Forum Post: Chomsky on Occupy Movement - January 6, 2012
Posted 12 years ago on Jan. 9, 2012, 9:05 p.m. EST by Democracy101
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Q: "Should we be working up to a revolution?" Chomsky: "We are NOWHERE NEAR the limits of what Reform can carry out. I mean people can have the idea of a revolution in the back of their minds if they want. But there are very substantive actions that should be taking place[...]There are very specific short-term goals that have large support. Fiscal policy, controlling financial institutions, dealing with environmental problems... all of these are very direct, immediate concerns. Shifting the political system so elections aren't simply bought, and so on."
12:30 in the OP Occupiers take note.
Thank you Noam Chomsky. This is what I've been saying all along; let's push for reform first and foremost (because reform is a far, far easier sell than revolution for obvious reasons) and then simply keep reforming things until the country starts to work again. Depending on how far it goes in the end it may well produce a radically different America from what we have now; it just takes time.
You would think Reform would be an easy sell but there are a huge amount of armchair commandos out there whose ADD won't allow them to focus on anything less stimulating than REVOLUTION!1111111
It's the Internet, so unfortunately you tend to attract a lot of that nonsense, and certain pieces of the movement's rhetoric sure as hell haven't helped with that. My guess is that there are a lot of people who aren't on here that much or at all who really want to see reform, but are hanging back from dealing with us because we're rather raucous and unorganized. It's that group that we want on our side if we want to change things, and it's that group whose support we should be actively soliciting.
I like the last minute or so (where he briefly discusses anarchism), but I also disagree with his implication (and frankly I think it's a little disingenuous) ... that we don't know enough about human nature to know whether we're inherently "good" or not. It's not that humans are inherently evil, but we're not inherently good either (and evolutionary biologists/sociobiologists have uncovered enough data to be able to say this with confidence). I agree with Chomsky on his every conclusion (or at least every one I'm aware of), I just disagree with his underlying reasoning (in the context of his political theory).
Yes, the last question is something to tackle with. I think though, that precisely because we are not inherenly good or inherently evil, it's difficult to scientifically codify human nature.
Tribalism, sexual jealousy, violence, paranoia, etc., are propensities innate to our biology (attributes nature selected for), and this is well established. Anthropological theorists (like the new tribalists I discussed above) have tried to dispute these well settled principles, but it should have been immediately apparent that these guys were flying off the scientific reservation, by caveat of the fact that their claims do not correspond with what we know about our biochemistry (we don't really need more speculative anthropological research to understand this, we have biochemical testing, MRI imaging, genetic sequencing, etc. etc.).
This is pseudoscience trying to sell wishful thinking. All I'm saying people is a very simple thing, we do not need pseudoscience to defend liberty (and anytime we hang our hats on bullshit, it backfires anyway). I personally try to avoid historical arguments whenever possible, but in this case (the defense of liberty), historical arguments are the best arguments (they're as close to bulletproof as we're gonna get).
It's hard to figure out what is innate - we come back to the question of nature v. nurture. Of course society's values can push us to violence, for example. I think that is one of the points that Dostoevsky tried to make in Crime and Punishment. Humans also portray characteristics of love. And precisely because of these many characteristics, sometimes conflicting, Chomsky makes a good point that we cannot definitely codify human nature. But if you watch the video closely, the argument Chomsky is really attempting to make is that even if there are limits to the goodness of human nature, it does not mean that we should stop achieving clear goals. If we can't achieve perfect democracy, we can still advance toward a better version of ours.
In fact, the leading developmental psychologist alive in the world has concluded that people are indeed inherently good, at least during early development.
His book, "The Nature of the Child" (1982) is THE touchstone for all educational and developmental psychology today. It is the introductory book of an entire series, going virtually year by year in human development.
The Doctor's name is Jerome Kagan.
That is indeed interesting. I myself believe that human nature includes a great capacity for good. But Chomsky, who is still one of the leading cognitive scientists in the world, is still correct in saying that human nature is still scientifically very ambiguous. The reason can be proven very simply - any brain scientist can tell you that although we have studied the brain a lot, there is still so much we do not know.
To be sure, but studying the brain is not necessarily akin to understanding human nature.
