One Contribution Scientists Can And Should Make Is To Be Clear And Explicit About The Limits Of Scientific Understanding, A Matter That Is Particularly Important In Societies Where People Are Trained To Defer To Alleged Experts.

-Noam Chomsky

Please Wait....
Translating....

One Contribution Scientists Can

Noam Chomsky

Topic

People

Understanding

Important

More From Noam Chomsky

When [bill] Clinton Came Along, It Sort Of Moderated A Little Bit, But Clinton Had A Different Device For Breaking Unions Called Nafta [north America Free Trade Agreement]. Because The Government Was Entirely Lawless, Employers Could Exploit Nafta To Threaten Union Organizers With Transfer. It's Illegal, But When You've Got A Lawless Government, It Doesn't Matter If It's Illegal. I Think The Number Of Union Drives Blocked Increased By About 50 Percent.

Thinking

Government

Agreement

The Obama Administration Is Dedicated To Increasing Terrorism. In Fact, He Is Doing It All Over The World. Obama Is Running The Biggest Terrorist Operation That Exists, Maybe In History. The Drone Assassination Campaigns - Which Are Just Part Of The Special Forces Operations And So On - All Of These Operations Are Terror Operations.

Running

Special

Administration

Cuba Forces In Angola Gave A Real Shot In The Arm To The Liberation Movements, And It Also Was A Lesson To The White South Africans That The End Is Coming. They Can't Just Hope To Subdue The Continent On Racist Grounds.

Real

White

Cuba

A Consistent Anarchist Must Oppose Private Ownership Of The Means Of Production, And The Wage-slavery Which Is A Component Of This System, As Incompatible With The Principle That Labor Must Be Freely Undertaken And Under The Control Of The Producer.

Mean

Principles

Slavery

In Some Respects, South African Apartheid Was More Vicious Than Israeli Practices, And In Some Respects The Opposite Is True.

Opposites

Practice

Vicious

Some International Law Specialists Compare The Invasion Of Iraq To The 'crimes Against The Peace' For Which Nazi Leaders Were Indicted At Nuremberg.

Law

Iraq

Leader

It Was Declared By Congress That Marijuana Makes People Insane. But . . . Lawyers, Defense Lawyers, Got The Idea, Ok, I Can Use This For An Insanity Defense.

Marijuana

Ideas

People

As A Health Scientist At Columbia University, Les Roberts, Pointed Out, Sooner Or Later People Are Going To Be Looking At A Child In A Wheelchair Suffering From Polio And Will Say 'the Americans Did That To Him'. So They Continue Policies Which Have Similar Effects I.e. Organising The Taliban. This Will Come Back To Them Too.

Children

People

Suffering

Since James Madison Day (and Long Before), There Have Been Constant Struggles Over "democratic Governance".

Struggle

Long

Madison

Education Is Not For Profit. If You're Not In Education For Profit, It's Not Going To Be A Fair Critique For Education.

Profit

Critique

Fairs

As Far As U.s. Intelligence Knows, Iran Is Developing Nuclear Capacities, But They Don't Know If They Are Trying To Develop Nuclear Weapons Or Not. Chances Are They're Developing What's Called 'nuclear Capability,' Which Many States Have. That Is The Ability To Have Nuclear Weapons If They Decide To Do It. That's Not A Crime.

Iran

Trying

Nuclear

If [climate Change ] Became A Serious Proposal In The United States, There Would Be A Huge Propaganda Onslaught By The Business Community, The Energy Corporations And Many Others, To Try To Frighten The Population Into Opposing It - Claiming That If They Have It, All Sorts Of Terrible Things Will Happen, Like You Won't Be Able To Heat Your Home, Or Whatever The Story Is.

Home

Community

Trying

There's A Strong Nativist Tradition - Saying, "we Have To Protect Ourselves" - That Comes From The Founding Of The Country. If You Read Benjamin Franklin, Who Was One Of The Leading Figures Of The Enlightenment In The United States And The Most Distinguished Representative Of The Movement Here, He Actually Advised That The Newly Founded Republic Should Block Germans And Swedes Because They Were Too "swarthy" - Dark.

Country

Strong

Block

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.

Smart

Passivity Is

People

The United States Is A Violent Military State. It's Been Involved In Military Action All Over The Place.

Military

United States

Action

The Military Has A Huge Role In The Economy [of Pakistan] With Big Stakes And, As You Say, It Has Constantly Intervened To Make Sure That It Keeps Its Hold On Policy Making. Well, I Hope, And There Seem To Be Some Signs, That The Military Is Taking A Backseat, Not Really In The Economy, But In Some Of The Policy Issues. If That Can Continue, Which Perhaps It Will, This Will Be A Positive Development.

Military

Policy Making

Issues

Real Schools Ought To Provide People With Techniques Of Self-defense, But That Would Mean Teaching The Truth About The World And About The Society, And Schools Couldn't Survive Very Long If They Did That.

If You Go Back A Century In Europe, All Over The Place People Were Speaking Different Languages. There Were Dozens Of Languages In France And Italy, And They're All Called French [and Italian], But They Were Not Mutually Comprehensible. They Were Different Languages. And They Have Mostly Disappeared In The Last Century Or So. Some Are Being Preserved, Like Welsh, Some Are Being Revived, Like Basque Or Catelan To Some Extent. There Are Plenty Of People In Europe Who Can't Talk To Their Grandmother Because They Talk A Different Language.

Grandmother

Italian

Europe

In Our Society, Real Power Does Not Happen To Lie In The Political System, It Lies In The Private Economy: That’s Where The Decisions Are Made About What’s Produced, How Much Is Produced, What’s Consumed, Where Investment Takes Place, Who Has Jobs, Who Controls The Resources, And So On And So Forth. And As Long As That Remains The Case, Changes Inside The Political System Can Make Some Difference-i Don’t Want To Say It’s Zero-but The Differences Are Going To Be Very Slight.

Zero

Jobs

Lying

In The Primary Debates For The 2016 Election, Every Single Republican Candidate Was A Climate Change Denier, With One Exception, John Kasich - The "rational Moderate" - Who Said It May Be Happening But We Shouldn't Do Anything About It. For A Long Time, The Media Have Downplayed The Issue.

Media

Issues

Long

The People Who Live On The Land - Israelis And Palestinians - Have A Right To Live In Security And Peace.

Land

People

Palestinian

The Number Of Illegal Firings Tripled During The [ronald] Reagan Years. It Was At That Time That You Started Getting These Companies That Specialized In How To Destroy Unions.

