentary monarchy which is different from feudal monarchy

Channel: RegisUniLibrary

Views: 124,753

Rating: 4.9405427 out of 5

Keywords: cultural resistance, public opinion, public policy, social justice, mass media, History, Noam Chomsky, Chris Steele, Activism, Anarchist, Protest

Id: gUCYoJ8KSF8

Length: 7min 35sec (455 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 20 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/CroissaintBoi]

Oh god I can see him melting