Clif's Reviews > Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky

This is a necessary, indispensable book for modern mankind. You must read it.

Noam Chomsky is now 91 years old. His voice has become faint and slow and I suspect he will not be with us much longer, but what a contribution he has made not only in his professional life studying language but in his private life as the premier critic of the American way of life and the American empire. The man is not simply a genius, but broadly so and of a kind beneficial to all of us. He holds the title at MIT of "Institute Professor" with the incredible privilege to teach a course in any department of the university and that includes both the sciences and the humanities.

This book is particularly appealing as it is a dialog. People attending lectures of Chomsky's over the years prior to 2000 pose questions to him and quite often follow up those questions when something Chomsky says is not clear or appears contradictory to the questioner. This makes for a free flowing text that ranges broadly over our modern situation.

Chomsky has always given intellectuals a good name, speaking clearly with a simple vocabulary and a wonderful droll sense of humor that any audience can appreciate. And audiences have been many as Chomsky has traveled the country and the world to present his incisive opinions that rely on his incredible ability to digest an immense amount of information and remember it in detail even over decades. He says he relies on others to send him clippings but there can be no doubt that his own readings have served him well. How many people do you know who have an Associate Press wire service in their homes? He speaks of facts only, his opinions tightly constrained by truth.

Knowing how easily despair can come, Chomsky doesn't allow it to stop him, though freely admitting that things can appear hopeless, he cites reasons for believing we can do something to help ourselves if we work as a group to act rather than to merely complain. He refuses to be prophetic and calls for organization in light of the fact that solitary action cannot produce more than very limited results. He states that things can change unexpectedly and very rapidly even when all looks very dark. For all that analysis can provide us, tomorrow is unknown.

At the same time, he is a socialist calling for democracy to rule the allocation of wealth. Capitalism in his view is, to the degree it is free to operate without intervention, a system that cannot last but will by the nature of calling for immediate and maximum profit destroy the civilization that hosts it.

Power is first of all dedicated to maintaining itself. Nationalism presents a false picture that we are good and they are evil. Leaders will deceive us as well as themselves. The relative few who hold power will act together to keep the many in ignorance and in a state of dependency allowing more or less complete control. More wealth will go to the top the only limitation being the degree to which the many will tolerate the theft.

There is no part of this book that is better than the rest or any of it that is not captivating reading particularly for Americans. The fact that it was published 20 years ago should not deter anyone from reading it. Time and again the truth of Chomsky's words come through, but there is one paragraph from the book that I feel bound to reproduce because the insight in it took my breath away. Chomsky writes of his travels in America, and keep in mind that this was written before 9/11 when Clinton was president:

...the country is very disturbed. You can see it in the polls and you can certainly see it traveling around - and I travel around a lot. There's complete disaffection about everything. People don't trust anyone, they think everyone's lying to them, everyone's working for somebody else. The whole civil society has broken down. And when you talk about the mood of the people - well, whether it's on right wing talk radio, or among students, or just among the general population, you get a very good reception these days for the kind of things I talk about. But it's scary, because if you came and told the people, "Clinton's organizing a UN army with aliens to come and carry out genocide, you'd better go to the hills." you'd get the same favorable response. That's the problem, you'd get the same favorable response. I mean you can go to the most reactionary parts of the country, or anywhere else and a thousand people will show up to listen and they'll be really excited about what you're saying - no matter what it is. That's the trouble: it's no matter what it is. Because people are so disillusioned by this point that they will believe almost anything.

I hate the thought that we will lose this man.