Years

Numbers

Unions

My Intellectual Achievement Was Retarded When I Went To High School. I Sort Of Sank Into A Black Hole Because I Had To Go To The High-achieving, Academic Public High School.

School

Achievement

Black

The Labor Movement Had Been Pretty Much Killed In The 1920s, Almost Destroyed. It Revived In The 1930s And Made A Huge Difference. By The Late 1930s The Business World Was Already Trying To Find Ways To Beat It Back.

Differences

Trying

Movement

Judge Afiuni Has Suffered Enough. She Has Been Subject To Acts Of Violence And Humiliations To Undermine Her Human Dignity. I Am Convinced That She Must Be Set Free.

Judging

Violence

Dignity

You Can Go Into The Library Of Congress And Find Information On Just About Anything, But That Doesn't Do You Much Good Unless You Know What You Are Looking For.

Library

Information

Congress

From Now On I Will Consider A Language To Be A Set (finite Or Infinite) Of Sentences, Each Finite In Length And Constructed Out Ofa Finite Set Of Elements. All Natural Languages In Their Spoken Or Written Form Are Languages In This Sense.

Elements

Language

Infinite

Suppose That We Believe What We Are Taught. . . . Destroying The Environment And Militarizing Outer Space Are Rational Policies . . . Of Institutional Lunacy.

Believe

Space

Taught

[companies That Specialized In How To Destroy Unions] Don't Make It A Secret, And They Have All Sorts Of Techniques For Management To Destroy Unions.

Secret

Technique

Unions

A Property Of An Organism Enters Into Its Life (and Survival) In Many Different Ways, Some More Salient Than Others. But There Is No Simple Notion Of Its Being "for" Some Function.

Simple

Survival

Different

State Propaganda, When Supported By The Educated Classes And When No Deviation Is Permitted From It, Can Have A Big Effect. It Was A Lesson Learned By Hitler And Many Others, And It Has Been Pursued To This Day.

Class

Lesson Learned

Lessons

It's Not A Free Trade Agreement. It Has Virtually Nothing To Do With Free Trade... It's A Protectionist Agreement; It's Anti Free-trade.

Agreement

Trade

Free Trade

Do You Train For Passing Tests Or Do You Train For Creative Inquiry?

Creative

Inquiry

Tests

Sports Plays A Societal Role In Engendering Jingoist And Chauvinist Attitudes. They're Designed To Organize A Community To Be Committed To Their Gladiators.

Sports

Peace

Attitude

There Are Historical Analogs, Which Are Not Exact, Of Course, But Are Close Enough To Be Worrisome. This Is A Whiff Of Early Nazi Germany. [adolf] Hitler Was Appealing To Groups With Similar Grievances, And Giving Them Crazy Answers, But At Least They Were Answers; These Groups Weren't Getting Them Anywhere Else. It Was The Jews And The Bolsheviks [that Were The Problem].

Crazy

Giving

Historical

Take Any Country That Has Laws Against Hate Crimes, Inspiring Hatred And Genocide And So On. The First Thing They Would Do Is Ban The Old Testament. There's Nothing Like It In The Literary Canon That Exalts Genocide, To That Extent. And It's Not A Joke Either. Like Where I Live, New England, The People Who Liberated It From The Native Scourge Were Religious Fundamentalist Lunatics, Who Came Waving The Holy Book, Declaring Themselves To Be The Children Of Israel Who Are Killing The Amalekites, Like God Told Them.

Country

Religious

Children

. . . Among All Grammars Meeting This Condition (of Adequacy), We Select The Simplest.

Adequacy

Select

Grammar

[mikhail Bakunin] Expectations Were Generally Confirmed, Including His Prediction That Some Would Seek To Gain State Power On The Backs Of Popular Revolution, Then Constructing A "red Bureaucracy" That Would Be One Of The Worst Tyrannies In History, While Others Would Recognize That Power Lies Elsewhere And Would Serve As Its Apologists, Becoming Mystifies, "disablers," And Managers While Demanding The Right To Function In "technocratic Isolation," In World Bank Lingo.

Lying

Expectations

World

Education Is A System Of Imposed Ignorance.

Education

Ignorance

Thrive

As Soon As One Identifies, Challenges And Overcomes Illegitimate Power, He Or She Is An Anarchist. Most People Are Anarchists. What They Call Themselves Doesn’t Matter To Me. The World Is Full Of Suffering, Distress, Violence And Catastrophes. Students Must Decide: Does Something Concern You Or Not? I Say: Look Around, Analyze The Problems, Ask Yourself What You Can Do And Set Out On The Work!

People

Challenges

Suffering

U.s. Domestic Drug Policy Does Not Carry Out Its Stated Goals, And Policymakers Are Well Aware Of That. If It Isn't About Reducing Substance Abuse, What Is It About? It Is Reasonably Clear, Both From Current Actions And The Historical Record, That Substances Tend To Be Criminalized When They Are Associated With The So-called Dangerous Classes, That The Criminalization Of Certain Substances Is A Technique Of Social Control.

Class

Goal

Historical

Bear In Mind That Capitalism Is A Tiny Period Of Human Society. You Never Really Had Capitalism, You Always Had One Or Another Variant Of State Capitalism.

Mind

Tiny

Bears

If It's Wrong When They Do It, It's Wrong When We Do It.

International Relations

Ifs

Modifying The Core Institutions Of The Society Is No Small Challenge.

Challenges

Institutions

Modifying

The Very Design Of Neoliberal Principles Is A Direct Attack On Democracy.

Design

Democracy

Principles

As For The Various Religions, There's No Doubt That They Are Very Meaningful To Adherents, And Allow Them To Delude Themselves Into Thinking There Is Some Meaning To Their Lives Beyond What We Agree Is The Case. I'd Never Try To Talk Them Out Of The Delusions, Which Are Necessary For Them To Live A Life That Makes Some Sense To Them. These Beliefs Can Provide A Framework For Deeds That Are Noble Or Savage, And Anywhere In Between, And There's Every Reason To Focus Attention On The Deeds And The Background For Them, To The Extent That We Can Grasp It.

Meaningful

Thinking

Focus

State Formation Has Been A Brutal Project, With Many Hideous Consequences. But The Results Exist, And Their Pernicious Aspects Should Be Overcome.

Overcoming

States

Projects

There Was A Striking Example Of This In Pakistan When The Us Sent In Special Forces, To Be Honest, To Kill Osama Bin Laden. He Could Easily Have Been Apprehended And Caught But Their Orders Were To Kill Him.

Order

Special

Example

It Seems Self-evident That We Should Want People To Be Free, To Be Able To Play An Active Part In Making Decisions About Matters Of Concern To Them, To The Largest Possible Extent.

