Our Thoughts Tonight

Noam Chomsky Interview: Russia-Ukraine Conflict & Linguistics

• Our Thoughts Tonight • Season 4 • Episode 4

Share episode

In this episode we speak to none other than Prof. Noam Chomsky. This interview spans a variety of topics, from the Russia-Ukraine conflict, to COVID-19 in historical context, to the indirect connection between linguistics and politics. 

Our Thoughts Tonight Twitter: https://twitter.com/Crucem_sanctam
In Human Form Twitter: https://twitter.com/HumanRedacted
Bailey's Twitter: https://twitter.com/baileywwadwwad

In Human Form Youtube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/INHUMANFORM

Recorded on February 11th, 2022
- Isik, Zach, Bailey, & In Human Form

Speaker 1:

Hello, everyone. Welcome to this very special edition of our thoughts tonight. If it's your first time here, consider subscribing or following us on Twitter. Thank you very much.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to our thoughts tonight. Join us as we chat in a mellow mood about music, philosophy, psychology, and anything else that will come to mind. Enjoy

Speaker 1:

Our thoughts tonight. Welcome everybody. Bailey is here. Hi there. Zach is here. Yep. Yep. Yep. As shook is here. Hello. And I'm your host in human form today? Our special guest is cognitive scientist, political activist, the one and only Noam Chomsky. Welcome to the show professor.

Speaker 3:

Uh, can you hear me?

Speaker 1:

Yes, we can hear you. Can you hear us

Speaker 3:

Go okay. Should I introduce my two dogs that are right down below?

Speaker 4:

Oh yeah. Awesome. That'd be great.

Speaker 3:

You can hear them, I think. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

It's a pleasure to meet you by the way. Um, I have to say, I wanted to mention before, uh, we ask you a few questions, uh, over the last few months in preparation for our interview, uh, I've been listening to your audio books and interviews on my way to work and school and, and on my drive home. So it's felt as if you've been teaching me about the world from my passenger seat. So it's good to finally meet you. So, um, my first question for you today is one that I believe the whole world is wondering at the moment, and that has to do with the escalating tensions between Russia, United States and NATO, considering the nuclear implications. What are your thoughts on this situation?

Speaker 3:

Well, uh, first of all, let's remember that this has been happening about every year, roughly at this time since 2014, when, uh, the, my done uprising led to a coup that overthrew the pro Russian government and put in a us oriented government with us backing, of course, uh, ever since then, every spring there have been similar warnings, Russian mobilization, tens or hundreds of thousands of troops, uh, ready to attack. Uh, this time the voices are more shrill, but it's basically the same story. Maybe something's real, maybe not another possibility is that, uh, put in as as many analysts point out has been trying for years to get the United States to pay some attention to, uh, Russian security concerns, which go back to go back 30 years. We don't talk about it much here, but it's very much discussed elsewhere. And, uh, as the Soviet union, it was collapsing around 1990. Uh, there were extensive negotiations between, uh, the United States. That's present Bush and James Baker and Russia. That was Gobi. And also the Germans who were very much involved against coal Germans were involved because the crucial issue was unification of Germany. Well, Gobi actually agreed to unification of Germany within NATO hostile military Alliance. It's quite a concession. If you look back at the history of the 20th century, uh, Germany alone had virtually destroyed Russia twice during the century. Uh, so agreeing to have Germany, re-arm joining NATO as not a small concession, but there was a, a quid pro quo of Bush and baker promised that NATO would not advance one inch to the east. East meant east Berlin, east Germany. Nobody was thinking about anything beyond at least publicly. Well, that was the agreement in 1990, uh, Bush himself pretty much lived up to it. Uh, Clinton came in on the 50th anniversary of NATO 1999. Uh, Clinton celebrated it by inviting, uh, states on the borders of Russia into NATO Ukraine, Czech Republic, uh, except then Bush two came along and all the bars were down. Uh, yeah, just invited everybody even, uh, uh, offered Ukraine an invitation to join NATO. That's a nonstarter. Ukraine is geostrategic Heartland of the Russian system. It's no Russian leader would ever, except that firmly opposed it, uh, France and Germany veto, but under it stays on the agenda. It still there that's the background then came the 2014 coup and various events that followed. And since then, these hold on a it's Now one and usually quiet.

