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Noam Chomsky on the cruelty of American imperialism

165 points by boramalper 5y ago

z3 5y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20210926093923/https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2021/09/24/noam-chomsky-on-the-cruelty-of-american-imperialism https://web.archive.org/web/20210926093923/https://www.econo...
- _alxk 5y ago
  This trick no longer seems to work on The Economist. Any alternative?
  - AQuantized 5y ago
    Disabling JavaScript works for me. There's likely an extension for your web browser to do this easily.
  - lewiscollard 5y ago
    In Firefox, open in reader mode. You'll get a truncated article the first time, but if you F5 while in reader mode you'll get the entire article.
  - pizza234 5y ago
    If you really want to skip the paywall (I don't take any official position), you can use the Bypass Paywalls extension¹. ¹: https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome
    - oriettaxx 5y ago
      just add a dot :) https://www.economist.com./by-invitation/2021/09/24/noam-chomsky-on-the-cruelty-of-american-imperialism https://www.economist.com./by-invitation/2021/09/24/noam-cho...
  - szatkus 5y ago
    https://outline.com/Em7MRE https://outline.com/Em7MRE
- padthai 5y ago
  A better link: http://archive.today/qYueR http://archive.today/qYueR
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
redis_mlc 5y ago
Chomsky is an idiot. The US does not have an empire - in fact, it decolonized most of the globe after WW2. It does have some Pacific islands. But calling that an empire is absurd. Some countries, like the Philippines, peridodically consider joining the US voluntarily. If the US is a cruel superpower, it's the least cruel in history. I can live with that.
howaboutnope 5y ago
> The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits 'atrocities' but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it claims to control the past as well as the future. -- George Orwell > We don't know a perfected totalitarian power structure, because it would require the control of the whole planet. But we know enough about the the still preliminary experiments of total organization to realize that the very well possible perfection of this apparatus would get rid of human agency in the sense as we know it. To act would turn out to be superfluous for people living together, when all people have become an example of their species, when all doing has become an acceleration of the movement mechanism of history or nature following a set pattern, and all deeds have become the execution of death sentences which history and nature have given anyway. -- Hannah Arendt That is not just an international threat, that's a threat to the chance of future people to even be human. I remember when Mercedes Benz apologized three times to the CCP for quoting the Dalai Lama on instagram, which isn't even accessible in China. Or when that Marriot employee responsible for social media got fired for liking a tweet directed at the Marriot twitter account thanking them for recognizing Taiwan (because it was included in a dropdown). Marriot also apologized. Or when Leica caved. And so on. So the ship of anything being internal sailed a long time ago. I'm not American, I don't give fuck one about American hypocrisy. Neverending global totalitarianism would destroy the lives of infinite people. The only reason I'm not flat out saying "even 10 nuclear wars would be better than that" is the knowledge that such wars would only serve to consolidate power and to tighten totalitarian control ultimately. But morally speaking I don't even see the beginning of an argument. You can't one the one hand downplay it as "sometimes severe internal repression", and then talk about the obviousness of the need for Chinese-American cooperation. Yes, we need that, what we don't need is CCP-American cooperation. The CCP represents China no more than the Nazis and their followers represented Germany -- the Germans in exile were those who rightfully inherited that, not a murderous gang. As Orwell said, we either all live in a decent world, or nobody does. As far as I'm concerned, when someone rules over another human with violence and murder, the buck stops with me. It doesn't matter if it's the US or NATO or my own government or the CCP. edit: Silent downvotes just prove my point. Not an inch to people who rule with violence.
- fit2rule 5y ago
  NATO is a very real military threat to a significant percentage of the worlds population - more so than the CCP. It does matter if its the US or NATO or your own government. Only the people can do anything peaceful about their own politics. Everything else leads to war.
a_square_peg 5y ago
