he holds the view, as i said already, that justice is grounded in a natural human desire for freedom that is innate to humans. it is, therefore, a foundationalist claim that, as chomsky says, is going get him in trouble because he can't scientifically prove it. as such, as doug pointed out, freedom is something we naturally strive toward and any condition of unfreedom cannot last for long because humans will naturally strive toward freedom. call it naturalism, call it natural law theory, call it whatever. it is not the same thing as what foucault is talking about where justice is always already bound up with the struggle for power, is always already about people, is totally contingent and shifting.
to get back to what eric said about chomsky, that's where i see his statism, in his view that there is a 'natural law' of justice that he, chomsky, and other individuals can perceive. when you have a view that there is some sort of justice out there to which one ultimately answers, and which justifies your political action - it is done in the name of another justice that is in but not of this world, etc., - this is where chomsky sneaks statism back in. (marx: working class were in but not OF civil society.... )
the view always reminds me of the Word of God after the protestant reformation. it is out there, abolute, and humans can locate it and read it directly and understand the word of god. get rid of the distorting mediations of the catholic hierarchy and directly confront the Word.
has its parallel in positivist social science whether of the number crunching hypothetical deductive model or in the interpretivist claims. whether quant or qual, as with methodological liberalism, they conclude that we must adhere to certain methods to prevent the distortions of power and ideology which keep us from grasping truth. thus, truth and justice are out there, ideals toward which we strive, which chomsky describes as his view later on. we never achieve perfect freedom, justice, or truth, but constantly strive toward it. we are unable to achieve the perfection of these ideals b/c we are human.
reminds me of that fuckwad who just resigned Sounders? he was on television bleeting about how he was just a man, wasn't perfect, and those big meenie democrats were going to exploit his human weaknesses to crush him. waaaaaaaaah. but basically playing on the same notion of truth, justice, freedom to which chomsky and many others subscribe: IT'S OUT THERE.
love, scully
> Okay, but without necessarily endorsing that view, it can be pointed
> out
> that none of it is based on anything "floating above human beings,"
> much
> less God. The opposite is the case - justice is said to be rooted in
> some characteristic *of* human beings. And by "characteristic of human
> beings," I assume Chomsky would not be referring to a collection of
> discrete biological specimens but rather to the collective products of
> social life in (what used to be called) "civilization." So, it might
> be
> accurate to say his idea of justice is a property of civilization -
> certainly not of the universe or of God. Shane referred to the Theory
> of
> Moral Sentiments, and I think those are the kind of ideas this view
> grows out of.
>
> SA
>
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