Speaker 4:

That's good.

Speaker 3:

The other is a mal tease who gets very agitated. Yeah. Where we're. Now, if you take a look at the current situation, uh, the United States is full of mil militant talk. Uh, Europe is trying to towards some form of negotiations, diplomacy. Uh, Ukraine has pretty much asked the United States turn to down the rhetoric, but still warning that, uh, could be major problems. So that's where we stand. If Russia does invade, which I frankly doubt, uh, it would be devastating for them. They'd have a huge gorilla war on their hands. Uh, the United relat with Europe would break, which are very important, both to Russia. And to Europe, remember that for 50 years, there's been a battle about who's gonna apply, uh, provide petroleum to Europe. The United States wants to control it. They wanna break. Russia's wants to extend it for Europe. The Russian supplies are much cheaper, much more accessible. And, uh, uh, the us has been trying to block it. Actually, this goes back even earlier before the Russians were in the game, it's a oil politics is a huge affair and a factor in international affairs. So you go back to 1945 when the world order was being reconstituted by the United States, of course, uh, uh, all over the world. One of the essential parts of us policy was to maintain control of middle east oil. Uh, and the reason was the prime. The us didn't need the oil. In fact, it was the biggest oil producer, but, uh, the point was to make sure that, uh, you could control Europe and Japan. Uh, George major trade said, we control the oil. We have veto power over our allies. Now for Europe, we go look at the Marshall plan. A large part of the Marshall plan was money that went between various New York banks, uh, to ensure that Europe would shift to an oil based economy, which they don't have any oil and, uh, uh, switch away from a coal based economy. They had plenty of coal that's before the Russians were in the game. When the Russians became a major, uh, exporter again, later on, uh, that became a conflict between the United States and, uh, Russia as to who's gonna supply energy to Europe still on the front pages. That's what the Nord stream pipelines about. And Ukraine was right in the center of this pipelines go through Ukraine. So that's one back and it's part of a much broader issue who's going to is Europe going to become an independent force and world affairs? That's been a major concern of the United States since the 1950s, same as happening in Asia. Will Japan become a center of a now it's China, but for many years it was Japan be the center of an Asian system. In fact, one of the main reasons for the Vietnam war was to prevent that could go. It it's very clear in the internal planning record that they were concerned back in the early fifties, that if Vietnam became SU pursued successful independent development, it would have a, what was called a domino effect in the region. Others would be tempted to pursue the same course, uh, Thailand, uh, Ima in those days, uh, Malaysia, Indonesia, and that would lead Japan to accommodate to Asia as its technological and economic center using Asia as a kind of a hinder land. But remember that the second world war was fought to prevent that that was Japan's new order in Asia. And the second world war ended. Those aspirations early 1950s, the United States was not prepared to lose the second world war and the concern about Vietnam, but just that they didn't care about Vietnamese resources. They didn't amount to much, but it was the possible effect worldwide and all through Asia, but it was concern same with same with Europe. Americans don't discuss the, but it's all in the record. So when the United States was working to overthrow the IEN government, the parliamentary regime in Chile, one of the main concerns explained by Henry Kissinger, who was the architect of the policies, was that if Ayende Chile succeeded, parliamentary means to move towards social democracy, that could have major effects in Europe, Southern Europe, Italy, and Spain, where similar processes were taking place might move Europe to move towards social democracy. And, uh, out of the, not only out of us control, but to an economic model that separates from the much harsher version of capitalism that the United States pursues. So therefore you had to overthrow a, I mean, these are right in the background of world affairs constantly. You don't talk about adhere it's you have to pretend that the United States is a benevolent actor trying to improve everybody's life in the world. But if you get out of that propaganda framework, all of this stuff is right in front of your eyes, right in the right there in the internal record. Well, there were efforts through the years for Europe to move in an independent direction. Uh, one of the most famous is the goal you called the, who was a major statesman, uh, taken seriously concerned. Uh, he called for what he called Europe from the Atlantic to the euros, meaning a unified Europe, including Russia and, uh, Western Europe. That was a to the United States and managed to shoot it down. Uh, uh, German chancellor, uh, tried what he called Austin poly, uh, integrating Germany more closely with, uh, Russia that was shot down. You see it right on the front pages today when Macron French president goes to negotiate with, uh, the Russians and the Ukrainians, there's fewer in the United States, how can he do that? You know, breaking ranks and so on. What that means is it's another move towards integrating Europe with, uh, uh, Russia and behind all of this is Gobi CHOP's vision. Back in the 1990, when this whole system was being established, uh, there were two approaches. One was the us approach, uh, NATO dominates and they did agree not to move NATO to the east, which was then overturned by Clinton. But, uh, the idea was that Europe itself would stay completely within what's called the Atlantis framework. Atlantis means the us runs it. Okay. That's, uh, Gobi off, proposed something different. He proposed what he called a common European home, meaning pretty much what the goal had called for, uh, Europe linked to Russia. And he even had a more expansive vision Europe. They said U Uranian security system from the Atlantic to the Pacific from Lisman of LA with no military block that was shot down very quickly. You know, states couldn't even hear those words, but, and of course the media can't report it. But, uh, but these are all things that are in the background, bits and pieces of it in the newspapers. Like when Germany wants to establish the mayor kill one of the nor stream pipeline. Well, that's part of it. That's, uh, a way for Germany to move somewhat out of us control, uh, have much cheaper resources and link up with Russia and maybe move towards something like a common European home, which means the us isn't running the affairs, actually the same thing's happening in Asia right now. So there are conflicts with China, uh, some serious ones, a lot of it's just rhetoric, but, uh, in the south China sea, the sees off the coast of China, uh, there are conflicts China's violating international law by establishing, building up, uh, small islands, which you can use for faces and so on. Uh, the regional powers that don't like this, but it's a, it could have a regional solution. Us absolutely doesn't want that. A regional solution means the us doesn't run it just like in Ukraine, no regional solutions, none of this macro business, or go rich, the goal, we run it. And that's where order. Uh, so the United States sends a Naval Armada into the south. China sea, uh, provides Australia with, uh, a fleet of nuclear submarines to enhance the already overwhelming us, Dom military dominance off China's coast at this right of China. So called is on China's coast. China has nothing comparable. All they have is a hunter land, which is trouble. So we have to have overwhelming military domination, right. Of China's border, uh, where there could be regional solutions, but that would be an, just as it is in Europe. I think these are background issues that should be thought about you don't read about them. There's almost nothing said about them.