Just finished reading 'Blind Man's Bluff' - about the American submarine espionage stories since WW2. There are fascinating stories but it was also striking how so many of the stories were about how the US, the technically and economically superior country, spied on and harassed the Soviets near the Soviet territories.
- oblio 5y ago
  I read somewhere that it's not entirely unlikely that the brand of socialism/communism in the Soviet Union became more extreme because of foreign attack. Socialism was considered, probably rightly so, a mortal threat to current political and social systems so the communist camp in Russia was under assault from day 1. For those that forgot, Russia was an ally in WW1 and once it withdrew from the war due to huge war fatigue, Russia was invaded by Britain, the US, Japan, I'm probably forgetting a bunch of dozen other invaders. For what was basically a matter of internal policy and later a civil war. Of course, nothing could have guaranteed that the extremists such as the Bolsheviks, Lenin, Stalin, wouldn't have won even if left alone.
  - a_square_peg 5y ago
    That's an interesting angle, thanks for sharing. The book gives an impression that many American submariners were driven by mission whereas the Soviet ones took it as a job. A memorable quote from a Soviet commander (Bagdasaryan) who's submarine has collided with an American sub and was reprimanded, was how he would like to "have a drink and think together how to avoid similar collision in the future" with his American counterpart. Unfortunately, the American commander had passed away by this time.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    Let us please dispense with the moral ambiguity of our view of the Soviet Union. They was also an 'ally' in WW2, I think 'enemy of my enemy' would be a more apt term. The Soviets were an authoritarian mass murdering regime (Stalin murdered 4-5 million on purpose in Ukraine, but that's just one small item on the list) that already ruthlessly ruled much of Central Asia, and the only reason the Czechs, E. Germans, Poles, Romanians, Hungarians etc. were in the 'Warsaw Pact' was due to forcible acquiescence at the point of a gun: those states were nation-sized prisons, forcibly monitored by Stasi or Stasi-like forces, who were in turn monitored by the KGB, in very draconian terms. Meanwhile, NATO was made up of very willing participants. After the fall of the Soviet Union, we can see where those states more or less landed in terms of alignment. The Soviets were all over the world trying to take control of individual government groups, providing money, intelligence, weapons etc. in order to take direct control of government, and have them controlled in much the same manner they did Poland, Hungary etc.. and where they were successfull it was bad. The American model exemplified by US support of House of Saud is excessively benign: don't attack the US or the world order, don't align with the Soviets or China, sell your goods to whoever you want but at free market prices, maintain stable governance ... and that's that. In Chile, Afghanistan, Cuba, Venezuela, problems 'came to ahead' due to very direct influence of the Soviets and we're still reeling from it to this day. Not to overstate things entirely, but during the Wiemar Republic, Stalin had complete and direct control over the German Communist party, who had ~17% of the Bundestag, and they had their own 'thug forces' out there beating people up, killing police (on a couple of occasions). Needless to say, could you imagine some antagonizing foreign dictatorship directly controlling 17% of UK Parliament or US Congress? I wouldn't say that was a primary cause of anything, but at least pretty big driver of what followed.
ArchD 5y ago
I wonder how much of the authoritarian tendencies of the government of certain countries (e.g. Russia, China, Iran) is driven by a desire to maintain the stability and control presumably needed to resist hostile actions by the US empire that ironically professes freedom and democracy.
- calsy 5y ago
  Authoritarian tendencies existed well before the US came to power. The best defence against the US 'empire' is to avoid authoritarian tendencies.
  - ArchD 5y ago
    Tell that to Mohammad Mosaddegh, the democratically-elected Prime Minister of Iran until some hostile action by the CIA. Or, consider Saudi Arabia, which has a monarchy. They are on very friendly terms with the US. I've just listed two examples out of many that can be easily found by anyone who is interested to know.
    - calsy 5y ago
      Please do, you have a single example of Iran and another that is the complete opposite of what I proposed. Then compare that to the powers US has had conflicts with during the 20/21st century, either directly or by proxy. The point was also 'best defence', not 'option that completely negates any possible US threat'. On odds, what country will most likely come into conflict with the US on probability, one of authoritarian rule or one of elected leaders?
