Noam Chomsky about the US
- In the United States almost nobody knows anything about the outside world — people don’t know where France is. India would be some word that they might have heard in school in passing. It is a very insular society.
- One good thing about this country is that there is very little state repression, no censorship, so they can speak out what they can. On the other hand, the internalisation of doctrine here is just overwhelming, that is, with the intellectual community in the universities.
- And it is partly a reflection of the freedom, I think. You get an impression that everything is free and open because there are debates that are visible: the Democrats are debating the Republicans, and the press does its share of condemning.
- But what people don’t see — and the seeming openness of the debate conceals it — is that it is all within a very narrow framework. And you can’t go even a millimetre outside that framework. In fact, it is even taught in journalism schools here as the concept of ‘objectivity’ — that means describing honestly what’s going on inside that framework and if there is something outside, then no, that is subjective.
Noam Chomsy about India
- What is really striking to me about India is the indifference of privileged sectors to the misery of others. People don’t look, they put themselves in a bubble and then don’t see it.
- There is a lot of talk about how India is slated to be a major power, and I can’t believe it, with all its internal problems.
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