Speaker 5:

I do have a question that semi related here, given this international dynamic, do you think humanity will survive long enough to see a dominant economic other than Kissinger inspired neoliberal capitalism?

Speaker 3:

Is there another dominant economic model actually is a conflict right now between two economic models. Uh, the us dominated one, the China dominated one, uh, Europe itself is hanging on weekly to a kind of social democratic model. It's important to recognize how remote the United States is from the rest of the world on social economic issues. It's astonishing when you look at it. So, uh, take something as simple, uh, maternal leave, you know, the right of a woman to have a couple of weeks off after having a baby everywhere, not the United States, the United States, and a couple of Pacific islands are the only countries that don't allow it. I mean, Europe even has paternal leave and it takes a Brazil, not a rich country and not a particularly progressive one, uh, especially now, but a mother has, uh, I think four months guaranteed maternal leave, even with pay with another optional two months also with pay in the United States, you can't even dream of it. Americans work about a month or sometimes two months more than people in Europe and Europe there's paid vacation at least a month. Maybe more unheard of in the United States. I mean, the worst case of course, is the health system compared with Canada, say about twice the expenses and, uh, in the United States. And, uh, life expectancy is about four years longer in Canada. Same with Europe. I mean, you take a look at Bernie Sanders programs, which are considered radical in the United States and most of the world, they just laugh off. Yeah. There's the things they already have. And the United States considered so radical. You can't discuss it well to impose the us model is not easy. In fact, if you go back in, it's quite interesting, one of those things, again, that doesn't get discussed here, but go back to Vietnam in the early sixties, when Kennedy was beginning to escalate the war, sharp escalation under Kennedy, uh, and you go back and we know a ton of this Pentagon papers, uh, reports of province advisors, a huge amount of documentation. It's all the same us intelligence and us province advisors were despairing because the Vietnam con was fighting a political war where we're weak. Uh, we could only respond with a military war where we are strong. So the Vietnam organized people in villages with programs of social reform and so on. And the only thing we can do is come in with bombs and napalm and crop destruction just doesn't work and kind of desperate couldn't deal with it. Can't fight a political war with a military war. And it's right on the front pages. Now just a couple days ago, there was interesting article in the New York times on the middle east. I should look at the headline. I wish I had the exact words, but it was something like this. China leans into the middle east while the us withdraws what's actually happening. And then it says, China's leaning in with loans, development projects, investments, while the us is withdrawing. But what is the us withdrawing bombs, missiles, uh, special forces, raids and villages at midnight. Uh, we're withdrawing that China's leaning in with loans, projects, and investments. What can we do? Can't figure out a way to stop it just like in south Vietnam, you know, you, can't, it's very hard to fight a political war with, uh, bombs and missiles. It just doesn't reach people somehow. It's, uh, actually secretary of state dull us back in the fifties, captured it very well in his discussions, private discussion with Eisenhower and president say, we have a real problem with the communists. They can appeal to the poor people, which is just about everybody. And the third world. Uh, they appeal to the poor who have always wanted to plunder the rich and he didn't add the next part, which is we can't appeal to them with policies that want the rich to plunder the poor, just somehow doesn't appeal to these childish, uh, people there. Um, that's, that's the problem. So the concern over in fact, it's amazing the extent to which it, it goes, there was just a couple days ago. Uh, finally something passed in the house house representatives of a bill to build up us technology, investment in research and advanced industries. And so on, what was it called? It was called the China competitive field. We can't try to build up technology cause it would be good for people like you. Who cares about that? We can only do it if it enables us to compete with China, which means is to beat China down by blocking their economic development and somehow doing it ourselves. And this is just taken for granted. You look at the liberal press, you know, the left liberal press. They were very impressed with his Biden, made a real achievement. Now we can better compete with China. How about we could do something useful for Americans. It's not even a consideration, you know, you can't think about it.

Speaker 1:

Uh, I think Zach had a question kind of related to COVID 19.

Speaker 6:

How do you think COVID 19 will be presented in the history books? Do you think it will be remembered as solely a pandemic or do you think there's a chance? It could go down as a global cultural shift?

Speaker 3:

Uh, they did a extensive research study together with many research scientists in which they concluded that we could save a million lives in the south global south a million lives at a reasonable cost just by providing them with the facilities to produce vaccines. Okay. And, uh, then it goes on discusses. It, it to the last paragraph of the article says, uh, Pfizer and Madena, which hold the patents to the processes. Even though tax funding was used to develop them. They hold the patents. They say they can't do it. And then it adds that they made, I think it says a hundred and billion of profit last year. Well, that's our model. Big corporations have to be protected to make huge profit it's, you know, beyond the dreams of Everest. And if we kill a million peoples too bad, it's not the kinda policy that's easy to sell in the south. Fortunately not much attention is paid through it, but the articles worth reading tells you a lot about the capitalist, our version of the list model.

Speaker 1:

We were wondering what, which, uh, which article were you mentioning? Was this the one that in the New York times that you mentioned?

Speaker 3:

This one that I was just quoting was in the Washington post. Okay. Washington post, write me an email. I can send you the link.

Speaker 1:

That sounds good. Actually. Did you wanna ask?

Speaker 4:

Yeah. Um, I guess not to divert the topics I, not too far, uh, I just wanted to ask this question. This is kind of a fusion question between me and a certain professor from, um, the university of Alaska Anchorage, just in terms of your linguistic work, how do you view that in terms of the history of similar ideas? Um, maybe older, traditional philosophies contest role, especially in light of like people, I don't wanna use the word accused, but using universal grammar as a sort of innate idea, how do you view, uh, claims like that?