  - drewcoo 5y ago
    Or accept our puppet dictators and our NGO "help."
  - Redoubts 5y ago
    This is just straight up wrong.
hguant 5y ago
Chomsky, again, finds what ever facts he can to fit his theories, and disregards everything else. He's a proponent of the sort of effete liberalism of the 80's and 90's, which says "well, if you're not perfect, then you're not allowed to say anything about other's actions"; a liberalism that's very comfortable, very twee, and quite content to do nothing, having shown how very very clever it is, and how very very little anything other than being clever matters. Unfortunately, we do not live in Mr. Chomsky's world, where genocide can be waved aside as "internal repression" and immediately dismissed with a coy reference the US allowing misbehavior in Israel, as if it was a 51st state. Sadly, we cannot take a bare statement of the ridiculousness of US military power, and uncritically assume that there's no deep value the world gets from US hegemony, crumbling though it may be. The whole article boils down to "The US has done things I think are bad, therefore it shouldn't do anything because it has no moral leg to stand on." That might work for wowing undergraduates; it does not make for good international policy.
- project2501a 5y ago
  Chomsky is a liberal? ever since when? > that there's no deep value the world gets from US hegemony, crumbling though it may be. Jesus effing christ, this guy actually supports US hegemony... Kissinger, is it you?
  - garmaine 5y ago
    In the USA (re-)definition of the word, yes.
    - hestefisk 5y ago
      He refers to himself as an anarchist, first and foremost. He has what would be seen as very “liberal” as in “progressive” views in US political terms.
      - jamil7 5y ago
        I’m not American, I felt the word liberal referred to an American democrat party, centre-left line of thinking more so than classic leftist views - is that wrong?
dotsam 5y ago
I respect Chomsky very much, and I have learned a lot from him. But I do wonder to what extent his views are based on a possibly over-optimistic view of the world's potential, and a refusal or inability to accept that the the universe might be fundamentally unjust and that life is not always dignified or sacred. I would like to share his hopeful outlook (hopeful in the sense that he seems to think there ought to be a counterfactual world where everyone behaves decently towards each other and the planet), but it seems to me that it is in the nature of life to want power, and it is in the nature of power to control anything that threatens it, and so conflict, struggle and might making right are intrinsic (but perhaps deplorable) features of the world.
- bad_alloc 5y ago
  Nature might be like this, but we can maybe build an artificial system which is not.
  - craftit 5y ago
    It is interesting to wonder what this might look like. There are still limits to what is physically possible, we only have finite resources. I also personally value having a diversity of people and views. I wonder if at least from the points of view of some of the inhabitants the world will be unfair. That said, we should always try and do better.
- pizza 5y ago
  Think about how powerful it would be to make people believe that, though. Then, by deduction, since power desires to increase its capacity, necessarily its power must be overblown :^) semi-/s
- rvense 5y ago
  I think it's a bit weird to talk of the universe being just or unjust. The universe is what it is. To me, an action taken by a person can be just or unjust, and a person can be said to be just or unjust based on a sort of average of their actions. As for the nature of life, I don't think that we can go from, say, a tree casting shade and thus making life harder for other plants being natural, or predators being natural, to saying that compassion and cooperation in humans is unnatural. Quite the opposite. Human beings are, from birth, naturally compassionate and cooperative as well as the opposite. We are "capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares". But a lone human is always a very fragile creature, in fact I'd even say that it is more unnatural than anything else. We are, most of us, social beings who not only benefit from but require the company and cooperation of others to function and flourish. And of course, protecting yourself and your dependents from threats is natural. We are social, but also tribal. But when do we decide that another group is a threat? Why do we take from others, or harm them? To me, it seems the answer to that will usually be out of fear and or out of want. And while those might occur naturally, they can occur more or less, depending on circumstance and outlook.
