The Myth of American Idealism (published in October 2024) will undoubtedly be Noam Chomsky's final work - and it was accomplished with a collaborator, Nathan Robinson. Chomsky will be 97 in December 2025 and after a massive stroke, his public life has come to an end.
In some respects the work is a summation of the ideas and interactions that have characterized his work since the late 1960's when he began to write about power structures, systems, and the nature of the American state. The Myth of American Idealism deals largely with American foreign policy and the economic interests that drive it, as well as the mechanisms utilised by the American Empire to shape thinking and enforce public compliance. In other words, apart from a critique of foreign policy, it's an expose of how the media functions and affects public thinking.
This is in keeping with such works as Manufactured Consent (1988) and How the World Works (2011), just as his critique of foreign policy harks back to earlier works such as Hegemony or Survival (2003) and Towards a New Cold War (1982).
In this work, there are chapters dealing with US policy toward the Global South - what used to be called the Third World. This touches on how the US has sought to dominate Latin America since the late 19th century and the many invasions and interventions of the US military. The book is helpful in that it provides a summary and helps the reader apprehend the broad strokes of this history. It is by no means comprehensive, and there are times when my eyebrows were raised at what was omitted or simply mentioned in passing.
The Indochina Wars receive a chapter, which for a man of Chomsky's generation continues to loom large - even through Vietnam is becoming a more distant memory in the public mind. This is all the more the case as the war itself remains somewhat nebulous as opposed to the common perception that World War II was more straightforward and unambiguous - a cut and dry battle of good versus evil. This isn't actually true, but that's how it is perceived.
And while Chomsky (and Robinson) certainly dwell on US atrocities and the magnitude of the crime that was Vietnam (as well as Laos and Cambodia) I felt somewhat disappointed. There was so much more that could have been said - that should have been said. It was by no means of whitewash of US crimes (as is all too typical) but the sheer horror and grotesque nature of US actions if properly elaborated should leave the reader (assuming the presence of a conscience) literally ill. There's no sugar-coating what the US did there and thus it's all the more offensive when I see veterans attempting to garner accolade and expressions of gratitude out in public. A deep study of the events leaves one unsettled and disturbed at best, and yet more likely filled with revulsion and indignation.
Ironically in a recent discussion I was reminded of a Wonder Years episode - the nostalgic sitcom that appeared on television in the late 1980's and early 1990's. I don't actually recommend the show as it pushes the envelope a bit in terms of content. On that note, it's one thing if a certain conversation is required for the story to be told, but if it's gratuitous I become put off, and in some respects a show like The Wonder Years is a celebration of American post-war decadence and its bankruptcy. But I digress.
In the final season of the show a family friend returns from Vietnam and while he's all smiles, it's clear he's traumatised, burdened by what he's seen and maybe what he's done. He tries to return to old patterns but finds himself struggling and in the climax of the episode we find him outside the bleachers of a high school football game. He can't be around all the people, and retreating to an isolated bench he has stripped down to his underwear. When found, he says (amid tears) that his 'clothes don't seem to fit any more'. His friends comfort him and the voice-over reflection speaks of him being a hero.
Obviously it's just a television show but the episode was realistic enough in respect to the experience of young soldiers returning to American suburbia from Vietnam. So the question I would have for such persons is this - does their shame, confusion, and guilt continue? Did the young men who were drafted (or ignorantly volunteered) come back filled with remorse and thus remained (in subsequent years) reticent to re-live or celebrate their participation in the war? That tells me they have a conscience and learned something even if (perhaps) it's something short of Christian repentance.
Or, as the decades slipped by did they re-write the history in their own minds, make excuses, allow their confusion and bitterness to become prideful defiance and would we find them in the 2010's and 2020's walking around with a 'Vietnam Veteran' logo on their hat and stickers on their car? Such people have hardened their hearts and lack conscience and are worthy of neither praise nor respect.
The next chapter deals with 9/11 and Afghanistan and does an adequate job touching on the exploitative nature of America's deceitful war and attempt to install a puppet regime. The Chomsky work fails to address some of the salient questions about 9/11 as well as the fact that the US had grand designs on Central Asia and was looking to invade Afghanistan well before the autumn of 2001. But certainly the reader is left with an impression of American criminality and violence.
