Necessary Illusions

Necessary Illusions is a book by Noam Chomsky about how political power uses propaganda to distort and distract from real issues to maintain confusion and complicity, preventing real democracy from becoming effective. Like many of the titles by Chomsky, such as how Pirates and Emperors comes from Augustine_of_Hippo s City of God and Manufacturing Consent from Walter Lippmann, the title of this book borrows a phrase from an earlier political commentary; in this case, Chomsky quotes from the writings of Reinhold Niebuhr.

The book is based in Chomsky s 1988 Massey Lectures on CBC Radio in Canada and extends his propaganda model to a variety of new situations. Appendices address criticisms of the work and provide additional detail.

As a genre of political thought, parallels exist between Niebuhr s necessary illusions and the noble lies of Leo Strauss and myth making of Niccolo Machiavelli. Likewise, Chomsky s analyses in Necessary Illusions represent a rediscovery of the use of these patterns of power, Chomsky implies to underscore the failure of populations -- particularly in a democracy -- to learn from history in this regard.

= External links =

*[http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/ni/ni.html Full text] (courtesy of Z Magazine )