Self

Play

People

The Educational System In The Us Was A Highly Predictable Victim Of The Neoliberal Reaction, Guided By The Maxim Of "private Affluence And Public Squalor." Funding For Public Education Has Sharply Declined. As Higher Education Is Driven To A Business Model In Accord With Neoliberal Doctrine, Administrative Bureaucracy Has Sharply Increased At The Expense Of Faculty And Students. Cost-cutting Leads To Hyper-exploitation Of The More Vulnerable, Creating A New Precariat Of Graduate Students And Adjuncts Surviving On A Bare Pittance, Replacing Tenured Faculty.

Educational

Students

Graduates

Moves Toward Sovereignty In Iraq Stimulate Pressures First For Human Rights Among The Bitterly Repressed Shi'ite Population But Also Toward Some Degree Of Autonomy. You Can Imagine A Kind Of A Loose Shi'ite Alliance In Iraq, Saudi Arabia, And Iran, Controlling Most Of The World's Oil And Independent Of The United States. And Much Worse, Although Europe Can Be Intimidated By The United States, China Can't. It's One Of The Reasons, The Main Reasons, Why China Is Considered A Threat. We're Back To The Mafia Principle.

Moving

Independent

Rights

The Zionist Movement Based In Palestine Pretty Much Took Over The Camps And Instituted The Policy That Every Man And Woman Between The Ages Of Seventeen And Thirty-five Should Be Directed To Palestine - Not Allowed To Go To The West.

Men

Age

West

Anarchists Try To Identify Power Structures. They Urge Those Exercising Power To Justify Themselves. This Justification Does Not Succeed Most Of The Time.

Exercise

Trying

Doe

Now Financial Liberalization Is Just A Catastrophe Waiting To Happen, And There Are Very Well Understood Reasons For That.

Waiting

Financial

Reason

If Kids Are Studying For A Test, They're Not Going To Learn Anything. We All Know That From Our Own Experience.

Kids

Tests

Study

Concision Is A Technique Of Propaganda. It Ensures You Cannot Do Anything Except Repeat Clichés, The Standard Doctrine, Or Sound Like A Lunatic.

Technique

Sound

Doctrine

Surely No Rational Or Realistic Person Will Discount The Possibility That [during Wartime] The United States Might Suddenly Resort To Nuclear Weapons. Those Who Retain The Instinct For Survival, Not To Speak Of Minimal Concern For Their Fellow Man, Will Seek Ways To Act Before Rather Than After The Event.

Men

Survival

Church

The American Revolution Was A Small Part Of A Major World War Going On Between France And England, So The French Intervened And That Was A Big Factor, But The Domestic Contribution Was Basically Guerrilla Warfare.

War

France And England

World

If You Look At Say, England And Germany A Century Ago, Which Had The Most Advanced Navies Then, They Were Dealing With Extremely Tricky Technological Problems. Putting A Huge Gun On A Moving Platform And Ensuring That It Could Hit Another Moving Target Was One Of The Hardest Technical Problems Of The Early Twentieth Century.

Moving

Gun

Navy

I Happen To Agree With The Anti-dictatorship Policies, But I Don't Think It's The Role Of General Electric To Support Them Or Oppose Them. They Do Of Course, But I Don't Agree With That.

Thinking

Support

Roles

There Are Questions As To Whether It Should Even Exist. Who Should Corporations Be Responsive To, The Management Of A Corporation? Theoretically They Are Responsive To The Shareholders, But I Why Not To The So - Called Stakeholders, The Work Force And The Community? Nothing In Economic Theory Opposes That. Those Are Social And Political Decisions.

Community

Decision

Political

Throughout History, Even The Harshest And Most Shameful Measures Are Regularly Accompanied By Professions Of Noble Intent - And Rhetoric About Bestowing Freedom And Independence.

Independence

Noble

Rhetoric

On Humanitarian Intervention In General, I Guess My View Is Not Unlike The View That Was Attributed To Gandhi, Accurately Or Not, When He Was Supposedly Asked What He Thought About Western Civilization. He Is Supposed To Have Said That He Thought It Would Be A Good Idea. Similarly, Humanitarian Intervention Would Be A Good Idea, In Principle.

Views

Civilization

Ideas

If Some Small Storekeeper Somewhere Decides He's Not Going To Pay The Money, The Godfather Doesn't Let Him Get Away With It. The Money Doesn't Mean Anything To Him, But He Sends In His Goons To Beat Him To A Pulp. You Have To Establish Credibility, Otherwise Conformity To Your Orders Will Tend To Erode. International Affairs Runs In Much The Same Way.

Running

Mean

Order

What Happened In The Missile Crisis In October 1962 Has Been Prettified To Make It Look As If Acts Of Courage And Thoughtfulness Abounded. The Truth Is That The Whole Episode Was Almost Insane.

Insane

Looks

October

If You Are Not Offending People Who Ought To Be Offended, You're Doing Something Wrong.

Offended You

Offending

People

The Social And Physical Construction Of Suburban America Really Was Quite Complex. It Was A Very Elaborate System, And Clearly A Massive Social Engineering Project That Has Changed U.s. Society Enormously.

Engineering

America

Construction

Let's Take Southeast Asia. The Last 20, 30 Years Has Been What's Called The "asian Miracle" - Fast Economic Growth, Industrial Society. It's Happening All Over, With One Exception, Which One? The Philippines Is The One That Can't Grow, Which The Us Has Been Running For 100 Years. Is There A Correlation? Have You Read About It? It Comes To Mind, At Least.

Running

Years

Miracle

Social And Political Issues In General Seem To Me Fairly Simple; The Effort To Obfuscate Them In Esoteric And Generally Vacuous Theory Is One Of The Contributions Of The Intelligentsia To Enhancing Their Own Power And The Power Of Those They Serve.

Simple

Issues

Effort

Student Debt Is Structured To Be A Burden For Life. The Indebted Cannot Declare Bankruptcy, Unlike Donald Trump. Current Student Debt Is Estimated To Be Over $1.45 Trillion. There Are Ample Resources For That Simply From Waste, Including The Bloated Military And The Enormous Concentrated Private Wealth That Has Accumulated In The Financial And General Corporate Sector Under Neoliberal Policies. There Is No Economic Reason Why Free Education Cannot Flourish From Schools Through Colleges And University. The Barriers Are Not Economic But Rather Political Decisions.

Military

School

College

The Market Is Regarded As Democratic Because Everybody Has A Vote. Of Course, Some Have More Votes Than Others Because Your Votes Depend On The Number Of Dollars You Have, But Everybody Participates And Therefore It's Called Democratic.

