I had the opportunity to watch Noam Chomsky on DVD and hear Sandeep Pandey (more on him later in the text) speak live this past weekend. A weekend on the left end of thinking if you might.
I am pretty uncomfortable with the anti-corporate types who offer no solutions other than protesting against everything under the sun. So i have diligently kept myself away from the left wing type propaganda bs (fyi...irrespective of what limbaugh and other loons say, i dont consider New York Times or Washington Post to be left wing but to be centrists with left wing social sensibilites). However i was familiar with Noam Chomsky's name and picked up a DVD on him as i had nothing better to do on Friday night (it was that or go around town getting smashed or hooking up with people more smashed than me).
I have seen brilliant people on and off screen, but Noam Chomsky conveys a sense of intelligence on a very different level. If i might, he is to rebellious thought what Richard Feynman is to QED, optics and college level physics. Noam Chomsky's opinions on the role of fear and free media in society are especially worth noting. For example, he makes a very valid point about privatization and how it might acutally defeat the forces that bind us all together as one society. Paraphrasing, just imagine that the social security network is privataized and is fueled mainly by stock options. For you to have enough money when you grow old, your stocks will have to be valuable enough and they can be valuable enough if and only if the companies are doing well which in many cases is tied to lower wages to.....you and your kids. Such a privatization also leads to a situation where you are less likely to care about the old woman on the other side of town as the private pocket of yours is an investment and not a debt towards a common future in a common society.
Interestingly, this DVD was shot in the lead to the Iraq war. I believe the DVD was not released in the US till recently, but i might be wrong. In any case, Noam Chomsky is not particuarly well recieved in the US but is a rock star in Canada and Europe. Noam Chomsky coolly asserts that an insurgency will rise in Iraq. He says this not out of experience of the middle east but a simple analysis of human history towards aggression or perceived aggression on sovereignty. His views on 9/11 are harder to digest for most Americans which he basically views as the first time western style aggression was wrought on the West. So, if your local video store is not a junk video shop and actually stocks sensible titles, watch it. If nothing else, you will learn critical thinking 101.
The other talk i was talking about: Sandeep Pandey. A colorful personality with lots of passion but not an intellectual of Chomsky's caliber. When a grad student at Berkeley, he co-founded Asha for education, a pretty successful charity for education in India. He returned to india as a professor at IIT Kanpur where he stayed for a full 3 semesters before being kicked out for multiple reasons. He organized relief for Babri Masjid riot victims, refused to hold exams for his classes and wanted the students to take the test again and again till they felt satisfied with their performance, rallied behind the univ workers in a wage dispute, refused to work on a Govt of India project on defense related issues, etc. He is now a full time pain in the butt for Coca Cola, BJP and other communal parties and other perceived enemies of the people. He recieved the Magsaysay award a few years back for all his people organization and has been to Indian jails around 51 times for various civil disobedience issues. Despite the number of times he has gone to jail, he is an official part of the government of India. He serves on the Central Advisory Board for Education (CABE) which includes luminaries like Prof.Yashpal, Anil Sadgopal etc.
His talk was on education (CABE) and the anti-coke movement in India. I went to the talk expecting lots of vitriol. However i was pleasantly surprised to see a person who believes in government and its ability to get things done. He just believes that a social movement to act as a royal pain in the neck of the government is necessary to get things moving and not letting things stray. He also believes that it is also necessary to not lose ground to communal forces and becoming an illiberal democracy (i.e. a democracy where the electorate sides with religious nuts or other people who reduce liberty). Though i couldn't agree with half of what he said, it was interesting to see brilliant people give up their "careers" and put time into non-political social work.
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