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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Weakness of Radical Critique a Real Danger Says Noam Chomsky |
Current rating: 0 |
by unmediated artists syndicate
Email: hope4a (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified!) |
03 Apr 2002
Modified: 02:08:31 PM |
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Unlike so many leading the consciousness of the Left and autonomous sanity-seeking movements, Chomsky delves into roots and ground seldom trod when it comes to better understanding the psychology of the people who own and run our society. This short article goes over some of Chomsky's demystifications and promotes the vital value of catching on to the "meta" of the same old routines. |
"The lack of [and] the weakness and ineffectiveness of... radical critique today will doubtless lead to new and unimaginable horrors."--Noam Chomsky, regarding a lack of crucial historical critique and dangers posed today.
The state of affairs that perpetuates our feelings of powerlessness as well as encroaching burnout must be understood so that we may avert and learn from this situation and begin to actually make serious and meaningful headway towards our ideas of peace and sanity. In my view, we are being tooled by the current, yet fast-becoming-obsolete methods of our resistance models and culture. The model I wish to get beyond, here, is our general lack of indepth awareness of policymaker mindset and psychology.
In our lack of understanding, we are having the carpet of committment to peace and justice issues pulled from beneath our feet. Look all around: Young people encouraged to become fundamentalist (rigid) in such a way that they alienate themselves from most people, including burned-out "sell outs"; older people (middle age) feeling the pressures of "hitting their heads against the wall" and telling their colleagues reasons why they need to get away from the fold and be more "pragmatic." We are being tooled, and we have apparently missed that this same old routine does not have to happen!
If we had a better understanding of what is happening, we would, no doubt, be more capable of continuing our resistence, no matter what pitfall came. We would begin obtaining the mental and psychological consciousness which would keep us not only reacting to the latest overstepping, but in a position where we could be much more proactive, and even on the offensive!
When you allow yourself to begin understanding the psychology and ideological method of your owners and herders, you do a form of psychological jiu-jitsu. You do not allow their manipulations to slam into your heart in the way that such is designed to become debilitating. Instead, you *read between the lines* and you continue to explore the bigger, yet hidden, reality of what is happening and why.
Like Toto pulling back the curtain of the Wizard of Oz, we learn that these mystifications of our "Great" and "Noble" alleged leaders are only people like ourselves who have somehow gotten so deeply immersed in their severely alienated, rigid mindsets that they perpetuate human stupidity and insanity in a kind of business as usual mentality.
We've got to begin catching on! If we don't, our ranks will continue to be blighted by the cycle of youthful idealism giving way, all too quickly, to middle age beaten-downism. This situation definitely can be averted!
Enter Noam Chomsky. You've heard a lot about his challenges of u.s./nato foreign policy; you've heard his excellent deconstruction of the u.s./Western media. But what you don't usually hear is his trenchant analysis of the minds of those who hold and move the strings.
Following are excerpts from
http://monkeyfist.com:8080/ChomskyArchive/essays/pacific_html
which the author figures are short enough and direct enough to further interest you in investigating the psychology of u.s./nato/world policy makers and their possibly uncritical implementers. The idea is to promote an *evolution of policy-maker mindset, from continuous war in all forms, to forms of sanity which we, the continual victims of their policies and games, can accept.
Chomsky, quoting a delegate to the Institute of Pacific Relations (1925, 1936), just under notation 16:
"The Japanese feel that Western countries are unfair in imposing the status quo on Japan and calling it "peace."
Near notation 39:
"the peace machinery of the world is in itself primarily the creation of the dominant races of the earth, of those who are the greatest beneficiaries from the maintenance of the status quo." attributed to a "liberal professor of American history", Yasaka Takagi.
Last sentence:
"The lack of a radical critique of the sort that Muste, and a few others, sought to develop was one of the factors that contributed to the atrocity of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as the weakness and ineffectiveness of such radical critique today will doubtless lead to new and unimaginable horrors." --Chomsky
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Interesting food for thought for today's games about "peace" in the Middle East and everywhere else, huh?!
You think a Demoblican or Republicrat (Democrat or Republican) is going to make any difference? Learn about the meta game of even those people who allegedly represent all of us, in "Watergate: Small Potatoes":
http://monkeyfist.com/ChomskyArchive/essays/watergate_html
"Judicial and other harassment of dissidents and their organizations is the common practice, whoever happens to be in office."--Chomsky
Some other insights:
http://www.africa2000.com/PNDX/
http://monkeyfist.com/ChomskyArchive/essays/crisis_html
http://monkeyfist.com/ChomskyArchive/essays/watergate2_html (more detailed analysis of Watergate affair)
http://www.lol.shareworld.com/ZMag/articles/oct1999chomsky.htm
Just Say No
Let's say you've digested much of this flow, but you're still stuck on ways you may go about actually dealing with the situation in a way you find meaningful. I have one idea for you, and the idea originates from the "dangerous" awareness of one John Trudell, now being herded into the music industry (but hopefully not fooled).
John speaks of *resistance consciousness*. My understanding is that as we wake up, we learn that we don't need formal constructs of resistance like formal organizations. We learn that we can "Just say no." We can avoid playing and being tooled by the game (in its every manifestation) and pass along--to those we care about--this awareness, while creating our own semi-*autonomous* resistance community, whereupon we can be oriented to inspiration and sanity (instead of fear and worry) and find ourselves enjoying our continuing desires to do our diverse arts (everything iz art).
For a small introduction to the path that John Trudell has endured (and which has strengthened him into genius): www.dickshovel.com/JTT.html |
See also:
monkeyfist.com/ChomskyArchive/
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Lay Off The Hero Worship |
by out there
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
03 Apr 2002
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Chuck,
You really should lay off the hero worship. It's unseemly, inappropriate for activists, and probably embarrasses the people who you fall down on your knees for. |
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Chomsky is right, this time |
by me
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
03 Apr 2002
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He's right - the shrillness and unreason of most activist activity these days makes it child's play for any politician or demagogue to marginalize the entire effort in a few words.
When we begin fashioning our arguments out of unassailable truth instead of convenient overstatements, no one can stop us. It's been shown again and again - movements that lie are movements that die.
Chomsky is so overused these days it makes me cringe, but hey. |
