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1. Human Nature: Justice versus Power, Noam Chomsky debates with Michel Foucault

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   mnovendstern 28-Jul-2009

       And so I think that the student-revolutionaries, if you like, have a point, a partial point : that is to say, it's a very important thing in a modern advanced industrial society how the trained intelligentsia identifies itself. It's very important to ask whether they are going to identify themselves as social managers, whether they are going to be technocrats, or servants of either the state or private power, or, alternatively, whether they are going to identify themselves as part of the work force, who happen to be doing intellectual labour.    If the latter, then they can and should play a decent role in a progressive social revolution. If the former, then they're part of the class of oppressors. ^{link »}

   Production at the heart of the proletariat? A society should protect those who produce value. ^{link »}

      I think we're safer in hoping for progress on the basis of those human instincts than on the basis of the institutions of centralised power, which, I believe, will almost inevitably act in the interest of their most powerful components. ^{link »}

   It seems to me that modern technology, like the technology of data-processing, or communication and so on, has precisely the opposite implications. It implies that relevant information and relevant understanding can be brought to everyone quickly. It doesn't have to be concentrated in the hands of a small group of managers who control all knowledge, all information and all decision-making. So technology, I think, can be liberating, it has the property of being possibly liberating; it's converted, like everything else, like the system of justice, into an instrument of oppression because of the fact that power is badly distributed. ^{link »}

   Well, civil disobedience in the U.S. is an action undertaken in the face of considerable uncertainties about its effects. ^{link »}

   I think this is really what being a progressive is about - progress despite the uncertain nature of our conceptions a just society towards which we are progressing. It means taking action despite our knowledge of the fact that intrinsic cultural conditions, parochialisms, human mind limit our access to truth. ^{link »}

   I would think that ultimately it would make very good sense, in many cases, to act against the legal institutions of a given society, if in so doing you're striking at the sources of power and oppression in that society. ^{link »}

   Obligatory behavior to confront oppressive aspects within any system - Note: doesn't require one to reject that system ^{link »}

   Only creativity is possible in putting into play of a system of rules; it is not a mixture of order and freedom. ^{link »}

   I would claim then that this instinctive knowledge, if you like, this schematism that makes it possible to derive complex and intricate knowledge on the basis of very partial data, is one fundamental constituent of human nature. In this case I think a fundamental constituent because of the role that language plays, not merely in communication, but also in expression of thought and interaction between persons; and I assume that in other domains of human intelligence, in other domains of human cognition and behaviour, something of the same sort must be true.    Well, this collection, this mass of schematisms, innate organising principles, which guides our social and intellectual and individual behaviour, that's what I mean to refer to by the concept of human nature . ^{link »}

   And contrary to what you think, you can't prevent me from believing that these notions of human nature, of justice, of the realisation of the essence of human beings, are all notions and concepts which have been formed within our civilisation, within our type of knowledge and our form of philosophy, and that as a result form part of our class system; and one can't, however regrettable it may be, put forward these notions to describe or justify a fight which should-and shall in principle--overthrow the very fundaments of our society. This is an extrapolation for which I can't find the historical justification. That's the point. ^{link »}

   tags: jul 09, chomsky.info, annotations

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