Chomsky On Human Nature

Long-time reader Jim mentioned Noam Chomsky in a comment last week, which got me thinking about that old fuckhead.

Chomsky's views on all the subjects he's talked about for decades—power politics, elite repression of The People, elite-controlled media, socioeconomic arrangements, and, recently, climate change—are vacuous unless he has based those views on some theory (or partial theory) of how humans work at a fundamental level (human nature).

And that's not true of Chomsky only; that's generally true. If this vaunted "intellectual" is so damn smart, why hasn't he realized this? Why hasn't he worked on the Human Nature problem as it pertains to, for example, the human response to climate change, instead of lecturing us over and over again about elite-controlled media or unreported, U.S.-supported genocides?

Aren't genocides and elite-controlled media manifestations of aspects of Human Nature? And what about the human response to climate change? If these are not manifestations of human nature, then what the fuck are we talking about? Here's my view.

For example, you can't talk about free market (albeit corrupt) capitalism versus anti-hierarchical anarcho-syndicalist blah blah blah (Chomsky's preferred arrangement) unless your views are based on how humans work, on what is possible for humans to achieve. Otherwise, you're talking out your ass. I discussed this foundational point at the very beginning of the first Flatland essay.

What I also explained in the beginning of that first Flatland essay goes as follows: in order talk out your ass, you're forced to assume a "blank slate" view of Human Nature which implicitly posits that humans are infinitely malleable (our behavior is completely determined by our social and physical environment).

The "blank slate"' in effect says that "anything goes" as far as human socioeconomic arrangements go, to pick just one example. Now, we might ask a simple question here: why is the world dominated by market-based (though inevitably corrupt) capitalist systems instead of anarcho-syndicalist blah blah blah? Is all this some kind of mistake?

Well, if you ask Chomsky, he would argue, at least implicitly, that the world-as-it-is is indeed some kind of mistake, and humans can fix it (though not easily) by inventing some kind of new sociopolitical system which would be better in some undefined way. Chomsky has dedicated his life to this viewpoint, despite clear and overwhelming evidence that humans do not have the capacity for change that he imagines.

At this point you might ask Chomsky why those malevolent elites (hierarchical kleptocracies) he goes on and on about have always existed (and still do) in all large, complex human societies. Apparently, this is a "mistake" humans have made over and over again for the last 6000 years or so, ever since large complex human societies first appeared.

I'm sure Chomsky could explain this insurmountable problem away with some kind of clever, convincing-sounding answer because the old fuckhead always has some smooth-sounding  and very seductive bullshit to offer up, regardless of the question.

Now, if you've understood this much, then you will also understand that to maintain this very convenient "blank slate" view of how humans work, you've got to either 1) deny that human nature exists; or 2) admit that human nature must exist—this is correct—but say further that we know virtually nothing about it. 

In the video below, Chomsky takes option #2. That's Flatland filtering, plain and simple. This leaves him free to talk out his ass about anything he wants to, including Peter Kropotkin on the natural roots of anarchism, an opportunity he has exploited time and time again for longer than I care to remember.

As you listen to Chomsky below, try to understand why he must believe what he believes about Human Nature (a post-hoc rationalization) as explained above. It's all Flatland bullshit. For example, at the end of the video, Chomsky tells us we can't work out a good enough theory of Human Nature because, scientifically, the problem is too hard for us solve! Nonsense.

For a very long time now, reasonable (albeit incomplete) answers about human nature have been staring us in the face, at least as far as I'm concerned. Necessarily human nature is revealed in the world humans have constructed. How could it be otherwise?

But then again, I don't have an agenda for social change I need to defend, like Chomsky does.

 

Comments

[Brian]

It's always the same, no?

If we can really behavior, why haven't we? Why is there no evidence in the record of wide-scale behavioral change in the face of many obvious and well-documented problems resulting from our existing behavior?

Never mind that! Nothing to see here. Move along.

Of course humans can change. Just yesterday I started exercising! And, in any case, change would certainly happen if THEY were not conspiring to prevent it. We MUST remove THEM so that WE can change (by WE, of course, I mean YOU).

And the beat rolls on...