He does not start from the position that an individual voter would have skin in the game, or understand the consequences of political and economic actions.
Ukrainians feel in their guts their country is being invaded by an genocidal adversary. They are not driven from their homes by US capitalist fed propaganda, but by russain missiles and tanks, they take up arms not because the conscription service ran it's ad targeting the poor and the unemployed, but because their home is invaded.
Chomsky simply does not comprehend a situation where he himself would wake up one morning, take his rifle and go defend his country with the local banker, the baker and the taxi driver.
I.e. he does not understand when masses actually act out of their own volition to do something. Political events to him seem always to be a "nefarious game programmed by US capitalists to oppress the ploretariat" unless it's something directly hurting US corporate interests and then it's always universally good.
In US this view is likely more correct than not as the financial oligarchy is pretty savvy there and does play it's own game. The world and the rules can be quite different outside US.
I am in no position to estimate how well Chomskyist analysis is applicable to HK. It's just not very good tool in understanding the war in Ukraine or Finland joining NATO.
There might be some cultural context missing which would make this very hard to communicate.
Oh right, that they are a blank slate that one can just write things on? Except that’s a thesis about human beings that he has specifically argued against.
Typical “ignorant masses” projection by some vulgar Marxist interpretation.
Speaking of skin in the game: Chomsky protested against the Vietnam War. A war fought in part by conscripts on the American side. How does that jive with your condescending theory that Americans have no skin in the game?
That because those complains come from people who do know about history and politics of countries he talks about. And he has really hard time to admit that something like genocide can happen for reasons that are not caused by Americans. I mean, he has hard time to call genocide the one when it happens (unless done by Americans).
Specifically with Ukraine issue, he is one of those people who cant even hint toward non-Americans having agency or own ideas about future. If you talk about Eastern Europe as if only Russia and America existed, as if no one else was even involved and could not had ability to make own decisions, then you are the one trying to create false worldview ignoring reality.
I'm happy we are joining NATO. I'm mostly sure I was not brainwashed into it by media. I just knew intuitively the second Russian tanks crossed Ukrainian border NATO would be the best option in Finland. I can't prove it but I'm guessing lots of finns felt the same. And it was this collective feeling that spread out through the population spontaneously.
There are very few books beyond physics and mathematics with universal truths. And even those need savvy application to real world problems. Problem with chomskyism is that it sees everything through the lense of chomskyism which filters out everything else. It's like a high pass filter attuned to the detection of US human rights violations.
Finnish consent was not manufactured. It was caused by the explicit invasion of Ukraine.
As a people that has always bordered Russia and has been invaded by Russia for centuries we are quite sensitive to things affecting our relationship with it.
You feel it in your bones the weather has changed.
But Chomsky does not really understand the world outside US.
I am a Finn and I can guarantee Chomsky does not help you in understanding what happened here. We share 1500km border of Russia. We feel the geopolitic shifts in our backbones.
Almost every finnish male regardless of wealth or class would be up in arms as a combatant in the military if Russia was to invade. You can't have more skin in the game than that.