The Stale Defeatism of the “Chomsky/Carlin Thesis”

What do Noam Chomsky, arguably the Left’s greatest living intellectual, and the late George Carlin, one of the United States’ most beloved comedians have in common? They both make convincing indictments of the United States in their respective academic work and comedy routines. The idea that the United States is irredeemable and controlled by special interest groups, Wall Street, and Corporate America is the linchpin of this Manichean mindset. Even though Chomsky believes change is possible (while Carlin asserts that the United States’ redemption is a lost cause), they remain disgruntled citizens. Many American actors and musicians, including ones I know, share this worldview. They choose to live in a nation they claim to find reprehensible, one that has blessed some of them with success unattainable elsewhere, rather than reside in a country that seeks to live up to their Marxist or Leninist sentiments. Additionally, though they put forward many criticisms of the United States, almost everyone who subscribes to this mindset is short on solutions other than demanding a revolution they are too lazy to start.

Many of my music industry associates deify Chomsky, who, like Karl Marx, is a conflict theorist. When my music career faltered as New York’s finest recording studios closed and were converted into condominiums in the early 2000s, I decided to take control of my life situation. In 2004, I took a government job while remaining partially in the music business, relegating playing the bass guitar to something I did in my spare time. After a 35-year music career, this was not an easy decision. I also earned my college degree in 2017; by 2023, my annual income had doubled. Many of my musician friends did not take similar steps and are now not doing well financially. Rather than take some of the blame for their predicament, they find it easier to blame the country or its government. They constructed a narrative that shifted responsibility away from themselves and ascribed the blame to shadow forces allegedly controlling the United States of America.

By latching onto the ideas of Chris Hedges, Carlin, Chomsky, and Democracy Now, these disgruntled individuals cobbled together a bleak and objectively inaccurate worldview. Very little of their own thinking was involved. I have labeled the collective viewpoints they espouse the “Chomsky/Carlin thesis.” The first part of it is the asinine view that the United States government is not a democracy but, rather, a kleptocracy. Second is the idea that both political parties are the same and controlled by Corporate America and special interest groups. Flowing from this view is the claim that voting is farcical, and participation in the democratic process is a waste of time. (To be clear, Chomsky would not endorse this idea of not voting, which is the Carlinesque aspect of this idiotic ideology.) Third, they claim that the United States is founded on slavery, genocide, and wars of hegemony. For them, the United States stands alone as the national personification of evil.