The 31 best phrases of Noam Chomsky

A multidisciplinary thinker, committed and critical of the system. This is how you can define Noam Chomsky (United States, 1928), a veteran psycholinguist and political activist who is one of the most applauded figures in contemporary thought.

• Here you can read the biography of Noam Chomsky

Chomsky, a native of East Oak Lane, Pennsylvania, has directed his academic career on several lines. Perhaps the best known are his facet as a researcher and psycholinguist, as well as his staunch political activism as a defender of anarcho-syndicalism.

As an academic, he formulated his language development theory. As an activist, he published (and continues to publish) valuable works in which he analyzes the impact of imperialism American in international geopolitics, in addition to being one of the most reputed analysts of the speech.

Noam Chomsky quotes to understand his political thinking

This versatility in the topics that Chomsky has addressed has aroused admiration and misgivings in equal measure.

. He is criticized for his permanent disagreement with American foreign policy. Yet few question that Noam Chomsky is one of the brightest and most prolific thinkers of the 20th and 21st centuries.

In this article we are going to know the best quotes from him and famous quotes from him.

1. Case after case, we see that conformity is the easy way, and the way to privilege and prestige; dissent, however, has personal costs.

His political activism has brought him strong detractors.

2. The people he was honored in the Bible were false prophets. Those whom we call the prophets were imprisoned and sent into the desert.

A reflection by Noam Chomsky about one of the fundamental pillars on which the Catholic Church bases his doctrine.

3. If you assume that there is no hope, then you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, then there are opportunities to change things.

A Chomsky phrase reminiscent of that of the great Eduardo Galeano.

4. People pay for their own subordination.

Accepting a precarious job or paying thousands of euros for a postgraduate degree are signs of living in a society of grateful slaves.

5. The basic idea running through modern history and modern liberalism is that the public should be marginalized. The general public is seen as no more than ignorant outcasts who interfere, like disoriented cattle.

Western democracy suffers from a true sense of handing over decision-making power to the people.

6. When you have the opportunity to take a look at the file they keep on you at the FBI is when you discover that intelligence agencies in general are extremely incompetent.

Apparently Chomsky had access to his own secret report and found what he saw quite ridiculous.

7. The intellectual tradition is one of servility towards power, and if I didn't betray it I would be ashamed of myself.

Ethics in the academic world is not usually very present, as Chomsky confirms.

8. Freedom without opportunities is a demonic gift and refusing to give those opportunities is criminal.

An indirect critique of economic liberalism.

9. Who are the guardians of history? Historians, of course. Educated classes, in general. Part of his job is to shape our vision of the past in a way that supports the interests of present power. If they don't, they will likely be marginalized in one way or another.

Another reflection on power relations in today's society.

10. We shouldn't be looking for heroes, we should be looking for good ideas.

Ideas and creativity over individualisms and personalities.

11. What financial capital basically wants is stable money, not growth.

A thought that challenges the financial system.

12. Business is simply as totalitarian as Bolshevism or Fascism. They have the same intellectual roots of the early twentieth century. For this reason, just as other forms of totalitarianism had to disappear, the same has to happen with private tyrannies. They have to be brought under public control.

The private company and its vertical hierarchy have their days numbered, according to the reflection of the thinker and activist.

13. The principles are clear and explicit. The free market is fine for the third world and its growing counterpart in our country. Mothers with dependent children can be firmly instructed about the need for self-reliance, but not executives and dependent investors, please. For them the welfare state must flourish.

Another famous Chomsky quote that reviews the status quo in contemporary capitalism.

14. Sports play a societal role in the breeding of jingoistic and chauvinistic attitudes. They are destined to organize a community that is committed to its gladiators.

The hooligan phenomenon it can be a powerful weapon of the neoliberal system.

15. If we don't believe in free speech for the people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.

Does freedom of expression have limits?

16. Propaganda is to a democracy what coercion is to a totalitarian state.

A parallel that can make us reflect on the supposed free society in which we live.

17. If you don't develop a constant and lively democratic culture capable of involving the candidates, they are not going to do the things you voted them for. Pressing a button and then going home is not going to change things.

Another reflection on politics and democratic culture.

18. Rights are not granted, they are conquered.

Democracy was not delivered by the guarantors of the dictatorship.

19. Part of the reason capitalism seems to be successful is that it has always had a lot of slave labor, half the population. What women do - outside the world of work - counts for nothing.

Feminism and social criticism, two key elements in the work of Noam Chomsky.

20. The critique of "democracy" among anarchists has often been the critique of parliamentary democracy, as it has arisen in societies with deeply repressive features.

Anarchism and its vision on public life.

21. You cannot have a functioning democracy without what sociologists call "secondary organizations," places where people can meet, plan, talk, and develop ideas.

The meeting places for the people are essential to bring about large-scale changes.

22. The purpose of the mass media... it is not so much informing and reporting what happens, but rather shaping public opinion according to the agendas of the dominant corporate power.

The media and its disastrous influence on the opinions of the uninformed population.

23. Who are the guardians of history?

A rhetorical phrase that refers to the ruling classes.

24. The United States is unusual among industrial democracies in terms of the rigidity of the ideological control system, indoctrination, we might say, exercised through the mass media.

Another thought that delves into the manipulation exercised by the mass media.

Famous quotes about education and learning

Since Chomsky developed much of his intellectual career as a psycholinguist and philosopher of educationIt is also interesting to echo several of his phrases and quotes that deal with this topic.

25. The purpose of education is to show people how to learn for themselves. The other concept of education is indoctrination.

A clear phrase that tells us what the way forward in education should be.

26. Education has a value in itself, regardless of the economic impact it produces on society.

A reflection against the excessive economism with which the educational system is organized today.

27. Do we want to have a society of free, creative and independent individuals, capable of appreciating and learn from and contribute to the cultural achievements of the past, or we want people to increase the GDP? It is not necessarily the same.

In the same line as the previous one.

28. If you do not know what you are looking for, if you have no idea what is relevant, willing to question this idea, if you don't have that, browsing the internet is just randomly taking unverifiable facts that don't mean nothing.

The Internet can be very useful, but we must have sufficient criteria to know where to navigate.

29. Internet is like any other technology, basically neutral, you can use it in constructive or harmful ways. The constructive forms are real, but very few.

Famous quote that, like the previous one, questions the use that we give to the network of networks.

30. In the common problems of human life, science tells us very little, and scientists, as people, are certainly no guide. In fact, they are often the worst of guidance, as they often tend to focus, like a laser, on their own professional interests, and know very little about the world.

An essential difference between the scientist and the freethinker.

31. Science is an exploration of very difficult questions. Without disparaging the theory of evolution, that is a tremendous intellectual advance, but it tells you nothing about whether or not there is what people believe when they talk about God. He doesn't even talk about that topic.

Religion is another of the subjects of study of the Jewish intellectual.