Chomsky-Foucault Debate on Power vs Justice (1971)

well let me get begin by referring something that i've already discussed that is if it is correct as i believe it is that a fundamental element of human nature is the need for uh creative work for creative inquiry for for free creation uh 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 realized 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 decentralized system of free associations incorporating economic as well as social institutions would be what i refer to as anarcho-syndicalism and it seems to me that it is the appropriate form of social organization for an advanced technological society in which human beings do not have to be forced into position of tools of cogs in the machine in which the creative urge the uh that i think is intrinsic to human nature will in fact be able to realize itself in whatever way it will i don't know all the ways in which

it will be yes i would certainly agree with that not only in theory but also in action that is uh there are two intellectual tasks one and the one which 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 you mentioned as well as the central institutions of any industrial society namely the 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 uh those are the basic institutions of uh oppression and coercion and autocratic rule that appear to be neutral after all they say well we're subject to the democracy of the marketplace still i think it would be a great shame to lose 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 realized in which meaningful human life could take place and in fact if we are thinking of social transformation or social revolution though it would be absurd of course to try to draw out in detail the point that we're hoping to reach still we should know something about where we think we're going and such a theory to us 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 really has to do with the vietnam war and a good deal of my own energy goes into civil disobedience well civil disobedience uh in the united states is an action undertaken in the face of great uns of considerable uncertainties about its effects uh for example it threatens the social order in ways which let's say might one might argue bring on

fascism that would be very bad for the for america for vietnam for holland and for everyone else so there's a danger that is one danger in undertaking this concrete act on the other hand there's a great danger in not undertaking it namely if you don't undertake it uh the society of indus indochina will be torn to shreds by american power and in the face of those uncertainties one has to choose a course of action well similarly in the intellectual domain one is faced with the uncertainties that you correctly pose our concept of human nature is

certainly limited partial socially conditioned constrained by our own character defects and the defects and the limitations of the intellectual culture in which we exist yet at the same time it's of critical importance that we have some some direction that we know uh what impossible goals we're 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 remaining very open to the uh strong possibility in fact overwhelming probability that at least in

some respects we're very far off the mark well here i really disagree i think that uh there is a sort of an absolute basis uh if you press me too hard i'll be in trouble because i can't 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 can i think it's too hasty to characterize our existing systems of justice as merely systems of class oppression i don't think that they are

that i think that they're that they embody systems of class oppression and they embody elements of other kinds of oppression but they also embody a kind of a groping towards the uh true human humanly valuable concept of justice and decency and love and kindness and sympathy and so on which i think you generify the justification history