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How people themselves perceive what they are doing is not a question that interests me.

Noam Chomsky

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Noam Chomsky
Age: 95
Born: 1928
Born: December 7
Anthropologist
Computer Scientist
Historian
Human Rights Activist
Linguist
Media Critic
Opinion Journalist
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Philosopher
East Oak Lane
Philadelphia
Avram Noam Chomsky
A. Noam Chomsky
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More quotes by Noam Chomsky

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To construct a scientific theory from the data and to be able to recognize that it is a reasonable theory is possible only if there are some very sharp restrictive principles that lead you to go in one direction and not in another direction. Otherwise, you wouldn't have science at all, merely randomly chosen hypotheses.
Noam Chomsky
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People will find some ways of identifying themselves, becoming associated with others, taking part in something. They're going to do it some way or other. If they don't have the options of participation in labor unions, political organizations that actually function, they'll find other ways. Religious fundamentalism is a classic example.
Noam Chomsky
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I do not feel that we should set up PEOPLE as models rather actions, thoughts, principles.
Noam Chomsky
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In the early days of the military Arpanet, my daughter was studying in Nicaragua. Because the U.S. was essentially at war with them, contact was difficult. I managed to use MIT's Arpanet connection, and she found one, so we could communicate thanks to the Pentagon!
Noam Chomsky
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Markets also have a very bad psychological effect. They drive people to a conception of themselves and society in which you're only after your own good, not the good of others and that's extremely harmful.
Noam Chomsky
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If you sell me a car, we have perhaps made a good bargain for ourselves. But there are effects of this transaction on others, which we do not take into account. There is more pollution, the price of gas goes up, there is more congestion.
Noam Chomsky
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If you want information about sports, I can tell you things from the 1940's, and the couple years that my grandson was kind of a jock, but nothing in between.
Noam Chomsky
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Anywhere in Latin America there is a potential threat of the pathology of caudillismo and it has to be guarded against.
Noam Chomsky
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In ideal form of social control is an atomised collection of individuals focused on their own narrow concern, lacking the kinds of organisations in which they can gain information, develop and articulate their thoughts, and act constructively to achieve common ends.
Noam Chomsky
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I don't think that experience is a very useful or convincing attribute for a sensible foreign policy. Henry Kissinger had a lot of experience.
Noam Chomsky
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Part of the uprising of Latin America, particularly in the last 10 to 15 years, has been a reaction to [neoliberal regime], and they have thrown out a lot of these measures and moved in a different direction. In earlier years, the US would have overthrown the governments or, one way or another, curtailed them. Now, it can't do that.
Noam Chomsky
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The Iraq War was the first conflict in western history in which an imperialist war was massively protested against before it had even been launched.
Noam Chomsky
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A very large majority of the U.S. population is in favor of establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba and has been for a long time with some fluctuations. And even part of the business world is in favor of it, too. But the government won't allow it.
Noam Chomsky
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Putting it in plain terms, the general public must be reduced to its traditional apathy and obedience, and driven from the arena of political debate and action, if democracy is to survive.
Noam Chomsky
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There is massive propaganda for everyone to consume. Consumption is good for profits and consumption is good for the political establishment.
Noam Chomsky
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[ Republican Party] is correctly described as a radical insurgency by one of the leading conservative commentators, Norman Ornstein.
Noam Chomsky
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the Federal Reserve, has an official commitment to two different policies. One is to prevent inflation from getting too high. The second is to maintain high employment... The European central bank has only the first. It has no commitment to keep employment up.
Noam Chomsky
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Every great power, every aggressive power has always regarded itself as exceptional and as doing things only for the most moral ends.
Noam Chomsky
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What is called 'capitalism'is basically a system of corporate mercantilism, with huge and largely unaccountable private tyrannies exercising vast control over the economy, political systems, and social and cultural life, operating in close cooperation with powerful states that intervene massively in the domestic economy and international society.
Noam Chomsky
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A dramatic, evocative, thoughtful and very accessible account of one of the most important stories of the century - and one of the most ominous, unless citizens are aroused to action to rein in abusive state power.
Noam Chomsky