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Powers and Prospects: Reflections on Human Nature & the Social Order
Chomsky brings together his thoughts on topics ranging from language and human nature to the Middle East settlement and the place of East Timor in the New World Order. A must read for anyone interested in Chomsky.
330 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
45 people are currently reading
1471 people want to read
About the author
Noam Chomsky
978 books17.4k followersAvram Noam Chomsky is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, and politics. In addition to his work in linguistics, since the 1960s Chomsky has been an influential voice on the American left as a consistent critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, and corporate influence on political institutions and the media.
Born to Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants (his father was William Chomsky) in Philadelphia, Chomsky developed an early interest in anarchism from alternative bookstores in New York City. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania. During his postgraduate work in the Harvard Society of Fellows, Chomsky developed the theory of transformational grammar for which he earned his doctorate in 1955. That year he began teaching at MIT, and in 1957 emerged as a significant figure in linguistics with his landmark work Syntactic Structures, which played a major role in remodeling the study of language. From 1958 to 1959 Chomsky was a National Science Foundation fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study. He created or co-created the universal grammar theory, the generative grammar theory, the Chomsky hierarchy, and the minimalist program. Chomsky also played a pivotal role in the decline of linguistic behaviorism, and was particularly critical of the work of B.F. Skinner.
An outspoken opponent of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, which he saw as an act of American imperialism, in 1967 Chomsky rose to national attention for his anti-war essay "The Responsibility of Intellectuals". Becoming associated with the New Left, he was arrested multiple times for his activism and placed on President Richard M. Nixon's list of political opponents. While expanding his work in linguistics over subsequent decades, he also became involved in the linguistics wars. In collaboration with Edward S. Herman, Chomsky later articulated the propaganda model of media criticism in Manufacturing Consent, and worked to expose the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. His defense of unconditional freedom of speech, including that of Holocaust denial, generated significant controversy in the Faurisson affair of the 1980s. Chomsky's commentary on the Cambodian genocide and the Bosnian genocide also generated controversy. Since retiring from active teaching at MIT, he has continued his vocal political activism, including opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq and supporting the Occupy movement. An anti-Zionist, Chomsky considers Israel's treatment of Palestinians to be worse than South African–style apartheid, and criticizes U.S. support for Israel.
Chomsky is widely recognized as having helped to spark the cognitive revolution in the human sciences, contributing to the development of a new cognitivistic framework for the study of language and the mind. Chomsky remains a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, U.S. involvement and Israel's role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and mass media. Chomsky and his ideas are highly influential in the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements. Since 2017, he has been Agnese Helms Haury Chair in the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona.
Born to Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants (his father was William Chomsky) in Philadelphia, Chomsky developed an early interest in anarchism from alternative bookstores in New York City. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania. During his postgraduate work in the Harvard Society of Fellows, Chomsky developed the theory of transformational grammar for which he earned his doctorate in 1955. That year he began teaching at MIT, and in 1957 emerged as a significant figure in linguistics with his landmark work Syntactic Structures, which played a major role in remodeling the study of language. From 1958 to 1959 Chomsky was a National Science Foundation fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study. He created or co-created the universal grammar theory, the generative grammar theory, the Chomsky hierarchy, and the minimalist program. Chomsky also played a pivotal role in the decline of linguistic behaviorism, and was particularly critical of the work of B.F. Skinner.
An outspoken opponent of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, which he saw as an act of American imperialism, in 1967 Chomsky rose to national attention for his anti-war essay "The Responsibility of Intellectuals". Becoming associated with the New Left, he was arrested multiple times for his activism and placed on President Richard M. Nixon's list of political opponents. While expanding his work in linguistics over subsequent decades, he also became involved in the linguistics wars. In collaboration with Edward S. Herman, Chomsky later articulated the propaganda model of media criticism in Manufacturing Consent, and worked to expose the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. His defense of unconditional freedom of speech, including that of Holocaust denial, generated significant controversy in the Faurisson affair of the 1980s. Chomsky's commentary on the Cambodian genocide and the Bosnian genocide also generated controversy. Since retiring from active teaching at MIT, he has continued his vocal political activism, including opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq and supporting the Occupy movement. An anti-Zionist, Chomsky considers Israel's treatment of Palestinians to be worse than South African–style apartheid, and criticizes U.S. support for Israel.
Chomsky is widely recognized as having helped to spark the cognitive revolution in the human sciences, contributing to the development of a new cognitivistic framework for the study of language and the mind. Chomsky remains a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, U.S. involvement and Israel's role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and mass media. Chomsky and his ideas are highly influential in the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements. Since 2017, he has been Agnese Helms Haury Chair in the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
November 6, 2013
Arguably the greatest living public intellectual
June 5, 2009
Typically illuminating.
