1 00:00:05,431 --> 00:00:11,905 Human Nature and the Ideal Society 2 00:00:14,169 --> 00:00:17,100 In the 17th century, when Galilei discovered that 3 00:00:17,100 --> 00:00:20,608 the Earth turned around the Sun instead of the other way around 4 00:00:20,608 --> 00:00:23,286 many people were in a state of great shock. 5 00:00:23,286 --> 00:00:29,010 They had thus far believed that humans were at the center of the cosmos 6 00:00:29,010 --> 00:00:32,882 and around this idea they had built their entire belief system. 7 00:00:32,881 --> 00:00:36,300 Suddenly, this did not seem to be the case anymore. 8 00:00:36,956 --> 00:00:41,003 Foucault's theory can be clarified by pointing out that 9 00:00:41,003 --> 00:00:46,832 he takes a Galilei-type standpoint in relation to culture. 10 00:00:46,832 --> 00:00:49,444 Since the time of Galilei, 11 00:00:49,444 --> 00:00:53,461 people had thought that when it came to culture and society 12 00:00:53,460 --> 00:00:55,617 humans were at the center. 13 00:00:55,618 --> 00:00:57,748 After all, it is they who created them. 14 00:00:57,825 --> 00:00:59,711 Foucault denies this. 15 00:00:59,710 --> 00:01:02,790 He says that when it comes to culture, it is not the subject that counts 16 00:01:02,790 --> 00:01:05,658 but the structure, the universal. 17 00:01:05,658 --> 00:01:09,296 Something that is in itself understandable if one realizes 18 00:01:09,296 --> 00:01:12,250 that the rules according to which mankind behaves 19 00:01:12,250 --> 00:01:17,557 were already invented long before one was born 20 00:01:17,557 --> 00:01:21,734 and that the name of the inventor remains completely unknown to us. 21 00:01:22,751 --> 00:01:26,861 One can compare Foucault to Galilei, but from another perspective, 22 00:01:26,861 --> 00:01:29,592 one can also compare Chomsky to Galilei 23 00:01:29,593 --> 00:01:33,804 because his work in the science of language, linguistics, 24 00:01:33,804 --> 00:01:38,700 has had a great revolutionary influence all over the world. 25 00:01:38,700 --> 00:01:43,350 Chomsky has brought about a major transformation in the field of linguistics. 26 00:01:43,349 --> 00:01:50,643 Interestingly, Chomsky's theories point in the exact opposite direction 27 00:01:50,643 --> 00:01:53,000 as those of Foucault. 28 00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:56,421 Chomsky gives much more primacy to the subject. 29 00:01:57,438 --> 00:02:01,411 In the confrontation between these two completely different thinkers, 30 00:02:01,412 --> 00:02:06,870 it is moreover good to remember that they work in very different fields. 31 00:02:06,870 --> 00:02:11,051 Foucault is a cultural researcher; Chomsky is a language researcher. 32 00:02:11,729 --> 00:02:16,987 In other words, Foucault's interest lies in the history of scientific language, 33 00:02:16,986 --> 00:02:21,322 while Chomsky's interest lies in the daily language we use. 34 00:02:22,581 --> 00:02:25,578 It is interesting, and maybe also not coincidental 35 00:02:25,578 --> 00:02:28,338 that the debate between these two thinkers only really 36 00:02:28,338 --> 00:02:31,705 gets exciting in the second half when they start discussing politics. 37 00:02:31,794 --> 00:02:36,198 Still I believe it is good that this is preceded by a theoretical part 38 00:02:36,199 --> 00:02:40,078 because in any discussion about philosophy and society 39 00:02:40,078 --> 00:02:43,375 what matters are not the political standpoints 40 00:02:43,375 --> 00:02:48,500 certain thinkers happen to take, but rather 41 00:02:48,500 --> 00:02:51,489 the arguments on the basis of which they do so. 42 00:02:52,540 --> 00:02:55,240 It might also be nice to note that this discussion took place 43 00:02:55,240 --> 00:02:59,490 in the auditorium of the technical college of Eindhoven (NL). 