Numbers

Dollars

Vote

There Certainly Are Those Who Worship The State Much As Divinities Are Worshipped. Not Just The State But Even Leaders.

Leader

Divinity

Worship

Academics Are Mostly Professionals, Involved In Their Work And Other Concerns Of Their Own, With No Particular Interest In The Workings Of The Ideological System.

Interest

Concern

Particular

I Am Not Offering This Is A Critique Of The Internet, Its Just That There Are A Lot Of Factors Involved. It Does Offer Plenty Of Possibilities. It Also Has, It Can Have, A Cheapening Effect And I Think Both Exist And I Think Its True Of Everything. You Could Say That About The Printing Press.

Thinking

Offering

Doe

People Are Capable Of Seeing The Deceit They're Ensnared In. They Just Have To Make The Effort.

People

Effort

Deceit

...dissent, Protest, Presures Of A Wide Variety That Escape Elite Control Can Modify The Calculus Of Costs Of Planners, And Offer A Slight Hope That Washington Can Be Compelled To Permit At Least Some Steps Towards "justice, Freedom And Democracy" Within Its Domains.

Justice

Democracy

Cost

Industrial Production Of Meat Makes A Huge Contribution To Global Warming.

Meat

Global Warming

Contribution

Legalizing Marijuana Would Make A Lot Of Sense, I Don't Think There's A Single Case Of Marijuana Overdose On Record And Tens Of Millions Of Users. It's Much Less Dangerous Than Alcohol, For Example.

Marijuana

Thinking

Alcohol

It Was During The Reagan Years That Defiance Of International Law And The U.n. Charter Became Entirely Open.

Years

Law

Defiance

The First Thing You Ought To Do Is Verify What I Present. Just Because I Say It Doesn't Make It True. So Check It Out, See What Looks Correct, What Looks Wrong, Look At Other Material Which Wasn't Discussed, Figure Out What The Truth Really Is. That's What You've Got A Brain For.

Brain

Looks

Firsts

I Do Not Feel That We Should Set Up People As "models"; Rather Actions, Thoughts, Principles.

People

Principles

Action

Sea Level Rise And Destruction Of Water Resources As Glaciers Melt Alone May Have Horrendous Human Consequences.

Sea

Water

Levels

Now Take A Look At The Way The Drug War Is Conducted Over The Past 40 Years. It Goes Back Farther, But Start From 40 Years Ago: There's Very Little Spent On Prevention And Treatment. There's A Lot On Policing, A Ton Of Stuff On Border Control And A Lot On Out-of-country Operations. And The Effect On The Availability Of Drugs Is Almost Undetectable; Drug Prices Don't Change On Measures Of Availability. So There Are Two Possibilities: Either Those Conducting The Drug War Are Lunatics, Or They Have Another Purpose.

Country

War

Past

In The United States, The Political System Is A Very Marginal Affair. There Are Two Parties, So-called, But They're Really Factions Of The Same Party, The Business Party.

Party

Two

Political

You Have 30% Of The World Unemployed, A Huge Amount Of Work, That Needs To Be Done Just Rebuilding The Society Alone.

Needs

Done

World

South America Goes Its Own Way Dramatically In International Affairs.

America

Way

Affair

As For Organs, Traits, Etc., Being "for" Something, The Notion May Be A Useful Shorthand, But Shouldn't Be Taken Too Seriously, If Only Because Of The Ubiquitous Phenomenon Of Exaptation.

Taken

May

Etc

The U.s. Has The Most Dysfunctional Healthcare System In The Industrial World, Has About Twice The Per Capita Costs, And Some Of The Worst Outcomes. It's Also The Only Privatized System.

Cost

World

Outcomes

The Government Of Israel Doesn't Like The Kinds Of Things I Say, Which Puts Them Into The Same Category As Every Other Government In The World.

Government

Israel

World

This Crazy Ban On The Seven States, Where We Can't Accept Immigrants, Almost Every Analyst Points Out The Obvious: It Just Increases The Threat Of Terror. It Lays The Basis For Terror. It's Just Like The Atrocities In Abu Ghraib And Bagram And Guantanamo. They're The Most Fabulous Recruiting Techniques For Al Qaeda And Isis.

Crazy

Isis

Atrocities

There Is Massive Propaganda For Everyone To Consume. Consumption Is Good For Profits And Consumption Is Good For The Political Establishment.

Political

Propaganda

Profit

Very Commonly I Get Queries. Somebody Saw Something Of Mine On Youtube And Of Course If There Is A Talk On Youtube, There Aren't Any Footnotes - And They Want To Know Why Did You Say This. Well If They Bothered To Look Up Something In Print, They Would've Seen Why I Said That. If They Ask For Evidence, I Just Say Well Take A Look And Mention Something They Can Read And That Usually Ends The Conversation.

Looks

Want

Saws

As To Whether Those Who Fit The Common Meaning Of The Term "intellectual" Should Act In The Manner That [ Edward] Said Prescribes, That's Another Question. Needless To Say, I Agree With Him That They Should, And That They Commonly Do Not.

Intellectual

Common

Fit

A Very Large Majority Of The U.s. Population Is In Favor Of Establishing Diplomatic Relations With Cuba And Has Been For A Long Time With Some Fluctuations. And Even Part Of The Business World Is In Favor Of It, Too. But The Government Won't Allow It.

Government

Long

World

On October 15, 1965, An Estimated 70,000 People Took Part In Large-scale Anti-war Demonstrations.

War

People

October

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 - Even Encourage The More Critical And Dissident Views. That Gives People The Sense That There's Free Thinking Going On, While All The Time The Presuppositions Of The System Are Being Reinforced By The Limits Put On The Range Of The Debate.

Smart

Thinking

Views

I've Never Seen A Study, But My Sense Is That These Are People Who Feel Really Aggrieved. These People Think, "i've Done Everything Right All My Life, I'm A God-fearing Christian, I'm White, I'm Male, I've Worked Hard, And I Carry A Gun. I Do Everything I'm Supposed To Do. And I'm Getting Shafted." And In Fact They Are Getting Shafted. For 30 Years Their Wages Have Stagnated Or Declined, The Social Conditions Have Worsened, The Children Are Going Crazy, There Are No Schools, There's Nothing, So Somebody Must Be Doing Something To Them, And They Want To Know Who It Is.

Christian

Children

Crazy

The Labor Movement Can Be Rebuilt, As Has Happened Before After Sharp Declines.

