A World of Ideas; 139; Noam Chomsky Part 1 of 2

You This program is made possible by a grant from the John D.N. Catherine Team MacArthur Foundation. A world of ideas with Bill Moyers. Chomsky has been called many things. The most important intellectual alive. America's leading dissenter.

And a few other things not suitable for polite company. Scholars around the world know him for his revolutionary work on the structure of language. Studies he has pursued at MIT since 1955. But he's most controversial as a freelance critic of politics and power. Honest dissidence is what he calls it, the blunt scrutiny of national power, arbitrary government and injustice. In dozens of books and hundreds of articles over the past quarter century, he has criticized the superpowers. From U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia and Central America to Soviet involvement in Afghanistan and Czechoslovakia. 20 years ago he was an early volunteer in the protest against the war in Vietnam. We met in Boston to talk about dissent and democracy then and now. You said recently that this country is more dissident now than you ever remember it. More so than even during the Vietnam War. When I read that I by my way back immediately to that period to the protest in the streets, the mass demonstrations, the riots on college campuses and in the ghettos. That dissidence was powerful and emotional and unprecedented.

And you say we're a more dissident nation now? The dissidents now is much wider and more deeply rooted and it's found in sectors of the population that were excluded from the dissident movements of the 1960s. I think to compare the present situation with the late 60s is a little misleading because of the scale of what is being protested. The movements of the 60s became, well part of the peace movement at least, the anti-war movement became a significant movement at a time when we had hundreds of thousands of troops attacking South Vietnam and expanding the war to all of Indochina. Major war with hundreds of thousands of people slaughtered and just one of the major wars of the century in fact. Until that time the peace movement was very limited as late as mid 1966 here in Boston which is a pretty liberal city. We had a hard time having public meetings because they would be broken up often broken up by students.

In fact it wasn't really until late 1966, early 1967 and remember at that time we had what was it about 400,000 troops fighting in Vietnam that you got a large scale protest movement going. Now compare the 80s. When Ronald Reagan came into office one of the first things he did was lay the basis for his advisors. One of the first things they did was to lay the basis for direct military intervention in Central America. The white paper of February 1981 was a clear effort to test the waters to see if you could get the population to support direct dispatch of troops to El Salvador and probable military intervention in Nicaragua. Now that's kind of comparable to roughly comparable to the situation that say John F. Kennedy faced in 1961 or even to the late 50s. Now at that time intervention could take place without any protest but as soon as the Reagan people made just the beginnings of an indication that there might be direct military intervention there was substantial protest,

spontaneous protests from all over the country, there were demonstrations, there were the church was protesting, there were letters to Congress. In fact the protest was sufficient so that they backed off and the administration backed off because they were afraid that it was going to harm the programs that they were really interested in. They would underground with it and the Reagan administration was literally driven underground by a distant population. The scale of clandestine activities in fact is a pretty good measure of domestic dissidents. After all clandestine activities are secret from no one except domestic population. Are you talking only about dissidents towards until American policies? Do you see it's much broader? For example, it's a striking fact that on almost every major issue the population has been quite strongly opposed to the policies of the Reagan administration. This has been true from the beginning. If you take a look at the polls, the poll results have been quite consistent about this.

Apart from a brief period in the very first part of the first year of the administration when there was support for a military buildup briefly. Apart from that the population has been basically tending towards classical new deal positions. It favors public spending over social spending over military spending. The population has been in favor of increased taxes if they are used for improving the environment or education or social welfare and so on. If you look at the questions on the polls which ask would you spend sessions that should amount of money for new weapons or for medical insurance? The answer is that all have consistently been in favor of social spending against military spending. The population has been quite strongly opposed to the direct interventionism. In fact the only exceptions to this are the sort of one-day quick victories. The feet grenade did be a...

Things like that of course everybody rallies around the flag but anything that has extended even to a limited extent beyond that has in fact had public opposition. It's not organized public opposition. You are saying that a negative poll on an issue constitutes dissidents? No it's only constitutive dissidents if it becomes articulated. And on many issues it doesn't become articulated. On Central American policy it did in fact become articulated and that's what drove the government underground. Even as we talk however 55% of the people in the latest Gallup poll express approval of President Reagan as he is preparing to leave office. So that you have what you just have said polls show an opposition to his policies while he himself remains unusually popular in the public standing. I think there's nothing much more striking than the polls and that is the events of the 1980s. In the 1980s I think it's a very dramatic fact that in the 1980s the government was driven underground. It was forced to undertake large-scale clandestine activities because of its domestic enemy.