Observing early behavior (and I'm talking about infant and toddler behavior specifically) gives vital clues about who we are. Early behavior is also still the most accurate predictor of later behavior.
So far, studies of early behavior indicate that we are (mostly) born with sympathy toward others. It is genetic. Environment may take over later, and issues of cognitive inconsistency of application of goodness may interfere later, but innate moral good seems to be inborn and universal.
In political terms, conservatives generally believe they are doing the greatest good even as they are doing harm (and even as the rest of us shake our heads in disbelief). They defend irrational, harmful positions, not because they want to lie or do harm, but because they are defending their view of their own goodness. In other words, if you attack their policies, you are really (in their minds) attacking their core identity as good people. Admitting harm would collapse the manner in which they formulated being moral beings, and aside from any specific formulation, the need to see oneself as moral is a genetic imperative.
Knowing that might help this movement in talking to them.
Are you guys really saying that studying the behavior of young children (whose brains aren't even fully developed yet) will tell us about human nature? I'm not saying this research doesn't have value in this context, but to say the behavior of infants and toddlers implies some sort of natural "capacity for good" ... is pretty darn far fetched. The problem with this stuff is principles like "fight or flight" are consistent throughout the animal world. It's an adrenaline response to acute stress. I'm not trying to sell a dark cynical version of human nature, or imply that we're merely a sum of our parts, but some of the conclusions you guys are trying to extrapolate from research on infants, is (again) not consistent with everything else we know (and I'm speaking of our biochemistry, hard science, not the more speculative and flimsy softer sciences, like anthropology or psychology).
My favorite thing about "hard" science is it's much less amenable to romanticism. You put your sample under the microscope, or input your data into a computer, and like it or not, there it is.
All I can suggest is that you read Kagan.
As to undeveloped brains, they are the best for studying innate responses, before environment and habituation take over.
(I don't suggest this as light reading though: I had to go over the entire book three times before i got half of what he was saying. Wading through page after page of academic and scientific methodology is tough slugging!)
I do know what you're saying ... I don't remember my biology, chemistry, calculus, etc. classes being anything but hard work (and I mean really hard work), and I think you gotta love science to put yourself through that shit (although I had friends in college who just wanted to get into med school, and so they did the hard work & did well, even though I don't think they really loved science, they just hoped to make a shit load of money, and they probably are). So I guess you gotta either love science or love money.
I agree with you that we may all have innate moral goodness..but that does not mean we don't have innate "ungoodness." Many early behavior studies also show how the brain is like a sponge - absorbing outside influences. To be clear, I am not saying the early brain has absolutely no innate characteristics. Make a little experiment for yourself. Ask yourself, am I a morally good person? I think automatically, you will start thinking about what is the correct moral code that society has set. Maybe you even start comparing yourself to people you think have "moral" behavior. That all shows how the perception of who we are - our idenity - is often itself a social construction. That's why it is so hard to codify human nature absent of the many social constructions.
If I did ask myself that question, my answer would be a resounding no (unless punk rock and sex are not evil), but I don't view my depraved nature as a moral failing, in fact I smile when I think of it (maybe too much Nietzsche when I was a freshman) :)
If society doesn't like it .. that's their problem.
If you walk down the street and you see a really beautiful (heck I'll even use the term "super-sexy") person, what will stop you from your possibly innate sexual desire to "rape" that person. The answer is that you will look to society's standards. So in that moment, when you ask yourself am I good moral person, I don't see how you will not look to society's standards.
Okay, in that sense, yes I'm a moral person (in fact, I exaggerated, overall, I'm a sciency/lawyer nerd). When I say I like sex, I mean consensual sex of course.
I don't disagree at all. In fact i tried (too weakly, I guess) to point out that environment takes over pretty quickly.
Kagan asserts that morality is a genotype. It is universal. Nut how it manifests in behavior and attitude is a phenotype, and can vary as widely as we see in the world. Regardless, the imperative to be moral - however misguidedly it is acted upon - is at the core, the genetic foundation, of humanity.