Bostonian 5y ago
Now that the U.S. has left Afghanistan, thus reducing our "imperialism" according to Chomsky, are Afghans better off? No, they are worse off, especially women.
- amanaplanacanal 5y ago
  Americans are definitely better off though. What a huge drain of resources.
- panick21 5y ago
  Afganistan was stable and free of war (mostly) when the US invaded. Even the poppy export had been repressed. Have the Afgans been made better of by another 20 years of constant war, would they have better of by fighting a continues war for then next 50 years? The Taliban were winning, that is why the US was driven out. Because it was clear the US was leaving the Taliban were willing to wait. The reality is the US would have to defend the country for many decades. Spend huge amount of money against the will of the waste majority of Americans on propping up a group of warlords who are often as bad the Taliban (and some of them were worse). The Afgan government was the most corrupt in the world. The whole economy was a based on US military presence and aid, plus selling of poppy. A country far, far more depended on exporting poppy even then Colombia at the peak of the 'Narco State'. The money going to the army subsidies officers, equipment stolen and sold, often to the Taliban. Local officials pocketing funds for local administration. Most woman in Afghanistan still lived according tradition, and laws in most of the country continued to be sharia based. Some studies even found that courts in government areas were stricter. How do you avoid the 'we are ruling them for their own good'. Should British have stayed in India? All imperialist claim their rule was 'civilizing' the country. Can Afghans never rule themselves? What about other nations who have those kinds of laws? Should the US occupy all of the Middle East and Central Asia in a Pro Womans right campaign? What about Indonesia? Should the US rule those 100s of millions as well?
mistrial9 5y ago
the article on YNews three spots away is a detailed and lengthy exposition on outsourcing of American software work to various countries. There is no hint of any of these sentiments expressed by Chomsky. It is almost as if Chomsky is expressing a certain facet of conscience that is utterly lacking in the other side of that coin. And coin it is, that is the subject, money, work, and all that goes with it. weird
- cma 5y ago
  Can you be a bit more specific? This article? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28663221 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28663221 Can you explain the two sides of the coin and the connection?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
RickJWagner 5y ago
The thing about America is that if you don't like it, you can move to the US and promote political ideas to change what you don't like. It doesn't always succeed, but it's non-violent and it works. It's why so many people move to America.
- cma 5y ago
  Through the visa lottery system?
  - throaway1990 5y ago
    Of course not, through the southern border illegaly! And vote the populists who will give you free citizenship and scholarships!
crawsome 5y ago
Paywall
rafael_c 5y ago
Wow, never thought I'd see a Chomsky essay on the Economist, of all magazines.
- busymom0 5y ago
  Chomsky wrote this article without self reflection that he told everyone to vote for the dude who repeatedly voted for regime change wars and served as the VP while they destroyed enough countries to bring slavery back to Libya.
throaway1990 5y ago
Chomsky longs for Soviet Union, where he could have been an oppressive Professor with the ear to the Kremlin. Too bad this communist asshole lost Soviet Union and Venenzuela. Hey China can use his asshat philiosophy to push their totalitarian regime. Go Chmosky! China calling!
dsq 5y ago
"Geopolitics, like nature, abhors a vacuum" - George Attali. American world involvement does have some aspects of imperialism. But are we to be so naive as to assume that America's withdrawal from control of resources wouldn't be quickly followed by their takeover by other, even less enlightened players?
- qPM9l3XJrF 5y ago
  Agreed. This book argues that periods of world history with an uncontested superpower (e.g. Britain or the US) are significantly more peaceful than those without: https://www.amazon.com/War-What-Good-Conflict-Civilization/dp/B00OQY9WZK/ https://www.amazon.com/War-What-Good-Conflict-Civilization/d... The post-WWII era, which coincides with the era of American dominance, has been a fairly peaceful period by historical standards. It's hard to argue with results.

165 points by boramalper 5y ago

z3 5y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20210926093923/https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2021/09/24/noam-chomsky-on-the-cruelty-of-american-imperialism https://web.archive.org/web/20210926093923/https://www.econo...

_alxk 5y ago
This trick no longer seems to work on The Economist. Any alternative?
- AQuantized 5y ago
  Disabling JavaScript works for me. There's likely an extension for your web browser to do this easily.
- lewiscollard 5y ago
  In Firefox, open in reader mode. You'll get a truncated article the first time, but if you F5 while in reader mode you'll get the entire article.
- pizza234 5y ago
  If you really want to skip the paywall (I don't take any official position), you can use the Bypass Paywalls extension¹. ¹: https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome
  - oriettaxx 5y ago
    just add a dot :) https://www.economist.com./by-invitation/2021/09/24/noam-chomsky-on-the-cruelty-of-american-imperialism https://www.economist.com./by-invitation/2021/09/24/noam-cho...
- szatkus 5y ago
  https://outline.com/Em7MRE https://outline.com/Em7MRE
padthai 5y ago
A better link: http://archive.today/qYueR http://archive.today/qYueR
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

redis_mlc 5y ago

Chomsky is an idiot. The US does not have an empire - in fact, it decolonized most of the globe after WW2. It does have some Pacific islands. But calling that an empire is absurd. Some countries, like the Philippines, peridodically consider joining the US voluntarily. If the US is a cruel superpower, it's the least cruel in history. I can live with that.

howaboutnope 5y ago

> The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits 'atrocities' but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it claims to control the past as well as the future. -- George Orwell > We don't know a perfected totalitarian power structure, because it would require the control of the whole planet. But we know enough about the the still preliminary experiments of total organization to realize that the very well possible perfection of this apparatus would get rid of human agency in the sense as we know it. To act would turn out to be superfluous for people living together, when all people have become an example of their species, when all doing has become an acceleration of the movement mechanism of history or nature following a set pattern, and all deeds have become the execution of death sentences which history and nature have given anyway. -- Hannah Arendt That is not just an international threat, that's a threat to the chance of future people to even be human. I remember when Mercedes Benz apologized three times to the CCP for quoting the Dalai Lama on instagram, which isn't even accessible in China. Or when that Marriot employee responsible for social media got fired for liking a tweet directed at the Marriot twitter account thanking them for recognizing Taiwan (because it was included in a dropdown). Marriot also apologized. Or when Leica caved. And so on. So the ship of anything being internal sailed a long time ago. I'm not American, I don't give fuck one about American hypocrisy. Neverending global totalitarianism would destroy the lives of infinite people. The only reason I'm not flat out saying "even 10 nuclear wars would be better than that" is the knowledge that such wars would only serve to consolidate power and to tighten totalitarian control ultimately. But morally speaking I don't even see the beginning of an argument. You can't one the one hand downplay it as "sometimes severe internal repression", and then talk about the obviousness of the need for Chinese-American cooperation. Yes, we need that, what we don't need is CCP-American cooperation. The CCP represents China no more than the Nazis and their followers represented Germany -- the Germans in exile were those who rightfully inherited that, not a murderous gang. As Orwell said, we either all live in a decent world, or nobody does. As far as I'm concerned, when someone rules over another human with violence and murder, the buck stops with me. It doesn't matter if it's the US or NATO or my own government or the CCP. edit: Silent downvotes just prove my point. Not an inch to people who rule with violence.

fit2rule 5y ago
NATO is a very real military threat to a significant percentage of the worlds population - more so than the CCP. It does matter if its the US or NATO or your own government. Only the people can do anything peaceful about their own politics. Everything else leads to war.

a_square_peg 5y ago

Just finished reading 'Blind Man's Bluff' - about the American submarine espionage stories since WW2. There are fascinating stories but it was also striking how so many of the stories were about how the US, the technically and economically superior country, spied on and harassed the Soviets near the Soviet territories.