Because the domestic population would not tolerate those activities. In fact the Reagan administration is very interesting in this respect. It's the first administration to have created anything like the State Department Office of Public Diplomacy. I mean there were elements of that before. But here I have to tell you the Kennedy administration, the Johnson administration. And the Nixon administration all engaged in domestic propaganda to the rest of the world. That's the Creole Commission again. But there's a substantial increase in scale. I mean in the Reagan administration you really had a massive enterprise to control the public mind. In fact when this was exposed during the Iran country hearings partially exposed one high administration official described it as the most successful operation that carried out. He said it's the kind of operation that you carry out in enemy territory. And that expresses the attitude toward the population completely. The population is the enemy.

And you've got a control enemy territory and the way you do it is by very extensive public diplomacy meaning propaganda. Sure it's always been there. But the Johnson considered use aversive. People like use aversive. Richard Nixon, the enemy were the people in the streets, the demonstrators. The demonstrators. But the point is there's a qualitative change in the resources that have been devoted and the intelligence that has been devoted and the resources drawn upon to ensure that the enemy territory is controlled. Now why go into the, why do that? It's because the enemy is much more dangerous. When the enemy is quiet. The protesters, the dissenters. When the enemy is quiet. For example when John F. Kennedy sent the American Air Force to start bombing South Vietnam in 1962 as he did. He didn't have to keep it secret. It was on the front page of the New York Times. Nobody cared. When Johnson sent 20,000 Marines to the Dominican Republic in fact to prevent a democratic revival there. It was, there was a little bit of protest but it basically wasn't secret.

When Johnson sent hundreds of thousands of troops to invade South Vietnam. It wasn't secret. When we subverted the only free election in Laos in 1959 wasn't secret. Nobody ever cared about these things. The population was really marginalized. That changed. It changed as a result of the popular movements of the 60s which had a dramatic effect on the country. And I think a lasting effect. You keep coming back though to, to the opposition to the Central American policies. And I have to keep coming back asking, what's the evidence of other dissidents? In the early 60s there was nothing like an environmental movement. There was nothing like a feminist movement. There was an anti-nuclear movement but it was a few people sitting in a room somewhere. It's now a movement so vast that it in fact got something like 75% support for a nuclear freeze. Couldn't do anything with that support. But that's because, again, because the organizational structure was lacking. But all of these developments are extremely significant. I mean, it takes away the churches.

In the 1960s, the churches by and large were either supportive of the government military intervention or else quiescent. Now it's very different. Now they're right or not a bit Williams Sloan coffin. The civil rights movement was a co-conspirator. But the civil rights movement was driven by churchmen, church women. But the civil rights movement was different. And Martin Luther King was a self-abdist minister. Absolutely. And in fact, it was a tremendously important movement. And it was a popular movement which for the first time, after close to 200 years, at least technically enfranchised a significant segment of the population. Now that was a movement which did in fact have wide-scale support, even business support for that matter. But the thrust of the civil rights movement was not directed against the interests of centralized power in the United States. And that's crucial.

The protest against the war, or the environmental movement, or even the feminist movement in other respects, is directed against power. And those are the kinds that didn't exist. And they've developed in the 60s. I mean, they existed to an extent. There's more democracy today. Well, there's, on the one hand, a lot more popular expression of democracy. On the other hand, it's less and less part of the official, of the actual institutions of the system. It's outside. And that's why you get these funny conflicts. I can say it in my own personal life. For example, over the last couple of years, the demands on me personally for, say, speaking somewhere have escalated beyond anything imaginable. They plan years in advance. And the audience are interested and thoughtful. They reach out to parts of the population that you couldn't have talked to years ago. If all this firm it is going on. If there is more dissidents now than you can remember, why do you go on to write that the people feel isolated? Because I think much of the general population recognizes that the organized institutions do not reflect their concerns and interests and needs.

