David Edwards
British political writer who specializes in the analysis of corporate media.
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There is often no greater obstacle to freedom than the assumption that it has already been attained.
When modern men and women insist that they feel completely free in their work, they are in a sense telling the truth, for the triumph of conformity lies in the crushing of all resistance, all experience of conflict.
The real choice is between obedience and expulsion. For this reason, there is a powerful tendency for people to want to believe that their thoughts and behavior at work are voluntary—the alternative, of perceiving the actual conflict, is simply too painful. Indeed, this struggle with conformity will be painful to the extent to which individuals are aware that it is real, to the extent to which they are aware of their own conflicting inner needs, thoughts and desires. A person will suffer more intensely the more he or she is strong and independent. Given the apparent hopelessness of resistance, there is a powerful and continuous incentive for individuals to become less aware of their own feelings, beliefs and needs. Indeed the only rational solution for an individual may often be to become dead inside, to become alienated from his or her feelings and desires.
Is it Chomsky’s intellectual competence which deserts him when he criticizes the powerful, or is it the willingness of Chomsky’s critics to perceive that competence which deserts them?
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