By Bryan Thomson
On Tuesday, April 22nd, the Gender Research Institute of Dartmouth hosted Booker Prize-winning English poet John Berger and Noam Chomsky, an MIT professor and acclaimed intellectual as part of the ‘Times of Crisis’ lecture series. Berger first submitted to Dartmouth an enigmatic and poetic recording on the limiting nature of capitalism in modern society, and Chomsky then reflected on what Berger stated.
In his reflection, Berger described what he considers a new type of global tyranny. In a similar vein as the now-infamous arguments made by Karl Marx in his Communist Manifesto and later echoed by Jalal Al-I Ahmad in his 20th century work Occidentosis, Berger sees a distinct divide between an impoverished, exporting East and a greedy, exploitational West. This dichotomous divide between classes and societies creates what Berger labels a worldwide capitalist prison, wherein the walls no longer keep prisoners from escaping, but rather stop the world’s poor from entering the protected lands of the rich. The conspiring powers, no longer governmental, but instead transnational and economic, attempt to dissuade rebellion through empty talk of human rights, growth and democracy, while in reality they desire complacency through passive uncertainty.
Though the capitalist prison presents a massive threat to sustainability and egalitarian living, Berger argues the era is no more unprecedented than any others, since every significant change is ‘unprecedented.’ He ultimately claims that, in order to break the passive acceptance of today’s tyrannical economic oppression, the world’s ‘prisoners’ must find liberty locally, “in the depths of the prison,” and thus break free of the current sedative state of being.
The lauded intellectual, linguist, logician, questionably labeled ‘anarcho-syndicalist libertarian,’ and MIT professor Noam Chomsky skyped in to reflect on Berger’s speech. In his response, Chomsky delved into the various threats to humanity that he argues, do, in fact, make this era unprecedented. Professor Chomsky summarized the state of the global capitalist structure as having, unnoticed and unquestioned, but massive, systemic failures. The protectionist and universally harmful nature of NAFTA, Alan Greenspan’s claims that worker insecurity is beneficial for the economy and the often exorbitant returns to investors have been the forces driving the world toward collapse. The systematic NSA surveillance is demonstrative of a government desperate to use security as a means of retaining control, not actually bettering its citizens’ lives. Even environmentally, the elites have only desired quick profits and ignored long-term concerns. Not since the Cretaceous mass extinction event have species been dying so quickly. Global issues of nuclear threat, global climate change and impulsive increases in executive power over democratic debate exacerbate the challenges of the classist struggle the world is undergoing, Chomsky contends.
The proliferation of communication technologies that have saturated virtually every rung of every society in the world now make local issues international. Berger believes our salvation can come through cyberspace – as information is empowering and allows those alive now to “stand shoulder to shoulder with the [wronged] dead.” At the end of his response, Professor Chomsky raised a call for action on the part of student groups and grassroots movements to take on the existing power structure that has allowed so many issues to arise. Much like the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s or British Suffrage movement, modern challenges demand local and organized action. Taken in Berger’s global, trans-generational context, Chomsky’s call for action becomes one that demands historical awareness and effective global communication.
Both Berger and Chomsky made clear their opinions that we are truly living in a time of crisis, and that such a time demands effective action. Whether or not the reader believes in the fundamental evils and reach of a corrupt, transnational Capitalist prison, Chomsky and Berger together create a convincing argument for awareness of global affairs and current issues. In the 21st century’s age of information, dissemination of opinions, organization of opposition and collective action on socioeconomic and multi-national issues are more feasible than ever before.