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3.69 AVERAGE
3.69 AVERAGE
informative
reflective
slow-paced
informative
medium-paced
Awfully written. I'd not recommend reading anything beyond the second chapter, which is full of tautology and irrelevant facts. As much as I respect Chomsky as an activist, he doesn't have a concrete worldview.
He does a terrible job of swaying the reader towards his ideology since his prose is just as boring as his lectures/interviews. The book lacks focus as well. I don't think spamming historical facts for 50 pages about how the communists betrayed the anarchists during the Spanish Revolution can ever be justified for any reason other than to lengthen the book to sell more copies.
He does a terrible job of swaying the reader towards his ideology since his prose is just as boring as his lectures/interviews. The book lacks focus as well. I don't think spamming historical facts for 50 pages about how the communists betrayed the anarchists during the Spanish Revolution can ever be justified for any reason other than to lengthen the book to sell more copies.
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
I have had my misconceptions cleared, and my historical political awareness improved. A well reasoned and well presented introduction to the political perspective of anarchism.
Engaging and powerful reasons to think of anarchism as a grassroots movement that can build a perfectly functioning society.
I found the last chapter on the link between linguistics and freedom not as engaging, though, the connections are clearly exposed.
Ni dieu ni maître!
I found the last chapter on the link between linguistics and freedom not as engaging, though, the connections are clearly exposed.
Ni dieu ni maître!
its a good book to start the flame but too slow for me to actually be excited whenever i open the book.
fast-paced
My favourite sections of Chomsky’s books (I’ve read a few now) are always the interviews. Yes the other essays are thoughtful and poignant and insightful but I always end up taking the most notes from the interviews and that is what keeps me coming back for more. This was no exception and I particularly loved it because it helped me to reconcile wanting a dissolution of governmental power as well as wanting to protect what social services are currently provided by the state. It also provided me with helpful and succinct ways to describe anarchism: not an advocation for chaos but simply the assumption that all power one wields over another is without authority unless proven to be justified.
Quotes I loved:
* The term socialism has been so thoroughly tarnished in the hegemonic soundbites of Fox News as to be obviously unusable politically. It’s also the word Fox News associated with Barack Obama, whom this generation’s doorknocking helped elect but whose administration strengthened the corporate oligarchy, waged unaccountable robot wars, and imprisoned migrant workers and heroic whistleblowers at heroic rates. So much for Socialism.
* What might these right and left libertarians- equally amnesiac about their common origins- learn from one another? The anarchy-curious left might rediscover that there is more to a functional resistance than youthful rebellion. Its members might for instance, study working examples of the mutual aid they long for- education, material support, free day care- in churches across the country which form both the social life and the power base of the right. Independent of the state these citadels put into practice something anarchists have been saying all along: no form of politics is worth our time until it’s helps struggling people get what they need, sustainably and reliably. All the better if you can do so without patriarchy and fundamentalism. Meanwhile the libertarian right might find the wherewithal to detach from its overly rosy view of the constitutional, from its more or less subtle racism against non-whites and immigrants and from its 1percent sponsors. It might raise tougher questions about whether ‘competition’ is really the most liberating response to long standing injustices along lines of gender, race, and circumstance.
* A French writer, sympathetic to anarchism, wrote in the 1890s that ‘anarchism has a broad back, like paper it ensures anything’ - including, he noted, those whose acts are such that ‘a mortal enemy of anarchism could not have done better’.
* If one were to seek a single leading idea within the anarchist tradition, it should, I believe, be that expressed by Bakunin when, in writing on the Paris Commune, he identified himself as follows: I am a fanatic lover of liberty, considering it as the unique condition under which intelligence, dignity, and human happiness can develop and grow; not purely formal liberty conceded, measured out and regulated by the state, an eternal lie which in reality represents nothing more than the privilege of some founded on the slavery of the rest.
* I’m not a great enthusiast of Marx but one comment he made seems appropriate here: socialism is an effort to try to solve man’s animal problems, and after having solved the animal problems then we can face the human problems - but it’s not part of socialism to solve the human problems, socialism is an effort to get you to the point where you can face the human problems.
* so despite the anarchist vision I think aspects of the state system, like the one that makes sure children eat have to be defended - in fact defended very vigorously. And given the accelerating effort that’s made these days to roll back the victories for justice and human rights which have been won through long and often extremely bitter struggles in the west, in my opinion the immediate goal of even committed anarchists should be to defend some state institutions while helping to pry them open to more meaningful public participation and ultimately to dismantle them in a much more free society.
* The political system with all its flaws does have the opportunity for participation by the general population which other existing institutions such as corporations don’t have. I’m fact that’s exactly why the far right wants to weaken governmental structures because if you can make sure that all the key decisions are in the hands of Microsoft and General Electric and Raytheon then you don’t have to worry anymore about the threat of popular involvement in Policy-making. So take something that’s been happening in recent year: devolution- that is, removing authority from the federal government down to the state governments. Well in some circumstances that would be a democratising move which I would be in favour of- it would be a move away from central authority down to local authority. But that’s in abstract circumstances that don’t exist. Right now it’ll happen because moving decision making power down to the state level means handing it over to private power. See, huge corporations can influence and dominate federal government but even middle sized corporations can influence state governments and play one states workforce off against another’s by threatening to move production elsewhere unless they get better tax breaks and so on. So under the conditions of existing systems of power devolution is very anti democratic; under other systems of greater equality devolution could be highly democratic but these are questions which really can’t be discussed in isolation from society as it actually exists.