44 00:02:59,490 --> 00:03:03,879 A discussion between two philosophers, two researchers 45 00:03:03,879 --> 00:03:09,336 whose work is characterized by great precision, great detail 46 00:03:09,336 --> 00:03:12,336 and also great clarity. 47 00:03:12,665 --> 00:03:15,665 Moreover I thought it was quite symbolic that the debate took place 48 00:03:15,665 --> 00:03:17,777 in a space with a lot of glass: 49 00:03:17,777 --> 00:03:20,777 the inner- and outer-world blended together. 50 00:03:20,777 --> 00:03:25,228 During the broadcast you could see the traffic outside passing by. 51 00:03:25,229 --> 00:03:29,721 Symbolic indeed, because the relationship between inner- and outer-world 52 00:03:29,721 --> 00:03:34,390 is central to the first half of the fourth philosophers' debate 53 00:03:34,389 --> 00:03:38,691 about human nature and the ideal society. 54 00:03:48,046 --> 00:03:51,700 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the fourth debate 55 00:03:51,700 --> 00:03:55,229 of the International Philosophers' Project. 56 00:03:55,264 --> 00:04:01,406 Tonight's debaters are Mr. Michel Foucault of the College de France 57 00:04:01,407 --> 00:04:07,787 and Mr. Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 58 00:04:09,381 --> 00:04:13,675 Both philosophers have points in common and points of difference. 59 00:04:14,453 --> 00:04:19,805 Perhaps the best way to compare both philosophers is to look at them 60 00:04:19,805 --> 00:04:25,735 as mountain-diggers working at opposite sides of the same mountain 61 00:04:25,735 --> 00:04:29,132 with different tools, without knowing even 62 00:04:29,132 --> 00:04:32,792 if they are working in each other's direction. 63 00:04:33,228 --> 00:04:35,662 All learning concerning man, 64 00:04:35,661 --> 00:04:39,640 ranging from history to linguistics and psychology, 65 00:04:39,641 --> 00:04:44,066 are faced with the question of whether, in the last instance, 66 00:04:44,065 --> 00:04:47,593 we are the product of all kinds of external factors 67 00:04:47,593 --> 00:04:50,593 or if, in spite of our differences, 68 00:04:51,004 --> 00:04:55,012 we have something we could call a common human nature 69 00:04:55,012 --> 00:04:58,012 by which we can call each other human beings. 70 00:04:58,026 --> 00:05:01,026 So my first question is to Mr. Chomsky 71 00:05:01,567 --> 00:05:05,500 because you employ often the concept of human nature 72 00:05:05,598 --> 00:05:08,514 and even in this connection you are using terms 73 00:05:08,514 --> 00:05:11,514 like "innate ideas" and "innate structures". 74 00:05:11,514 --> 00:05:16,305 Which arguments can you derive from linguistics in order to give 75 00:05:16,305 --> 00:05:20,911 such a central position to this notion of human nature? 76 00:05:22,276 --> 00:05:28,137 Well, let me begin in a slightly technical way. 77 00:05:29,324 --> 00:05:33,291 A person who is interested in studying languages is faced with a 78 00:05:33,291 --> 00:05:36,291 very definite empirical problem. 79 00:05:36,624 --> 00:05:42,398 He's faced with an organism, a mature, let's say adult speaker, 80 00:05:42,398 --> 00:05:48,614 who has somehow acquired an amazing range of abilities, 81 00:05:48,613 --> 00:05:53,586 which enable him in particular to say what he means, 82 00:05:53,586 --> 00:05:55,454 to understand what people say to him, 83 00:05:55,454 --> 00:06:00,745 To do this in a fashion that I think is proper to call highly creative. 84 00:06:00,745 --> 00:06:04,918 Now, the person who has acquired this intricate 85 00:06:04,918 --> 00:06:09,728 and highly articulated and organized collection of abilities, 86 00:06:09,728 --> 00:06:12,728 the collection of abilities that we call knowing a language, 87 00:06:12,728 --> 00:06:16,881 that person has been exposed to a certain experience, 88 00:06:16,880 --> 00:06:19,768 he has been presented in the course of his lifetime 89 00:06:19,769 --> 00:06:22,769 with a certain amount of data, 90 00:06:22,762 --> 00:06:25,762 of direct experience with a language. 