Okay, now you're talking my language. Indeed, morality is a phenotype, and I don't discount things like evolutionary psychology (I think a lot of the research is very good and has a solid basis). However, it's also true that morality is a polygenic trait (and I didn't mean to imply that we've been able to completely understand all the genes involved through sequencing, we haven't). What we do understand is that behavioral traits are associated with biochemistry. If we're going to look at more speculative theories, I'd at least say we should look to the theories that have a good statistical basis, and that correspond with evolutionary principles that we have a high level of confidence in.
Oops, maybe I wasn't clear. The internal need to be morally good (in ones own eyes) is not a phenotype. It is a genotype. It is the same in everyone.
How it manifests is the phenotype. One person will rescue an animal to feel that he is good, another will go hunting. Both express the need to be "good", but the expression (phenotype) is entirely different.
Now you're trying to call a romantic concept (the need to be morally good in one's own eyes) a genotype, and as I'm sure you're aware ... that's not what genotype means (it specifically refers to alleles, or genes).
This brings back memories (I'm gonna have dreams of Punnett squares).
It is a genotype if it is determined genetically, and Kagan has indicated that it appears to be so.
I just looked up Jerome Kagan, and found a good article. I think he probably more supports what I've been saying. His major contribution was to highlight the role of genetics in development (contrary to the majority view of his day--that environment determines behavioral characteristics).
In 1964, Kagan moved to Harvard University. After spending a year doing fieldwork in a small native Guatemalan village, he began to examine the influence of biological factors on development and developmental variation in children. Kagan discovered that the development of memory skills, the understanding of symbolism, a sense of morality, and self-awareness arise in a particular order during the first two years of life. He concluded that children are very adaptable and that their biology promotes a regular developmental progression even under unfavorable circumstances. In 1984 he published The Nature of the Child, which he revised in 1994. In this book, Kagan argued that biology and environment both were important factors in development, and he questioned the widespread belief that adult personality was determined by childhood experience alone.
http://psychology.jrank.org/pages/355/Jerome-Kagan.html
Well gosh, that's what I'VE been saying! :)
But how does this contravene my major point? Maybe I misconstrued your original statements, maybe you misconstrued mine??? I've been saying that because significant aspects of our behavior is determined by our biology, it's not something we can likely influence very much through a new type of social system, ergo, we would likely destroy our civilization, only to wind up right back where we started (or somewhere much worse).
I say, our Constitutional democracy was a good idea, needs some improvement, but let's not go crazy and talk about throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Not only would that be a bad idea, but it wouldn't work anyway (and the right wing fucktards who would love to see our demise, are eager to piss on our grave ... believe that).
I wasn't trying to contravene your major point. At least I don't think I was.
It's late, and I'm getting loopy. May I should pick this up tomorrow after some sleep.
I assume you're pretty young and don't have any adult kids yet ?
I have three in their 20's, and the effect of both nature and nurture are clear as day in each.
I just turned 55. I don't have kids of my own but taught adolescents for 15 years.
Nature and nurture were both plain as day to me, too.
I'm not denying the role of "nurture" (or environment), what I'm saying is more generalized. Genetics plays a huge role, and genetics is something nature selected for (it's a product of our evolutionary history). There are some traits, like flight or fight, or paranoia (poor pattern detection), which are well understood, directly associated with our biochemistry, and in many aspects prevail throughout the animal kingdom. Also, sociobiological research into altruism is very good. There are numerous traits that are not only seen in humans, but in some cases exist with all or most animals, and are even seen in insects.
This is enough to make my point (it's not necessary to show that all our behavior is associated with genetics, it's enough to show a significant portion of our behavior is associated with genetics, to illustrate the problems with Chomskey's version of stateless anarchy).
It has been shown (particularly via separated twin studies) that certain personality traits, such as shyness or assertiveness are also genetical predispositions. What was remarkable in these studies was that (believe it or not) political conservatism and liberalism were also largely predisposed by genes. I wish I had kept my Developmental Psych textbooks around so I could cite the studies. I just kick myself every time I think of these studies and don't have the source material. (Of course, I do that self-kicking with my right foot - genetic predisposition.)
Ah. Got it. I didn't watch the video. If Chomsky is saying genetics doesn't have a large impact on key factors like empathy, he's just plain wrong. Go to a tear-jerker movie and see who's crying. I think I saw this very experiment go by a few decades back.
