CONTROLLING FREEDOM OF THOUGHT

From a 2004 interview with Noam Chomsky recently rerun by the Progressive:

Q: Why do so many people in the United States just go along with U.S. policy?

Chomsky: What's striking is that this view is accepted without coercion. If you're living in a dictatorship or under kings and princes or in a place run by murderous bishops, you'd better take that view or you're in deep trouble. You get burned at the stake or thrown into the gulag or something.

In the West, you don't get in any trouble if you tell the truth, but you still can't do it. Not only can't you tell the truth, you can't think the truth. It's just so deeply embedded, deeply instilled, that without any meaningful coercion it comes out the same way it does in a totalitarian state.

Orwell had some words about this in his unpublished introduction to Animal Farm. He says straight, look, in England what comes out in a free country is not very different from this totalitarian monster that I'm describing in the book. It's more or less the same. How come in a free country? He has two sentences, which are pretty accurate. One, he says, the press is owned by wealthy men who have every reason not to want certain ideas to be expressed. And second--and I think this is much more important--a good education instills in you the intuitive understanding that there are certain things it just wouldn't do to say.

I don't think he goes far enough. I'd say there are certain things it wouldn't do to think. A good education instills in you the intuitive comprehension--it becomes unconscious and reflexive--that you just don't think certain things, things that are threatening to power interests.

Not everyone accepts this. But most of us, if we are honest with ourselves, can look back at our own personal history. For those of us who got into good colleges or the professions, did we stand up to that high school history teacher who told us some ridiculous lie about American history and say, "That's a ridiculous lie. You're an idiot"? No. We said, "All right, I'll keep quiet, and I'll write it in the exam and I'll think, yes, he's an idiot." And it's easy to say and believe things that improve your self-image and your career and that are in other ways beneficial to yourselves.

It's very hard to look in the mirror. We all know this. It's much easier to have illusions about yourself. And in particular, when you think, well, I'm going to believe what I like, but I'll say what the powerful want, you do that over time, and you believe what you say.

More here.

The more I think about the way things are, the more difficult it becomes to have conversations with ordinary people about my conclusions. That is, it is extraordinarily difficult to buck "conventional wisdom," to criticize "truths" that "everybody knows."

My most personal example is the many conversations I've had with American adults about education--teenagers, on the other hand, are usually a sympathetic audience, for obvious reasons. When I say that the American education system is about indoctrinating children into a culture of obedience and authority, and that any actual learning in the schools is usually happenstance or accidental, I am almost always met with some heavy skepticism. To most Americans, especially so-called liberals, this is pure lunacy. Education is a sacred cow; its very existence is not to be questioned: it is one of our truly noble pursuits. Who could argue with bringing knowledge and insight to young Americans?

Well, that's the problem. Education does not bring knowledge and insight to young Americans. Generally, they pick that up all by themselves, sometimes with the help of the schools, but usually not. But because education, as a cultural concept, is supposed to be such a great and beautiful thing, people just don't question it. I mean, sure, everybody's always going on about how bad the schools are and all that, but nobody questions our basic assumptions about how we approach the concept of learning itself, which means that the authoritarian emphasis of education is also unquestioned. "Education" is a great and wonderful thing, and any coercion used in the process is just "common sense," something needed in order to execute the great and wonderful thing.

I've actually gotten some rather hostile reactions from teachers when I start talking this way. How could I possibly question the great and wonderful thing?

I could go on, but I'm sure you get the idea. It's the same thing when talking about American character, or whether teens should have sex, or taxation. Despite all our freedom, there are many places where Americans just won't allow their minds to go. And they'll get pissed off if you insist on taking them there. What?!? The New York Times is conservative?!? Obama isn't liberal?!? The Christian god is crazy and/or evil?!? How dare you?!?

I think the rest of my life is going to be fun.

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