Community & Government
Turning Truth Into Activism
Lesson time 07:02 min
Stop doomscrolling and start thinking for yourself. Noam Chomsky rallies each of us to engage proactively in creating a better future, one that is driven by justice, equality, and sustainability. Noam won’t tell you whom to listen to or how to act—but he will help you discover the truth for yourself.
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Topics include: Common Goals Today; What inspires Noam about the Future
Independent Thinking and Media’s Invisible Powers
Renowned scholar, linguist, and political activist Noam Chomsky explores the dark side of media. Learn to cut through propaganda, defend against manipulation, and control what you consume.
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- You don't have to talk truth to power. You don't have to tell the CEO of ExxonMobil that use of fossil fuels is going to destroy humans. He's known that for 40 years. You have to talk to the powerless. And you don't talk truth to them. We don't own the truth. We do our best, you know. What you have to do is try to get the powerless to think for themselves. [MUSIC PLAYS] NARRATOR: Noam Chomsky's work had been academic. Then he got into the streets and into people's living rooms, all in his lifelong search for the truth, which, by his own admission, is not absolute. With the Vietnam War, Noam once again took a very different position from the status quo. - When you began to speak against the war, it was based on the idea that the US went in there with the best of intentions, but we failed. But we meant to do well, and we tried to save them. And you were saying something very different. - You take a look at scholarship and media, and the general understanding is it was a war to protect South Vietnam from North Vietnamese aggression. - With a bold series of raids during the last three days, the enemy in Vietnam has demolished the myth that Allied military strength controls that country. - It's totally false. It was a war against South Vietnam which virtually destroyed it. And it was no defense of democracy or anything else. I did realize at that time that you can't just stop. You've got to get into this. It's going to get worse and worse. So I started trying to give talks of it literally in somebody's living room. Maybe in a church with a couple of people. You couldn't break through the propaganda in the media. You could see it changing over the years. I think it's largely an effect of the activism of the 1960s and its aftermath. There's been enormous changes since the 60s. It didn't come by magic. A large part of the country has just changed, as it has on women's rights, civil rights. Came by a lot of popular activism in the streets and organizing. Students, young people were in the forefront. [MUSIC PLAYS] NARRATOR: Decades later, Noam Chomsky is still identifying where we need to speak up to those in power. - What do you consider to be the common goal or goals that people should rally around this decade? - What people should be worried about, institutional structures which are directed to profit and power for the few. Doesn't matter what happens to the many. One very important change that's taken place is simply the decline of unions. When you're in a group of interacting people who have common interests and concerns, you can develop opinions. When you're sort of isolated, you can't think things through and figure things out. NARRATOR: Noam's focus on the many instead of the few brings us to one of the most urgent and collective problems we've ever faced. - And right now it's leading to the point where organized human life on Earth is severely endangered. - May ...
About the Instructor
Dive into the invisible powers of media with Noam Chomsky. One of the most influential thinkers of our time, he’s challenged the mainstream narratives of media, corporations, and governments—for generations. Now he’s connecting his long-standing theories to the issues we care most about today. Get his cutting insights into the powers and perils of social media, AI, and disinformation in a society set up to manipulate.
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Noam Chomsky
Renowned scholar, linguist, and political activist Noam Chomsky explores the dark side of media. Learn to cut through propaganda, defend against manipulation, and control what you consume.
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