Quotes (consumercide)
Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so.
-Bertrand Russell
Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment—a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to answer. The question is this: What change will death produce in a man’s existence and in his insight into the nature of things? It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer.
--Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), German philosopher. Parerga and Paralipomena, vol. 2, ch. 13, sct. 160 (1851).
Yet is every man his own greatest enemy, and as it were his own executioner.
--Sir Thomas Browne (1605–82), English physician, author. Religio Medici, pt. 2, sct. 4 (1643).
One said of suicide, “As long as one has brains one should not blow them out.” And another answered, “But when one has ceased to have them, too often one cannot.”
--F. H. Bradley (1846–1924), English philosopher. Aphorisms, no. 48 (1930).
when man determined to destroy
himself he picked the was
of shall and finding only why
smashed it into because
--E. E. Cummings (1894–1962), U.S. poet. when god decided to invent.
When the beginnings of self-destruction enter the heart it seems no bigger than a grain of sand.
--John Cheever
The prevalence of suicide, without doubt, is a test of height in civilization; it means that the population is winding up its nervous and intellectual system to the utmost point of tension and that sometimes it snaps.
--Havelock Ellis (1859–1939), British psychologist. The Dance of Life
"If you want to feel rich, just count all the
things you have that money can't buy"
There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbours will say.
--Cyril Connolly (1903–74), British critic. The Unquiet Grave, pt. 2 (1944; rev. 1951).
"...Survival is a word we all understand: I would like to know whether there is going to be a decent world in which, say, my grandchildren can live: that's the question of survival. The survival of the human species is by no means an obvious thing: there are very severe threats to survival and we learn about them all the time. The threat of environmental destruction is much too real to put to the side: the threat of destruction by the weapons of mass destruction --that has come very close many times... major threats are predicted in large part as a consequence of government policies... so [decent] survival of the species is by no means a sure thing..."
-Chomsky speaking about his latest book, Hegemony or Survival
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. - Chomsky
What does peace mean in a world in which the combined wealth of the world's 587 billionaires exceeds the combined gross domestic product of the world's 135 poorest countries?
There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest—whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories—comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer.
--Albert Camus (1913–60), French-Algerian philosopher, author. The Myth of Sisyphus,“Absurdity and Suicide” (1942: tr. 1955).
...you know isn't it interesting with a lot of these corporate people, money does to them what crack does to other people? Where after a while all they can think about-since they've already made more money than they can ever figure out how to spend-is how to make "I gotta make more, I gotta make more,I gotta make more, I don't care who I hurt, I gotta make more" and instead of robbing a liquor store they rob EVERYBODY...
This is why I support the Green Party's platform calling for a MAXIMUM wage. To cure people of money addiction you have to intercept it at the source. Put them through rehab!
--Jello Biafra, from the spoken word album "Machine Gun in the Clown's Hands"
Disk Three, "The Rolling blackout Revue" DKs
When one does away with oneself one does the most estimable thing possible: one thereby almost deserves to live.
--Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), Twilight of the Idols,“Expeditions of an Untimely Man,” aph. 36 (1889).
Quotes (other)
"Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent every year to control the public mind".
"The author (Douglas Farah) of that article, at least when he's not writing for the Post, knows the answer perfectly well. The U.S. led a devastating terrorist war throughout the region to try to prevent democracy and social development. These billions of dollars of aid that he talks about were billions of dollars spent to destroy these countries. That's why they are worse off than before. But the Post can't say that. No matter how overwhelming the evidence is, it's perfectly possible simply to disregard it and to go on with fantasies that are much more pleasing to powerful interests and to oneself."
"It's done differently in El Salvador. There they send in the death squads. Here what they do is try to hook you on sitcoms. It's true that both are techniques of control, but they are rather different techniques."
"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. "
"The first step is to penetrate the clouds of deceit and distortion and learn the truth about the world, then to organize and act to change it. That's never been impossible and never been easy."
"You don’t have any other society where the educated classes are so effectively indoctrinated and controlled by a subtle propaganda system – a private system including media, intellectual opinion forming magazines and the participation of the most highly educated sections of the population. Such people ought to be referred to as "Commissars" – for that is what their essential function is – to set up and maintain a system of doctrines and beliefs which will undermine independent thought and prevent a proper understanding and analysis of national and global institutions, issues, and policies".
Q: What is it that attracts you to anarchism?