Movement

Decline

Labor

But, That’s The Whole Point Of Corporatization - To Try To Remove The Public From Making Decisions Over Their Own Fate, To Limit The Public Arena, To Control Opinion, To Make Sure That The Fundamental Decisions That Determine How The World Is Going To Be Run - Which Includes Production, Commerce, Distribution, Thought, Social Policy, Foreign Policy, Everything - Are Not In The Hands Of The Public, But Rather In The Hands Of Highly Concentrated Private Power. In Effect, Tyranny Unaccountable To The Public.

Running

Fate

Hands

Just Recently, The Administration Of Barack Obama, Which Has Broken All Sorts Of Records In Regards To Deportation, Picked Up A Guatemalan Man Living Here [in U.s]. I Think He Had Been Living Here For Twenty-five Years, Had A Family, A Business, And So On. He Had Fled From The Mayan Region And They Picked Him Up And Deported Him. To Me, That's Really Sick.

Men

Thinking

Years

... An Essential Feature Of A Decent Society, And An Almost Defining Feature Of A Democratic Society, Is Relative Equality Of Outcome - Not Opportunity, But Outcome. Without That You Can't Seriously Talk About A Democratic State... These Concepts Of The Common Good Have A Long Life. They Lie Right At The Core Of Classical Liberalism, Of Enlightenment Thinking... Like Aristotle, [adam] Smith Understood That The Common Good Will Require Substantial Intervention To Assure Lasting Prosperity Of The Poor By Distribution Of Public Revenues.

Lying

Opportunity

Thinking

Nobody Can Successfully Defy The Master Of The Hemisphere [america], In Fact Of The World, Hence The Savagery.

America

Hemisphere

World

The Japanese Bombing Of Pearl Harbor Led To Many Very Good Things. If You Follow The Trail, It Led To Kicking Europeans Out Of Asia - That Saved Tens Of Millions Of Lives In India Alone.

India

Kicking

Pearls

Its True That Contemporary Technology Permits Decentralization, It Also Permits Centralization. It Depends On How You Use The Technology.

Technology

Use

Permit

Concentration Of Wealth Yields Concentration Of Political Power. And Concentration Of Political Power Gives Rise To Legislation That Increases And Accelerates The Cycle.

Yield

Concentration Of Wealth

Giving

Take The Us. Women Were Not Even Able To Vote Until 90 Ago, At About The Same Time They Gained The Right In Afghanistan. Rights Of Former Slaves Were Very Limited Until The 1960s, And In Some Ways Still Are. In These And Other Domains There Has Been Progress In Democracy, Though Still Seriously Flawed. In Other Dimensions - The Control Of Concentrated Wealth Over The Political Process, For Example, Things Have Gotten Much Worse In Recent Years. And There Is Much More, In Both Directions.

Rights

Years

Political

At The Peak Of The So-called Great Success Of Neoliberal Economics, In 2007, Right Before The Crash, Non-supervisory Workers Were At Wages Considerably Lower Than In 1979, When The Neoliberal Assault Was Taking Off. That Perfectly Naturally Causes Resentment And Fear, And Combines With A Tendency To Blame The Most Vulnerable.

Wages

Causes

Resentment

Take A Look At Public Opinion. About 70 Percent Of The Population, In The Polls, Said The [vietnam ] War Was Fundamentally Wrong And Immoral, Not A Mistake. And That Attitude Lasted As Long As Polls Were Taken In The Early '80s.

Attitude

War

Mistake

While The State Can Coerce, With Some Exceptions (like North Korea) It Seems To Me Misleading To Think Of It As Capable Of "enslavement."

Thinking

Korea

States

People Will Find Some Ways Of Identifying Themselves, Becoming Associated With Others, Taking Part In Something. They're Going To Do It Some Way Or Other. If They Don't Have The Options Of Participation In Labor Unions, Political Organizations That Actually Function, They'll Find Other Ways. Religious Fundamentalism Is A Classic Example.

Religious

Organization

People

Most Of What Is Done I Think Is To Kept Secret So The Public Won't Know. The Same Is True Of What Wikileaks Exposed.

Thinking

Secret

Done

If Commissars In Soviet Russia Agreed To Subordinate Themselves To State Power, They Could At Least Plead Fear In Extenuation. Their Counterparts In More Free And Open Societies Can Plead Only Cowardice.

Russia

Cowardice

States

If A Person Chooses Not To Be A Writer, Or Speaker, Then (by Definition) The Person Is Choosing Not To Be Engaged In An Effort,"to Bring The Truth About Matters Of Human Significance To An Audience That Can Do Something About Them," Apart, Perhaps, From Some Circle Of Immediate Associates.

Circles

Effort

Definitions

The Left, In A General Sense, Is Very Much Atomized. We Live In Highly Atomized Societies. People Are Pretty Much Alone; It's You And Your Ipad.

Ipads

People

Left

If You Accept The Institutional Lunacy, Then The Policies Are Rational.

Accepting

Rational

Policy

Just Take Ease Of Interchange Between People. Your Email Is Of Course Faster Than Letter - On The Other Hand The Transition From Sailing Ship To Telegraphs Was Far Greater Than The Shift From The Postal Service To Email. That Was A Fabulous Change. If You Sent A Letter To England, Instead Of Waiting A Couple Of Months For A Response You Got It Instantly. That's A Huge Change. Every One Of These Changes Of Course Increases Opportunities And Also Increases Means Of Control And Domination.

Couple

Mean

Opportunity

I See No Anti-semitic Implications In Denial Of The Existence Of Gas Chambers, Or Even Denial Of The Holocaust.

Holocaust

Denial

Existence

The Police Can Go To Downtown Harlem And Pick Up A Kid With A Joint In The Streets. But They Can't Go Into The Elegant Apartments And Get A Stockbroker Who's Sniffing Cocaine.

Kids

White Privilege

Racism

The United States In Many Ways Resembles A Third World Country - Far More Elevated, But It Has Many Of Those Structural Characteristics: The Extreme Inequality Of Wealth, The Deterioration Of Infrastructure Because It Only Serves Poor People, Predatory Operations, Huge Corruption, And So On.

Country

People

United States

As A Tactic, Violence Is Absurd. No One Can Compete With The Government In Violence, And The Resort To Violence, Which Will Surely Fail, Will Simply Frighten And Alienate Some Who Can Be Reached, And Will Further Encourage The Ideologists And Administrators Of Forceful Repression.

Government

Tactics

Violence

It's Hard To Achieve That, Especially In A Free Society, But It's Been Done, And That's The Kind Of Thing That Activists In The Iww Have To Work Against, Right On The Shop Floor. It's Not So Simple, But It's Been Done Before.

Simple

Done

Kind

About Specific Social Issues, There Is A Great Deal To Say That Departs Very Far From Truism And Is, Accordingly, Significant And Controversial.