91 00:06:25,762 --> 00:06:29,415 We can investigate the data that's available to this person. 92 00:06:29,415 --> 00:06:36,367 Having done so, in principle, we're faced with a reasonably clear 93 00:06:36,367 --> 00:06:40,516 and well-delineated scientific problem, namely the problem 94 00:06:40,516 --> 00:06:47,573 of accounting for the gap between the really quite small quantity of data, 95 00:06:47,572 --> 00:06:50,639 small and rather degenerate quantity of data 96 00:06:50,639 --> 00:06:53,468 that's presented to the person, to the child 97 00:06:53,468 --> 00:06:58,514 and the very highly articulated, highly systematic, profoundly organized 98 00:06:58,514 --> 00:07:03,245 resulting knowledge that he somehow derives from this data. 99 00:07:03,245 --> 00:07:06,860 Furthermore, even more remarkable, we notice that 100 00:07:06,860 --> 00:07:11,639 in a wide range of languages, in fact all that have been studied seriously, 101 00:07:11,639 --> 00:07:17,709 there are remarkable limitations on the kinds of systems that emerge 102 00:07:17,709 --> 00:07:22,389 from the very different kinds of experience to which people are exposed. 103 00:07:22,389 --> 00:07:26,733 There is only one possible explanation, 104 00:07:26,733 --> 00:07:29,733 one can say in a rather schematic fashion, 105 00:07:29,737 --> 00:07:34,354 for this remarkable phenomenon, namely 106 00:07:34,353 --> 00:07:42,806 the assumption that the individual himself contributes a good deal, 107 00:07:42,807 --> 00:07:47,754 an overwhelming part in fact, of the general schematic structure 108 00:07:47,754 --> 00:07:51,175 and perhaps even of the specific content of the knowledge 109 00:07:51,175 --> 00:07:56,408 that he ultimately derives from this very scattered and limited experience. 110 00:07:56,408 --> 00:08:01,331 That is, to put it rather loosely: the child must begin with the knowledge, 111 00:08:01,331 --> 00:08:03,670 certainly not with the knowledge that he's hearing 112 00:08:03,670 --> 00:08:06,000 English or Dutch or French or something else, 113 00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:09,867 but he does start with the knowledge that he's hearing a human language 114 00:08:09,867 --> 00:08:12,141 of a very narrow and explicit type 115 00:08:12,141 --> 00:08:15,141 that permits a very small range of variation. 116 00:08:15,141 --> 00:08:16,999 And it's because he begins with that 117 00:08:16,999 --> 00:08:19,999 highly organized and very restrictive schematism, 118 00:08:19,999 --> 00:08:25,849 that he's able to make the huge leap from scattered and degenerate data 119 00:08:25,848 --> 00:08:28,211 to highly organized knowledge. 120 00:08:28,211 --> 00:08:33,208 I would claim then that this instinctive knowledge, if you like 121 00:08:33,208 --> 00:08:37,199 this schematism that makes it possible to derive 122 00:08:37,200 --> 00:08:41,136 complex and intricate knowledge on the basis of very partial data 123 00:08:41,135 --> 00:08:44,135 is one fundamental constituent of human nature. 124 00:08:44,135 --> 00:08:48,466 But then I assume that in other domains of human intelligence, 125 00:08:48,466 --> 00:08:51,351 in other domains of human cognition and even behavior, 126 00:08:51,351 --> 00:08:53,939 something of the same sort must be true. 127 00:08:53,940 --> 00:09:03,231 The collection of this mass of schematisms, innate organizing principles 128 00:09:03,230 --> 00:09:09,244 which guides our social and intellectual and individual behavior, 129 00:09:09,244 --> 00:09:12,605 that's what I mean to refer to by the concept of human nature. 130 00:09:14,475 --> 00:09:19,105 Well, Mr. Foucault, when I think of your books like 131 00:09:19,105 --> 00:09:21,519 The History of Madness and Words and Objects, 132 00:09:21,519 --> 00:09:27,912 I get the impression that you are working on a completely different level 133 00:09:27,912 --> 00:09:32,259 and with an opposite aim and goal. 134 00:09:32,259 --> 00:09:37,189 When I think of the word schematism in relation to human nature, 135 00:09:37,190 --> 00:09:39,803 then you are just trying to work out that 136 00:09:39,802 --> 00:09:42,802 there are several periods with several schematisms. 137 00:09:44,116 --> 00:09:45,753 What do you think about this? 138 00:09:45,754 --> 00:09:50,566 Well if you permit, I will answer in French because my English is so bad 139 00:09:50,566 --> 00:09:55,105 that I would be ashamed of answering in English. 140 00:09:57,990 --> 00:10:02,860 It is true that I mistrust the notion of human nature a little 141 00:10:02,860 --> 00:10:05,860 and for the following reason: 142 00:10:05,860 --> 00:10:15,580 I believe that of the concepts or notions that a science can use 143 00:10:15,580 --> 00:10:26,134 not all have the same degree of elaboration. 144 00:10:26,134 --> 00:10:29,423 Let's take the example of biology. 145 00:10:29,423 --> 00:10:32,423 Within the field of biology, 146 00:10:33,011 --> 00:10:36,180 there are concepts that are more or less well-established 147 00:10:36,181 --> 00:10:39,181 like the concept of a "reflex". 148 00:10:39,716 --> 00:10:46,049 But there also exist "peripheral" notions, 149 00:10:46,049 --> 00:10:54,963 which do not play an "organizing" role within science, 150 00:10:54,964 --> 00:10:59,483 they are not instruments of analysis 151 00:10:59,482 --> 00:11:03,732 and they are not descriptive either. 152 00:11:03,732 --> 00:11:08,919 These notions simply serve to point out some problems 153 00:11:09,274 --> 00:11:14,558 or rather to point out certain fields in need of study. 154 00:11:14,558 --> 00:11:21,437 For instance, there exists a very important concept in the field of biology: 155 00:11:21,437 --> 00:11:24,168 the concept of life. 156 00:11:26,995 --> 00:11:30,043 In the 17th and 18th centuries, 157 00:11:30,558 --> 00:11:35,996 the notion of life was hardly used when studying nature. 158 00:11:35,996 --> 00:11:40,871 One classified natural beings, whether living or non-living, 159 00:11:40,871 --> 00:11:44,683 in a vast hierarchical tableau. 160 00:11:44,683 --> 00:11:49,962 Life was a concept they didn't use and didn't need. 161 00:11:49,962 --> 00:11:55,694 At the end of the 18th century, a number of problems arose 162 00:11:55,695 --> 00:12:03,570 for instance in relation to the internal organization of these natural beings. 163 00:12:03,802 --> 00:12:10,000 Moreover, thanks to the use of the microscope, 164 00:12:10,000 --> 00:12:13,831 different sorts of phenomena suddenly came to light, 165 00:12:13,831 --> 00:12:17,201 which could not have been perceived until then 166 00:12:17,201 --> 00:12:22,800 and whose mechanisms and function had been unclear in the past. 167 00:12:22,865 --> 00:12:27,643 The developments in chemistry have also highlighted certain problems 168 00:12:27,643 --> 00:12:30,643 in relation to the connections between 169 00:12:30,643 --> 00:12:34,961 chemical reactions and the physiological processes of organisms. 170 00:12:34,961 --> 00:12:38,251 And that's how an entire field appeared, 171 00:12:38,251 --> 00:12:42,627 one that was completely new for biologists, 172 00:12:42,628 --> 00:12:45,424 one that is nowadays known as life. 173 00:12:45,423 --> 00:12:49,677 Life was a concept that served to point out 174 00:12:49,677 --> 00:12:55,473 new fields of study that science still had to discover. 175 00:12:56,100 --> 00:13:00,721 I would say, as a historian of science, 176 00:13:00,721 --> 00:13:05,130 that the concept of life was an epistemological indicator, 177 00:13:05,130 --> 00:13:08,130 an index of the problems that still had to be uncovered. 178 00:13:08,484 --> 00:13:13,341 And I wonder whether one could say the same thing about human nature. 179 00:13:14,315 --> 00:13:18,146 Foucault is therefore comparing Chomsky's concept of human nature 180 00:13:18,145 --> 00:13:22,407 with the concept of life as it is used in biology and in its history. 181 00:13:22,408 --> 00:13:26,938 He does this because he sees the concept of human nature 182 00:13:26,938 --> 00:13:30,918 more as an indication of a research program 183 00:13:30,918 --> 00:13:36,197 rather than as an indication of humans' potential for achievement. 184 00:13:36,197 --> 00:13:42,596 For him, human nature acts as a scientific shopping list and nothing more. 185 00:13:42,596 --> 00:13:46,667 Chomsky is willing to accept this as long as it is clear 186 00:13:46,667 --> 00:13:49,667 that the fields of biology, physiology and neurology 187 00:13:49,879 --> 00:13:52,858 still don't have the means to 188 00:13:52,857 --> 00:13:57,616 adequately describe human nature and human capacity for language. 189 00:13:58,250 --> 00:14:05,854 Quite early on in the debate, the moderator Mr. Elders finds it difficult 190 00:14:05,854 --> 00:14:08,854 to keep the interaction flowing between the two speakers. 191 00:14:08,854 --> 00:14:11,490 This is partly due to the different languages they speak, 192 00:14:11,490 --> 00:14:15,199 but most importantly due to the fact that 193 00:14:15,200 --> 00:14:18,956 Chomsky and Foucault inhabit such different worlds of thought, 194 00:14:18,956 --> 00:14:22,705 to the point in which their ideas easily slide past each other. 195 00:14:22,705 --> 00:14:25,802 We actually observe the curious phenomenon 196 00:14:25,802 --> 00:14:28,802 of two brains thinking simultaneously, 197 00:14:29,168 --> 00:14:33,859 where one picks up the last claim of the other 198 00:14:33,859 --> 00:14:38,336 in order to further elucidate it from his own system of thought. 199 00:14:39,078 --> 00:14:43,365 For Chomsky the concept of creativity plays a great role, 200 00:14:43,365 --> 00:14:46,365 and the following part of the debate will be largely dedicated to this issue. 201 00:14:46,365 --> 00:14:50,821 For him, creativity is actually a characteristic of all human beings. 202 00:14:50,821 --> 00:14:52,398 Everybody uses it. 203 00:14:52,398 --> 00:14:56,460 People stuck in traffic who, unexpectedly and on the spot, 204 00:14:56,460 --> 00:14:58,750 have to think about what to do next. 205 00:14:58,750 --> 00:15:02,919 A teacher who doesn't want to fall into a pattern of authoritarian behavior 206 00:15:02,919 --> 00:15:05,254 but when confronted with a difficult pupil, 207 00:15:05,254 --> 00:15:07,851 has to come up with an alternative type of behavior. 208 00:15:07,851 --> 00:15:12,813 But above all, this creativity applies to the child who learns a language 209 00:15:12,813 --> 00:15:20,226 and who curiously learns to produce new language. 210 00:15:20,681 --> 00:15:22,550 Foucault is opposed to this idea. 211 00:15:22,549 --> 00:15:28,842 He constantly emphasizes the so-called "epistemological field" 212 00:15:28,842 --> 00:15:31,842 within which human activity takes place. 213 00:15:32,339 --> 00:15:38,580 This "epistemological field" or "episteme" is described 214 00:15:38,580 --> 00:15:41,580 as the totality of unconscious rules 215 00:15:41,649 --> 00:15:47,778 that manage the totality of all separated fields of knowledge. 216 00:15:48,631 --> 00:15:53,586 Foucault also talks of "tableau", which he also calls "system of elements". 217 00:15:53,586 --> 00:15:57,840 In the debate he also mentions the word "grille": bar or grid. 218 00:15:57,840 --> 00:16:00,682 Perhaps it's best to understand it as a network 219 00:16:00,682 --> 00:16:04,918 that all people are part of in a certain culture, whether they want it or not. 220 00:16:04,918 --> 00:16:09,491 It is a set of rules to which people obey in their thoughts 221 00:16:09,491 --> 00:16:15,750 and derive their search for identity, coherence and so forth. 