It should be noted at this point that the book also spends a fair bit of time addressing the nature of terrorism and how powerful Western nations and their media machines have manipulated the use of the term. By any definition the United States is the chief purveyor of terrorism in the world but we are conditioned to think that while the US makes miscalculations and occasional errors, its motives are always pure and just and thus it is only other nations that resort to terrorism and war crimes.
Iraq receives a complete chapter which provided a helpful revisiting of that sordid chapter in late 20th and early 21st century American history, and while something of the violence and horror is communicated, it still falls short and in summary fashion glosses over several key and terrible events.
The history of Israel post-1948 is admittedly complicated and filled with endless episodes of deceit and violence and as such the work can only focus on the major events, but it is helpful in discussing the nature and extent of the US-Israel relationship. The later chapter on the Rules Based Order is also applicable in that the 'rules' that apply to other nations simply do not apply to Israel and it has become largely unthinkable to speak in such terms. With Trump in the White House, the Israelis have an especially close ally, and both regimes are working to clampdown on any suggestion of dissent within the United States.
Hypocrisy somehow seems an inadequate term to describe the degree of shameless double-standard when it comes to how the US (and Israel) deal with other nations, even allies. Appeals to international law and rules have hitherto worked effectively to steer public opinion on these questions. Trump refuses to play the game and thus has removed what was once a potent propaganda tool in the hands of the ruling class. His followers embrace his pseudo-iconoclasm which is in reality nothing substantively new, but simply a removal of the hypocrite's mask, revealing the sheer ugliness and brutality that has always been present in American Imperialism. These arguments and appeals normally function as narrative mechanisms allowing the ruling class to convince themselves that what they are doing is right and virtuous. It is undoubtedly the case that Trumpism has engendered a real crisis not just for policy but on an existential level as the ruling class must reckon with the unmasked mafia-like nature of the American Empire, even as they try to convince themselves otherwise by means of self-deceitful psychological exercises ('This is not who we are') and appeals to their own white-washed revisionism.
I think some of the recent commentary offered by the likes of Jeffrey Sachs is probably the most revealing. His is unequivocal in his condemnation of Trump and critical of his foolish policies and yet at the same time cannot deny that there's always been more than a dose of mendacity, hypocrisy, and criminality at work within the American system and how it functions in and interacts with the wider world.
Additional chapters deal with China, exposing US militarism directed toward the Asian nation even while it consistently paints Beijing as the aggressor. It is refreshing to find others grasping the fact that almost everything the US accuses China of doing, are the very things the US does and has been doing for decades. Nevertheless for American strategists, China is a threat and its clear the United States is pushing for war. And on that note, Chomsky is one of the few voices that is still (and rightly) sounding the alarm regarding the threat of nuclear war. In reality the present instability has put the world in a more dangerous situation than what it faced during The Cold War (1945-1991). So far we've been spared something like the Cuban Missile Crisis as well as the dangerous scenarios faced in 1973 and 1983. However, should those types of scenarios arise once more, the mechanisms and restraint that prevented nuclear strikes during those very dangerous moments are no longer present. From the period after the 1962 Missile Crisis through the period of Detente and finally during the Gorbachev era, anti-proliferation treaties were signed, leading to restraint and reduced arsenals. Over the past 24 years, these treaties have been one by one been dispensed with - mostly by the United States.
The treatment of Russia and NATO are fair and while not favourable to Moscow, demonstrate that Putin is not insane, nor does he wish to reconstitute the Soviet Union. Rather, he's responding to NATO expansion and part of the problem is that most in the West (and specifically America) don't seem to understand what NATO is and what is has become since the end of the Cold War. It is not some peace-loving defensive alliance that minds it own business.