They do not feel that they participate meaningfully in the political system. They do not feel that the media are telling them the truth or even reflect their concerns. They go outside of the organized institutions to act. And so on the one hand, you have a lot of popular ferment, a lot of dissidents, sometimes very effective. On the other hand, you have remoteness of the general public from the functioning institutions. We see more and more of our elected leaders and no less and less of what they're doing. That's just medium does that. Very striking. In fact, the presidential elections have been almost removed from the point where the public even takes them seriously as involving a matter of choice. Take congressional elections, Congress especially, the House is more responsive to public opinion than the higher levels. But even here, the rate of electoral victory by incumbents has been going up in the high 90s. Well, that virtually is a way of saying that there aren't any elections.

It means that other systems like pay commons and so on. It means that something else is happening, not choice. It means that options are not being presented. And so on the one hand, so I think you do have a kind of a complex situation in the United States. There's a break taking place, a cleavage taking place between a rather substantial part of the population and elite elements. Well, that includes elite intellectuals and so on. But that elite element is supported by a substantial part of the population. I mean, there are people who take seriously the debates, who go out and vote, who think that they're participating and believe they're participating. In a legitimate exercise of democracy. It's not a cleavage of the point of revolution. It's not that you have a narrow, it's not as if you had an aristocracy facing a mass population. It's not Iran in 1979, nothing like that. A lot of people have weak. It's split and complex and fluid and so on. But I think you can see tendencies. You can see tendencies towards popular marginalization from functioning institutions. And abstraction of those institutions from reflection of the public participation or even reflection of the public.

That means what? Well, it means that the political system increasingly functions without public input. It means to an increasing extent not only do people not ratify decisions presented to them, but they don't even participate. But they don't even take the trouble ratifying them. They assume that the decisions are going on independently of what they may do in the polling booth. And they notice that even ratification of decisions made elsewhere is a very weak form of democracy. Ratification would be what? Well, ratification would mean a system in which there are two positions presented to me, the voter. I go into the polling booth and I push one or another button depending on which of those positions I want. That's a very limited form of democracy. A real, really meaningful democracy would mean that I play a role in forming those decisions and creating those positions. That those positions reflect my active creative participation at not just me, but of course everyone.

That would be real democracy. That's not very far from that. But we're even departing from the point where there is ratification. When you have stage-managed elections with the public relations industry determining what words come out of people's mouth, you in fact are going beyond the point where we are even the element of ratification is disappearing. Because you don't expect the candidates to stand for anything. Candidates decide what to say on the basis of tests that determine what the effect will be across the population. Somehow people don't see how profoundly contemptuous that is of democracy. I suppose I'm running for office. And I don't tell people what I think or what I'm going to do. I tell them what the pollsters have told me is going to get me elected. That's expressing utter contempt for the electorate. That's saying, okay, you people are going to have the chance to push your buttons. But once you're done, I'll do exactly what I intend, which is not what I'm telling you. So if you express what you believe, you don't have to ask what the polls tell you.

Then you don't believe what the polls tell you. That's what you say. And in fact, the whole construction of our political system is increasingly moving towards a real articulated expression of contempt for the general population. And I think people understand it. If you conduct polls to tell you what people won't and they tell you are you not listening to the voice of the people. Only if that changes your mind. The whole structure of the system is based on the assumption that that doesn't change your mind to change what you say. So in other words, a political figure is not testing the waters and saying, okay, that's what I believe. If we had that kind of political figure who wouldn't bother voting for him, he's not a barometer. The political figure represents something supported by certain interests, has certain commitments and so on. And the political figure then comes before us and produces things which the pollsters tell him or his advisors on the average will increase his chances of gaining office after which he will follow his commitments, his interests, what is demanded of him by those who supported him, by those who provide him with resources and so on. This has always, of course, been true, but what is interesting now is the extent to which it is recognized to be the democratic system is recognized that we don't care what we say.

We don't express interest. What we do is reflect power. I think Reagan's a very interesting political figure. And I think in a way he may represent the future of where capitalist democracy is tending. He's a very natural kind of phenomenon in a capitalist democracy. In a capitalist democracy, you have the problem and it has always perceived as a problem that the popular general population has a method of participating in decision making. They can participate in politics. The state is not capable of stopping them. You can't shut them up, you can't put them in jail, you can't keep them away from the polls and so on. And it's striking that that has always been perceived as a problem to be overcome. It's what's called the crisis of democracy. Too many people organizing themselves to enter the public arena. That's a crisis we have to overcome. According to a certain view. It has always been understood by, I would say even the mainstream of democratic theorists, that when the voice of the people has heard you're in trouble, because they're always going to make the wrong decisions.

