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IF WE CHOOSE, WE CAN
LIVE IN A WORLD OF
COMFORTING ILLUSION
NOAM CHOMSKY (1928–)
IN CONTEXT
BRANCH
EthicsAPPROACH
UniversalismBEFORE
c.380 BCE In The Republic,
Plato claims that many of
us live in a world of illusion.1739 David Hume publishes
A Treatise of Human Nature.
Though an empiricist, he
claims that there must be
some fixed principles from
which morality derives.1785 Immanuel Kant, in
his Groundwork of the
Metaphysic of Morals,
argues that morality should
be based on universality.
Early 20th century John
Dewey argues that politics
is the shadow cast on society
by big business.1971 John Rawls revives
Kant’s notion of universality
in his A Theory of Justice.A
lthough originally famous
for his work in linguistics,
Noam Chomsky is today
best known for his analyses of
political power. Since the publication
of his first political book, American
Power and the New Mandarins, in
1969, he has claimed that there is
often a mismatch between the way
that states exert power and the
rhetorical claims that they make. He
maintains that rhetorical claims bygovernments are not by themselves
sufficient for us to reach the truth
about political power. Governments
may speak the language of “facts”
as a way of justifying their actions,
but unless their claims are
supported by evidence, then they
are only illusions, and the actions
to which they lead lack justification.
If we are to understand more clearly
how states operate, it is necessary
to move beyond the battle between... we are choosing
to live in a world of
coc mforting illusion..... look at the evidence
for what our government
actually does.... apply the same ethical
principles that we apply
to other governments
to our own.To break with this
illusion we need to...If we assume that
our own government is
naturally more ethical
than other governments...