Environmental concerns are addressed in connection to the nuclear question and while the dangers are dismissed out of hand by the Right, the realities of climate change are becoming acute and self-evident. Regardless of the reason, it's happening and this is combined with another disconcerting trend dismissed by Right-wing voices - the present and growing population crisis. This reality adds another enhanced element to every other question and dilemma. And with some issues (such as the environment) there is an element of circularity, one problem feeds another which in turns amplifies or creates another, leading back to square one and the cycle starts over again with greater intensity. This is leading to migration and greater economic pressures and these cycles are certainly going to not only intensify but have the potential to do so exponentially creating unprecedented crises in the years to come.
To be honest, despite the fact that the book leaves out a great deal and only provides a light treatment of many issues and specific instances - it is a burden to read. It weighs on you. It's crushing. As you progress through it, the magnitude of deceit, criminality, and murder is oppressive and you find yourself almost groaning - it's all rather sickening.
What is the proper response? This is the part of the book that stunned me.
After taking in the full spectrum of what the US Empire is and how it operates, it's difficult to not be filled with moral indignation and yet as Chomsky aptly spells out - the problems and evil associated with this system are immense, almost beyond comprehension. There's no fixing this. There's no reforming this. To me, the only sane and moral response is a total rejection of the whole thing as an abomination.
Were I not a Christian, the only course I could argue for is violent revolution and I will grant that the real communists of our day, the principled disciples of historic Marxism, Leninism, and Trotskyism are willing to say as much - but will also admit the conditions are far from ripe. Their restraint is rooted in the fact that their doctrinal system rests on stages of development and preparation and they will argue that Western Capitalism is near death but not quite there yet. The masses aren't ready and like in the 1930's there's a real danger that proletarian anger can be steered to the Right and an embrace of fascism - which is obviously happening all around us. The threat in Europe is also real.
Their hope is that these catastrophes can be stopped by mass uprising and that this indignation can be channelled into revolution. They're not looking for change to come through the ballot box - the delusional 'revolution' advocated by the likes of Bernie Sanders.
I must say that I was literally stunned to read the book's conclusion and call to action. After elaborating on the nature of the America's Capitalist Empire and the enormity of its corruption and propensity to violence, what does Chomsky call on us to do?
Basically it's get behind the likes of Bernie Sanders and keep working for reform.
It's unbelievable. Sanders as well as figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) have done little more than to steer Left-wing dissidents and the miniscule Far Left fringe back into the Wall Street and Pentagon supporting Democratic Party. What's their advice? Vote for Hillary Clinton. Vote for Joe Biden.
One would think that after watching this kind of thinking and strategy fail over and over again, Chomsky would have something more to say. The Vietnam protests and activism of 1967 and 1968 led to what? - Richard Nixon. Did they learn nothing from LBJ? McGovern? Carter? Mondale? How about Dukakis? They were surely excited about Bill Clinton but apart from some public apologies and acknowledgements of US injustices, he did little more than triangulate and work with the GOP to start the process of dismantling The Great Society, a project now in full swing.
What about Obama? In the end (as the book rightly argues) he was a friend of the Pentagon and Wall Street - in other words a servant of empire. Was Biden any better? Far from it.
And so to argue that real revolution and change will come through the ballot box, left me stunned. The book just laid out what the US does to crush dissent, subvert democracy, and destroy its enemies. Does he really think the Establishment will just sit by and let a Sanders-style Social Democratic movement rise up and overthrow the system?
Sanders isn't even a socialist. He's basically an FDR Democrat, but American politics has shifted so far to the Right (apart from Identity Politics), that figures like FDR would no longer have a place within the Democratic Party and figures like Nixon and the much-mythologized Reagan wouldn't even make through a GOP primary.
At this point some might say - well, Donald Trump is doing it, he's breaking the system, and he was simply voted in. To which I would respond that such a view represents a misunderstanding of Trump and fails to account for his overwhelming support within the GOP. It's one thing for him to find supporters among the working class but when these politicians who rely on the financial support and donations of Wall Street are going along with it all - that reveals that there are some in the corridors of power who support Trump or at least we might say find him useful. In fact he's especially useful given that he's working to destroy social programmes, lower taxes, and cut costs - all to the benefit of these interests, and yet because Trump did it, they don't have to take the blame for the fallout. They can just point to his erratic, delusional, and even psychopathic behaviour. Trump is wreaking havoc on some sectors within the state apparatus, as have other Republican administrations before him. He's simply turned it up a couple of notches and his iconoclastic style leaves many confused and on their back foot. He's breaking things but he's not breaking the foundations of the system. The people who operate on a macro level are reaping a benefit from his campaign and while they may or may not find him a ridiculous and immoral person, they find him useful. The system is changing but it's not facing an existential crisis. The latter is being faced by those apparatchiks and mandarins operating in the system that believed in it - and refused or were incapable of seeing what it really was. This is not to say that Trump is replacing it with something better or more honest.
