One of the most egregious areas of coercion in Chomsky’s view is private control over resources, but today that could be extended to include health care and insurance as well. Chomsky takes this idea in the direction of the media, where the Constitution defines the need for a free media that can act as a control on government and help voters make informed decisions. But the Constitution was written by men who believed that the masses were not capable of governing themselves and created a representative democracy that would remove them from the actual process of the law, placing the power in the hands of the elite. In order for the elite to control the masses, it then becomes necessary to indoctrinate them with propaganda, hence the need for control over the illusion of a free media. The key to Chomsky’s model of control hinges on the importance that there be a perception of liberal bias in the media. In this way the consumers of the news believe that there is an adversarial relationship between the media and the government and rest easy in the false confidence that their interests are being protected by media watchdogs. But the reality is that all of the major media in this country is owned by, and are subsidiaries of, major corporations that depend on advertising dollars from other major corporations to survive and therefor have no interest in subverting the dominant economic culture in this country by telling citizens the truth.
What the film does well is to present the alternative to Chomsky’s view. In yet another interview with Bill Moyers, he talks to writer Tom Wolfe who condescendingly dismisses Chomsky and academia as the new clergy, who need something to be wrong so that they can be the keepers of knowledge and understanding. The close up on Moyers as he grins almost lecherously at the idea, is chilling. But at the time of the film there were still 23 corporations who owned over fifty percent of news media in the country. Today there are far fewer as a result of consolidation, and a mere six corporations own ninety percent, while Tom Wolfe has become irrelevant in the literary world. From there the film goes back to biography, with Chomsky risking his career to get involved in the movement against the war in Vietnam, and unconsciously updates this message. Today the media’s “liberal bias” can be seen as total absorption with the idea of embarrassing the government, and that shift has had extremely negative consequences because it only seems to apply to Democratic leadership. While the right-wing hammers away at Democratic leaders in Washington, the mainstream media seem powerless to resist and join in by reporting their sensationalist lies as truth. But when anyone criticizes republican leadership, the right-wing reacts violently with spurious accusations of anti-Americanism which, again, the mainstream media seems compelled to report as actual news.
One of the best examples of the way this works in today’s media comes at the end of the film. Chomsky had signed a petition in support of a French Holocaust denier, not because he supported the man’s views but for the simple fact that the French state was trying to put the man in jail for his views. Chomsky didn’t believe they should be able to do this, no matter how inflammatory and false his claims were. When the Frenchmen’s supporters asked Chomsky to write something for them on free speech, he did so, and it wound up being used as a forward to a book. Because of the lack of intellect in Western society, very few people were able to separate the two ideas, that the only thing Chomsky was supporting was the man’s right to say something, and that his support of that in no way was an endorsement of the man’s ideas. As Chomsky says in the film, either someone believes in free speech or they don’t. And if they do, they must defend the rights of those who wish to say things that they disagree with. But because so many people viewed Chomsky’s stance as tantamount to yelling fire in a crowded theater, it didn’t matter, and the controversy only served to diminish him, the same way the media diminishes anyone on the left who attempts to make this country better or point out the flaws in the current system. Once slapped with slanderous lies, it’s nearly impossible for a person to reason their way out of them because the days of reason, it would seem, are at an end. And these days, the slander of choice is anti-Americanism.
Anti-American accusations are closely linked with anti-war accusations. In the film, the first Iraq war had just concluded, and Chomsky makes mention of Bush Sr.’s illegal activities in the C.I.A. that are fleshed out in the documentary Dark Legacy, which even connects him to the JFK assassination. Clearly Bush Jr.’s illegal war in Iraq, in which he and his administration lied to Congress and lied to the world to achieve, fits right in with the media’s lack of criticism and utter lack of presenting alternative views to war, almost since the beginning of the Republic. The bulk of the middle section of the film is taken over by the example of the genocide in East Timor and the U.S. support of the Indonesian invasion that was completely suppressed in the media compared to the genocide in Cambodia that was reported widely in the U.S. New York Times editor Karl Meyer is interviewed refuting Chomsky’s claims, but it’s clear he doesn’t even realize how he is part of the system. A similar situation happened later with Rwanda. After failed U.S. military intervention in Somalia, the U.S. simply turned its back on Rwanda and the lack of anything like outrage in the U.S. media simply allowed it to continue. In both of these examples it’s not that one side of the story was completely eliminated--though in Timor that was nearly the case--but there has to be an appearance of the equality of debate and that both sides are represented, which is not the case, as one side is uniformly framed in a way that makes it much less convincing, usually by omission. And this is wonderfully symbolized by a faux debate that Chomsky participated in in Holland.
As to why Chomsky stays in the U.S. despite his criticism, there’s no real conflict. It is, in fact, the freest society in the world. What Chomsky tries to point out is how rigidly controlled that society is. And this is not a paradox. The U.S. is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of resources, lack of enemies, and societal freedoms, and the citizens of this country should be enjoying a standard of living second to none. Instead, the corporate oligarchy that controls this country has always been more concerned with concentrating that wealth in the hands of a few rather than allowing all its citizens to share in these happy advantages. And in that respect Chomsky calls this country’s behavior a scandal. At the same time it is the very freedoms we enjoy within the society that allows our government to commit despicable acts on our behalf, and the media to ameliorate our revulsion by framing them in a very specific way that makes us look justified in doing so.
Chomsky’s role in U.S. cultural life is, as he sees it, to provide people with “courses of intellectual self-defense.” When asked about this phrase he immediately said, “I don’t mean school, because you aren’t going to get it there.” In fact, he sees education in this country, even higher education, as “a system of imposed ignorance.” What he means is that people need to develop independent minds, which he says is “extremely hard to do alone. The beauty of our system is that it isolates everyone. Each person is sitting alone in front of the tube. It’s very hard to have ideas or thoughts under those circumstances; you can’t fight the world alone . . . Courses of intellectual self-defense will have to be in the context of political and other organization.” But while our isolation has only increased over the last twenty years, it has done so in the guise of “connectivity,” the illusion that we are actually more engaged with each other. Cell phones, the internet, and cable TV all serve as isolating influences in the way that they either increase a person’s self containment through text messages and social media, or distract them from reality through entertainment media that now includes the news. “The point is, you have to work. That’s why the propaganda system is so successful. Very few people are going to have the time or the energy or the commitment to carry out the kind of battle that’s required to get outside of [the mainstream media].”
Our civilization has developed within a context of convenient myths, says Chomsky. The most insidious is that of individual material gain. This ultimately selfish outlook on life is, of course, supported and reflected by the government that runs it. In a way it’s endearing that people want to believe that their government is good, a righteous experiment devoted to the welfare of all its citizens. But that’s not what it is. The United States is an oligarchy, with the corporation at the head and in control. And in that sense it’s not much different than the film The Matrix. People are continuously fed lies and myths that support the things they want to believe, continually given diversions like technology and sports, and immersed in a consumer society in which news media is just one part, no different in their minds than the reality TV and Facebook feeds they numb themselves with. “The question is whether democracy and freedom are values to be preserved or threats to be avoided. In this, possibly terminal, phase of human existence democracy and freedom are more than values to be treasured, they may well be essential to survival.” But in the twenty years since the film was released, things have become much worse. Why, oh, why then, is everyone in American society so willing to take the blue pill? I, for one, am going to do my part to change that. Hopefully, there are others who feel likewise.
No comments:
Post a Comment