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@languoid This account seems to omit the central antagonists to Chomsky's "craving freedom is human nature" perspective.Permalink On twitter.com
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@languoid At the time, innate libertarianism (Chomsky was always clear his was of the socialist/anarchist variety) was counterposed to behaviorism and infinite human malleability as a state project.Permalink On twitter.com
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@languoid The question debated in Chomsky's early moral writings is: can humans be molded to accept any system of power or do they naturally resist?Permalink On twitter.com
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@languoid In this context, a biological / innate anchor to freedom puts a limit on the aspirations of the state and science to redefine human behavior, whether that's Skinner in the liberal West, fascism, or the Communist bloc's "new man."Permalink On twitter.com
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@languoid These ambitions to remake humanity loomed larger at the height of modernism than they do now, and are central to critical dystopia novels from We to 1984 to Brave New World.Permalink On twitter.com
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@languoid A defiantly human nature with an ethics of freedom and a commitment to truth represents the hope in these depictions.Permalink On twitter.com
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@languoid The ultimate fear: losing this self. As in Orwell's conclusion to 1984: “He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”Permalink On twitter.com
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@languoid This mid-century axis of debate has been obscured ever since a later generation of critical social theorists, above all Foucault, began to equate power and knowledge.On twitter.com
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@languoid "Human nature" becomes suspect when seen as part of regimes of normalization. As a form of telling people who they really are, a sleight of hand that allows for deeper control.Permalink On twitter.com
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@languoid While Chomsky explicitly argues for a (libertarian socialist) human nature that demands/needs "creative work, creatve inquiry, free creation without the arbitrary limiting effects of coercive institutions."Permalink On twitter.com
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@languoid Going further, Foucault questions the construction of the self, sees the human subject as intertwined with regimes of subjection.Permalink On twitter.com
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@languoid This seems like a fundamental break between the perspectives. And yet, both insist on a perpetual and inevitable drive towards rebellion and refusal of domination. Just with different labels.Permalink On twitter.com
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@languoid Going back to the original post, I would suggest that analyses that try to place Chomsky in a liberal camp, rather than a camp that is critical of liberal, fascist, and state socialist orders miss the mark.Permalink On twitter.com
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@languoid The mid-20th century political horizon was big enough for people who critiqued all three major forms of power, even though World War II and the Cold War forced all kinds of alliances of convenience upon rebels against each of the three dominant systems.Permalink On twitter.com
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@languoid /finPermalink On twitter.com