One phenomenon that strikes me as strange, and which is not even a recent thing is the amount of paranoia and fear towards our own government. — Posty McPostface
Noam Chomsky: Why Americans Are Paranoid About Everything (Including Zombies)
Noam Chomsky explains why Americans have always had high levels of fear -- fear of Indians, of African-Americans ... even zombies.
Question: This might sound kind of random, but I would really like to ask your opinion of why you think there's this preoccupation with the apocolypse and with zombies right now in our culture.
Noam Chomsky: I've never seen a real study, but my guess is that it's a reflection of fear and desperation. It's a very frightened country. The United States is an unusually frightened country. And in such circumstances, people concoct either for escape or maybe out of relief, fears that terrible things happen.
Actually, the fear of the United States is a pretty interesting cultural phenomenon. It actually goes back to the colonies. There are some good studies out there. A very interesting book by a literary critic, Bruce Franklin. It's called War Stars. You might want to take a look at it. It's a study of popular literature, the kind of literature that most people read from the earliest days to the present. When it gets to the present it switches to television, things like that. Just kind of popular culture.
There are a couple of themes that run through it that are pretty striking. For one thing, one major theme in popular literature is that we are about to face destruction from some terrible, awesome enemy. And at the last minute we are saved by a superhero or a super weapon, or in recent years high school kids going to the hills to chase away the Russians, things like that. That's one theme that runs through constantly. And there's a sub-theme. It turns out this enemy, this horrible enemy that's about to destroy us, is somebody we're crushing.
So you go back to the early years, the terrible enemy was the Indians, who were going to destroy us. The colonists were, of course, invaders. They were invading the continent. Whatever you think about the Indians, they were defending their own territory. There's a scene in the Declaration of Independence, people read it every July 4th, but not many people pay attention to what they're reading. It's kind of like a prayer book, you move on somewhere else. But if you read it and pay attention, there are some pretty remarkable passages. So one passage is a list of a bill of indictment against King George the Third of England explaining why the colonists were revolting. One of them is “He unleashed against us the merciless Indian savages, whose known way of warfare is torture and destruction” and so on. Well, Thomas Jefferson, who wrote that and is a very great thinker of the Enlightenment, knew perfectly well that it was the merciless English savages whose known way of warfare was destruction and murder and were taking over the country and driving out or exterminating the natives. But it's switched in the Declaration of Independence and nobody comments on it for years. That's another sign of the same concern.
After that it became the slaves. There was going to be a slave revolt, a terrible slave revolt, and the slave population, the black population was going to rise up and kill all the men, rape all the women, destroy the country, something like that. Then it goes on through the centuries. It becomes modern times, Hispanic narco-traffickers are going to come in and destroy the society. One thing after another. And these are real fears.
That's a lot of what lies behind the extremely unusual gun culture in the United States. It's quite unique. Homicides, deaths by guns in the United States are way outside—there's a kind of hysteria about having guns. A large part of the population believes they just have to have them to protect themselves. From who? From the United Nations. Or from the federal government. From aliens. Maybe from zombies. Whoever it is. We just have to have guns to protect ourselves. That's not known elsewhere in the world. Maybe in, say, Syria, a country that's warring you might find something like that. But in a country that's not only at peace but has an unusual security and a great degree of freedom, that's quite remarkable.
I suspect that what you're bringing up is part of that. I think it's, much of it is kind of just a recognition, at some level of the psyche, that if you've got your boot on somebody's neck, there's something wrong. And that the people you're oppressing may rise up and defend themselves, and then you're in trouble. And another is strange properties the country has always had of fear of invented dangers. There is a kind of paranoid streak in the culture that's pretty unusual. — Noam Chomsky
God's teeth. Does Noam Chomsky know everything? — Ciceronianus the White
Whether he does or not, must we so persistently learn what he thinks and alert others when we do so? — Ciceronianus the White
He's become a kind of modern, but prolix, version of the Oracle of Delphi. — Ciceronianus the White
At base level, you express it to be in with the crowd you want to be in with. So, you only put it into practice then to the extent it appears credible to your peers, and believe it to the extent necessary that your actions become credible to yourself. — Baden
I'm not sure what you mean by "around here" but when I searched for "Chomsky" I came up with 253 mentions, which I would think isn't bad as far as mentions go. — Ciceronianus the White
As to what he says as quoted above, I'm not sure if he's addressing (1) why Americans are afraid of their government; or (2) "fear of the United States"; or why Americans fear (or hate) others, using Indians and slaves as examples. I think it's a confusing response, as I think these are different issues. — Ciceronianus the White
Speaking only for myself, I think our government is largely corrupt, as it is so entirely dependent on money and so influenced primarily by those who have it and are willing to spend it in assuring politicians will do their bidding. So, I don't admire or trust our government. I don't particularly fear it at this time. — Ciceronianus the White
Anyway, I can search for statistics in some cherry picking manner to support my point of people being paranoid and fearful of the government in the US. — Posty McPostface
It was Chomskybot, I think. I confess I miss Chomskybot.I was speaking comparatively, to the old PF, where we even had a bot (think it was called ModBot), made by Paul, that would quote Chomsky whenever his name was mentioned or something like that. — Posty McPostface
What's the underlying source of all this fear and paranoia? — Posty McPostface
I think that people from majority Muslim countries that had their requests to travel to the US denied by the new administration, on the sole grounds that they are from a Muslim country, would disagree.One positive thing that I have noticed, though, is that Trump didn't continue the legacy of Bush and Obama in regards to the war on terror. — Posty McPostface
I'm not sure what you mean by "around here" but when I searched for "Chomsky" I came up with 253 mentions... — Ciceronianus the White
One of the things that stimulates paranoia and fear is erratic change and uncertainty. Americans, like people all over the world are more subject to unexpected changes and uncertainty; it's destabilizing, especially when some of the changes mean worsening conditions, and some mean improving conditions. — Bitter Crank
Lots of people are getting jacked around by economic forces directed from distant locations, and people think the government is behind it. Sometimes the Gov is behind it; other times, not. — Bitter Crank
Just say NO to fear and paranoia. — Bitter Crank
It is not a new thing, but it is the essence of Americanism, and like all things traditionally American, it is more embraced by Republicans than Democrats, who for some reason are enamored by the European ideology America very intentionally stood in opposition to. — Hanover
I think the issue is that the goals of "the government" are not aligned with the interest of the common folk. I call this the alignment problem. — Posty McPostface
I think the issue is that the goals of "the government" are not aligned with the interest of the common folk. I call this the alignment problem. — Posty McPostface
It's really worrying when you see it in children, of all people, who are afraid to go to school because some mentally deranged person wants to shoot up the place. — Posty McPostface
Yeah, I guess so. It's the economy, stupid! Not really... — Posty McPostface
I don't really see the insight looking at the alignments has to offer. — BlueBanana
Posty, I just don't think most people object that much to most government activities. The People and The Government are reasonably well aligned, for better and for worse. — Bitter Crank
And these fearful children aren't fearful and paranoid about the government, they are fearful and paranoid about armed lunatics killing them -- a not altogether unreasonable fear (as long as they don't get carried away with fear; 99.999% of children attending school will not be victims of deranged gun-toting NRA zombies). — Bitter Crank
This foolish, stupid, screwed up view of the world is no defense against the harsh realities of a globalized economy. — Bitter Crank
Well, the point is that the government is serving interests other than that of the common folk. — Posty McPostface
That's too deep underlying imo. It's the actions that matter more, not their reasons, especially if we're looking at the reasons for the fear of citizens. — BlueBanana
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.