{"id":208823,"date":"2022-04-11T12:00:24","date_gmt":"2022-04-11T11:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=208823"},"modified":"2022-04-08T05:58:06","modified_gmt":"2022-04-08T04:58:06","slug":"noam-chomsky-were-approaching-the-most-dangerous-point-in-human-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/04\/noam-chomsky-were-approaching-the-most-dangerous-point-in-human-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Noam Chomsky: \u201cWe\u2019re Approaching the Most Dangerous Point in Human History\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US professor, now 93, on the climate catastrophe and the threat of nuclear war.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, logician, historian, political critic, and activist.
\u00a9 Graeme Robertson \/ eyevine<\/p><\/div>\n

6 Apr 2022 – <\/em>It was as a ten-year-old that Noam Chomsky first confronted the perils of foreign aggression. \u201cThe first article that I wrote for the elementary school newspaper was on the fall of Barcelona [in 1939],\u201d Chomsky recalled when we spoke recently via video call. It charted the advance of the \u201cgrim cloud of fascism\u201d across the world. \u201cI haven\u2019t changed my opinion since, it\u2019s just gotten worse,\u201d he sardonically remarked. Due to the climate crisis and the threat of nuclear war, Chomsky told me, \u201cwe\u2019re approaching the most dangerous point in human history\u2026 We are now facing the prospect of destruction of organised human life on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the age of 93, as perhaps the world\u2019s most cited living scholar, Chomsky could be forgiven for retreating from the public sphere. But in an era of permanent crisis, he retains the moral fervour of a young radical \u2013 more preoccupied with the world\u2019s mortality than his own. He is a walking advertisement for Dylan Thomas\u2019s injunction \u2013 \u201cDo not go gentle into that good night\u201d \u2013 or for what Chomsky calls \u201cthe bicycle theory: if you keep going fast, you don\u2019t fall off\u201d.<\/p>\n

[See also: Francis Fukuyama: We could be facing the end of \u201cthe end of history\u201d<\/a>]<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The occasion for our conversation is the publication of Chronicles of Dissent<\/em>, a collection of interviews between Chomsky and the radical journalist David Barsamian from 1984 to 1996. But the backdrop is the war in Ukraine \u2013 a subject about which Chomsky is unsurprisingly voluble.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s monstrous for Ukraine,\u201d he said. In common with many Jews, Chomsky has a family connection to the region: his father was born in present-day Ukraine and emigrated to the US in 1913 to avoid serving in the tsarist army; his mother was born in Belarus. Chomsky, who is often accused by critics of refusing to condemn any anti-Western government, unhesitatingly denounced Vladimir Putin\u2019s \u201ccriminal aggression\u201d.<\/p>\n

But he added: \u201cWhy did he do it? There are two ways of looking at this question. One way, the fashionable way in the West, is to plumb the recesses of Putin\u2019s twisted mind and try to determine what\u2019s happening in his deep psyche.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other way would be to look at the facts: for example, that in September 2021 the United States came out with a strong policy statement, calling for enhanced military cooperation with Ukraine, further sending of advanced military weapons, all part of the enhancement programme of Ukraine joining Nato. You can take your choice, we don\u2019t know which is right. What we do know is that Ukraine will be further devastated. And we may move on to terminal nuclear war if we do not pursue the opportunities that exist for a negotiated settlement.\u201d<\/p>\n

How does he respond to the argument that Putin\u2019s greatest fear is not encirclement by Nato but the spread of liberal democracy in Ukraine and Russia\u2019s \u201cnear abroad\u201d?<\/p>\n