Issues

Controversial

Significant

I Don't Want Followers.

Followers

Want

Say The Pentagon Papers, - That Material Went Much Deeper. It Went Into Internal Government Planning Back For Twenty - Five Years. Those Are Things That The Public Should Have Known About. In A Democracy They Should Have Known What Leaders Thinking And Planning About Major Enterprises Like The Vietnam War. It Was Kept Secret From Them.

War

Thinking

Government

There Are In Fact Many Ways To Combat The Trump Project Of Creating A Tiny America, Isolated From The World, Cowering In Fear Behind Walls While Pursuing The Paul Ryan-style Domestic Policies That Represent The Most Savage Wing Of The Republican Establishment.

Wall

World

Republican

In Fact, It Was Stated Early In The First Bush [presidency], Bush I, In One Of Their Documents They Pointed Out In The Future, Us Wars Are Going To Be Against Much Weaker Enemies. And They Have To Be Won Quickly And Decisively Before A Popular Reaction Develops. And Iif You Take A Look, That's What's Done. Look At Panama, For Instance, Over A Couple Of Days; And Kosovo, No American Troops.

Couple

War

Enemy

Some May Remember, If You Have Good Memories, That There Used To Be A Concept In Anglo-american Law Called A Presumption Of Innocence, Innocent Until Proven Guilty In A Court Of Law. Now That's So Deep In History That There's No Point Even Bringing It Up, But It Did Once Exist.

Memories

Law

Presumption Of Innocence

Selfish-gene Theory Tells Us Nothing About The Value Of Interacting Through Language.

Selfish

Language

Genes

The Public Is Easily Amenable To Lies: The More Lies There Are, The Greater The Support For War. For Instance, When The Public Was Told That Saddam Hussein Would Attack The U.s., This Increased Support For The War.

War

Lying

Support

I Hope That A Move Toward Clemency With Judge Afiuni Would Be A Step Towards The Importance Of Maintaining A Properly Functioning Justice System.

Moving

Justice

Judging

I Had No Expectations About Barack Obama And I'm Not In The Least Disillusioned.

Expectations

Disillusioned

Barack

It [the Internet] Should Be Publicly Controlled But Washington Is Not A System Of Public Control, It's Mainly A System Of Corporate Control. We Ought To Have A Free Internet, But That Means Having A Free Society, And There Is Fundamental Questions There.

Mean

Fundamentals

Internet

President Barack Obama, To His Credit, Has Given - Issued Personal Pardons In Deserving Cases. But He Should Go Far Beyond. He Should Proceed To What Is In Fact An Urgent Necessity: To Grant A General Pardon To 11 Million People Who Are Living And Working Here, Productive Citizens In All But Name, Threatened With Deportation By The Incoming Donald Trump Administration. This Would Be A Horrible Humanitarian Tragedy, A Moral Outrage.

People

Tragedy

President

In General, I Think, U.s. Policies Remain Constant, Going Back To The Second World War. But The Capacity To Implement Them Is Declining.

War

Thinking

World

I Mean, It’s True, Nobody Talks About Them, But When You Bring It Up, The Idea That You Have To Rent Yourself To Somebody And Follow Their Orders, And That They Own And You Work There, And You Built It But You Don’t Own It, That’s A Highly Unnatural Notion. You Don’t Have To Study Any Complicated Theories To See That This Is An Attack On Human Dignity.

Respect

Work

Mean

If You Want To Talk About Distributing Substances That Are Lethal, . . . Let's Be Serious. Tobacco Is Far Ahead Of Anything Else. Alcohol Is Second.

Alcohol

Substance

Want

Elements Of The Christian Fundamentalist Right Are One Of The Strongest Components Of "support For Israel" - Support In An Odd Sense, Because They Presumably Want To See It Destroyed In A Cosmic Battle At Armageddon, After Which All The Proper Souls Will Ascend To Heaven - Or So I Understand, Again, Not From Close Reading.

Christian

Reading

Israel

If There Are Lessons To Be Drawn From The Sciences, Then That Should Be The Concern Of Everyone, Including Scientists To The Extent That They Can Make A Contribution.

Lessons

Scientist

Should

The War Against Working People Should Be Understood To Be A Real War…. Specifically In The U.s., Which Happens To Have A Highly Class-conscious Business Class…. And They Have Long Seen Themselves As Fighting A Bitter Class War, Except They Don’t Want Anybody Else To Know About It.

Real

War

Fighting

The Un To Some Extent Diffuses U.s. Power. Therefore It's Less Direct An Agency Of The United States Than The U.s. Army Is. But Still, It Can't Escape The Distribution Of Power In The World.

Army

Distribution Of Power

Agency

The Only Way We Can Put A Permanent End To Terrorism Is To Stop Participating In It.

Way

Terrorism

Ends

In November 2004, U.s. Occupation Forces Launched Their Second Major Attack On The City Of Falluja. The Press Reported Major War Crimes Instantly, With Approval.

War

Cities

Occupation

There Isn't Much Point Arguing About The Word "libertarian." It Would Make About As Much Sense To Argue With An Unreconstructed Stalinist About The Word "democracy" - Recall That They Called What They'd Constructed "peoples' Democracies." The Weird Offshoot Of Ultra-right Individualist Anarchism That Is Called "libertarian" Here Happens To Amount To Advocacy Of Perhaps The Worst Kind Of Imaginable Tyranny, Namely Unaccountable Private Tyranny. If They Want To Call That "libertarian," Fine; After All, Stalin Called His System "democratic." But Why Bother Arguing About It?

Democracy

Want

Libertarian

There Are Cases - For Example, The American Revolution. George Washington's Army Lost Just About Every Battle With The British, Who Had A Much Better Army. The War Was Basically Won By Guerrilla Forces That Managed To Undermine The British Occupation.

War

Army

Battle

I Think That Has A Lot Of Dangers, As Does Government Surveillance, Which Is Way Too High.

Thinking

Government

Surveillance

For A Privileged Minority, Western Democracy Provides The Leisure, The Facilities, And The Training To Seek The Truth Lying Hidden Behind The Veil Of Distortion And Misrepresentation, Ideology And Class Interest, Through Which The Events Of Current History Are Presented To Us.

Lying

Class

Training

The Us Is Off The Spectrum In Religious Commitment. It's Been Increasing Since 1980 But It's A Major Part Of The Voting Base Of The Republican Party So That Means Committing To Anti-abortion Positions, Opposing Women's Rights.