The argument that must follow as a logical deduction, epa1nter, is then that because we cannot observe anything but behavior and attitude, we have no idea what human innate morality/nature really is.
I think the opposite is true. By observing early behavior, we can (fairly) accurately say whether or not we are naturally (innately, genetically) moral beings. What we CAN'T say is how that morality will manifest in later behavior. But the need to be moral, in and of itself, is apparently innate and not dictated by social conditioning.
I mean, maybe we're asking the wrong questions. Can we even agree on a definition of morality? The best science will do is say things like dopamine enhances paranoia and false pattern detection, fight or flight is an adrenaline response to acute stress, eventually, we'll probably identify families of genes involved in certain behavioral traits, but calling it moral or immoral is the job of philosophers.
In the context of this discussion, we are talking about a fairly well defined morality, and unless people are in fact naturally inclined to behave this way, then Chomskey's version of anarchism (e.g. stateless society) runs into problems. I think the biochemical evidence shows that people are not naturally inclined to be moral in the way required to support this version of anarchism.
But do we really need a completely stateless society to reap the benefits of some degree of "anarchism"? Like I've been saying, I think the idea of worker owned firms, co-ops, is a great idea. Referendum voting, recall elections, are also good ideas. We know these are good ideas because they're tested. We know Glass Steagall worked, because it worked for like 60 years before our douche bag politicians got rid of it. We know money in politics is a corrosive influence (because it always has been). It's great for people to have novel ideas, but they have to withstand empirical scrutiny.
There's two primary ways societal change can happen. Either gradually (like trying things on a small scale, and if they work, we go with it), or revolution. I hear people talking about revolution, but they're not really talking about revolution. Are we willing to chop off heads, or fight the red coats at Valley Forge? No, that's not what OWS has been talking about. Really, OWS has been talking about (at least mostly) restoring the liberty we had merely a few decades ago. They've been talking about anarchism light (worker owned companies, co-ops, referendum and recall elections, and so on).
I think there is still so much research needed to be done. It's hard to make a conclusive and final judgement. Either way, democracy is the best possible form of government - because you'll end up with people, not a selected few, making decisions for themselves. I think that in this kind of system, people will strive for the most mutual benefit (reciprocity). So perhaps deciphering human nature becomes a tangent.
Agreed ...
I would certainly disagree with the assertion that referendum voting is a good idea. It certainly has proven to be the opposite. Just look at Prop 13 in California, or the rejection of Gay and Lesbian rights there. Both were subject to the same influence of moneyed puppet masters as representative democracy has been, to disastrous effect.
That doesn't mean that referendum voting is bad, but I'm so glad you brought this up, because this is what I've been trying to say (and this is a great example illustrating the value of Constitutionally based civil rights, which are not subject to majority vote).
I completely agree that Prop 13 in California was terrible, but I do not believe that civil rights is an issue that should ever be put in the hands of the majority, and our founding fathers understood this intimately, at least when it came to white men, but I digress (that's why they created a "representative" democracy, and enumerated a Bill of Rights).
The point I was making about both of those issues is that the referendum process is just as subject to big money influence as representative democracy. Prop 13 was the result of a Grover Norquist-like anti-tax group flooding the populace with propaganda, that, without the ability or experience to understand the implications, the electorate hobbled their own state government and destroyed what was, up until then, a very good public school system.
Similar influence from big money from across the border, also creating a disinformation campaign, engineered the vote about Gay Marriage.
Referenda will not do one single thing to help. It will only mean that more money will be spent around single issues. Direct democracy is no more democratic in the presence of money than representative democracy is. And, because it does not automatically set up a venue for public debate, as legislatures are required to be, voting on them one way or another is from a point if greater ignorance.
It was largely because of that that the founding fathers set up the system we currently have. I still think, despite the horrible corruption we see today, it is the best alternative.
You're right that direct democracy won't work if we still have this process where "big money" is used to influence issues. We have stop this process where corporations can funnel unlimited amounts of money. Then, I think we can move forward to something of a direct democracy, i think.
reply to post below.
