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MICHEL DEGRAFF: Talking
about students at MIT.

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So some of you are
graduating soon,

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and this might be
your last chance

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to ask Noam Chomsky a question.

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So anyone who hasn't
spoken yet would

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like to ask a question
before you graduate?

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AUDIENCE: We've talked in this
class a bit about silencing

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and how that kind of leads
into the whole system.

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Sorry, I can speak up.

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So we've talked about silencing.

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NOAM CHOMSKY: About?

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MICHEL DEGRAFF: Silencing.

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NOAM CHOMSKY: Silencing.

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AUDIENCE: Yeah.

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And how stories are hidden, like
you talked about-- what can we

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do about that?

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NOAM CHOMSKY: About silencing?

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AUDIENCE: What
measurable steps can we

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take towards
uncovering the stories

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and actually making
change happen?

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NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, what you
do about silencing is speak up.

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We have a lot of
freedom if we use it.

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In fact, a lot more
than in the past.

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Take the last thing I mentioned.

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For women, the opportunity is
to speak up and become active

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and have an impact is way beyond
what it was, say, 50 years ago.

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In fact, I was talking to
Michel about this before.

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I got a ton of email.

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And a lot of it is
from young people.

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And one question that keeps
coming up over and over

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again is, everything's awful.

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What can we do?

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But if you look closely
over many years,

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I've noticed that the
kinds of questions you get

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depend on where the
people are coming from.

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So if people are
coming from-- say

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when I go down to give talks
in immigrant slums in South

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Boston, nobody ever
asks what they can do.

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They tell me what they're doing.

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When I go to a remote
village in Southern Colombia

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where people are being murdered
by paramilitaries and there's

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a chemical company trying to--
a gold mining company trying

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to destroy the water supply.

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They don't ask me,
what should they do?

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They tell me what they're doing.

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When people are
privileged and have

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every opportunity in front of
them, they ask, what can we do?

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And the fact is almost anything.

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There's all sorts of
opportunities open.

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Way more than there
were in the past

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because we do enjoy the legacy
of people who have struggled

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in the past under much
harsher conditions

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and have provided us with the
opportunities we now have.

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Like, say, the opportunities
to be a student at MIT.

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That's an opportunity.

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It gives you all
sorts of things.

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It was closed to half the
population 50 years ago.

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It was closed, of course, to
minorities almost entirely.

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Well, it just illustrates what's
gone on all over the society.

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I mean, take, say,
the Sanders campaign,

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which I think was the most
important aspect of the 2016

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election, by far.

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Out of that, there are groups
developing that are really

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trying to do things.

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You can be part of that.

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Make new ones.

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All sorts of opportunities.

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And I think the
prospects for the future

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are not too bad when you think
of people's actual attitudes.

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And the way those
attitudes could

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be melded into activist and
political and other programs

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to bring about
changes in society.

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So I don't think there's a
real shortage of opportunity.

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I mean, there are all sorts
of efforts to atomize people,

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keep you alone.

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That's one of the functions
of social media incidentally.

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You sit alone with--
whatever it is-- your device

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and you think you have friends
in Indonesia and so on.

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But you're really separated
from the people around you.

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Atomization is a very important
way of controlling people,

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because you can only do
things if you work together.

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So when you're all
separated, that's great.

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Then, those who really run
things, they do get together.

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They don't sit around
looking at iPads, and so on.

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So you can keep the population--

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In fact, that's one of the main
things consumerism is about.

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You take a look at the history
of the advertising industry.

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It's quite interesting.

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The huge advertising and
public relations industry

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developed in the freest
countries in the world,

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in Britain and the United
States about a century ago.

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And the reason was pretty clear.

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It was often stated.

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People had won enough
freedom, so that you

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couldn't control them by force.

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So you had to control
them in other ways.

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And the best way
of controlling them

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is what was called
convincing them

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to be concerned with the
superficial things of life,

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like consumption.

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So if you can get
to a stage where--

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thinking of my granddaughter.

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Teenage girls on a
Saturday afternoon.

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The best thing they can think of
doing is walking through a mall

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and looking at things
they can't buy.

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That's great.

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When you get to a
society like that,

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you've got people under control.

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And there's some
pretty obvious things

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that are never discussed,
like you've all

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heard 10 million times about
the wonders of free market

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societies.

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But almost no one tells
you that the business world

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hates free market society.

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And in fact, they spend hundreds
of billion dollars a year

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to undermine markets.

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It's called advertising.

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Anyone who has studied
economics knows

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that markets-- the
marvels of markets

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are based on informed consumers
making rational choices.

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Then, you study the mathematics
and you make up the models,

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and so on.

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Take a look at the real world.

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Hundreds of billions of
dollars are spent every year

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to ensure that uninformed
people make irrational choices.

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It's called advertising.

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If you had a market society.

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If, say, Ford Motor
Company has cars to sell,

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what they would do is say,
here are the characteristics

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of our cars.

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Small ad on television.

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Here's the characteristics.

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Here's what Consumer
Reports says about it.

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That's not what they do.

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What they do is try
to create illusions,

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so you will be uninformed and
make an irrational choice.

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In fact, while the
economics department

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is talking about
rational choice models

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and so on, with
informed consumers,

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the business world is trying
to make sure it doesn't happen.

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00:08:01,314 --> 00:08:04,417
Of course, that's the
thing that has the effect.

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Speaking of silencing,
how much do you

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hear about this in
economics courses?

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Or in the general discussion?

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It's not deep.

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It's not profound.

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It's not quantum physics.

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We all know it.

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It's right in front of our
eyes, but it's kept silent.

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And those are the kind of things
you have to break through with.

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MICHEL DEGRAFF: Thank
you so much, Noam.

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That was wonderful. [applause]