Watched a documentary on Noam Chomsky called “Manufacturing Consent” this afternoon. Chomsky was a well-known linguist before he decided to take on an additional career as a social provocateur starting in the 60s. While I may not agree with all of his ideas, I do agree with his premise that issues and debate over those issues are incredibly narrow in American society. Look at what happened post-9/11. If you were at all critical of anything the government or the administration were doing, you were anti-American. The “acceptable” points of debate were (and still are) few.
Having been one of the media, in an admittedly small way, I have a hard time believing Chomsky’s idea that the mainstream media have some sort of master plan to keep the masses down. But I do think that people need to look at media, and all things, much more critically.
“America is advanced citizenship. You have to want it bad.”
-Michael Douglas, The American President
Above all, I think voices like Chomsky’s should be celebrated, even if we vehemently disagree with them. That’s what a democracy means.
I absolutely agree that (a) we should celebrate the fact that folks like Chomsky are free to speak their mind, and that (b) we should all defend to the death his right to speak it.
I also have no problem with (c) we should each feel free to laugh, boo, or otherwise ignore him.