Lobster in a Bucket

How the American Empire is like the Italian-American Mafia at least according to Noam Chomsky and David Chase (maybe)

I read Noam Chomsky’s newest book, Hegemony or Survival, over the course of a lazy afternoon last week. I was surprised by the similarities between Tony Soprano’s role in his world and Noam Chomsky’s view of the American government in the world, particularly as it is manifested be the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush.

Consider(long),

1. Tony is willing to do anything, I repeat anything for the sake of his family. In his moral universe it is impossible to both be acting immorally and in his family’s best interest. Noam Chomsky delights in arguing that America has supported the most despotic of Third World rulers for the sake of protecting America’s family, the people from Communism and the supposed Axis of Evil.

2. Tony has a complicated idea of “family.” It’s not just those innocent people that he lives with, that God gave him to protect, his wife and children. His “family” also includes that murky web of business associates that Tony is unswervingly loyal too. Even when they mess up, and do horrible things, as long as they didn’t mess with Tony, Tony defends them. In the same way, Chomsky argues that America has its people, but it also has a web of alliances with countries all over the world, it’s “Coalition of the Willing” associates. These people America is unswervingly loyal to, provided they are loyal to us. If they betray us…well one need merely look at the case of Sadaam Hussein.

3. Tony has a sense of doing God’s work, it can be dirty, but he has a confidence that his life is a necessary evil that God sanctions. His mission is divine. Again, Chomsky argues that America has a profoundly eschatological sense of history. It’s God’s divine purpose for history that justifies its empire building, and just about everything else it does, including conceptualizing the conflict with the USSR as a dramatic war between two diametrically opposing worldviews that involved the whole world.

4. Tony’s immediate family is quite simple. He has his wife, Carmela the Christian. All moral decisions in her life are mediated through the dictates of Christianity. She is at times a hypocrite, but she consistently returns to her faith. Furthermore, she often pushes Tony to act according to her values. Chomsky also notes how American government, particularly our current administration, often has an open ear to the advice of Christianity, particularly it’s most conservative, reactionary form.

5. Tony’s bright shining pearl is Meadow. Meadow is self-sufficient, smart, and caring. She is educated at an Ivy League school. Meadow doesn’t share the religious views of her mother, or father. Meadow is like the liberal elite in Chomsky’s interpretation of America. Their success depends on the very backbone of Tony Soprano/American government, however they don’t hesitate to criticize the mouth that’s fed them. They love America, emotionally, but hate what they see America doing in the world. To Chomsky, the voice of “Meadow” America, with its newfound strength in the American national consciousness, is one of the most encouraging trends in our country.

6. Tony’s son and scion is Anthony Jr. “AJ” is young, but alarmingly apathetic. He appears intelligent, but seems to lack the drive to do anything. Chomsky’s book doesn’t really comment on this section of America, but within the context of America’s future, AJ would appear to represent the majority of youth, the voiceless majority that isn’t politically involved, that votes irregularly, and is very, very middle class.

7. Tony has an apparent need to always demonize someone. First it’s Jackie Aprile’s brother, then it’s Ray Pantaliono’s character. There’s always someone. In a similar way, Chomsky argues, America consistently finds an enemy, Monarchists, Indian savages, anarchists, Communists, Islamicists. For the American worldview, there has to be a bad-guy.

8. As the series goes on, Tony seems to float closer and closer to disaster. Usually, he avoids it through random, fortunate events, situations like having a dream that Pussy was a rat, or Meadow taking the bugged lamp out of the house. Chomsky argues that America over the years has increased nuclear tension almost universally, and that in doing so pushes us always closer to mass extinction. Miraculously, his chief example being the Cuban missile crisis, we have been spared. The point is, both Tony and America by their very nature push themselves closer to annihilation.

Potential Conclusions
1. Chomsky is right. Sopranos series creator David Chase is a genius. His extended metaphor comparing America as it behaves in the world to the mafia as it behaves in America is spot on, as born out by the work of Noam Chomsky.
2. Chomsky is wrong. His work is so ludicrous that it resembles good cable television. The idea that America acts in the world like the head of an organized crime syndicate is ludicrous. David Chase is still responsible for a great series called The Sopranos.
3. Chomsky isn’t entirely wrong or entirely right. Some of his examples are overblown, and assume the wrong kind of motives. His insistence on interpreting every decision of many different administrations as one coherent force is ridiculous. However, it is undeniable that often American foreign policy is blind to the particulars in light of the big vision. I.E. ignoring the trespasses of Mobutu because we only cared that he in theory opposed Communism in Africa. David Chase is still responsible for creating a great series that may have some interesting things to say about America as a whole.

Definite Conclusions
1. The work of David Chase is at least meritous, maybe inspired.
2. Noam Chomsky’s rhetoric does not help his case.
3. It is unfair to only judge the outcome of foreign policy as a whole when in fact it is not the work of one man or group.

Posted by matt at September 26, 2004 8:19 AM | TrackBack