Chomsky Noam - Internationalism or Extinction

No one but Noam Chomsky so passionately links the twin, man-made threats to organized human existence cataclysmic climate change and nuclear doomsday machines and no previous communications of his warnings and challenge to action has presented them so impressively.

Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower

In his new book, Noam Chomsky writes cogently about the threats to planetary survival that are of growing alarm today. The prospect of human extinction emerged after World War II, the dawn of a new era scientists now term the Anthropocene. Chomsky uniquely traces the duality of existential threats from nuclear weapons and from climate change including how the concerns emerged and evolved, and how the threats can interact with one another. The introduction and accompanying interviews place these threats in a framework of unprecedented corporate global power, which has overtaken nation states ability to control the future and preserve the planet. Chomsky argues for the urgency of international climate and arms agreements, showing how global popular movements are mobilizing to force governments to meet this unprecedented challenge to civilizations survival.

Considered the founder of modern linguistics, Noam Chomsky is one of the most cited scholars in modern history and among the few most influential public intellectuals in the world. He has written more than 100 books, his most recent being Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power. Before coming to the University of Arizona as Laureate Professor of Linguistics in 2017, Chomsky taught at Massachusetts Institute of Technology for 50 years.

Charles Derber is Professor of Sociology at Boston College.

Suren Moodliar is managing editor of Socialism and Democracy.

Paul Shannon is program staff for the Peace and Economic Security program of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).

Co-Edited by Charles Derber and Suren Moodliar

The modern social sciences began in the late 19th century when capitalism was establishing itself as the dominant global system. Social science began as a terrifying awakening: that a militarized, globalizing capitalism was creating the greatest revolution in history, penetrating every part of society with the passions of self-interest and profit and breaking down community and the common good. The universalizing of the market promised universal prosperity but delivered an intertwined sociopathic system of money-making, militarism and environmental destruction now threatening the survival of all life itself.

In the 21st century, only a universalized resistance to this now fully universalized matrix of money, militarism and me-firstism can save humanity. History shows that people can join together under nearly impossible odds to create movements against tyranny for the common good. But when the world faces a universalizing system of madness and extinction, it takes new forms of resistance moving beyond the silo movements for social justice that have emerged notably in the US in recent decades: single-issue movements separated by issue, race, gender, social class, nation and geography. The story of what universalized movements look like, how they are beginning to be organized, how they intersect with each other against the reigning system of power, and how they can grow fast enough to save humanity is the purpose of this series.

The series is publishing works by leading thinkers and activists developing the theory and practice of universalizing resistance. The books are written to engage professors, students, activists and organizers, and citizens who recognize the desperate urgency of a universalizing resistance that can mobilize the general population to build a new global society preserving life with justice.

Published Books

Charles Derber, Welcome to the Revolution: Universalizing Resistance for Social Justice and Democracy in Perilous Times (2017)

Charles Derber, Moving Beyond Fear: Upending Security Tales in Capitalism, Fascism and Democracy (2019)

Yale Magrass and Charles Derber, Glorious Causes: Irrationality in Capitalism, War and Politics (2019)

Noam Chomsky, Internationalism or Extinction (2020)

Planned

Noam Chomsky, Chomsky for Activists

Elisa Batista and Matt Nelson, Presente! Latinx Power Remaking Democracy

Chuck Collins, Disrupting Narratives of Deservedness: Changing the Stories that Justify Economic and Racial Inequality

Charles Derber and Suren Moodliar, After Midnight: How Modern-Day Abolitionism Can Save the Planet

Suren Moodliar, Revolution Has an Address! The Transformative Power of Movement Building Spaces

First published 2020

by Routledge

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2020 Noam Chomsky, Valeria Wasserman Chomsky and the Prospects for Survival with Justice Project

The right of Noam Chomsky to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

The right of Charles Derber, Suren Moodliar, and Paul Shannon to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and the authors of their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this title has been requested

ISBN: 978-0-367-43061-0 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-43058-0 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-003-00103-4 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo

by codeMantra

The urgency of looming extinction cannot be overlooked. It should be a constant focus of programs of education, organization, and activism, and in the background of engagement in all other struggles. But it cannot displace these other concerns, in part because of the critical significance of many other struggles, and also in part because the existential issues cannot be addressed effectively unless there is general awareness and understanding of their urgency. Such awareness and understanding presupposes a much broader sensitivity towards the tribulations and injustices that plague the world a deeper consciousness that can inspire activism and dedication, deeper insight into their roots and linkages. Theres no point calling for militancy when the population is not ready for it, and that readiness has to be created by patient work. That may be frustrating when we consider the urgency of the existential threats, which is very real. But frustrating or not, these preliminary stages cannot be skipped.

Noam Chomsky, December 2018

On a hazy mid-October afternoon, in 2016, just before the fateful November election that would thrust Donald J. Trump into the White House, a large crowd began to gather outside Bostons historic Old South Church. Soon the crowd would reach beyond two blocks. Though all concerned were highly animated by the coming elections, voting was not the only thing on their minds. Some having traveled across national borders, they were there to attend a Chomsky event the generic title for the distinctive, large public lecture and conversation that plays out countless times when the distinguished linguist and public intellectual agrees to address an audience. Indeed, the youthful attendees lining the sidewalk were about to engage with Noam Chomsky much as their grandparents would have some 50 years earlier when he helped launch the public questioning of a still escalating US intervention in Vietnam. Drawing on widely available sources, Chomsky would structure a presentation, composed in eloquent but spare prose, readily accessible in argument and vocabulary, to the vast majority of the audience. If this Chomsky event followed past scripts, it would undoubtedly provide for a lengthy question and answer period in which Noam would field questions, comments and, infrequently, even heckles from the attendees. Each response would likely receive the same calm, considered attention as the main talk itself. The only likely exception would be topics that call on Noam to speak about

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