Politics

Noam Chomsky

born 1928, Philadelphia, USA

The propaganda model, the responsibility of intellectuals, and libertarian socialism - a lifelong case that illegitimate power must justify itself or be dismantled.

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Lessons

Manufacturing Consent: The Propaganda Model

Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman’s account of how the mass media in a free society manufacture public consent - not by censorship or force, but through five structural ‘filters’ (ownership, advertising,…

The Responsibility of Intellectuals

Chomsky’s 1967 essay on the moral duty of the privileged: because intellectuals enjoy freedom, training, and access to information that most people lack, it is their responsibility to speak the truth and to expose…

Anarchism: Authority Must Justify Itself

Chomsky’s libertarian socialism (or anarcho-syndicalism): the claim that no structure of authority is legitimate simply because it exists - each one, from the state to the workplace, bears the burden of proving it…

Language, Human Nature, and Freedom

Chomsky’s other revolution: that the human capacity for language is innate (universal grammar), the clearest proof that creativity is native to the mind - and his claim that this creative human nature is the very…

Human Nature versus Power: The Foucault Debate

The 1971 television debate in which Chomsky and Michel Foucault clashed over the deepest question in politics: is there a real human nature that can ground a universal ideal of justice to fight for (Chomsky), or are &ls…

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