CHOMSKY: I was attracted to anarchism as a young teenager, as soon
as I began to think about the world beyond a pretty narrow range, and haven't
seen much reason to revise those early attitudes since. I think it only
makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy,
and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a
justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should
be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom. That includes political
power, ownership and management, relations among men and women, parents
and children, our control over the fate of future generations (the basic
moral imperative behind the environmental movement, in my view), and much
else. Naturally this means a challenge to the huge institutions of coercion
and control: the state, the unaccountable private tyrannies that control
most of the domestic and international economy, and so on. But not only
these. That is what I have always understood to be the essence of anarchism:
the conviction that the burden of proof has to be placed on authority,
and that it should be dismantled if that burden cannot be met. Sometimes
the burden can be met. If I'm taking a walk with my grandchildren and they
dart out into a busy street, I will use not only authority but also physical
coercion to stop them. The act should be challenged, but I think it can
readily meet the challenge. And there are other cases; life is a complex
affair, we understand very little about humans and society, and grand pronouncements
are generally more a source of harm than of benefit. But the perspective
is a valid one, I think, and can lead us quite a long way. source
Physics can't really explain how water flows from the tap in your sink. When we turn to vastly more complex questions of human significance, understanding is very thin, and there is plenty of room for disagreement, experimentation, both intellectual and real-life exploration of possibilities, to help us learn more.
"So does misrepresentation bother me? Sure, but
so does rotten weather. It will exist as long as concentrations of power
engender a kind of commissar class to defend them. Since they are usually
not very bright, or are bright enough to know that they'd better avoid
the arena of fact and argument, they'll turn to misrepresentation, vilification,
and other devices that are available to those who know that they'll be
protected by the various means available to the powerful. We should understand
why all this occurs, and unravel it as best we can. That's part of the
project of liberation - of ourselves and others, or more reasonably, of
people working together to achieve these aims."
[more from Chomksy below]
"But instead, today, we stand at the edge of a great valley that separates humanity (particularly Americans and the Arab/Islamic peoples of the world), cruelly dividing us into ethnic, racial and religious categories whose basis is neither history nor reason, but which, as Said taught us, obdurately betrays both. This gulf is not a natural or inevitable one, but one too often constructed for us by pusillanimous politicians and a media untrained in the art of critical practice. And its effects are to promote and thereby allow our consciences to accept an unacceptable violence of human against human-and the enormous suffering that is its handmaiden-that no just God or morality could countenance, much less sanction."
"Morpheus: The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it."
“At present nothing is possible except to extend the area of sanity little by little. We cannot act collectively. We can only spread our knowledge outwards from individual to individual, generation after generation. In the face of the Thought Police there is no other way.”
“Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.”
"Do you have blacks, too?"
I have opinions of my own -- strong opinions -- but I don't always agree with them. George Bush (senior) (1924 - )
Luckless is the country in which the symbols of procreation are the objects of shame, while the agents of destruction are honored! And yet you call that member your pudendum, or shameful part, as if there were anything more glorious than creating life, or anything more atrocious than taking it away.
--Cyrano de Bergerac (1619–55), French author, playwright. A “lunarian,” in The Other World: States and Empires of the Moon, ch. 8 (1656).
"There are three steps in the history of a great discovery. First, its opponents say that the discoverer is crazy; later that he is sane but that his discovery is of no real importance; and last, that the discovery is important but everybody has known it right along."
1. It's crazy!
2. It may be possible -- so what?
3. I said it was a good idea all along.
4. I thought of it first."
"There is no human stupidity that has not found its champion." -Lovejoy
--Paul Feyerabend
The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.
He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
~ Chinese proverb
More from Chomsky:
Anyone who has had any dealings with children knows that they're curious and creative. They want to explore things and figure out what's happening. A good bit of schooling is an effort to drive this out of them and to fit them into a mold, make them behave, stop thinking, not cause any trouble. It goes right from kindergarten up ... People are supposed to be obedient producers, do what they're told, and the rest of your life is supposed to be passive consuming. Don't think about things. Don't know about things ... Just do what you're told, pay attention to something else and maximize your consumption. That's the role of the public.
-Propaganda and the Public Mind
Conversations with Noam Chomsky
interviews by David Barsamian
South End Press, 2001, paper
A standard technique of belief formation is to do something in your own interest and then to construct a framework in which that's the right thing to do.
if you want to be praised and have your books reviewed and told how brilliant you are and get great jobs, it's not advisable to be a dissident. It's not impossible, and in fact the system has enough looseness in it so that it can be done, but it is not easy. Both of us can name plenty of people who were simply cut out of the system because their work was too honest. That blocks access.
from Secrets, lies and democracy (ints w/ NChomsky) David Barsamian
Consumption vs. well-being
The United States, with 5% of the world's population, consumes 40% of the world's resources. You don't have to be a genius to figure out what that's leading to.
For one thing, a lot of that consumption is artificially induced -- it doesn't have to do with people's real wants and needs. People would probably be better off and happier if they didn't have a lot of those things.
If you measure economic health by profits, then such consumption is healthy. If you measure the consumption by what it means to people, it's very unhealthy, particularly in the long term.
A huge amount of business propaganda -- that is, the output of the public relations and advertising industry -- is simply an effort to create wants. This has been well understood for a long time; in fact, it goes back to the early days of the Industrial Revolution.
For another thing, those who have more money tend to consume more, for obvious reasons. So consumption is skewed towards luxuries for the wealthy rather than towards necessities for the poor. That's true within the US and on a global scale as well. The richer countries are the higher consumers by a large measure, and within the richer countries, the wealthy are higher consumers by a large measure.
From media control
p20
Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.