A Phone Call to Noam ChomskyA PeaceWORKS Exclusive
By Michael Slaughter
The following interview, a PeaceWORKS exclusive, was conducted with Professor Chomsky via telephone on May 9. PeaceWORKS is published monthly by the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center, P.O. Box 1725, Palo Alto, CA 94302.
| PeaceWORKS: Dr. Chomsky, why do you call yourself a "libertarian anarchist" rather than a plain "anarchist"?
Noam Chomsky: The term I usually use is "libertarian socialist," which is fairly standard usage in the anarchist tradition. Anarchism covers a pretty broad range. One major sector in Europe regarded itself as the libertarian wing of the socialist movement. Unfortunately, the term "libertarian" has a different usage in the United States, which departs from the tradition. Here the term "libertarian" means anarcho- capitalist.
PeaceWORKS: Would you say anarchism generally is a tendency to increase freedom, as one might look at a decrease of entropy as a sign of life?
Chomsky: My feeling about anarchism is that it is not a movement with an ideology. It is a tendency in the history of human thought and action which seeks to identify coercive, authoritarian, and hierarchic structures of all kinds and to challenge their legitimacy -- and if they cannot justify their legitimacy, which is quite commonly the case, to work to undermine them and expand the scope of freedom. I don't think there are formulas that can be applied.
PeaceWORKS: In that regard, that's what I call "Chomsky's Laser," like Occam's Razor: that all authority must justify itself.
Chomsky: The burden of proof is really on the authoritarian structures. That's the essential meaning of anarchist thought. That is not to say that some structures can't stand the examination.
PeaceWORKS: Sure, you use the example of a 3-year-old child running out into the street ... You say that "people should tear away the masks of ideological distortion and indoctrination" ... Maybe it's Hume's Paradox: people have to give their consent to be ruled. But if they just withhold consent, saying, "you haven't convinced me," does that mean that the power structure goes away?
Chomsky: Well, if you just withhold consent privately at home, nothing happens. If withholding consent is a step toward organization and action, then a lot can change. In fact, you can claim that you are withholding consent and still be consenting to the structure. For example, suppose that you're living in a society that has slavery. If you sit at home quietly and say, "I object to slavery," that's giving your consent.
PeaceWORKS:With regard to the individual, you have said that "in a society of clones, I would want to commit suicide." And yet "the genius of our democracy," as you put it, is that it isolates people. Isn't this society creating a society of clones?
Chomsky: Not clones. Clones would be individuals who are literally identical. What the society is creating is a society of people who may be quite diverse, but are separated, so that they are not enriching each others by interaction by virtue of the diversity. This is a technique for creating passive consent. If you're really alone, it doesn't matter a lot what you think. You're giving consent. You may be as diverse as you like, but that diversity is contributing noting to the enrichment of oneself or others.
PeaceWORKS: In that regard, since the isolated individual can believe anything and it doesn't matter, yet you've also said that one must struggle against the state propaganda machine as an individual. Isn't that paradoxical?
Chomsky: It's not a paradox. A society of cooperating people is made up of thinking individuals. You clarify your thoughts by interactions with others. Typically, effective action is communal.
PeaceWORKS: You seem to be very sanguine about the use of computers, at least insofar as one's ability to communicate with others. Otherwise, aren't computers in fact simply another way of isolating the individual?
Chomsky: Computers are like a lot of technology. They are rather neutral. They can be used for various purposes. Whether they are used to isolate people or bring them together depends upon the broader structure. They can be used to isolate people, but they can also bring people to interact. The technology doesn't really care much how it is used or about the social conditions under which it is used.
There are some technologies that are destructive, but by and large they are multifaceted. Take automation. The way automation is being used is to impose a managerial hierarchy and eliminate meaningful work and even work altogether, but that's not inherent in the technology. The technology could just as well be used to empower workers, to increase satisfaction and personal compensation.
PeaceWORKS: This may be a bit self-reflexive ... you said that one cannot challenge the conventional wisdom between commercials or in 700 words on the Op Ed page. What is one constrained to do, then, in conversation?