The stupid and ignorant masses, as they're called, are going to make the wrong decisions. So therefore we have to have what Walter Lippmann, back in 1920 or so, called manufacturer of consent. We have to ensure that actual decision making, actual powers in the hands of what he called a specialized class, smart guys, you know, who are going to make the right decisions. And we've got to keep the general population marginalized, because they're always going to make mistakes. Marginalizing meaning, reduce them to apathy and obedience. Allow them to participate in the political system, but as consumers, not as true participants. That is allow them a method for ratifying decisions that are made by others, but eliminate the methods by which they might first inform themselves, second organize, and third act in such a way as to really really control decision making. That is the idea is our leaders control us, not we control them.

Now that is a very widespread view from liberals to conservatives, and how do you achieve this? Well there are a lot of ways of achieving it, but one of the ways of achieving it is by creating a turning the elected offices into ceremonial positions. If you could get to the point where people would essentially vote for the Queen of England, and take it seriously, then you would have gone a long way towards marginalizing the public. And I think we've made a big step in that direction. Presidency as ceremonial leader, and see that's why Reagan's so interesting, because you know, although a lot of intellectuals try to put the best face they can on, the fact of the matter is, and most of the population knows, that Ronald Reagan had only the foggiest ideas of what the policies of his administration were. And in fact, nobody much cared. The Democrats were always surprised that he could get away with these incredible bloopers and crazy statements and so on. The detachment of the decision. And I think the reason is that much of the population understood very well, that they were supporting someone like the Queen of England or the flag.

The Queen of England opens Parliament by reading a political program, but nobody asks whether she understands it, or does she believe it or anything like that. Every book from within the right administration, from the Stockman book to the Reagan book to the new book that's now on the new stands, says that, says that the president was detached from the decision. More than detached, I think he doesn't know what it is. And I think much of the population understood it. Now, I think that explains the combination of moderate, not enormous, but moderate popularity without position of the program. What do we do about it? I mean, I don't want to leave people in a wholly negative analysis, although I believe in facing reality for ordinary people, it's extremely hard. And that's why you need organization. What is, if a real democracy is going to thrive, if the real values that are deeply embedded in human nature are going to be able to flourish, and I think that's necessary to save us if nothing else, it will be, it's an absolute necessity that groups form in which people can join together, can share their concerns, can articulate their ideas, can gain a response. Can discover what they think, can discover what they believe, what their values are.

This can't be imposed on you from above. You have to discover it by experiment, by effort, by trial, by application, and so on. And this has to be done with others. Furthermore, surely central to human nature is a need to be engaged with others in cooperative efforts of solidarity and concern. That can only happen once by definition through group structures. And unless such a political organization. Political and other civic organizations. All sorts of trade associates. I mean, all kinds of ways in which people can associate with one another. And I think what I would like to see is a move towards a society which is really based on proliferating voluntary organization with eliminating as much as possible structures of hierarchy and domination. And the basis for them in ownership and control. And becoming the means by which we govern ourselves, by which we control our lives. Does a citizen have to have far reaching specialized knowledge to understand the realities of power, to understand what's really going on?

It's not absolutely trivial. But as compared with intellectually complex tasks, it's pretty slight. It's not like the sciences. I think this big effort made to make everything seem mysterious. But there are things that you have to study and know something about. But by and large, what happens in social and political life is relatively accessible. It does not take special training. It doesn't take unusual intelligence. What it really takes is honesty. If you're honest, you can see it. Do you believe in common sense? I mean, you do believe in Cartesian common sense. I think people have the capacities to see through the deceit in which they're ensnared, but they've got to make the effort. Seems a little in Congress to hear a man from the ivory tower of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a scholar, a distinguished linguistics scholar. Talk about common people with such appreciation and common sense.

I think that the scholarship, at least the field that I work in, has the opposite consequences. My own studies in language and human cognition demonstrate to me, at least, what remarkable creativity ordinary people have. The very fact that people talk to one another is a reflection. And just in the normal way, I don't mean anything particularly fancy, reflects deep-seated features of human creativity, which in fact separate human beings from any other biological system we know. You get tremendous respect for human beings when you begin to study their normal capacities. From Boston, this has been part one of a conversation with Nome 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 Foundation. For a transcript of this program, send $3.2, a world of ideas, journal graphics, 267 Broadway, New York, New York, 1007. Video cassette information is also available at this address. Thank you.

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