Chomsky: "Students should be Anarchists"

NOTE: This has been translated from German to English, and I'd imagine Chomsky's quotes were translated from English to German and back to English. I have asked Chomsky whether these quotes are more or less accurate and he has confirmed them. Though he has stated they are obviously translated.

ZEIT Campus: You often say you are an anarchist. What do you mean by that?

Chomsky: Anarchists try to identify power structures. They urge those exercising power to justify themselves. This justification does not succeed most of the time. Then anarchists work at unmasking and mastering the structures, whether they involve patriarchal families, a Mafia international system or the private tyrannies of the economy, the corporation.

ZEIT Campus: What was the key experience that made you an anarchist?

Chomsky: There was none. When I was twelve years old, I began to go to secondhand bookshops. Many of them were run by anarchists who came from Spain. Therefore it seemed very natural to me to be an anarchist.

ZEIT Campus: Should all students become anarchists?

Chomsky: Yes. Students should challenge authorities and join a long anarchist tradition.

ZEIT Campus: “Challenge authorities” – a liberal or a moderate leftist could accept that invitation.

Chomsky: As soon as one identifies, challenges and overcomes illegitimate power, he or she is an anarchist. Most people are anarchists. What they call themselves doesn’t matter to me.

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I wonder if they're more pliant now than they used to be.

Whether his explanation is good/clear enough, is subjective.

"ZEIT Campus: But are students more political? Today’s generation is often reproached for being disinterested in the world."

(Think Holden Caulfield and his classmates at Pencey Prep. Those days are long over)
Later students were from a solid middle class and could at least expect a decent job upon completion of college. (This is the story of the Boomers, especially the early boomers)
Students now come from an impoverished middle class that will not be sustained and the working class and are saddled with extreme debt and less bright economic futures. They have to put their heads down and hope to come out ahead in the competition.

but that's about the only consistent thing in anarchism; nobody can define it to everyone else's consensus.

It has historically been a distinctly anti-capitalist and anti-government movement. Not that difficult to define.

So I guess they're anti-government when it suits their purposes.

But since Noam Chomsky also calls himself a socialist ie. one who seeks government solutions to people's problems, that would tend to disagree with your claim it is anti-government.

And since libertarian-anarchism exists, people who are obsessed with the beauties of capitalism, that pretty much nullifies your claim.

Socialism can also mean worker-ownership over the means of production.

American Libertarians are an ultra-capitalist rightwing group that have little to do with classical anarchism, which is socialist, or sometimes communist.

Which proves my point.

Chomsky is a left-wing anarchist in the sense that he favors decentralization of governmental power yet also favors socialism as an ideal goal to achieve in the long-run. I guess a good example would be an employee-owned enterprise managed and operated solely by the employees compared to an enterprise that is owned and managed by a state or government entity, which makes the employees who work there public workers. Left-wing anarchists were and continue to be largely opposed to notions like Stalinism or Maoism or Trotskyism, and they are, at best, wary of any attempt to transition to state socialism even in a democratic sense because organs of power that concentrate so much power into the hands of a few can be captured by individuals or groups that may wish to undo reform or subvert government power for their own purposes.

In terms of governmental structures, constructive anarchist suggestions could come in the form of "We want the ability to recall sitting legislators half-way through their term" or "We want the ability to call a referendum on an act passed by Congress to get the public's approval or veto of the act" or "We want the power to start initiatives to pass laws Congressmen are reluctant or unwilling to act on in the interests of the public." Things that throw power back to the people or allow people direct input into government workings tend to be things they support.

While I do understand the tendencies that drive left-wing anarchism, I tend to be a bit more pragmatic in approach. For example, I'm perfectly happy with a centralized bureaucracy called Medicare For All being instituted for the US for the sake of achieving "economies of scale" in terms of cost savings in health care for all Americans, while a hard-line left-anarchist approach could be something more like a network of community-run hospitals/health clinics or even commune-run hospitals and health clinics. Hell, in contrast to that, state socialists would assert what the US needs to do is implement an American version of Great Britain's National Health Service, where all doctors and nurses and medical techs are basically public employees serving the public good.

There are a lot of varieties of democrats. The same is true of anything else. Why should this be held against Anarchism when virtually any ideology/belief system/Theory on society is going to have variety. I don't view anarchism as a static ideology. I view it as a spectrum of ideology.

If you read anarchist history, there is variety, but basic ideals are essentially the same.

I imagine if we (anarchists) all thought exactly the same you would be telling me: "Oh, they all think the same. They're mindless ideological robots."

Seems we can't win.

This bureau also holds sway in matters involving Che Guevara and Malcolm X.

...authority corrupts; and a man who follows authority is destroying himself and destroying also that which he has placed in a position of authority. The follower destroys the master as the master destroys the follower. The guru destroys the pupil as the pupil destroys the guru.

Through authority you will never find anything. You must be free of authority to find reality. It is one of the most difficult things to be free of authority, both the outer and the inner. Inner authority is the consciousness of experience, consciousness of knowledge. And outward authority is the state, the party, the group, the community. A man who would find reality must shun all authority, external and inward. So, don't be told what to think. That is the curse of reading - the word of another becomes all-important.

The question begins by saying, ''We have been told.'' Who is there to tell you? Sir, don't you see that leaders and saints and great teachers have failed, because you are what you are? So leave them alone. You have made them failures because you are not seeking truth; you want gratification. Don't follow anyone, including myself; don't make of another your authority. You yourself have to be the master and the pupil. The moment you acknowledge another as a master and yourself as a pupil, you are denying truth. There is no master, no pupil, in the search for truth.

The search for truth is important, not you or the master who is going to help you to find the truth. You see, modern education, and also the previous education, have taught you what to think, not how to think. They have put you within a frame, and that frame has destroyed you, because you seek out a guru, a teacher, a leader, political or other, only when you are confused. Otherwise you never follow anybody. If you are very clear, if you are inwardly a light unto yourself, you will never follow anyone. But because you are not, you follow; you follow out of your confusion, and what you follow must also be confused. Your leaders as well as yourself are confused, politically and religiously. Therefore, first clear up your own confusion, become a light unto yourself, and then the problem will cease."

- Jiddu Krishnamurti


The whole point is none - no authority. And for students to realize that they themselves create all authorities they accept. Always question, don't accept "because I said so" or "because that's the way the system is" as a valid reason for anything.

If so, today's youth are way ahead of you Professor Chomsky.

It's the most obvious necessary statement and it gets voted down to eternity. This is the big tent I voted for?

As one of my favorite music reviewers wrote recently in regards to internet comments: "Feeling something has the sensation of actual knowledge, bypassing mental work, the necessity of thought and the application of reason, not to mention actual information. I think it is significant that among people suffering from dementia, the last thing to go is the ability to have a strident opinion. It is the easiest thing to generate."

Mick LaSalle - San Francisco Chronicle 8/28/11.

It is structure that controls us, not power. There is no such thing as power anymore. I almost wish there was. That was a time of character. These days it is a system that controls us... struggle to get a job, struggle to get a home, struggle to get food. Power? Sorry, I don't get it. You are really cool for getting to talk to Chomsky though. Way to go!