No. I think it will lead to a truly mixed economy, which would be more optimal than anything that can replace it entirely. Capitalism is actually good, up to a point, So is socialism. Neither are good as absolutes. They must both supplement and limit each other.
Oh, almost forgot. Incremental change need not be altogether slow. Sometimes the changes can be quite dramatic. Often not, but sometimes.
Reply to your post below.
"To my mind that particular juggernaut will not be stopped by mere reform."
It may or may not be. But, in my view, given the American population's love of the Constitution (which I share) revolution will not happen here, not in my lifetime, yours, your children's or your children's children's.
Reform, it has been pointed out by another poster above, is a continual process. It is incremental. But when one adds reform to reform. it becomes, in effect, revolution, whether it is called that or not.
revolution sounds great. It sounds romantic. It's like a pulse-quickening thriller of a macho movie. Real change more often takes simply hard, often tedious, often boring work. But it's the thing that gets results people can not only live with, but celebrate.
So then do you see this slow, incremental reform to eventually lead to a non-capitalistic society?
Reply to your post below:
Do you really think that getting rid of the entire system of capitalism is easier than getting rid of corruption in government?
I don't. I'm with Chomsky on this one: although reform would be incredibly difficult, and would probably take at least half a generation's lifetime to accomplish it (in fact it is always ongoing) it is still the only real, workable, practical solution.
But it need not be as grim as all that. I'm old enough to remember the Civil Rights movement. It took a LOOOONG time. And it took incredible pain and the sacrifice of precious lives. But it succeeded. We didn't have to destroy the South, we had to restrict it's behavior. (And there is still a long way to go still, especially in terms of institutional racism, if not outright individual bigotry anymore.)
Today, the need for the same level of lifelong commitment that African Americans had for their movement by people willing to sacrifice their very lives must be made again if this country is to be saved from the greed that has enshrouded it. Pie in the sky won't do it. Utopian ideas won't do it. Work, blood, sweat, tears, intelligence, and long-term determination might.
Mr Chomsky gave rational answers and I understand his view that things will happen as they happen given the unknowable constraints of human nature.
Interestingly enough, the portrait drawn (unarguably true) about the power structure we have in place that rewards insatiable greed, is almost ineluctable. To my mind that particular juggernaut will not be stopped by mere reform.
But that's my opinion; which I think given sufficient time and resources could be turned into an argument.
"And what is good, Phaedrus, And what is not good -- Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?"
Plato via Pirsig
Are we inherently good as a species? Or are we (luckily) socialized to be so?
I don't see how one can ever stem the flow of money into referenda. It is not going to candidates, so there is no legal barrier for advertising, hiring "volunteers" to knock on doors, using "think tanks" to disseminate messages to manipulate the electorate. Nor should there be; free speech must be protected, and the law can hardly distinguish what interest may be heard and which one silenced.
There is a good reason that congress is dominated by lawyers: they understand the language and the implications of that language in various proposed laws. (At least if they read the bills.)
There is also the issue of the sheer number of laws and budgets and regulations, etc, that need to be put to the American public, locally and nationally, on a regular basis. No one who is actually spending their time making a living, supporting a family, can be knowledgeable about all the laws that would be up for consideration. Only full-time legislators, whose jobs are to keep up with these things (or the individual committees that vet pending legislation) get ever hope to either get it right, or at least have a public debate about the issues. (I'm not saying they get it right now, - not by a long shot - but the current system is still the only hope for doing so.)
Direct democracy is a terrible idea for the majority of cases. As an Ideal, it would be wonderful. It can only work, however, in small scale cultures, not on the level of a nation.
What we need to do is to get the money out of the current system, not replace it altogether. The bath water is filthy. Throw it out. But the baby is still precious.
As long as there are big corporations I don't see how this can happen. They - the puppeteers - will never let it happen. It can only be achieved by eliminating these corporations. Would that require, then, elimination of capitalism as we know it?
"It's not that humans are inherently evil, but we're not inherently good either (and evolutionary biologists/sociobiologists have uncovered enough data to be able to say this with confidence)"
That is to me a VERY interesting question. If you have any links or book titles by to suggest, I would greatly appreciate it.