Religious

Party

Mean

Like Most Terms Of Political Discourse, Socialism Has More Or Less, Lost Its Meaning. Socialism Used To Mean Something. If You Go Back Far Enough It Meant Basically Control Of Production By Producers, Elimination Of Wage Labor, Democratization Of All Spheres Of Life; Production, Commerce, Education, Media, Workers Control Of Factories, Community Control Of Communities, And So On. That Was Socialism Once. But It Hasn't Meant That For A Hundred Years. Socialism Meant Something Different.

Mean

Media

Years

As The Capacity To Coerce Declines, It Is Natural To Turn To Control Of Opinion As The Basis For Authority And Domination - A Fundamental Principle Of Government Already Emphasized By David Hume.

Government

Principles

Fundamentals

Well Before September 11, It Was Understood That With Modern Technology, The Rich And Powerful Will Lose Their Near Monopoly Of The Means Of Violence And Can Expect To Suffer Atrocities On Home Soil.

Powerful

Home

Mean

They [the Union] Were Members Of The Communist Party - They Didn't Care One Way Or Another About Russia, They Just Cared About The United States.

Party

Russia

United States

If Something Comes Along That You Don't Like, There Are A Few Sort Of Four-letter Words That You Can Use To Push It Out Of The Sphere Of Discussion. If You Were In A Bar Downtown, They Might Have Different Words, But If You're An Educated Person What You Use Are Complicated Words Like "conspiracy Theory" Or "marxist." It's A Way Of Pushing Unpleasant Questions Off The Agenda So That We Can Continue In Our Own Happy Ideology.

Downtown

Agendas

Four

The General Public Are Not Even Aware Of Major Decisions That Will Determine Their Fate, Hence Are In No Position To Influence Them

Fate

Decision

Influence

The Costs Of The Bush-obama Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan Are Now Estimated To Run As High As $4.4 Trillion - A Major Victory For Osama Bin Laden, Whose Announced Goal Was To Bankrupt America By Drawing It Into A Trap. The 2011 Military Budget - Almost Matching That Of The Rest Of The World Combined - Is Higher In Real Terms Than At Any Time Since World War Ii And Is Slated To Go Even Higher .

Running

Military

Real

Terror Became A Big Issue When The Reagan Administration Came In. They Immediately Announced [their Plans] And Kind Of Disparaged Carter's Alleged Human Rights Programs. The Main Issue Is State-directed International Terrorism. Right At That Time That Big Industry Developed. That's When You Start Getting The Academic Departments On Terrorism.

Issues

Rights

Administration

Free Markets Are Based On The Free Circulation Of Labor. If You Don't Have Free Circulation Of Labor, You Don't Have Free Markets.

Free Market

Circulation

Labor

Workers And Their Families May Starve To Death In The New World Order Of Economic Rationality, But Diamond Necklaces Are Cheaper In Elegant New York Shops, Thanks To The Miracle Of The Market.

New York

Order

Miracle

Descriptive Grammar Is An Attempt To Give An Account Of What The Current System Is For Either A Society Or An Individual, Whatever You Happen To Be Studying.

Giving

Study

Individual

Ceos Pretty Much Pick The Boards That Give Them Salaries And Bonuses. That's One Of The Reasons Why The Ceo-to-payment [ratio] Has So Sharply Escalated In This Country In Contrast To Europe. (they're Similar Societies And It's Bad Enough There, But Here We're In The Stratosphere. ] There's No Particular Reason For It.

Country

Europe

Giving

Plainly, Children Learn Their Language. I Don't Speak Swahili. And It Cannot Be That My Language Is 'an Innate Property Of Our Brain.' Otherwise I Would Have Been Genetically Programmed To Speak (some Variety Of) English.

Children

Brain

Language

The Process Of Shaping Opinion, Attitudes, And Perceptions Was Termed The 'engineering Of Consent' By One Of The Founders Of The Modern Public Relations Industry, Edward Bernays.

Attitude

Engineering

Perception

It Is ... Necessary To Whip Up The Population In Support Of Foreign Adventures. Usually The Population Is Pacifist, Just Like They Were During The First World War. The Public Sees No Reason To Get Involved In Foreign Adventures, Killing, And Torture. So You Have To Whip Them Up. And To Whip Them Up You Have To Frighten Them.

War

Adventure

Media

I Agree With Bill Clinton That Us Forces Should Not Be Sent To Haiti, But Not For His Reasons.

Haiti

Bills

Reason

I'm Pretty Much Out Of Popular Culture Altogether.

It Doesn't Matter What We Cover, It Matters What You Discover.

Matter

Independence Of Mind, Enthusiasm, Dedication To The Field, And Willingness To Challenge And Question And To Explore New Direction. There Are Plenty Of People Like That, But Schools Tend To Discourage Those Characteristics.

School

Dedication

People

We Should Not Be Speaking To, But With. That Is Second Nature To Any Good Teacher.

Teacher

Teaching

Good Teacher

Iraq Has The Second Largest Oil Reserves In The World, It Is Right In The Midst Of The Major Energy Reserves In The World. Its Been A Primary Goal Of Us Policy Since World War Ii To Control What The State Department Called "a Stupendous Source Of Strategic Power" And One Of The Greatest Material Prizes In History.

War

Goal

Energy

Globalization Is The Result Of Powerful Governments, Especially That Of The United States, Pushing Trade Deals And Other Accords Down The Throats Of The World’s People To Make It Easier For Corporations And The Wealthy To Dominate The Economies Of Nations Around The World Without Having Obligations To The Peoples Of Those Nations.

Powerful

Government

People

Since November 8, 2017 The United States Is Literally Alone In The World In First Of All Refusing To Join In Efforts To Do Something About Climate Change, But Even Worse, Dedicated To Making The Situation Worse. Every Part Of The World Is Trying To Do Something. The United States Alone Is Trying To Destroy It, And It's Not Just Trump, It's The Whole Republican Party. You Just Can't Find Words For It. And It's Not Reported. It's Not Discussed.

Party

Effort

Trying

Farming Out Atrocities To Paramilitaries Is Standard Operating Procedure.

Atrocities

Farming

Procedures

Suppose That, Say, China Established Military Bases In Colombia To Carry Out Chemical Warfare In Kentucky And North Carolina To Destroy This Lethal Crop [tobacco] That Is Killing Huge Numbers Of Chinese.

Military

Kentucky

Numbers

Personally, I Am Uneasy About The Notion Of "a Politically Engaged University," For Reasons I Wrote About Over 30 Years Ago, At The Height Of Protest And Resistance (reprinted In For Reasons Of State).