oblio 5y ago
I read somewhere that it's not entirely unlikely that the brand of socialism/communism in the Soviet Union became more extreme because of foreign attack. Socialism was considered, probably rightly so, a mortal threat to current political and social systems so the communist camp in Russia was under assault from day 1. For those that forgot, Russia was an ally in WW1 and once it withdrew from the war due to huge war fatigue, Russia was invaded by Britain, the US, Japan, I'm probably forgetting a bunch of dozen other invaders. For what was basically a matter of internal policy and later a civil war. Of course, nothing could have guaranteed that the extremists such as the Bolsheviks, Lenin, Stalin, wouldn't have won even if left alone.
- a_square_peg 5y ago
  That's an interesting angle, thanks for sharing. The book gives an impression that many American submariners were driven by mission whereas the Soviet ones took it as a job. A memorable quote from a Soviet commander (Bagdasaryan) who's submarine has collided with an American sub and was reprimanded, was how he would like to "have a drink and think together how to avoid similar collision in the future" with his American counterpart. Unfortunately, the American commander had passed away by this time.
- jollybean 5y ago
  Let us please dispense with the moral ambiguity of our view of the Soviet Union. They was also an 'ally' in WW2, I think 'enemy of my enemy' would be a more apt term. The Soviets were an authoritarian mass murdering regime (Stalin murdered 4-5 million on purpose in Ukraine, but that's just one small item on the list) that already ruthlessly ruled much of Central Asia, and the only reason the Czechs, E. Germans, Poles, Romanians, Hungarians etc. were in the 'Warsaw Pact' was due to forcible acquiescence at the point of a gun: those states were nation-sized prisons, forcibly monitored by Stasi or Stasi-like forces, who were in turn monitored by the KGB, in very draconian terms. Meanwhile, NATO was made up of very willing participants. After the fall of the Soviet Union, we can see where those states more or less landed in terms of alignment. The Soviets were all over the world trying to take control of individual government groups, providing money, intelligence, weapons etc. in order to take direct control of government, and have them controlled in much the same manner they did Poland, Hungary etc.. and where they were successfull it was bad. The American model exemplified by US support of House of Saud is excessively benign: don't attack the US or the world order, don't align with the Soviets or China, sell your goods to whoever you want but at free market prices, maintain stable governance ... and that's that. In Chile, Afghanistan, Cuba, Venezuela, problems 'came to ahead' due to very direct influence of the Soviets and we're still reeling from it to this day. Not to overstate things entirely, but during the Wiemar Republic, Stalin had complete and direct control over the German Communist party, who had ~17% of the Bundestag, and they had their own 'thug forces' out there beating people up, killing police (on a couple of occasions). Needless to say, could you imagine some antagonizing foreign dictatorship directly controlling 17% of UK Parliament or US Congress? I wouldn't say that was a primary cause of anything, but at least pretty big driver of what followed.

ArchD 5y ago

I wonder how much of the authoritarian tendencies of the government of certain countries (e.g. Russia, China, Iran) is driven by a desire to maintain the stability and control presumably needed to resist hostile actions by the US empire that ironically professes freedom and democracy.

calsy 5y ago
Authoritarian tendencies existed well before the US came to power. The best defence against the US 'empire' is to avoid authoritarian tendencies.
- ArchD 5y ago
  Tell that to Mohammad Mosaddegh, the democratically-elected Prime Minister of Iran until some hostile action by the CIA. Or, consider Saudi Arabia, which has a monarchy. They are on very friendly terms with the US. I've just listed two examples out of many that can be easily found by anyone who is interested to know.
  - calsy 5y ago
    Please do, you have a single example of Iran and another that is the complete opposite of what I proposed. Then compare that to the powers US has had conflicts with during the 20/21st century, either directly or by proxy. The point was also 'best defence', not 'option that completely negates any possible US threat'. On odds, what country will most likely come into conflict with the US on probability, one of authoritarian rule or one of elected leaders?
- drewcoo 5y ago
  Or accept our puppet dictators and our NGO "help."
- Redoubts 5y ago
  This is just straight up wrong.

hguant 5y ago

Chomsky, again, finds what ever facts he can to fit his theories, and disregards everything else. He's a proponent of the sort of effete liberalism of the 80's and 90's, which says "well, if you're not perfect, then you're not allowed to say anything about other's actions"; a liberalism that's very comfortable, very twee, and quite content to do nothing, having shown how very very clever it is, and how very very little anything other than being clever matters. Unfortunately, we do not live in Mr. Chomsky's world, where genocide can be waved aside as "internal repression" and immediately dismissed with a coy reference the US allowing misbehavior in Israel, as if it was a 51st state. Sadly, we cannot take a bare statement of the ridiculousness of US military power, and uncritically assume that there's no deep value the world gets from US hegemony, crumbling though it may be. The whole article boils down to "The US has done things I think are bad, therefore it shouldn't do anything because it has no moral leg to stand on." That might work for wowing undergraduates; it does not make for good international policy.

project2501a 5y ago
Chomsky is a liberal? ever since when? > that there's no deep value the world gets from US hegemony, crumbling though it may be. Jesus effing christ, this guy actually supports US hegemony... Kissinger, is it you?
- garmaine 5y ago
  In the USA (re-)definition of the word, yes.
  - hestefisk 5y ago
    He refers to himself as an anarchist, first and foremost. He has what would be seen as very “liberal” as in “progressive” views in US political terms.
    - jamil7 5y ago
      I’m not American, I felt the word liberal referred to an American democrat party, centre-left line of thinking more so than classic leftist views - is that wrong?

dotsam 5y ago

I respect Chomsky very much, and I have learned a lot from him. But I do wonder to what extent his views are based on a possibly over-optimistic view of the world's potential, and a refusal or inability to accept that the the universe might be fundamentally unjust and that life is not always dignified or sacred. I would like to share his hopeful outlook (hopeful in the sense that he seems to think there ought to be a counterfactual world where everyone behaves decently towards each other and the planet), but it seems to me that it is in the nature of life to want power, and it is in the nature of power to control anything that threatens it, and so conflict, struggle and might making right are intrinsic (but perhaps deplorable) features of the world.

bad_alloc 5y ago
Nature might be like this, but we can maybe build an artificial system which is not.
- craftit 5y ago
  It is interesting to wonder what this might look like. There are still limits to what is physically possible, we only have finite resources. I also personally value having a diversity of people and views. I wonder if at least from the points of view of some of the inhabitants the world will be unfair. That said, we should always try and do better.
pizza 5y ago
Think about how powerful it would be to make people believe that, though. Then, by deduction, since power desires to increase its capacity, necessarily its power must be overblown :^) semi-/s
rvense 5y ago
I think it's a bit weird to talk of the universe being just or unjust. The universe is what it is. To me, an action taken by a person can be just or unjust, and a person can be said to be just or unjust based on a sort of average of their actions. As for the nature of life, I don't think that we can go from, say, a tree casting shade and thus making life harder for other plants being natural, or predators being natural, to saying that compassion and cooperation in humans is unnatural. Quite the opposite. Human beings are, from birth, naturally compassionate and cooperative as well as the opposite. We are "capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares". But a lone human is always a very fragile creature, in fact I'd even say that it is more unnatural than anything else. We are, most of us, social beings who not only benefit from but require the company and cooperation of others to function and flourish. And of course, protecting yourself and your dependents from threats is natural. We are social, but also tribal. But when do we decide that another group is a threat? Why do we take from others, or harm them? To me, it seems the answer to that will usually be out of fear and or out of want. And while those might occur naturally, they can occur more or less, depending on circumstance and outlook.