There is an ongoing debate between "new tribalists" (such as Daniel Quinn) and traditional anthropologists. But I prefer looking at harder scientific evidence, such as biochemistry. Here's an interesting article discussing the link between paranormal beliefs and brain chemistry:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2589-paranormal-beliefs-linked-to-brain-chemistry.html
Another interesting article (studying love):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16289361
Biological altruism:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/#4
Brain chemistry and the aggressive personality:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070604155818.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071106122309.htm
Furthermore, even the studies conducted by so called "new tribalists" have (in my opinion) fallen apart under scrutiny:
Sahlins' argument partly relies on studies undertaken by McCarthy and McArthur in Arnhem Land, and by Richard Lee among the !Kung. These studies show that hunter-gatherers need only work about fifteen to twenty hours a week in order to survive and may devote the rest of their time to leisure.[3] Lee did not include food preparation time in his study, arguing that "work" should be defined as the time spent gathering enough food for sustenance.[4] When total time spent on food acquisition, processing, and cooking was added together, the estimate per week was 44.5 hours for men and 40.1 hours for women, but Lee added that this is still less than the total hours spent on work and housework in many modern Western households.[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_Affluent_Society#Criticisms
Basically, these guys built a theory based on evidence that hunter gatherers only worked about 15 hours per week, yet it turns out that hunter gatherers actually worked more than 40 hours per week (and Lee apparently doesn't dispute this, but still ignores the implications of this erroneous data). I mean, I think critics of new tribalism were being very kind (this screams of confirmation bias and bad science).
When we say we work 40 hours a week in Western society, do we include cooking meals? No? So how is it a valid criticism that a comparison of hunter-gatherer tribes work-week didn't include cooking meals? I'm not making a statement that these studies were methodologically sound or not, but your criticism appears to be nonsense.
For us, cooking meals = getting shit out of the frig, sticking it in microwave or turning on the stove, 20 minutes later, yum yum time. What might this process have looked like for the cavemen? Did they even have fire yet? If not, I guess they didn't really cook anything, but if they did, I'm pretty sure just getting a fire going was a job in itself. Collecting wood, finding easily flammable items to get the fire going, and igniting it via a spark. No refrigeration, no running water, no sewage, they were probably on average almost a foot shorter, average lifespan was probably significantly under 40, infant mortality (can't imagine), imagine what it was like trying to survive a winter? No home heating, cut your own wood, keep that fire going, skin animals for blankets and clothing, no medicine (infection = dead), what a grand life all that must have been (sounds like a piece of cake, a virtual libertopia).
Thats a fancy wall of text but you still haven't explained how your criticism isn't total bullshit. The fact is, building a fire and cooking isn't "work" by any standard, prehistoric or modern.
This is really silly. I mean, these researchers sliced out the time spent actually "on the hunt" ... and presumed that's the only thing that could be classified as work. How about preparation for the hunt? Collecting wood and shaping the wood into spears? How about skinning animals to manufacture clothing? And yes, food preparation and maintenance of daily life.
You see, when we turn on our heaters at home--natural gas isn't pumped into our homes magically (there's no such thing as a natural gas wizard). When we turn on the microwave, the electricity isn't coming from the electricity fairy. Part of the 40 or so hour work week of everyone goes into providing those luxuries. So we don't have to chop wood, skin animals for clothing and blankets, try to start a fire by rubbing rocks together, etc. All the hours that our primitive ancestors spent on those endeavors, are hours we don't have to spend on those endeavors, because part of the 40 hour work week of the folks working at the electric plant, mining natural gas, manufacturing our clothing, etc., goes to providing those services for us.
If that's a hard concept to grasp .. then whatever.
Making tools, clothes, and weapons doesn't happen weekly you tool. Divide the amount of time it takes to make a spear by how long it lasts before you need another one, and you add a few minutes to that 15 hour work week at most. You are still full of shit.
Ahhh ... why bother.
Wee can study all we want, but the ultimate method by which we judge all men is by introspection and reflection on our own character, is it not ? Our self is the only man we can really know with any intimacy, everyone else resides behind a veil.
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Human beings are poised in a state of consciousness and being, in the middle, between the evolutionary battle for survival and the devine.
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