Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> On Dec 7, 2006, at 2:53 PM, bitch wrote:
>
>> Which is to say, Chomsky characterizes Foucault as suggesting that
>> what he's about is criticizing the content of of the concept of
>> human nature C offered. But foucault is not. He is denying that
>> there is a human nature at all.
>
>
> According to that piece on Chomsky's political philosophy by I can
> remember who in NLR about 10 years ago, Noam believes that we're all
> hardwired for freedom, and it's only external distortions (e.g., a
> bad state) that inhibit us from realizing this inner essence.
>
And this is exactly my problem with Chomsky: by referring to this "inner
essence of autonomy and freedom", he's contributing to the ideology about
human nature that helps capitalism to thrive. In fact, I'll go so far as to
claim that capitalism couldn't function without the ideology of the
essentially free individual! This insight--that people who purportedly
challenge and undermine power relations can in fact reinforce them--is
nicely analyzed by the Foucaults, Butlers, and Zizeks. If you pooh-pooh it
all as intellectual elitism, you're tacitly approving and valorizing
ideological claims like Chomsky's that sustain capitalism and all of its
brutal forms of exploitation.
One more try: Orwell's point about impoverishing language as a means of social control still stands. If we wish to contain thought and behavior in narrow, socially approved parameters, we should eliminate all "jargon" and make language as "simple" as possible. (I can't resist: the will to "simple" language is an instantiation of--the will to power!)
Miles
^^^^ CB; Yea, Chomsky the great linguist, should integrate more of the allied science of anthropology into his position on human nature. Anthropology groups bioanthro-cultural anthro-linguistics and archeology together.
The special human essence is more sociality than individuality. We are _homo communis_. Our individualist instincts derive more from our prior animal ancestor species. _Human_ nature is a social nature, and language's characteristics display that. The linguistic capacity fits into a social matrix or makes no sense, and that social matrix includes dead members of the species unlike other species societies. The symbol is the key to making the leap across the death barrier. How's that ? You might wonder.