Another excerpt from
Chomsky On Anarchism
, this from a 2004 interview with
Ziga Vodovnik.
Ordinary people often confuse anarchism with chaos and violence, and do not know that anarchism (an archos) doesn't mean life or a state of things without rules, but rather a highly organized social order, life without a ruler, "principe." Is pejorative usage of the word anarchism maybe a direct consequence of the fact that the idea that people could be free was and is extremely frightening to those in power?
There has been an element within the anarchist movement that has been concerned with "propaganda by the deed," often with violence, and it is quite natural that power centers seize on it in an effort to undermine any attempt for independence and freedom, by identifying it with violence. But that is not true just for anarchism. Even democracy is feared. It is so deep-seated that people can't even see it. If we take a look at the Boston Globe on July 4th - July 4th is of course Independence Day, praising independence, freedom, and democracy - we find that they had an article on George Bush's attempt to get some support in Europe, to mend fences after the conflict. They interviewed the foreign policy director of the "libertarian" Cato Institute, asking why Europeans are critical of the U.S. He said something like this: The problem is that Germany and France have weak governments, and if they go against the will of the population, they have to pay political cost. This is the libertarian Cato Institute talking. The fear of democracy and hatred of it is so profound that nobody even notices it.
It seems to me that many of the ideals of democracy, particularly those expressed by the founders of this nation, are quite admirable by anarchist standards, especially as compared to the actual state of things in our "democracy," which is why genuine democracy is feared in a similar way to anarchy. Thus, working to advance actual democracy is a reasonable intermediate action for someone convinced that anarchism is the ideal social vision.
6 comments:
After you claimed, on Chomsky's behalf, that the Holocaust and both World Wars didn't count as wars that the Western World (and Europe) experienced, I'm quite skeptical.
I'm pretty willing to bet that's a misrepresentation of what I claimed. I vaguely remember this - where was that conversation?
Yup, that's not what I claimed at all.
Going back to that post to which you are referring, I seem to have forgotten to thank you for calling me a jackass for no reason. Clearly your antagonism stirs easily. Seriously, wtf dude?
Anyway, the point of what I said very succinctly and proved very succinctly was that Europe has indeed been subjected, on its home soil, to the very atrocity they routinely carried out elsewhere. You can't discount the deaths of over 100,000,000 million people because it's convenient to a point or an analysis. They indeed, and in very real life, were subjected to absolute horror. I can't imagine it matters who was doing the war-mongering at that particular time, since over the course of centuries and millenia past European, Middle Eastern, and African nations have gone through unending cycles of imperialism and subsequent subjugation.
"Jackass" was a direct response to "idiotic."
Chomsky's point is this:
European and American nations have been terrorizing innocent people in 3rd world countries for centuries. 9-11 was the first time they hit us back in the same way on our own turf.
Nobody is "discounting" anyone's death by saying they aren't relevant to his point. Millions of people die of cancer, but I'm not discounting their death by ignoring them in this analysis either.
Yes Europeans and Americans have killed lots of Europeans and Americans too, in addition to killing lots of innocent brown people. But those deaths aren't part of the point he's making.
It's kind of like "I'm allowed to make fun of my brother, but YOU aren't"
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