[Peace-discuss] Chomsky: Humanity's survival 'by no means a sure thing'

[C. G. Estabrook]

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Chomsky_Humanitys_survival_by_no_means_0227.html


...Speaking from his office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 
author, scholar and philosopher Noam Chomsky offers a glimpse at what the 
greatest threats to human survival are today, in the context of his 2003 book, 
'Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance.'

Chomsky's full comments are carried in the [linked] video...

"What I mean by that is pretty straightforward," said Chomsky. "Survival is a 
word we all understand. I'd like to know whether there's going to be a world -- 
a decent world -- where, say, my grandchildren can live. That's the question of 
survival.

"The survival of the human species is by no means an obvious thing. There are 
very severe threats to survival. We learn about them all the time. The threat of 
environmental destruction is much too real to put to the side. The threat of 
destruction by weapons of mass destruction -- that has come very close many 
times. We just learned at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, a terminal 
nuclear war was averted by one word by one submarine commander who countermanded 
the order to send off nuclear missiles.

"...So, survival of the species is by no means a sure thing. Decent survival. 
Well, what's hegemony*?  Hegemony has to do with the domination of the 
International system by small sectors of power. At the moment there happens to 
be one superpower, but it does not dominate the rest of the world in all 
dimensions, but overwhelmingly dominates it in one dimension: Namely, the 
military dimension."

"Unfortunately, if you look at the factors that surround hegemony, the short 
term goals to maximize profit, to increase control of the world and so on, and 
ask how those goals will play out, turns out they do threaten survival," said 
Chomsky.

"And, it's a deep problem because the decisions are not irrational within the 
framework of the institutions in which they're being taken," he continued. "But, 
they may be utterly irrational as compared to the likelihood that my 
grandchildren will have a world to live in."

"Across the board, the choice of hegemony or survival is one that we must face 
if we care about our grandchildren," he concludes.

This video was posted to YouTube Feb. 26.
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*hegemony = "the social, cultural, ideological, or economic influence exerted by 
a dominant group"

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