Speaker 3:

Well, there was a long tradition, goes back to Aristotle, uh, Indian grammar at the same time, which regarded language basically is a system of thought, go back to Aristotle. As he said, there are abstract words, which we have in our minds, which are symbols of thought, which are, uh, mental representations of the world men. And they're the same for all people they're universal. And they go on, on to, uh, develop not very extensive, uh, uh, ways of formulating pro propositional thought, subject predicate and so on. Uh, that's all internal innate fixed comment, all humans. Then he said, there are spoken words which vary from language to language that's just accidental, uh, uninteresting. Uh, so he just concentrated on the internal system, same with Indian philosophy that goes all the way to 20th century. Pretty much 20th century changed the structuralist behaviorist movements, uh, shifted attention away from, uh, these concerns to, uh, uh, behavior and communication. So WV coin leading philosopher of language for him, language was a complex of dispositions to respond to stimuli and behavior of others imposed by opera and conditioning and, uh, Leonard Bloomfield, major language, uh, language. It is a matter of habit and, uh, teaching and habit. That's all. If there's anything new that comes along, that's by analogy that's the 20th century and, uh, language is regarded mainly as system of communi, kinda like, uh, evolving out of animal communication. It's a radical shift from 2,500 years of thinking about language as basically an internal system of thought language generates, thought thoughts, which generated by language, uh, includes Fraga Humbold the Galileo everybody. Uh, well, my own opinion is the tradition was correct. And, uh, I think we have to go back to it. Mm. And modern it's called the generative enterprise. It's basically re asking again, the same questions that were traditionally asked, but from a much more, uh, from a new standpoint, something important happened in the 20th century. The mathematical theory of communication was developed, uh, of computation, mathematical of computation, touring, girdle, Al post, and others, uh, made it very clear how a finite device like the brain or your laptop, uh, can have the capacity to generate an infinite array of objects in the language case, infinite way of thoughts, which can then be, uh, used in one or another way. Uh, sometimes it's rarely for communication. It's a picture. This was a block that couldn't be overcome in the tradition. They had no way to account for how a finite object could have infinite capacity, uh, Galileo, for example, regarded languages, the most astonishing, uh, Contra, uh, development, most awesome development and ever he said, because it enables us with a few symbols to construct infinitely many thoughts, and even somehow to convey to others, the inner most workings of our mind, major miracle Galileo regarded the alphabet as the most spectacular invention ever because it was able to implement this, but how it happened was left as a major mystery in the early scientific revolution and right through the tradition. Well, now we have a way to partially grasp that problem. Not totally a question of how you produce thoughts is, is kind of a mystery. We dunno anything about that, but how you can construct them in your mind yes. That we can study. And we've learned that good, great deal about the nature of the systems, uh, which raises many crucial questions could go into it, but that does resurrect a lot of the concerns of traditional philosophy, science language, uh, thinking way back a classical Greece and classical India,

Speaker 4:

Maybe as a caveat to language, but a different sense. This is a, uh, the question from a professor, uh, in your own writing, you employ dry irony, sarcasm, uh, it makes your writing very enjoyable to read, but as coming from a, a teaching perspective, uh, from his view, what kind of guidelines would you have for readers in terms of trying to point out what is sarcastic or what's not, especially for people who are not so familiar with your work. Do you have any general guidelines for, for your writing in general?

Speaker 3:

Well, you can find out a lot of it's transcribed. So there's two areas. One of them is the kind of questions you were just asking, linguistics philosophy, cognitive science, uh, history of thought. And so on. Plenty of books about that. Uh, the other side, the, what we were talking about earlier in politics, I, a lot of that's in print there's, um, transcripts pretty, pretty close trans groups of, uh, a course that, uh, I co-teach at the university of Arizona, it's called the book is called consequences of capitalism. And it, uh, essentially is the lectures from the course mine. And my,

Speaker 1:

I just started reading that earlier this week.