* In fact the structure of the news production system is you can’t produce evidence… it’s called concision… the kinds of things I would say on nightlife you can’t say in one sentence because they depart from the standard religion. If you want to repeat the religion you can get away with it between two commercials. If you want to say something that questions the religion you’re expected to give evidence and that you can’t do between two commercials. So therefore you lack concision, so therefore you can’t talk.I think that’s a terrific technique of propaganda. To impose concision is a way of virtually guaranteeing that the party line gets repeated over and over again and that nothing else gets heard.
Quotes I loved:
* The term socialism has been so thoroughly tarnished in the hegemonic soundbites of Fox News as to be obviously unusable politically. It’s also the word Fox News associated with Barack Obama, whom this generation’s doorknocking helped elect but whose administration strengthened the corporate oligarchy, waged unaccountable robot wars, and imprisoned migrant workers and heroic whistleblowers at heroic rates. So much for Socialism.
* What might these right and left libertarians- equally amnesiac about their common origins- learn from one another? The anarchy-curious left might rediscover that there is more to a functional resistance than youthful rebellion. Its members might for instance, study working examples of the mutual aid they long for- education, material support, free day care- in churches across the country which form both the social life and the power base of the right. Independent of the state these citadels put into practice something anarchists have been saying all along: no form of politics is worth our time until it’s helps struggling people get what they need, sustainably and reliably. All the better if you can do so without patriarchy and fundamentalism. Meanwhile the libertarian right might find the wherewithal to detach from its overly rosy view of the constitutional, from its more or less subtle racism against non-whites and immigrants and from its 1percent sponsors. It might raise tougher questions about whether ‘competition’ is really the most liberating response to long standing injustices along lines of gender, race, and circumstance.
* A French writer, sympathetic to anarchism, wrote in the 1890s that ‘anarchism has a broad back, like paper it ensures anything’ - including, he noted, those whose acts are such that ‘a mortal enemy of anarchism could not have done better’.
* If one were to seek a single leading idea within the anarchist tradition, it should, I believe, be that expressed by Bakunin when, in writing on the Paris Commune, he identified himself as follows: I am a fanatic lover of liberty, considering it as the unique condition under which intelligence, dignity, and human happiness can develop and grow; not purely formal liberty conceded, measured out and regulated by the state, an eternal lie which in reality represents nothing more than the privilege of some founded on the slavery of the rest.
* I’m not a great enthusiast of Marx but one comment he made seems appropriate here: socialism is an effort to try to solve man’s animal problems, and after having solved the animal problems then we can face the human problems - but it’s not part of socialism to solve the human problems, socialism is an effort to get you to the point where you can face the human problems.
* so despite the anarchist vision I think aspects of the state system, like the one that makes sure children eat have to be defended - in fact defended very vigorously. And given the accelerating effort that’s made these days to roll back the victories for justice and human rights which have been won through long and often extremely bitter struggles in the west, in my opinion the immediate goal of even committed anarchists should be to defend some state institutions while helping to pry them open to more meaningful public participation and ultimately to dismantle them in a much more free society.
* The political system with all its flaws does have the opportunity for participation by the general population which other existing institutions such as corporations don’t have. I’m fact that’s exactly why the far right wants to weaken governmental structures because if you can make sure that all the key decisions are in the hands of Microsoft and General Electric and Raytheon then you don’t have to worry anymore about the threat of popular involvement in Policy-making. So take something that’s been happening in recent year: devolution- that is, removing authority from the federal government down to the state governments. Well in some circumstances that would be a democratising move which I would be in favour of- it would be a move away from central authority down to local authority. But that’s in abstract circumstances that don’t exist. Right now it’ll happen because moving decision making power down to the state level means handing it over to private power. See, huge corporations can influence and dominate federal government but even middle sized corporations can influence state governments and play one states workforce off against another’s by threatening to move production elsewhere unless they get better tax breaks and so on. So under the conditions of existing systems of power devolution is very anti democratic; under other systems of greater equality devolution could be highly democratic but these are questions which really can’t be discussed in isolation from society as it actually exists.
* In fact the structure of the news production system is you can’t produce evidence… it’s called concision… the kinds of things I would say on nightlife you can’t say in one sentence because they depart from the standard religion. If you want to repeat the religion you can get away with it between two commercials. If you want to say something that questions the religion you’re expected to give evidence and that you can’t do between two commercials. So therefore you lack concision, so therefore you can’t talk.I think that’s a terrific technique of propaganda. To impose concision is a way of virtually guaranteeing that the party line gets repeated over and over again and that nothing else gets heard.
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
The book contains interviews with Chomsky as well as two essays. The interviews are quite straightforward and well understandable, while the essays are quite difficult to read, as someone without background in those subjects presented. Overall, Chomsky is very well spoken and provides quite thoughtful answers and information. A good read, but can be difficult at times.
i must confess i was expecting more from this book, i’ve read a few texts on anarchism- mostly written by women- and i found them more interesting, as well as critically necessary. expectations are always a problem of the reader and not of the writer, so maybe it was my mistake!