September 25, 2013
CHOMSKY DOWN UNDER
First published in 1996, "Powers and Prospects" appears to be a collection of talks that Chomsky gave while visiting Australia at the behest of the campaign against the Indonesian invasion and annexation of East Timor.
"Writers and Intellectual Responsibility" updates an earlier essay on the same subject. Chomskys point is that "[t]he responsibility of the writer as a moral agent is to try to bring the truth about matters of human significance to an audience that can do something about them." He draws as examples the atrocities that occurred in East Timor and Cambodia at almost the same time and of roughly similar dimensions relative to population. The contrast between media coverage and moral outrage regarding events in Cambodia, and the media black hole that the events in East Timor disappeared into, is doubly disgusting when one takes into account that the Indonesian dictator was a US ally, supplied with US aid and weaponry (and when congress cut that other Western countries took up the slack). It would have been possible for the U.S. and the West to have brought to a halt the atrocities in East Timor (as in fact happened in 1999 though nearly twenty-five years after Indonesia invaded). Instead Government and media outrage was focused on Cambodia, where leverage was approaching zero, and the culprits were ostensibly Communist.
"Goals and Visions" reflects on the need to be pragmatic about distinguishing goals from what is, more or less, immediately possible in a given context, and the need to have a vision regarding how a decent and fair society might function. "Democracy and Markets in the New World Order" is a cogent summary of post "Cold War" developments in the economic sphere. "The Middle East Settlement: Its Sources and Contours" is a summary of the early stages of the "peace" process, prescient in that Chomskys appreciation what was happening and of how it would evolve has been largely, and rather depressingly, confirmed by subsequent events. "The Great Powers and Human Rights: the Case of East Timor" and "East Timor and World Order", the last two essays in the collection, are directly relevant to the situation in East Timor, and describe events there within a global context.
Prefacing all the essays outlined above are two essays on Language and Linguistics that frankly appear out of place. I suspect there is a minimal amount of correlation between an interest in global affairs and linguistics; it is certainly not necessary. No doubt someone who reads it for the linguistics will end up doing some interesting and unexpected reading. The majority who will read this primarily for Chomskys analysis of global affairs, and whose knowledge of academic level linguistics is somewhat spartan, will find themselves scratching their heads. That small criticism to one side, there are a number of excellent essays in this collection, some of a very high standard and well worth reading.
First published in 1996, "Powers and Prospects" appears to be a collection of talks that Chomsky gave while visiting Australia at the behest of the campaign against the Indonesian invasion and annexation of East Timor.
"Writers and Intellectual Responsibility" updates an earlier essay on the same subject. Chomskys point is that "[t]he responsibility of the writer as a moral agent is to try to bring the truth about matters of human significance to an audience that can do something about them." He draws as examples the atrocities that occurred in East Timor and Cambodia at almost the same time and of roughly similar dimensions relative to population. The contrast between media coverage and moral outrage regarding events in Cambodia, and the media black hole that the events in East Timor disappeared into, is doubly disgusting when one takes into account that the Indonesian dictator was a US ally, supplied with US aid and weaponry (and when congress cut that other Western countries took up the slack). It would have been possible for the U.S. and the West to have brought to a halt the atrocities in East Timor (as in fact happened in 1999 though nearly twenty-five years after Indonesia invaded). Instead Government and media outrage was focused on Cambodia, where leverage was approaching zero, and the culprits were ostensibly Communist.
"Goals and Visions" reflects on the need to be pragmatic about distinguishing goals from what is, more or less, immediately possible in a given context, and the need to have a vision regarding how a decent and fair society might function. "Democracy and Markets in the New World Order" is a cogent summary of post "Cold War" developments in the economic sphere. "The Middle East Settlement: Its Sources and Contours" is a summary of the early stages of the "peace" process, prescient in that Chomskys appreciation what was happening and of how it would evolve has been largely, and rather depressingly, confirmed by subsequent events. "The Great Powers and Human Rights: the Case of East Timor" and "East Timor and World Order", the last two essays in the collection, are directly relevant to the situation in East Timor, and describe events there within a global context.
Prefacing all the essays outlined above are two essays on Language and Linguistics that frankly appear out of place. I suspect there is a minimal amount of correlation between an interest in global affairs and linguistics; it is certainly not necessary. No doubt someone who reads it for the linguistics will end up doing some interesting and unexpected reading. The majority who will read this primarily for Chomskys analysis of global affairs, and whose knowledge of academic level linguistics is somewhat spartan, will find themselves scratching their heads. That small criticism to one side, there are a number of excellent essays in this collection, some of a very high standard and well worth reading.
September 30, 2016
It’s hard not to sound like a broken record when talking about Noam Chomsky. What can we say that hasn’t been said countless times before? The man has had such an influence and his books are simply imperative reading for any human being. Powers and Prospects collects Chomsky’s lectures in Australia in the 1990s which were supposed to cover East-Timor. But we get so much more.
