The 7 most shareable Noam Chomsky quotes
American activist, political theorist and “father of modern linguistics” Noam Chomsky is coming to Concordia next week.
At noon on Saturday, October 26, he’ll be weighing in on “The Neo-Liberal Assault on the Population” at the D.B. Clarke Theatre in the Henry F. Hall Building, for the Concordia Student Union’s speaker series.
Tickets to the Sir George Williams event sold out in a matter of hours on October 17. One fan suggested on the Facebook event listing that someone could always “just find him a mountain top and a megaphone,” but the CSU has confirmed that it will do the next best thing: live-stream the talk on CUTV. It will also be live-streamed to the BMO Amphitheatre, Room MB-1.210, in the John Molson School of Business Building. This screening is exclusive to the Concordia community (admin and faculty included), on a first-come, first-served basis — you'll need your Concordia ID to get in. It's pay-what-you-can for students; everyone else pays $10.
Chomsky must be among the most quotable people of his generation. In 56 years of publishing, his 100-plus titles have ranged from Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988, with Edward Herman) and Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance (2003) to Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965).
Good Reads lists no fewer than 146 trenchant bons mots. Here are the top seven:
No. 7
242 likes/shares
“We shouldn't be looking for heroes, we should be looking for good ideas.”
No. 6
252 likes/shares
“All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.”
No. 5
279 likes/shares
“Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s really an easy way: Stop participating in it.”
No. 4
320 likes/shares
“Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.”
No. 3
472 likes/shares
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.”
No. 2
490 likes/shares
“The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don't know how to be submissive, and so on — because they're dysfunctional to the institutions.”
No. 1
865 likes/shares
“If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.”
Going to the talk at Concordia? Live Tweet and use the hashtag #CUchomsky.