Recently I read an article from Chomsky in which he spoke of people’s beliefs who have made it into the establishment. He looks at a typical top journalist for the New York Times, for example, and asks what moves this guy to write what he writes. Is he being censored, manipulated by his bosses to write pro-government, pro-corporate articles? Chomsky says no. This guy believes what he’s writing. He’s not lying and he’s not being censored. The journalist’s world view is clearly within that of the dominate culture. He is no radical and he doesn’t think in revolutionary terms and doesn’t seriously question the system. He’s beliefs conform to those of the power elite.
Chomsky says that top journalists are by default conformists. If they weren’t they simply wouldn’t have gotten where they are. They would have been booted out way earlier. The education they go through conditioned and formed them. Throughout his education and career the journalist has been molded into what h is. You could say he brainwashed, though that is misleading. So there’s no need to actively censure your newspapers cus they are by their own will printing what you want them to.
This attitude seems defeatist to me cus it says: you’re a conformer, you’re in the system cus you believe in it, so what can be changed? If the conformers firmly believe in what they’re doing, then there’s no way they’re gonna change. That seems rather hopeless.
Would Chomsky agree to that? There is no way to “convert” the conformists and there’s no use wasting our time trying. Maybe we should concentrate our efforts elsewhere. Maybe itÄs been a mistake and a waste of time thinking we could convince the established if we just tried hard enough, got enough people behind us an had good enough arguments.