Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media Page #2

of actual or natural languages.

The general approach I'm taking seems to me

rather simple minded and unsophisticated,

but, nevertheless, correct.

Later he came to argue that such systems

are innate features of human beings.

They belong to the characteristics

of the species

and have been, in effect, programmed

into the genetic equipment of the mind

like the machine language in a computer.

One needn't be interested in this question.

Of course, I am interested in it.

The interesting question from this point of view

is what is the nature of the initial state?

That is, what is human nature in this respect?

That in turn explains the...

...astonishing.

Try the next one.

Fa-cki-li-ty

- Facility.

- Facility.

That in turn explains the

astonishing facility children have

in learning the rules of natural language,

no matter how complicated, incredibly quickly,

from what are imperfect

and oten degenerate samples.

- Compli...

- Complicated.

It's a complicated word.

Do you know what "complicated" means?

It means it's complicated.

If in fact our minds were a blank slate

and experience wrote on them, we would be

very impoverished creatures indeed,

so the obvious hypothesis is that our language

is the result of the unfolding

of a genetically determined programme.

Well, plainly there are different languages.

In fact, the apparent variation of languages

is quite superficial.

It's certain - as certain as anything else is -

that humans are not genetically programmed

to learn one or another language.

So, you bring up a Japanese baby in Boston,

and it'll speak Boston English.

You bring up my child in Japan,

it'll speak Japanese.

And that means that... From that it fol...

from that it simply follows by logic

that the basic structure of the languages

must be essentially the same.

Our task as scientists is to try to determine

exactly what those fundamental principles are

that cause the knowledge of language to unfold

in the manner in which it does

under particular circumstances.

Incidentally,

I think there is no doubt the same must be true

of other aspects of human intelligence,

and systems of understanding

and interpretation,

and moral and aesthetic judgement, and so on.

The implications of these views

have washed over the fields of psychology,

education, sociology, philosophy,

literary criticism, and logic.

In the '50s and '60s

the bridge between your theoretical work

and your political work seems to have been

the attack on behaviourism,

but now behaviourism is no longer an issue,

or so it seems,

so how does this leave the link

between your linguistics and your politics?

Well, I've always regarded the link... I've never...

really perceived much of a link,

to tell you the truth.

Again, I would be very pleased to be able to

discover intellectually convincing connections

between my own anarchist convictions

on the one hand,

and what I think I can demonstrate,

or at least begin to see

about the nature of human intelligence

on the other.

But I simply can't find intellectually satisfying

connections between those two domains.

I can discover some tenuous points of contact.

FOUCAUL:

If it is correct, as I believe it is,

that a fundamental element of human nature

is the need for creative work,

or creative inquiry for...

...for free creation without the...

...arbitrary, limiting effects of coercive

institutions,

then of course it will follow that a decent society

should maximise the possibilities

for this fundamental human characteristic

to be realised.

Now, a federated, decentralised...

...system of free associations incorporating

economic as well as social institutions

would be what I refer to as

anarcho-syndicalism,

and it seems to me that

it is the appropriate form of social organisation

for an advanced technological society

in which human beings do not have to be forced

into the position of tools, of cogs in a machine.

Since the 1960s

Noam Chomsky has been the voice

of a very characteristic brand

of rationalist libertarian socialism.

He's attacked the abuses of power

wherever he saw them,

he's made himself deeply unpopular

by his criticism of American policy,

the subservience of the intelligentsia,

the degradation of Zionism,

the distortions of media,

and self-delusions of prevailing ideologies.

Under the liberal administration of the 1960s

the club of academic intellectuals

designed and implemented the Vietnam war,

and other similar, though smaller, actions.

This particular community is a very relevant one

to consider at a place like MI

because of course you're all free

to enter into this community.

In fact,

you're invited and encouraged to enter it.

The community of technical intelligentsia,

and weapons designers,

and counter-insurgency experts,

and pragmatic planners of an American empire,

is one that you have a great deal of inducement

to become associated with.

The inducements, in fact, are very real.

The rewards in power, and affluence,

and prestige, and authority...

Jamie?

This came with the mail.

Be with you in a second.

Oh, God, they've still got their cameras.

OK?

We'll start.

In your essay Language and Freedom,

you write, "Social action must be animated

by a vision of a future society".

I was wondering what vision of a future society

animates you?

I have my own ideas

as to what a future society should look like.

I've written about them.

I mean, I think that we should...

At the most general level, we should be

seeking out forms of authority and domination,

and challenging their legitimacy.

Sometimes they are legitimate -

that is, let's say they're needed for survival.

So, for example, I wouldn't suggest

that during the Second World War...

the forms of authority...

We had a totalitarian society, basically.

I thought there was some justification for that

under wartime conditions.

And there are other forms of...

Relations between parents and children,

for example, involve forms of coercion

which are sometimes justifiable.

But any such... Any form of coercion and...

control requires justification,

and most of them are completely unjustifiable.

Now, at various stages of human civilisation

it's been possible to challenge some of them,

but not others.

Others are too deep-seated,

or you don't see them, or whatever,

so at any particular point you try to

detect those forms of authority and domination

which are subject to change, and which...

do not have any legitimacy,

in fact which oten

strike at fundamental human rights,

and your understanding

of fundamental human nature and rights.

Well, what are the major things, say today?

There are some

that are being addressed in a way.

The feminist movement is addressing some.

The civil rights movement is addressing others.

The one major one

that is not being seriously addressed

is the one that's really

at the core of the system of domination,

and that's private control over resources.

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