Quote

What the public wants is called 'politically unrealistic.' Translated into English, that means power and privilege are opposed to it.

Noam Chomsky

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Noam Chomsky
Age: 95
Born: 1928
Born: December 7
Anthropologist
Computer Scientist
Historian
Human Rights Activist
Linguist
Media Critic
Opinion Journalist
Pedagogue
Philosopher
East Oak Lane
Philadelphia
Avram Noam Chomsky
A. Noam Chomsky
Chomsky
Culture
Diversity
Power
Privilege
Mean
English
Wants
Public
Unrealistic
Called
Translated
Justice
Politically
Means
Opposed

More quotes by Noam Chomsky

Image
My memory - faded, as I say - is that Paul Johnson was trying to vilify all intellectuals who were at all critical of the states he worships, and of power generally (except, of course, the power of enemies, which we must denounce, imitating the commissars who are his models, though he doesn't understand it).
Noam Chomsky
Image
There certainly are those who worship the state much as divinities are worshipped. Not just the state but even leaders.
Noam Chomsky
Image
I happen to agree with the anti-dictatorship policies, but I don't think it's the role of General Electric to support them or oppose them. They do of course, but I don't agree with that.
Noam Chomsky
Image
Occupying armies have responsibilities, not rights. Their primary responsibility is to withdraw as quickly and expeditiously as possible, in a manner determined by the occupied population.
Noam Chomsky
Image
Nothing can justify crimes such as those of September 11, but we can think of the United States as an innocent victim only if we adopt the convenient path of ignoring the record of its actions and those of its allies, which are, after all, hardly a secret.
Noam Chomsky
Image
Given their unusual privilege, Western intellectuals can realistically accomplish a great deal. The limits are imposed by will more than objective circumstances. And about human will predictions are without value.
Noam Chomsky
Image
The term intellectual is used conventionally to refer to people who happen to have unusual opportunities in this regard, and as always, opportunity confers moral responsibility.
Noam Chomsky
Image
The uniformity and obedience of the media, which any dictator would admire...
Noam Chomsky
Image
The key element of social control is the strategy of distraction that is to divert public attention from important issues and changes decided by political and economic elites, through the technique of flood or flooding continuous distractions and insignificant information.
Noam Chomsky
Image
When I wrote about the Spanish Civil War many years later, I used documents that I picked up when I was a child, as a lot hadn't been published (a lot more resources are available now).
Noam Chomsky
Image
I have never suggested any principled difference between the natural and social sciences.
Noam Chomsky
Image
I see no anti-Semitic implications in denial of the existence of gas chambers, or even denial of the Holocaust.
Noam Chomsky
Image
The Obama administration is dedicated to increasing terrorism. In fact, he is doing it all over the world. Obama is running the biggest terrorist operation that exists, maybe in history. The drone assassination campaigns - which are just part of the special forces operations and so on - all of these operations are terror operations.
Noam Chomsky
Image
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
Image
People are dangerous. If they're able to involve themselves in issues that matter, they may change the distribution of power, to the detriment of those who are rich and privileged.
Noam Chomsky
Image
The first commitment is raise your salary. One of the ways to raise your salary sometimes is to have short-term profits but there are many other ways.
Noam Chomsky
Image
Academics are mostly professionals, involved in their work and other concerns of their own, with no particular interest in the workings of the ideological system.
Noam Chomsky
Image
In southern culture, possession of a gun became kind of a sign of manhood, not just because of slaves but other white men. If you had a gun, you're not going to push me around. You know, I'm not one of those guys you can kick in the face.
Noam Chomsky
Image
There's a strange myth of Anglo-Saxonism. When the University of Virginia was founded by Thomas Jefferson, for example, its law school offered the study of Anglo-Saxon Law. And that myth of Anglo-Saxonism carries right over into the early twentieth century.
Noam Chomsky
Image
From the late 1940s, into and through the '50s, there developed a complex interaction between federal government, state and local government, real-estate interests, commercial interests and court decisions, which had the effect of undermining the mass transit system across the country.
Noam Chomsky