Years

Height

Resistance

For One Thing, Studying Language Is By Itself A Part Of A Study Of Human Intelligence That Is, Perhaps, The Central Aspect Of Human Nature. And Second, I Think, It Is A Good Model For Studying Other Human Properties, Which Ought To Be Studied By Psychologists In The Same Way.

Thinking

Way

Study

Our Health Care Is Rationed By Wealth.

Care

Wealth

Health Care

Whenever There Is Injustice, Oppression, Aggression, Violence, It's Standard For It To Be Supported By Those We Now Call "intellectuals," But Typically Not By All; There Is Typically A Fringe Of Dissidents. With Very Rare Exceptions - In Fact, It's Hard To Think Of Any - They Suffer In One Or Another Way; How Depends On The Nature Of The Society.

Thinking

Suffering

Way

The Iraq War Is The First War In History, In Which There Were Huge Demonstrations Before The War Was Launched, Not Beginning Five Years Later And Then Being Broken Up. All Of These Are Changes, And The People Who Are Writing In Journals Today Lived Through These Changes.

War

Writing

Years

That Was The Reason Why Very Few People Fleeing The Rise Of Fascism In Europe, Especially In Germany, Could Get To The United States. And There Were Famous Incidents Like With The Ms Saint Louis, Which Brought A Lot Of Immigrants, Mostly Jewish, From Europe. It Reached Cuba, With People Expecting To Be Admitted To The United States From There. But The Administration Of Franklin D. Roosevelt Wouldn't Allow Them In And They Had To Go Back To Europe Where Many Of Them Died In Concentration Camps.

Europe

People

Fleeing

China Has Been There For 3,000 Years, Has Contempt For The Barbarians, Is Overcoming A Century Of Domination, And Simply Moves On Its Own. It Does Not Get Intimidated When Uncle Sam Shakes His Fist. That's Scary.

Uncles

Moving

Years

Latin America Was The Most Obedient Follower Of The Neoliberal Regime That Was Instituted By The United States, Its Allies And The International Financial Institutions. They Followed It Most Rigorously. Almost Everyone Who's Followed Those Rules, Including The Western Countries, Have Suffered. And In Latin America They Suffered Severely.

Country

Latin

America

Markets Are Lethal, If Only Because Of Ignoring Externalities, The Impacts Of Their Transactions On The Environment.

Impact

Environment

Transactions

The Us And Europe Are Committing Suicide In Different Ways. In Europe It's Austerity In The Midst Of Recession And That's Guaranteed To Be A Disaster. There's Some Resistance To That Now. In The Us, It's Essentially Off-shoring Production And Financialization And Getting Rid Of Superfluous Population Through Incarceration.

Suicide

Europe

Austerity

Our Only Real Hope For Democracy Is That We Get The Money Out Of Politics Entirely And Establish A System Of Publicly Funded Elections.

Real

Democracy

Election

Language Is A Process Of Free Creation; Its Laws And Principles Are Fixed, But The Manner In Which The Principles Of Generation Are Used Is Free And Infinitely Varied. Even The Interpretation And Use Of Words Involves A Process Of Free Creation.

Language Words

Law

Generations

Pakistan Just Cannot Survive If It Continues To Do So (continue This Confrontation With India).

India

Pakistan

Confrontation

The Reason I Am A Political Radical Is That I Work On Syntax. If I Worked On Semantics (which In Fact I Do), I'd Be A Good Thatcherite.

Political

Syntax

Facts

Labor #‎ Unions Are The Leading Force For #‎ Democratization And #‎ Progress .

Progress

Unions

Force

[james] Madison Pointed Out In The Discussion Of The Constitutional Debates - The Constitutional Convention - That Democracy Would Be A Danger. He Used England Of Course As The Model And Said Suppose That In England Everyone Had The Free Right To Vote; The Poor, The Propertyless - Who Are The Great Majority - Would Use Their Voting Power To Take Away The Rights Of Property Owners To Carry Out What We Would Call Land Reform.

Rights

Land

Voting

It's Not In Doubt That Tobacco Is Far More Lethal Than Hard Drugs.

Real Wages For Male Workers In The United States Are About What They Were In The '60s.

Real

Males

United States

One Might Ask Why Tobacco Is Legal And Marijuana Not. A Possible Answer Is Suggested By The Nature Of The Crop. Marijuana Can Be Grown Almost Anywhere, With Little Difficulty. It Might Not Be Easily Marketable By Major Corporations. Tobacco Is Quite Another Story.

Marijuana

Stories

Answers

Compare Mathematics And The Political Sciences - It's Quite Striking. In Mathematics, In Physics, People Are Concerned With What You Say, Not With Your Certification. But In Order To Speak About Social Reality, You Must Have The Proper Credentials, Particularly If You Depart From The Accepted Framework Of Thinking. Generally Speaking, It Seems Fair To Say That The Richer The Intellectual Substance Of A Field, The Less There Is A Concern For Credentials, And The Greater Is The Concern For Content.

Reality

Thinking

Order

Cuba Has Become A Symbol Of Courageous Resistance To Attack. Since 1959, Cuba Has Been Under Attack From The Hemispheric Superpower.

Cuba

Resistance

Courageous

Now, The Libertarian Party, Is A *capitalist* Party. It's In Favor Of What *i* Would Regard A *particular Form* Of Authoritarian Control. Namely, The Kind That Comes Through Private Ownership And Control, Which Is An *extremely* Rigid System Of Domination - People Have To... People Can Survive, By Renting Themselves To It, And Basically In No Other Way... I Do Disagree With Them *very* Sharply, And I Think That They Are Not..understanding The *fundamental* Doctrine, That You Should Be Free From Domination And Control, Including The Control Of The Manager And The Owner.

Party

Thinking

People

Finally Irish Were Accepted Into Society And Became Part Of The Political System, And There Were Kennedys, And So On. But The Same Is True About Other Waves Of Immigrants, Like The Jews In The 1950s.

Political

Wave

Accepted

I Have Written Occasionally On Links Between My Scientific Work And Political Thinking, But Not Much, Because The Links Seem To Me Abstract And Speculative.

Thinking

Political

Links

The Possibility Of Interpersonal Communication Has Increased Substantially With Contemporary Technology. But As Compared With The Major Changes, Which Were Long Ago, These Are Not Huge.

Communication

Technology

Long Ago

Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.

2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.

2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.

2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.

3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.

3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.

3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.

4. Proper Usage of Quotes

4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.

4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.

4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).

5. Common Mistakes to Avoid

5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.

5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.

5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.

6. Quotes in Different Contexts

6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.

6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.

6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.

7. Punctuation and Formatting

Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:

Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.

Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.

Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.

8. Ethical Considerations

Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes

Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.

Conclusion

Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.

Trending Author