Speaker 3:

Oh, well. So you can, you can tell

Speaker 1:

It's excellent

Speaker 3:

And it's going on right now, in fact. Wow. But we're right in the middle of another version of the course.

Speaker 5:

Oh, nice. Oh man. I'm excited to, um, read the next one and that one, but, um, my question I'm realizing is oddly referential to what we're talking about already kind of having arrived, where you are politically likely through your research into linguistics. Do you have any hints for those of us who are trying to learn how to interact with the world? So as to learn from it, could it be, as the artist Tim mentioned has said that we could stand to adopt a little neuropsychological humility,

Speaker 3:

Well, the work on the nature of language and thought doesn't directly give any indications of how you, you shouldn't interact with the world, how you can teach people and so on. But if you look, if you think about it more broadly, there is a connection. And in fact, the connection was widely discussed during the enlightenment people like VI hum fund Humboldt, who if quoted the, one of the, the founders of classical liberalism of the modern research university had, and also a very important linguist who was working within the tradition that I described identified language and thought, but also wrote about education, social life and connected. The two, the basic connection was the idea that at the core of human nature is what was sometimes called an instinct for freedom that, uh, you see it very clearly in language where the core property of language is what Leo and others noticed our ability to create independently. New thoughts never appeared before, uh, and even to convey to others, the workings of our mind, and they can understand it that, uh, the core human ability, but essentially distinguishes us from the rest of the animal world to creative capacity. Well, that had an implication for education in society. The implication is anything that interferes with this creative capacity is illegitimate it. So in teaching, what's now called teach to test totally illegitimate. They, uh, ridiculed that in the enlightenment as like pouring water into a vessel, then some of the water comes out, but that's the worst possible form of education. Nothing stays in your mind. The right form of education is a little bit like what Rau talked about, uh, or what Humboldt talked about, trying to stimulate, encourage the natural tendency of students, children, graduate students to inquire, to create, to pursue their own concerns and capacities and cooperation with others. That would be real education. And the same is true in social organization altogether. Anything in the structure of society that inhibits the, uh, natural exercise of the right for freedom and independence has to be questioned. Now that doesn't mean what's called libertarianism here. That's just a ridiculous misinterpretation of it, but it does mean something like what's now called social democracy or, or, uh, more serious moves towards what used to be understood as social meaning workers control over their enterprises, uh, democratic control over communities and cooperation among them. And so on. All of those ideas are right in the enlightenment and they do have a connection with the loose connection with the conception that the fundamental property of human beings distinguishing them from animals is this creative capacity manifested most clearly in normal use of language. So there is that kind of connection. It's not a logical connection. It's a collection of connection of sort of spirit.

Speaker 1:

I wanna thank you for joining us. Um, today really means a lot. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3:

Good to be with you. Sorry. I gotta take off.

Speaker 7:

Oh. To write a song That has no meaning at all That a personal nerve or he, the social calm There. No, no down That has no right to room. That doesn't need a reason to waste some time with soldiers like that old time rock and roll with the easy chords and a tur soul. Give all time rock and roll nothing. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh, two sing song that doesn't let it all hang out. That doesn't wave in that flag or having a slogan to shout that knows no Easter where that has no lift or raise that doesn't throw any stones or look for any fight. Just like that old time rock and roll with the easy chords and the Touche. So give me all time, rock and roll. And I say,

Speaker 8:

Whoa, whoa.

Speaker 7:

Just to write a song that won't man broken heart, the won. Will you like at lover or promise a brand new start that doesn't feature rain and fire or heat any higher call that doesn't need or is to me, nothing at all. Just like that full time rocking, roll with the easy corns and a touch. So give all term rock and roll. And I think my mom, whoa,

Speaker 8:

Whoa,

Speaker 7:

Just like that all time rocking, roll with the easy corns and a all. Give me all turn rocking. Roll. I Baba.

Speaker 8:

Whoa, whoa,

Speaker 7:

BA

Speaker 8:

Whoa, whoa,

Speaker 7:

Baba. Whoa,

Speaker 8:

Whoa.