C: Well, let me begin by referring to something that I have already discussed. If it is correct, as I believe it is, that a fundamental element of human nature is the need for creative work, for creative enquiry, for free creation without the arbitrary limiting effects of coercive institutions, then of course it will follow that a decent society should maximize the possibilities for this fundamental human characteristic to be realised. That means trying to overcome the elements of repression and oppression, and destruction and coercion that exist in any existing society, ours for example, as a historical residue. Now, a federated, decentralised system of free associations incorporating economic as well as social institutions would be what I refer to as an anarcho-syndicalism. And it seems to me that it is an appropriate form of social organization for an advanced technological society in which human beings do not have to be forced into the position of tools, of cogs in a machine in which the creative urge, that I think is intrinsic to human nature, will in fact be able to realise itself in whatever way it will. I don’t know all the ways in which it will.
F: my approach is far less advanced than Mr. Chomsky’s. I admit to not being able to define, nor for even stronger reasons to propose, an ideal social model for the functioning of our scientific or technological society. On the other hand, one of the most urgent tasks, before anything else, is that we are used to consider, at least in our European society, that power is in the hands of the government and is exerted by some particular institutions such as local governments, the police, the Army. These institutions transit the orders, apply them and punish people who don’t obey. But, I think that the political power is also exerted by a few other institutions which seem to have nothing in common with the political power, which seem to be independent but which actually aren’t. We all know the whole educational system that is supposed to distribute knowledge, we know that the educational system maintains the power in the hands of a certain social class and exclude the other social class from this power. Psychiatry for instance is also apparently meant to improve mankind and the knowledge of the psychiatrists. Psychiatry is also a way to implement a political power to a particular social group. Justice also. It seems to me that the real political task in a society such as ours is to criticize the workings of institutions that appear to be both neutral and independent; to criticise and attack them in same manner that political violence has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight against them. If we want to define the profile and the formula of our future society, without criticizing all the forms of political power that are exerted in our society, there is a risk that they reconstitute themselves, even though such an apparently noble form of anarchist-unionism.
C: Yes, I would definitely agree with that, but not only in theory but also in action. That is, there are two intellectual tasks. One and the one that I was discussing to try to create the vision of a future just society. Another task is to understand very clearly the nature of power and oppression, and terror and destruction in our own society, and that certainly includes the institutions that you mentioned, as well as the central institutions of any industrial society, namely the economic, commercial and financial institutions. In particular, in the coming period, the great multinational corporations which are not very far from us physically tonight. These are the basic institutions of oppression and coercion and autocratic rule that appear to be neutral – after all they say that we are subject to the democracy of the marketplace – still I think it would be a great shame to loose, or to put aside entirely the somewhat more abstract and philosophical if you like task of trying to draw the connections between a concept of human nature that gives full scope to freedom and dignity and creativity and other fundamental human characteristics and relates that to some notion of social structure in which those properties could be realised and in which meaningful, human life could take place. And, in fact, if we are thinking of social transformation or social revolution – through it would be absurd of course to try to draw it out in detail the point that we are hoping to reach – still we should know something about where we think we are going.
F: Yes, but then isn’t there a danger here? If you say that a certain human nature exists, that this human nature has not been given in actual society the rights and the possibilities which allow it to realise itself – that’s really what you have said, I believe. And if one admits that, doesn’t one risk defining this human nature – which is at the same time ideal and real, and has been hidden and repressed until now – in terms borrowed from our society, from our civilization, from our culture? Is the notion of human nature - you acknowledge yourself that we don’t know exactly what human nature is – isn’t there a risk that we will be led in error? You know Mao Tse Toeng distinguished a bourgeois human nature and a proletarian human nature. For him it wasn’t the same thing.
C: Well, you see, I think, that in the intellectual domain of political action, that is the domain of trying to construct a vision of a just and free society on the basis of some notion of human nature, in that domain we face the very same problem that we face in immediate political action. For example to be quite concrete, a lot of my own activity has to do with the Vietnam war and a good deal of my energy goes into civil disobedience. Well, civil disobedience in the United States is an action undertaken in the face of considerable uncertainties about its effects. For example it threatens the social order in ways that which – one might argue – may bring on fascism. That would be very bad for America, for Vietnam, for Holland and for everyone else. So, there is a danger in undertaking this concrete act. On the other hand there is a great danger in not undertaking it. Namely if you don’t undertake it, the society of Indochina will be torn into shreds by the American power, and in the face of those uncertainties one has to chose a course of action. While similarly in the intellectual domain, one is faced with the uncertainties that you correctly posed. Our concept of the human nature is certainly limited, partial, socially conditioned and constrained by our own character defects and the limitations of the intellectual culture in which we exist. Yet at the same time it is of critical importance that we have some direction, that we know what impossible goals we are trying to achieve, if we hope to achieve some of the possible goals. And that means that we have to be bold enough to speculate and create social theories on the basis of partial knowledge while we remain very open to the strong possibility, in fact overwhelming probability, that in some respects we are very far off the mark.
[Break]
F: But it seems to me that, in any case, the notion of justice itself, functions within a society of classes as a claim made by oppressed class and as justification for it.
C: I don’t agree with it.
F: and in a classless society, I am not sure that we would still use this notion of justice.
C: Well, here I really disagree. I think that there is a sort of an absolute basis – if you press me too hard I will be in trouble because I cannot sketch it out – but some sort of an absolute basis ultimately residing in fundamental human qualities in terms of which a real notion of justice is grounded. And I think that our existing systems of justice – I think it is too hasty to characterise our existing systems of justice as merely systems of class oppression. I don’t think that they are that. I that they embody systems of class oppression and they embody elements of other kinds of oppression but they also embody a kind of groping towards the true humanly valuable concept of justice and decency and love and kindness and sympathy and so on, which I think are real.
F: Well, do I have time to answer? How much? [Two minutes] [All laugh] But I would say that that is unjust. No, but I don’t want to answer in so little time. I would say this. Contrary to what you think, you cant prevent me from believing that these notions of human nature, of justice, of the realization of the essence of the human being, are all notions and concepts which have been found within our civilization, within our type of knowledge and our form of philosophy, and that as a result form part of our class system; and one cant, however regrettable it may be, put forward these notions to describe or justify a fight which should – and shall in principle – overthrow the very fundamentals of our society. This is an extrapolation for which I can’t find historical justification.
(Transcribed from an interview between the two men broadcasted on YouTube)
PS: Any ideas?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment