JM: All of this is the creation of the "state"? Rights, legitimacy, etc... I think some adjustment is needed in your view of human history. You think that there was no crime before the State invented laws? You can only maintain this purely semantically. Or perhaps you're problem with Chomsky _is_ mere semantics. People stole things before laws existed and sometimes this stealing was considered a violation of norms and sometimes it wasn't. Crime is not the invention of the law per-se, though many crimes have been invented by the law.
You think that "genocide" was invented by "states"? You don't think that one tribe or clan group wiped out other tribes or clan groups before states, existed? In modern terms this would be called genocide. Yet somehow you believe that such notions as genocide and legitimacy were invented by the "state."
It seems to me that such notions as "legitimacy" (using the term here in the sense of "legitimated" and "illegitimate" authority) existed before "states" existed also. This is certainly true if you don't confuse the "word" with the notion of what is and is not legitimate authority. At least this is what I can gather from the historical and anthropological record.
Also as far as "rights" are concerned, we inherit the word itself from European origins, and one may "say" semantically that "_rights_ don't exist" without the "rule of law" and states. But this is purely a semantic argument. If we think in terms of reciprocal social relations and norms it becomes obvious that what we call rights are simply a revaluation of older notions of negative and positive reciprocal social relations -- and such reciprocal relations pre-existed "the state." They probably pre-existed homo sapiens, in that primatologists have described such norms or reciprocal social relations (rights and duties in some versions) among bonobos and chimpanzees.
Chomsky said: I don't think that the notion of legitimacy of a state means very much. Is the United States a legitimate state?
JM: Erich- do you think in the sense that Chomsky is speaking here that we should pay attention to the "legitimacy" of a state -- in effect make it into something that we give credit to?
Eric said: Chomsky's counterposing of rights against legitimacy, his raising of "bad" state actions, and his bemoaning of a lack of "inherent legitimacy" indicate that he thinks legitimacy is a merely neutral moral and legal (nonpolitical) category that can be separated from the state, a good unit of measure that can be rehabilitated.
JM: Chomsky is simply speaking in terms of how the international system of nation-states is set up now. Again I think your argument is purely semantic. He nowhere says that such notions as "inherent legitimacy" is merely a "neutral" moral and legal category. In fact I don't think he would say that States are either moral or immoral. Ascribing morality to to States or Corporations is a category mistake in my view.
But to some extent it is possible to talk of some kinds of legitimacy as a moral category, though certainly not a "neutral" moral category. There probably are forms of "legitimate" authority (realizing that the word legitimate only has a common sense definition and has no "scientific" or Fregean preciseness) which should be judged morally, the authority that a parent can or should exercise over a child, help the child to survive for instance. I don't see what "neutrality" has to do with it.
His point about notions of "State legitimacy" or "the (non-existent) right of a state to exist" is that any such discussion of "State legitimacy" is inherently hypocritical. Yes "_inherently_" hypocritical because all discussions of the legitimacy of states in this context always ignores that all states were established by the exercise of illegitimate authority or illegitimate violence. The only reason to discuss the legitimacy of individual states in the first place is to assume a legitimacy that states in general can't have. As usual Chomsky is exposing certain ideological underpinnings of our thought processes. You amusingly imply that such a way of discussion is "non-political". I have never heard anyone call Chomsky's discussions "non-political." I do think you are joking. (Note: Now days Chomsky prefers the moral term "hypocrisy" to the unfortunately highly ideological word "ideology." In other words he chooses a very old fashion moral notion for the modern pseudo-scientific moral term. Personally I prefer the pseudo-scientific moral term "ideology" with qualification that the term is clearly labeled as pseudo-scientific. I prefer my mumbo-jumbo (ideology) with a big sign around its neck. That is why I prefer the superstitious Tarot pack is preferable to the "scientistic" Rorschach test.)
Which brings me to your last sentence.
Eric said: He's an anarchist whose problem with the state is its moral compass, not its structural brutality.
JM: I am not sure what this means at all. Also as far as I can see concerning oneself with morality is not mutually exclusive to concerning oneself with "structural brutality."
But again I think you are confused. State and other human organizations are neither moral nor immoral. What people do through states can be moral or immoral. A system can produce immoral results. So if your point is that Chomsky believes that states are "immoral", then your condemnation of Chomsky would be logically correct. Unfortunately, I have heard him make the point about Corporations and States often that they are not "moral entities", that they are not individuals with a moral compass. States and corporations act as they do because of the way they are structured as human institutions. And you judge human organizations by their results not by hoping that they "learn" morality or "discard" immorality. But perhaps I misinterpret your criticism of Chomsky in this throw away sentence?
So there is nothing wrong with measuring the result of a state system or an economic system by moral rules. There is nothing wrong with setting a moral compass, and saying that any policy that results in a half-million extra deaths (the U.S. in Iraq) or 3 million extra-deaths (the U.S. in Indochina) is immoral. The fact that it is immoral may bring you to search for the "structural" reasons for "brutality" and atrocity. I think Chomsky has done more than practically any of us to try to analyze the institutional and yes "structural" reasons for the atrocities and brutality of U.S. foreign policy. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20061023/d09c4992/attachment.htm>