Chomsky: It depends on the nature of the conversation. If it's a fleeting conversation, then you don't have the conditions to exchange thoughts. On the other hand, it can be meaningful. That is not to say you talk to a person for three hours in a row. I have running conversations with people that pick up every few years. They can be quite intense and very good.
PeaceWORKS: You have written, "We should try to create communities of understanding and cooperative work that are solid and substantial enough to resist, or simply ignore, the efforts to undermine rational discourse." Cannot the individual ignore the propaganda outpourings of the culture by turning off the TV and the radio and not reading the corporate press?
Chomsky: Again we're back to consent. That's a form of consent.
PeaceWORKS: You say we have the freest society on earth, speaking of the United States, yet you write about the efficacy of U.S. propaganda, saying in effect that no commissar could hope for better results. Is that really free, or is this an illusion of freedom?
Chomsky: It's free in the sense that I described. The state, by comparative standards, has relatively little power to coerce. For example, the government can't terminate this phone conversation. It's not within state power. There are many similar restrictions. Societies differ. We happen to be probably on the freer end of that particular dimension, but there are many other dimensions.
What's interesting about the United States from this point of view is how a substantial degree of freedom is obviated to a high degree by indoctrination. Take Animal Farm, which we all read, correctly, as a satirical condemnation of Soviet tyranny.
The first edition of it, which appeared, I believe, in the early 40s, had an introduction by Orwell about England in which he talked about thought control in England. He said there were two major devices: one is just straight coercive, resulting from ownership of the press by wealthy men, who will allow only certain things to appear. The other is much more interesting, and that is that our entire educational system trains privileged people to understand that there are certain kinds of things you don't say. This is a form of socialization carried out by the educational system.
He knew what he was talking about. There are some things you just don't say, and if you don't understand that, you're excluded. He said that the end result of these two factors is very effective. That introduction to Animal Farm disappeared. It was published separately 30 years later ... which kind of supports his point.
PeaceWORKS: Right! You always say that if you assume the worst, you guarantee that it will happen, versus admitting the possibility of change. Yet, you also say that when you started speaking in people's living rooms 25- 30 years ago, you thought the situation was hopeless, that the jingoist fanaticism would conquer all. Weren't you assuming that the worst would happen in that case?
Chomsky: That's not quite what I mean by assuming the worst. If you assume that there is nothing that can be done, then you guarantee that the worst will happen. If you take whatever small probability that there may be that something can be done, you at least offer a chance of influencing the outcome.
PeaceWORKS:Doesn't the foreign policy stuff you deal with sometimes seem, well, surreal?
Chomsky: Sometimes it does. Clinton had ordered the bombing of Baghdad in retaliation for an alleged attempt to assassinate George Bush two months earlier. One of the justifications given by William Safire was, "Look, if we were to discover that Castro were responsible for the assassination of Kennedy, then we would have destroyed Havana."
It's an interesting analogy, because the actual situation was the reverse -- as Safire and his readers know -- that the Kennedy Administration was trying to assassinate Castro. There were eight acknowledged assassination attempts. That should count as surreal.
PeaceWORKS: I am reminded of the line of the Mexican diplomat who said that it was too dangerous for them to announce that Cuba was a threat to Mexico, because forty million Mexicans would die laughing.
Chomsky: That was when the Kennedy Administration was trying to present Cuba as a threat. The Mexican diplomat was quite right. Forty million people would die laughing there - but not in the United States.
PeaceWORKS: Ultranationalism in the Third World, you say, is a threat because it's disobedient. Are there other kinds of threats from the Third World?
Chomsky: Any effort to break out of the service role is considered unacceptable. It's given various names. Sometimes it's called radical nationalism or economic nationalism. Liberation theology is another form.
PeaceWORKS: You have said that now is a time for action.
Chomsky: It's always a time for action.
Michael Slaughter is a writer, musician and long-time member of the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center. He lives in Pacifica.
|