Unfortunately, the first two chapters have Chomsky either at his most philosophical or academic, and they’re a bit difficult to follow. These deal with human knowledge and linguistics. As far as I could understand, Chomsky makes the point that the human language is just a “poorly” designed software to communicate the language and images we create in our heads, topics discussed extensively in Stephen Pinker books (which are based on Chosmky’s work). After the first two chapters, the bulk is dedicated to topics all related to the crisis in East-Timor.
Like most of his books, this one is a tour de force as Chosmky discusses a wide range of subjects ranging from the responsibility of intellectuals and the double standards we apply to them depending on what position they take on their country, the meddling us the US in foreign countries’ affairs and trying to promote the right kind of Democracy (Nicaragua and Indonesia are just some examples), how US policy is the opposite of popular preference (and yes, that includes Clinton's policies), the problems facing the middle east and Palestine, and a thorough discussion of the crisis in East-Timor and how it’s fueled by American greed and fear of communism. What Chomsky stresses throughout is that, especially in the case of East-Timor, the problem is easily solved as long as the population puts pressure on the US to withdraw. At least that's what I could gather on a single reading, because Chomsky’s writing is so dense and detailed that we would benefit from repeated readings to uncover the layers of this onion.
Noam Chomky’s books are vital because they improve our understanding of the world around us. Powers and Prospects is no different.
Unfortunately, the first two chapters have Chomsky either at his most philosophical or academic, and they’re a bit difficult to follow. These deal with human knowledge and linguistics. As far as I could understand, Chomsky makes the point that the human language is just a “poorly” designed software to communicate the language and images we create in our heads, topics discussed extensively in Stephen Pinker books (which are based on Chosmky’s work). After the first two chapters, the bulk is dedicated to topics all related to the crisis in East-Timor.
Like most of his books, this one is a tour de force as Chosmky discusses a wide range of subjects ranging from the responsibility of intellectuals and the double standards we apply to them depending on what position they take on their country, the meddling us the US in foreign countries’ affairs and trying to promote the right kind of Democracy (Nicaragua and Indonesia are just some examples), how US policy is the opposite of popular preference (and yes, that includes Clinton's policies), the problems facing the middle east and Palestine, and a thorough discussion of the crisis in East-Timor and how it’s fueled by American greed and fear of communism. What Chomsky stresses throughout is that, especially in the case of East-Timor, the problem is easily solved as long as the population puts pressure on the US to withdraw. At least that's what I could gather on a single reading, because Chomsky’s writing is so dense and detailed that we would benefit from repeated readings to uncover the layers of this onion.
Noam Chomky’s books are vital because they improve our understanding of the world around us. Powers and Prospects is no different.
September 17, 2020
This book is worth reading for the chapter on Isreal-Palestine (chapter 6) alone. This book does a good job grounding the case with recent historical examples that the US only applies international rules strategically and not out of a sense of real ethics.
Chomsky is a brilliant political mind, and I cant recommend his writings enough!
Chomsky is a brilliant political mind, and I cant recommend his writings enough!
March 21, 2015
מחשבות על הסדר החברתי. סיכום של סידרת ראיונות שנערכה עם הפרופסור בנושאים של סדר חברתי. על הרחבת הפערים בין עשירים ועניים ועל מדיניות החוץ האמריקאית במזרח טימור. מתקפת מחץ שמתאימה גם היום למרות שעברו כמעט 10 שנים מאז פרסום הספר והראיונות עימו.
April 30, 2021
Finally finished it. Moved house so didn't have much time but it was an informative read as usual. Solidarity to the people of East Timor! Fuck usa
April 26, 2024
My first reading of a Noam Chomsky book and the title was picked at random from the library shelf. Have to admit that the first two chapters sort of went over my head due to my lack of indepth understanding of the language development-related content. However, the rest of the book was eye-opening. As someone who already had a vague suspicion of how the politics of this world worked, Mr. Chomsky's clear and straighforward style of writing made much sense. I will recommend reading works of this author.
December 31, 2020
Chomsky is a genius, not doubt. But this book is a collection of texts that not really go well together. Looking forward to trying another one.
August 30, 2022
Some intriguing talks on East Timor, Israel-Palestine, social order, and US interventions. This collection looks at how language influences policy, and the roles of power in global/geopolitical conflicts. Never too much Chomsky in the reading list.
May 10, 2013
Always provocative and thought provoking
Want to read
October 21, 2013soogood
Read
February 10, 2015a ggod book
August 21, 2016
Reflexões bastante abrangentes sobre política externa americana. Noam como todo bom intelectual de esquerda, é ótimo no diagnóstico e péssimo na prescrição do remédio.
August 14, 2018
Never has a book depressed me more while also being well worth the time.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews