A World of Ideas; 140; Noam Chomsky Part 2 of 2

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A world of ideas with Bill Moyers. He's one of America's most brilliant men, but in some circles he's treated as if he were a pariah, an intellectual leper whose ideas might prove dangerously contagious. Noom Chomsky is a scholar of linguistics at MIT. His breakthrough work there revised how we think about language. But it's been his criticism of power that has earned Chomsky so much disdain in establishment circles. Angry over the U.S. role in Vietnam, he started speaking out 20 years ago and he's never let up. He's blunt and unyielding and gives no quarter to comfortable parties. Take his newest book, Manufacturing Consent. It suggests that unlike a totalitarian regime, a democracy doesn't stoop to violence to control its citizens. It uses propaganda instead. We talked about this subject during a recent conversation in Boston. You have said that we live entangled in webs of endless deceit.

That we live in a highly indoctrinated society where elementary truths are easily buried. The elementary truths, such as the fact that we invaded South Vietnam. Or the fact that we are standing in the way of significant and have for years of significant moves towards arms negotiation. Or the fact that the military system is to a substantial extent, not totally, a substantial extent, a mechanism by which the general population is compelled to provide a subsidy to high technology industry. Since they're not going to do it, if you ask them to, you have to deceive them into doing it. There are many truths like that, and we don't face them. We have an interesting political system in the United States. It's different from those of the other industrial democracies. This is a very free country. I mean, the individuals are, by comparative standards, the state is very restricted in its capacity to coerce and control us. It's very little they can do.

Police can't come in and stop us from talking or anything remotely like that. In fact, even as compared with other industrial democracies, we're very free in this respect. On the other hand, the practical limits on those freedoms are unusually high. This is the practical limit. Well, there are sophisticated mechanisms that have been devised to prevent us from making use of those freedoms. And furthermore, it has been understood for a long period that in a society that's free. In a society where the state does not have the power to coerce, other mechanisms must be found to ensure that the population doesn't get in the way. Other mechanisms being indoctrination, elimination of secondary organizations, say unions. Other political clubs, ways in which people, for a single isolated individual, to participate in a meaningful way in the political system is almost impossible. You don't have to have means to inform yourself, to have ideas, to interchange those ideas with others, to turn them into possible programs, to press for those programs.

Now, that takes access to information. It takes independent media. It requires what sociologists call secondary organizations, means by which isolated people to group together. Political, active political parties, political clubs, unions have often played this role in many countries. The United States is unusual in the extent to which all of these structures are weak. So the level of unionization is extremely low and under the Reagan period is declined, even furthermore, the American unions have always been basically apolitical, or largely so. The apolitical system is also unusual. We're the only major industrial democracy that doesn't have a political party, which is basically labor-based. We only have one political party with two factions. It's the business party. We have two factions of the business party called the Democrats and the Republicans, and that's unusual.

In fact, this perception is transmuted in an odd way into political terminology. So for example, in the 1980s, each election of the 1980s, the Democrats have been accused of being the party of the special interest. And then they hotly deny it, and they say, no, they're not the party of the special interest. But who are the special interests? Take a look behind the rhetoric, and you find that the special interests are women, labor, youth, the elderly, ethnic minorities, the poor, farmers. In fact, it's the entire population. The entire population are the special interests. Now, if you look closely, there's one group that's never identified as being among the special interests. That's corporations. And that's correct. They're the national interest, and both parties are basically beholden to them. Whereas the special interests have to be marginalized, the population. So everyone denies that they represent the special interests, that is the people.

And they don't say who they do represent, but there is somebody, a group notably lacking in this list of special interests. In fact, it's the group with anyone with his head screwed on, knows has inordinate power in controlling economic decisions, and setting the parameters for political life, and controlling the ideological system, and so on. They're not among the special interests. Do you think it is corporations, or is it the capitalist business system whose first priority is the well-being of profit-making for the general welfare, as it is said? Of course, everyone asks the chairman of the board, and he'll always tell you that he spends his every waking hour laboring so that people will get the best possible products at the cheapest possible price, and work in the best possible conditions, and so on and so forth. Now, it's an institutional fact, independently of who the chairman of the board is, that he'd better be trying to maximize profit and market share, than if he doesn't do that, he's not going to be chairman of the board anymore. If he were ever to succumb to the delusions that he expresses, he'd be out.

Now, he can hold those delusions, as long as he performs his institutional role, and the same is true across the board. So, for example, you can be, take, say, water-lippman specialized class, the experts. Some of them are candid enough to tell the truth, like Henry Kissinger, who defined an expert as a person who is capable of articulating the consensus of people with interest. That's what made him an expert. That's true. If you want to be an expert, part of the specialized class, you have to be able to serve the interests of objective power. That's an institutional role that has to be played, and if you do that, you can be in it. If you want to be a journalist, let's say, you have to accord to the needs of the institutions, and the institutions have very definite needs. I mean, the major media are, they're all corporations. They're major corporations. They, like any other business, they have a product and an audience, a product and a market. The market is other businesses. They sell their product to advertisers. That's what keeps them going.

And the product is audiences, and in fact, for the elite media, privileged audiences, because that improves advertising rates. So what the media are fundamentally, as far as institutions are concerned, they're major corporations selling relatively privileged audiences to other businesses. It's not very surprising to discover that those are the interests they reflect. Furthermore, if you take a look at the managing positions, the managerial positions, the cultural managers, more or less, editors and so on, they're, first of all, very privileged themselves. They share associations and concerns with other privileged people. There's a close interaction and, in fact, the flow of people, even between corporate boardrooms and government decision-making centers and media and so on. And there are many other factors, in fact, which yield the consequence that the independent media without government coercion. There's also some of that, but even without government coercion, tend to accept and adopt as the framework for discussion, the interests and concerns and the perspective of the privileged sectors of the society.

That's true of the information system, that's true of the political system, the distribution of resources alone determines it. As other modes of organization and articulate expression and so on have declined, isolated individuals find themselves marginalized. And they end up voting for a ceremonial figure, if they bother to vote at all. Are you suggesting that there are, that there's a conspiracy, that there are people who gather and decide we're going to eliminate unions, we're going to eliminate popular participation in political parties, we're going to do this, we're going to do this, is there a conspiracy? Well, my point is, in fact, exactly the opposite. I mean, I think, and stress again, that these are institutional facts. These are the ways the institution functions. Let's go back to the chairman of the board. There's no conspiracy in the board of managers to try to raise profits and market share. In fact, if the board of managers didn't pursue that program, they wouldn't be in business any longer.

It's part of the structure of the social system and the way in which the institution's function within it, that they are going to be trying to maximize profit, market share or decision making capacity and so on. It comes naturally. It's not that it's, yeah, you might say it comes naturally because they would never have gotten to that point unless they didn't internalize those values, but it's also constrained. If they stop doing it, their stock is going to decline and so on and so forth, and somebody else will be bought up and so on. Now, pretty much the same as true of these other institutions. If the, if some segment of the political system, suppose we had an authentic political party reflecting the needs of the special interests, the population, it would no longer be supported. It would be denounced by the information system. It would be condemned for being anti-American or subversive and so on. It would not even have the minimal resources to keep functioning. And since we don't have a network of popular structures to sustain it, it would disappear. You've said that the primary function of the mass media is to mobilize public support for the special interests that dominate the government in the private sector.

But that's not how the media see it. They claim, we claim that our news judgments rest on unbiased objective criteria. That's how we see it. But in fact, the chairman of the board also sees what he is doing as a service to humanity. But like the lobster in the trap, we can't see it close behind us? Well, the point is that no one would even make it to a high decision-making position in the media, whether as columnist or managing it or whatever, unless they had already internalized the required values. Internalized, they believe them. There's a number of things you have to believe to make it to top managerial positions. You have to believe that the United States is unique in history in that it acts from benevolent motives. Now, benevolent motives are not properties of states, whether it's the United States or any other one. They don't have, which is meaningless to talk about. But you're saying that the United States can believe for? I mean, it acts because of the interests of groups that have power within it, like any other society. But anyone who believes this truism is already excluded.

You have to believe that whatever the United States does is defensive. If we bomb South Vietnam, we're defending South Vietnam. If the Russians invade Afghanistan, that's not defense. Now, of course, I suppose if you go to the Politburo, they'll tell you they're defending Afghanistan. They're defending it against terrorists supported from the outside. And of course, we know that they'll, in fact, even tell you they were invited in. And there's kind of an element of truth to all of that, but we naturally dismiss it as nonsense. On the other hand, when we create a government in South Vietnam to invite us in, and we attack the population of South Vietnam, and we bomb people to drive them into concentration camps to separate them from the guerrillas who we concede their supporting and so on, we're defending South Vietnam. And anyone who doesn't agree with this is not part of the system. So you're equating the Soviet Union and the United States, and the Jean Kirkpatrick's and others would say, of course, that's the fundamental fallacy of Dr. Chomsky's approach, is that he is saying there is a moral equivalent sense. I don't see anything of the kind. These notions are, in fact, inventions of the Jean Kirkpatrick's and other reactionary jingoists.

The Soviet Union and the United States are at opposite poles among contemporary political systems. What I'm saying is that even though they are at opposite poles, in some respects, they behave alike. And that's for deep-seated reasons that have to do with the exercise of power, and institutions, and so on. And that has nothing to do with morality. You do admit that we are free society, that we're admitted, I insist upon it. I insist that we are free society and that the Soviet Union is a dungeon, and therefore we have completely different methods of population control, completely different methods. In fact, I've written a lot about this. There's no moral equivalence here. The totalitarian, I mean, there's nothing, no state is truly totalitarian. But as we move toward the totalitarian end of the spectrum, the technique of control is roughly that satirized by Orwell. You have a center of truth. You have a ministry of truth. It announces official truths. People can believe it or not. Nobody cares very much. It's sufficient that they obey. The totalitarian states can be more or less behavioristic. They don't really care what people think, because they always have a club at hand to beat them over the head if they do the wrong thing.

They can think what they like in private, but they better do what we tell them in public. That's the model towards which totalitarian states tend. As a result, the propaganda may very well be not too effective. On the other hand, the democratic state can't use this mechanism. You can't force anybody. You can't force people. Therefore, you have to control what they think. Since power is still concentrated, but in different hands in our society, largely in private ownership, and you can't control people by force, you'd better care what they think. That's why you have to have other forms and, in fact, more sophisticated forms of indoctrination. The interview wants with Edward Bernays, who is considered the pioneering figure in American business public relations, and he talked through there about the engineering of consent. And he thought it's a wonderful thing. In fact, he described it as the essence of democracy. He said, if the consider the government presupposes that effort at persuasion, trying to persuade people to see things your way out of the picture.

There is certain people are in a position to persuade. And the essence of democracy is that they have the freedom to persuade. Now, who has the freedom to persuade? Well, who runs the public relations industry? It's not the special interests. They're the targets of the public relations industry. Public relations industry is a major industry, closely linked to other corporations. And those are the people who have the power to persuade. That's the essence of democracy. And they must engineer the consent of others. There was a vice president of AT&T in 1909, who said that he thought the public mind was the chief danger to the corporation. Exactly. The general public might have funny ideas about corporate control. For example, people who really believe in democracy, people who take 18th century values seriously, people who really might merit the term conservatives that much abused term, are against concentration of power. They remember that the doctrines of the Enlightenment held that individuals should be free from the coercion of concentrated power. That kind of concentrated power that they were thinking about was the church and the state and the futile system and so on. And that you could sort of imagine a population of relatively equal people, at least equal white male property owners, who would be not controlled by those private powers.

But in the subsequent period, a new form of power developed, namely corporations, with highly concentrated power over decision making in the economic life. That is, they control over what's produced, what's distributed, what's invested, and so on and so forth, is very narrowly concentrated. This is why the vice president of the law's corporation would say the public mind is the chief. The public mind might have funny ideas about democracy, which say that we should not be forced simply to rent ourselves to the people who own the country, rather and own its institutions. Rather, we should play a role in determining what those institutions do. That's democracy. If we were to move towards democracy, and I think democracy, even in the 18th century sense, we would say that there should be no male distribution of power in determining what's distributed, what's invested, and so on, rather that should be, that's a problem for the entire community.

In fact, in my own personal view, unless we move in that direction, human society probably isn't going to survive. Well, we now face the most awesome problems of human history, problems such as the likelihood of nuclear conflict, either among the superpowers or through proliferation, the destruction of a fragile environment, which, finally, we're beginning to recognize those obvious decades ago that we're hitting for disaster. Other problems of this nature, there are a level of seriousness that they never were in the past. Why do you think more participation by the public, by the public, more democracy is the answer? Because, well, more democracy is a value in itself. Quite a part. Because democracy is a value. It doesn't have to be defended anywhere in freedom, it has to be defended. It's a central feature of human nature. People should be free, they should be able to participate, they should be uncoversed, and so on.

These are values in themselves. Why do you think, if we go that route away? I think that that's the only hope that I can see that other values will come to the fore. If the society is based on control by private wealth, it will reflect the values that, in fact, does reflect the value that the highest, the only real human property is green, and the desire to maximize personal gain at the expense of others. Now, any society, maybe a small society based on that principle is ugly, but it can survive. A global society based on that principle is headed for massive destruction, and that's what we are. We have to have a mode of social organization that reflects other values that I think are inherent in human nature that people recognize. What are human beings? In your family, for example, it's not the case that in the family, every person tries to maximize personal gain at the expense of others, or if they do, it's pathological. It's not the case that if you and I are walking down the street, and we see a child eating a piece of candy, and we see nobody's around, we don't happen to be hungry, we don't steal it.

