In the United States everyone is an illegal immigrant - everyone except the people in Indian Reservations. This is an immigrant society. Noam Chomsky More Quotes by Noam Chomsky More Quotes From Noam Chomsky Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world. Noam Chomsky unique animal world There was a free election in Palestine, but it came out the wrong way. So instantly, the United States and Israel with Europe tagging along, moved to punish the Palestinian people, and punish them harshly, because they voted the wrong way in a free election. That's accepted here in the West as perfectly normal. That illustrates the deep hatred and contempt for democracy among western elites, so deep-seated they can't even perceive it when it's in front of their eyes. You punish people severely if they vote the wrong way in a free election. Noam Chomsky israel eye europe As long as people are marginalized and distracted [they] have no way to organize or articulate their sentiments, or even know that others have these sentiments. People assume that they are the only people with a crazy idea in their heads. They never hear it from anywhere else. Nobody's supposed to think that. ... Since there's no way to get together with other people who share or reinforce that view and help you articulate it, you feel like an oddity, an oddball. So you just stay on the side and you don't pay any attention to what's going on. You look at something else, like the Superbowl. Noam Chomsky oddities crazy thinking American society is now remarkably atomized. Political organizations have collapsed. In fact, it seems like even bowling leagues are collapsing. The left has a lot to answer for here. There's been a drift toward very fragmenting tendencies among left groups, toward this sort of identity politics. Noam Chomsky identity-politics organization league The Bible is one of the most genocidal books in history. Noam Chomsky atheist bible book Resistance is feasible even for those who are not heroes by nature, and it is an obligation, I believe, for those who fear the consequences and detest the reality of the attempt to impose American hegemony. Noam Chomsky nature hero believe The first modern propaganda agency was the British Ministry of Information a century ago, which secretly defined its task as "to direct the thought of most of the world" - primarily progressive American intellectuals, who had to be mobilized to come to the aid of Britain during World War I. Noam Chomsky agency tasks war The people who were honored in the Bible were the false prophets. It was the ones we call the prophets who were jailed and driven into the desert. Noam Chomsky desert driven people For example, when my father was able to buy a secondhand car in the late 1930s, and he took us to the countryside for a weekend, if we looked for a motel to stay in we had to see if it said "restricted" on it. "Restricted" meant no Jews. Noam Chomsky weekend car father Technology is usually fairly neutral. It’s like a hammer, which can be used to build a house or to destroy someone’s home. The hammer doesn’t care. It is almost always up to us to determine whether the technology is good or bad. Noam Chomsky technology house home Even Stalin proclaimed his love for democracy. We do not learn about the nature of systems of power by listening to their rhetoric. Noam Chomsky his-love democracy listening In the early 1940s, as a young teenager, I was utterly appalled by the racist and jingoist hysteria of the anti-Japanese propaganda. The Germans were evil, but treated with some respect: They were, after all, blond Aryan types, just like our imaginary self-image. Japanese were mere vermin, to be crushed like ants. Noam Chomsky hysteria teenager self The fact that all normal children acquire essentially comparable grammars of great complexity with remarkable rapidity suggests that human beings are somehow specially designed to do this, with data-handling or 'hypothesis-formulating' ability of unknown character and complexity. Noam Chomsky data character children There is a noticeable general difference between the sciences and mathematics on the one hand, and the humanities and social sciences on the other. It's a first approximation, but one that is real. In the former, the factors of integrity tend to dominate more over the factors of ideology. It's not that scientists are more honest people. It's just that nature is a harsh taskmaster. You can lie or distort the story of the French Revolution as long as you like, and nothing will happen. Propose a false theory in chemistry, and it'll be refuted tomorrow. Noam Chomsky real integrity lying How do I define God? I don't.... People who find such conceptions important for themselves have every right to frame them as they like. Personally, I don't. Noam Chomsky atheist spiritual science I don't have any oratory skills. But I would not use them if I had. Noam Chomsky oratory skills use Science is a bit like the joke about the drunk who is looking under a lamppost for a key that he has lost on the other side of the street, because that's where the light is. It has no other choice. Noam Chomsky light keys science So Marxism, Freudianism: any one of these things I think is an irrational cult. They're theology, so they're whatever you think of theology; I don't think much of it. In fact, in my view that's exactly the right analogy: notions like Marxism and Freudianism belong to the history of organized religion. Noam Chomsky analogies views thinking Language etches the grooves through which your thoughts must flow. Noam Chomsky groove language flow In fact, by universal grammar I mean just that system of principles and structures that are the prerequisites for acquisition of language, and to which every language necessarily conforms. Noam Chomsky principles mean facts