Bostonian 5y ago

Now that the U.S. has left Afghanistan, thus reducing our "imperialism" according to Chomsky, are Afghans better off? No, they are worse off, especially women.

amanaplanacanal 5y ago
Americans are definitely better off though. What a huge drain of resources.
panick21 5y ago
Afganistan was stable and free of war (mostly) when the US invaded. Even the poppy export had been repressed. Have the Afgans been made better of by another 20 years of constant war, would they have better of by fighting a continues war for then next 50 years? The Taliban were winning, that is why the US was driven out. Because it was clear the US was leaving the Taliban were willing to wait. The reality is the US would have to defend the country for many decades. Spend huge amount of money against the will of the waste majority of Americans on propping up a group of warlords who are often as bad the Taliban (and some of them were worse). The Afgan government was the most corrupt in the world. The whole economy was a based on US military presence and aid, plus selling of poppy. A country far, far more depended on exporting poppy even then Colombia at the peak of the 'Narco State'. The money going to the army subsidies officers, equipment stolen and sold, often to the Taliban. Local officials pocketing funds for local administration. Most woman in Afghanistan still lived according tradition, and laws in most of the country continued to be sharia based. Some studies even found that courts in government areas were stricter. How do you avoid the 'we are ruling them for their own good'. Should British have stayed in India? All imperialist claim their rule was 'civilizing' the country. Can Afghans never rule themselves? What about other nations who have those kinds of laws? Should the US occupy all of the Middle East and Central Asia in a Pro Womans right campaign? What about Indonesia? Should the US rule those 100s of millions as well?

mistrial9 5y ago

the article on YNews three spots away is a detailed and lengthy exposition on outsourcing of American software work to various countries. There is no hint of any of these sentiments expressed by Chomsky. It is almost as if Chomsky is expressing a certain facet of conscience that is utterly lacking in the other side of that coin. And coin it is, that is the subject, money, work, and all that goes with it. weird

cma 5y ago
Can you be a bit more specific? This article? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28663221 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28663221 Can you explain the two sides of the coin and the connection?

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RickJWagner 5y ago

The thing about America is that if you don't like it, you can move to the US and promote political ideas to change what you don't like. It doesn't always succeed, but it's non-violent and it works. It's why so many people move to America.

cma 5y ago
Through the visa lottery system?
- throaway1990 5y ago
  Of course not, through the southern border illegaly! And vote the populists who will give you free citizenship and scholarships!

crawsome 5y ago

Paywall

rafael_c 5y ago

Wow, never thought I'd see a Chomsky essay on the Economist, of all magazines.

busymom0 5y ago
Chomsky wrote this article without self reflection that he told everyone to vote for the dude who repeatedly voted for regime change wars and served as the VP while they destroyed enough countries to bring slavery back to Libya.

throaway1990 5y ago

Chomsky longs for Soviet Union, where he could have been an oppressive Professor with the ear to the Kremlin. Too bad this communist asshole lost Soviet Union and Venenzuela. Hey China can use his asshat philiosophy to push their totalitarian regime. Go Chmosky! China calling!

dsq 5y ago

"Geopolitics, like nature, abhors a vacuum" - George Attali. American world involvement does have some aspects of imperialism. But are we to be so naive as to assume that America's withdrawal from control of resources wouldn't be quickly followed by their takeover by other, even less enlightened players?

qPM9l3XJrF 5y ago
Agreed. This book argues that periods of world history with an uncontested superpower (e.g. Britain or the US) are significantly more peaceful than those without: https://www.amazon.com/War-What-Good-Conflict-Civilization/dp/B00OQY9WZK/ https://www.amazon.com/War-What-Good-Conflict-Civilization/d... The post-WWII era, which coincides with the era of American dominance, has been a fairly peaceful period by historical standards. It's hard to argue with results.