If we did that, it would be pathological. I mean, the idea of care for others, and concern for other people's needs, and concern for a fragile environment that must sustain future generations, all of these things are part of human nature. These are elements of human nature that are suppressed in a social and cultural system, which is designed to maximize personal gain. I think we must try to overcome that suppression, and that's in fact what democracy could bring about. It could lead to the expression of other human needs and values, which tend to be suppressed under the institutional structure of a system of private power and private profit. Do you believe that by nature human beings, urine for freedom, or do we settle in the interest of safety and security and conformity, do we settle for order? These are really matters of faith rather than knowledge. On the one hand, you have the grand inquisitor who tells you that what humans crave is submission, and therefore Christ is a criminal, and we have to vanquish freedom.

That's one view. You have the other view of, say, Rousseau in some of his moments that people are born to be free, and that their basic instinct is the desire to free themselves from coercion, authority, and oppression. The answer to which you believe is more or less where you stake your hopes. I'd like to believe that people are born to be free, but if you ask for proof, I couldn't give it to you. You've dealt in such unpopular truths, and have been such a lonely figure as a consequence of that. Do you ever regret either that you took the stand you took, have written the things you have written, or that we had listened to you earlier? I don't. I mean, they're particular things, which I would do differently, because you think about things, you do them differently. But in general, I would say I do not regret it. I mean, have you not been controversial? No, it's a nuisance.

Because this mass medium pays a little attention to the views of dissenters, not just no mjanski, but most dissenters do not get much of a hearing in this medium. In fact, that's again completely understandable. They wouldn't be performing their societal function if they allowed favored truths to be challenged. Because after all, their role, their very institutional role, is to establish certain truths and beliefs, not to allow them to be challenged. Society does, in order to go here, does need a consensus, does it not? I think it needs tentative assumptions, but we should remember what Justice Holmes said in one of his famous dissents that fighting faiths have repeatedly been seen to be false. We should recognize that. Yes, we need tentative assumptions in order to continue with our lives, but we also ought to be open to a healthy society with not only a tolerate, but encourage challenge. That's what happens in the sciences. In the sciences where the world is keeping you honest, and you can't be dishonest fundamentally, not only is challenge tolerated, but it's stimulated. If a student comes along with a new idea that threatens established beliefs, you don't kick them out of your office. You pay attention, you're struck, but in politics, well, political life is preserving privilege and power, but that's not a value that should be protected.

That's a property that should be overcome. I'm not suggesting, I'm not saying question everything always, that's hopeless. Like I walk out the door, I don't think the floor is going to collapse. Of course, you accept things, you have faith, you have beliefs and so on, and you operate on the basis of them, but you should, if honest, recognize that they are subject to challenge, and that if the past is any guide, they're probably wrong because beliefs have generally been wrong in the past. Also, we understand more. We understand more about ourselves as history continues. It's hard to look at the 20th century and be an optimist, but still there's some moral progress in history. It takes a slavery. It wasn't very long ago that slavery was considered moral, not just that we want to do it. The slave owners didn't normally say, look, nice for me, so I'll do it. They offered a moral basis for slavery. Nobody does that anymore. That's an improvement. Just in our own lifetimes, this has happened. I'm going to take these issues raised by the feminist movement.

These were the things that many people simply did not see 30 years ago. Now, the problems are still there, at least we see them. That's greater insight into our own nature. It's insight and it's discovery of forms of repression and authority that we know we do not accept, as moral human beings, and that we want to try to overcome. I think you can sense such progress. At the same time, you also have decline. I mean, Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia or genocide of this century. The Holocaust, indescribable. That's why I say it's hard to look at the 20th century and say that you're an optimist about a 21st century. Well, I don't think we're going to get far into the 21st century unless these problems are overcome. Because the problems are no longer localized. Hitler's genocide was probably the worst moment in human history, but it was still in a sense localized. It was a huge massacre, but it was bounded. The problems we're now facing are not going to be bounded. A nuclear war, for example, if there's a superpower confrontation or even a confrontation among lesser nuclear powers, that's not going to be bounded in any sense that wars were in the past, or if we all unplug the environment, or if we do not, if we continue to act on the assumption that the only thing that basically matters is personal greed and personal gain, the commons will be destroyed.

We didn't have to worry about that too much in the past. It was happening, but now it is clear that they're going to be destroyed. Other human values have to be expressed if we hope even if future generations are going to even be able to survive. From Boston, this has been a conversation with Noam Chomsky. I'm Bill Moyers. I'm Bill Moyers.

This program was made possible by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Founder. For a transcript of this program's end $3.2, a world of ideas, journal graphics, 267 Broadway, New York, New York, 1007. Video cassette information is also available at this address. You can find the link in the description box below.

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