Noam Chomsky And His Opinions Essay, Research Paper
Noam Chomsky is obviously a very bright person, with some strong opinions about
society, and people. From listening to him speak at numerous banquets, and at many interviews,
I had some mixed thoughts. I feel that Chomsky?s opinions are viable to a certain extent. This is
because the higher intellectual person listens to what he has to say, and for the most part agrees
with what Noam is saying. On the other hand, there is the type of person who feels that what is
happening around them is not a big issue to them, and thus they tend to tone themselves out from
what people are saying.
Noam makes many interesting points that if someone were to think about them would
realize that his points are very truthful. Chomsky stresses a great deal that our minds are always
open to information. As people learn their brains are encoded with this information that they
hear. Especially in the Western Society people are so eager to gather information, and be
entertained through the printed word. It seems as if no event around the world is kept a secret
from the newspaper readers who receive their morning paper every day. I would have to say that
this idea that Chomsky has is quite accurate. Everyday you see information being passed to
people everywhere. There are thousands of news papers all around the world, and there are
separate television station devoted strictly to news. The birth of the internet is another great
example of society?s thirst for information. People want to know what is happening in their city,
province, country, and in the world.
Chomsky makes a point about the elites controlling the public. Chomsky quotes John Jay
by saying that the people who own the country ought to govern it. This is what is happening right
now. Every large media outlet is owned and run by large companies who control what the public
is seeing and reading everyday. These higher-class people in a sense control our lives. They
make the decisions of what there is to watch on television, and what there is to read in the daily
paper. Chomsky says that the public isn?t up to making these decisions. This is exactly right, as
what the public watches on the news and reads in the paper is based on a decision made by the
elite class. What kind of cereal on the shelves at the local grocery store is not a decision made by
the public, but a decision made by corporations. Everything around us is presented to us by large
corporations who indirectly control our options in life.
This control aspect that Chomsky brings up changes as he talks about the fact that you
can?t control people who don?t listen and care about happenings around them. Chomsky says that
there are two types of classes; the first one is called the political class. This class consists of
about twenty percent of the population who is relatively educated, is articulate, and plays some
kind of role in decision making. These people are supposed to participate in social life as things
as managers, teachers, and writers. The second is which consists of about eighty percent of the
population basically follows orders and doesn?t think. I would have to partially disagree with
Chomsky on this idea. I think that his percentage breakdown is fairly accurate, however not all of
the eighty percent of the population doesn?t think. These people understand what is going on, but
they just don?t care about the consequences of other peoples actions. These people might know
the effects of world happenings on there own lives, but feel it?s not worth the hassle to speak up
about something minor. This eighty- percent of the people do make important decisions in
society. A good example of this is voting. Most of the public does vote on a candidate that will
make good decisions for them, and represent the publics views.
Chomsky is right about the elites controlling our lives to a certain degree. A frightening
example is the fact that history is controlled by media. The media collects and saves news
footage and photographs in large archives for future references. This means that possibly in fifty
years memories of events in world history may be lost with the death of generations that did
remember the ordeal. The problem is that the understanding of what actually took place can be
altered by the media if they choose to display different images and footages that may appear to
explain the entire happenings. However, these images and footages may actually only show
partial events, which is misleading to the public.
There is a main focus that Chomsky has about the elites and controlling. I myself am
under the impression that Chomsky believes that the elites have some big conspiracy to control
the entire world. It?s very understandable how he comes to these conclusions, with large
corporations controlling the media, and the media and corporations controlling the public. This
all sounds exiting and interesting, but I don?t feel that these corporations goal is to control
people. Noam himself made a point about how these companies are profit oriented, and that is
basically the corporations main goal. I do understand that the public is somewhat being
controlled, through what they read and watch on T.V, but this sort of fits under the category of a
monopoly. In order for these companies to achieve maximum profit they have to first gain
control of their market. When a corporation has attained almost maximum profit, this means that
their market has been controlled by them. It just so happens that people fall into this market, and
that is probably where Chomsky gets his ideas about corporations attempt to control the public.
If you were to expect any conspiracy from someone, you would expect it from a government,
who will likely sent out propaganda to justify their national and international actions.
Overall I think Chomsky?s points are viable, even though he may have looked into some
things to deeply. However it?s good to see that there are people like Noam Chomsky who are
over suspicious of the actions of large corporations, because they do have the power over the
public. If people just turned their heads to the slightest possiblity of corporations trying to take
control, then if these corporations wanted to take control in the future, then they would be able to
do so because nobody would be watching out for it. Chomsky is aware of a possible threat in the
future, but his thoughts about control and agendas of corporations today is not the case.
Deschouwer