\u201cPutin is as concerned with democracy as we are. If it\u2019s possible to break out of the propaganda bubble for a few minutes, the US has a long record of undermining and destroying democracy. Do I have to run through it? Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Chile in 1973, on and on\u2026 But we are supposed to now honour and admire Washington\u2019s enormous commitment to sovereignty and democracy. What happened in history doesn\u2019t matter. That\u2019s for other people.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about Nato expansion? There was an explicit, unambiguous promise by [US secretary of state] James Baker and president George HW Bush to Gorbachev that if he agreed to allow a unified Germany to rejoin Nato, the US would ensure that there would be no move one inch to the east. There\u2019s a good deal of lying going on about this now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chomsky, who observed in 1990 that \u201cif the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every postwar American president would have been hanged\u201d, spoke witheringly of Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s certainly right to have moral outrage about Putin\u2019s actions in Ukraine,\u201d he said of Biden\u2019s recent declaration that the Russian president \u201ccannot remain in power\u201d. \u201cBut it would be even more progress to have moral outrage about other horrible atrocities\u2026 In Afghanistan, literally millions of people are facing imminent starvation. Why? There\u2019s food in the markets. But people who have little money have to watch their children starve because they can\u2019t go to the market to buy food. Why? Because the United States, with the backing of Britain, has kept Afghanistan\u2019s funds in New York banks and will not release them.\u201d<\/p>\n

[See also: Why Thomas Piketty is optimistic about the left\u2019s future<\/a>]<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chomsky\u2019s contempt for the hypocrisies and contradictions of US foreign policy will be familiar to anyone who has read one of his many books and pamphlets (his first political work, American Power and the New Mandarins<\/em>, published in 1969, foretold the US\u2019s defeat in Vietnam). But he is now perhaps most animated when discussing Donald Trump\u2019s possible return and the climate crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m old enough to remember the early 1930s. And memories come to mind,\u201d he said in a haunting recollection. \u201cI can remember listening to Hitler\u2019s speeches on the radio. I didn\u2019t understand the words, I was six years old. But I understood the mood. And it was frightening and terrifying. And when you watch one of Trump\u2019s rallies that can\u2019t fail to come to mind. That\u2019s what we\u2019re facing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though he self-identifies as an anarcho-syndicalist or a libertarian socialist, Chomsky revealed to me that he had voted for Republicans in the past (\u201clike them or not, they were an authentic party\u201d). But now he said, they were a truly dangerous insurgency.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of Trump\u2019s fanaticism, the worshipful base of the Republican Party barely regards climate change as a serious problem. That\u2019s a death warrant to the species.\u201d<\/p>\n

Faced with such existential threats, it is perhaps unsurprising that Chomsky remains a dissident intellectual \u2013 in the manner of one of his heroes, Bertrand Russell (who lived to 97 and similarly straddled politics and philosophy). But he also still spends hours a day answering emails from admirers and critics, and teaches linguistics at the University of Arizona, the state where he lives with his second wife, Valeria Wasserman, a Brazilian translator.<\/p>\n

Chomsky is also still engaged by British politics. \u201cBrexit was a very serious error, it means that Britain will be compelled to drift even further into subordination to the US,\u201d he told me. \u201cI think it\u2019s a disaster. What does it mean for the Conservative Party? I imagine they can lie their way out of it, they\u2019re doing a good job of lying about a lot of things and getting away with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of Keir Starmer, he scornfully remarked: \u201cHe\u2019s returning the Labour Party to a party that\u2019s reliably obedient to power, that will be Thatcher-lite in the style of Tony Blair and that won\u2019t ruffle the feathers of either the US or anyone who\u2019s important in Britain.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci advised radicals to maintain \u201cpessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will\u201d. What, I asked Chomsky at the close of our conversation, gives him hope?<\/p>\n

[See also: Iceland\u2019s prime minister: \u201cMy opposition to Nato has not changed\u201d<\/a>]<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cA lot of young people; Extinction Rebellion in England, young people dedicated to trying to put an end to the catastrophe. Civil disobedience \u2013 it\u2019s not a joke, I\u2019ve been involved with it for much of my life. I\u2019m too old for it now [Chomsky was first arrested in 1967 for protesting against the Vietnam War and shared a cell with Norman Mailer]\u2026 It\u2019s not pleasant to be thrown in jail and beaten, but they\u2019re willing to undertake it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are plenty of young people who are appalled by the behaviour of the older generation, rightly, and are dedicated to trying to stop this madness before it consumes us all. Well, that\u2019s the hope for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>George Eaton is senior editor of the<\/em> New Statesman.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original – newstatesman.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US professor, now 93, on the climate catastrophe and the threat of nuclear war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":208824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[867,244,686,1203,1301,278,961,70],"class_list":["post-208823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","tag-anglo-america","tag-china","tag-climate-change","tag-noam-chomsky","tag-nuclear-war","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}