The system is not going to be broken by means of the ballot box, let along voting for poseurs like Sanders, Warren, and AOC. There's too much at stake. These people are not going to allow their Babel towers to be dismantled by regulation and congressional inquiries. They're not going to just retire in the face of popular resistance. They have already demonstrated a willingness to kill and if necessary they will wipe out whole nations. Either they will have to be forcibly removed and the system broken - or a new order emerges determined to pursue a completely different way and understanding. The other possibility is the system collapses - which is also a real possibility. However, under such conditions a blood-bath may ensue.
Chomsky has apparently (after all these years) learned nothing and this was all the more evident as he spoke in purely materialist terms regarding the human species along with his reflections of intelligent life and evolution.
If this is what he believes then all his moral indignation, and all his talk of justice is just empty rhetoric - a vapour, trying to whisper into the wind.
These concepts are meaningless in a materialist framework, mere words used to describe things that don't actually exist and cannot exist in concrete materialist terms. Under an evolutionary paradigm it is not only sensible but moral for the elite to amass the wealth and resources of the world and to let the weak kill each other and die.
And thus Chomsky's entire career ends with an empty whimper. In the end he has nothing to say and nothing to offer.
And yet it continues to disturb me that this blind fool (I mean that morally as opposed to simple name-calling) has more insight and more of a moral compass than most American Christians - who actually operate as if they believed in the ethics of Evolution and the ideals of Social Darwinism.
Like so many Leftist thinkers, Chomsky's analysis is penetrating. He asks the right questions but has no answers. As a Christian I don't expect him to have any.
The value in his work is in dispelling the myths of the Empire and exposing its evils and corruption. The answer is Christ, the gospel, and the Kingdom that is not of this world. I don't have to provide solutions because there aren't any in this present evil age. We're not going to fix the world. It's not possible and the New Testament gives neither reason nor hope to think that it will become Christianised - whatever that's supposed to mean. Indeed, the picture is one of apostasy and a surviving remnant, of little extant true Christianity present on the Earth when Christ returns.
Christians should read such works and understand they've been lied to and misled by the myriad false teachers which set themselves up as Bible experts, worldview teachers, cultural commentators, ministry leaders, 'conservative' Christian activists, and more often than not, pastors.
The destruction of the American idol is no cause or occasion for despair. In fact it's liberating to realize that we're pilgrims and exiles here and we don't need to play the game, or chase after the empty definitions of 'success' as the world defines it. The faithful do not flourish in Babylon. They survive and bear witness.
Some find the pilgrim notion disconcerting. When everyone in the neighbourhood is out waving their flags for the troops and celebrating the nation on the various holidays - we're not part of that. Such a notion upsets people because contrary to what they've been told, they're not thinking Biblically.
I can read Chomsky's work and while it's burdensome, a great deal of my angst is over the fact that so many of the evil deeds are supported and celebrated by Christians - people that I'm supposed to share in communion with and love as my brethren. This is my dilemma and what gnaws away at my soul.
Chomsky is of course hated by the Right and the leaders of that political faction labour to discredit him so that should someone pick up one of his works (such as this) - the message cannot get through. They are (as it were) inoculated. And that's a shame as such books have real value even if we must reject his conclusions and solutions - which are in any case vain.
In the end, I can highly recommend the work with qualification. It's value is great but limited. My hope is that Christians would read it and have their eyes opened. Returning to the Scripture they would read it anew and pick up on the many teachings they have ignored and explained away. Finally, they would (as I did) repent of nationalist idolatry and American mammonism and wonder how they ever came to be so deceived.