222 00:16:15,750 --> 00:16:20,250 This network is not a creation of particular individuals: 223 00:16:20,875 --> 00:16:28,001 It decides the rules of the "think-and-do" habits we call culture, 224 00:16:28,001 --> 00:16:31,001 which every individual is subjected to. 225 00:16:31,001 --> 00:16:36,173 Such a network is not a "thing" or an "idea": 226 00:16:36,173 --> 00:16:38,937 it lies precisely in between the two. 227 00:16:38,937 --> 00:16:42,232 For Foucault, the history of thought is not associated with 228 00:16:42,232 --> 00:16:47,304 the history of ideas or with the development of the mind, 229 00:16:47,304 --> 00:16:54,033 rather it should be understood as discontinuous transformations, 230 00:16:54,033 --> 00:16:57,033 transitioning from one network to another. 231 00:16:57,735 --> 00:17:01,669 Foucault's approach highly differs from Chomsky's, 232 00:17:01,669 --> 00:17:03,798 for whom creativity plays a central role. 233 00:17:03,798 --> 00:17:06,798 At this point we clearly realize Foucault's tendency 234 00:17:06,798 --> 00:17:10,230 to dethrone the subject, 235 00:17:10,230 --> 00:17:14,878 as already illustrated with the example of Galilei. 236 00:17:14,878 --> 00:17:18,725 The philosophy of Foucault is a philosophy in which the philosopher 237 00:17:18,726 --> 00:17:22,948 constantly disappears from sight. 238 00:17:22,948 --> 00:17:27,440 One could say that, paradoxically, it is a philosophy without philosophers: 239 00:17:27,440 --> 00:17:29,663 an idea that has to be generalized 240 00:17:29,663 --> 00:17:32,534 because people are, according to Foucault, 241 00:17:32,534 --> 00:17:36,201 greatly absent within their own culture. 242 00:17:36,757 --> 00:17:42,381 In this respect, we can understand Foucault's strong and negative reaction 243 00:17:42,381 --> 00:17:48,153 towards the moderator who showed interest in his private matters. 244 00:17:48,200 --> 00:17:53,202 When Foucault debates, it is about everything except Foucault himself. 245 00:17:53,202 --> 00:17:56,331 This is an introduction to the following, 246 00:17:56,332 --> 00:17:59,204 quite detailed theoretical part of the debate, 247 00:17:59,203 --> 00:18:05,495 which seems to mainly focus on one question: 248 00:18:05,496 --> 00:18:09,839 To what extent is the individual able to discover something new, 249 00:18:09,838 --> 00:18:13,273 and if so, how should we make sense of this? 250 00:18:13,273 --> 00:18:16,439 This seems to me to be a very relevant question, 251 00:18:16,440 --> 00:18:18,620 especially if we remind ourselves that 252 00:18:18,619 --> 00:18:24,526 new forms of behavior, knowledge and science will need to be unveiled 253 00:18:24,527 --> 00:18:28,832 as long as we want to survive together in this world. 254 00:18:29,362 --> 00:18:32,955 We resume the debate where Foucault explains 255 00:18:32,954 --> 00:18:35,954 why he does not pay much attention to the creativity of the individual 256 00:18:35,954 --> 00:18:38,422 from a historical perspective. 257 00:18:40,528 --> 00:18:43,375 Within the traditional history of science, 258 00:18:43,375 --> 00:18:52,174 the creativity of individuals has been accorded maximum importance. 259 00:18:52,174 --> 00:18:59,985 The history of science, up until recently, essentially consisted of showing 260 00:18:59,986 --> 00:19:08,307 how an individual, whether it was Newton or Mendel, had been the creator 261 00:19:08,307 --> 00:19:12,393 or rather the discoverer of a reality 262 00:19:12,393 --> 00:19:16,438 that was already existing in things and in the world, 263 00:19:16,438 --> 00:19:19,620 a reality that no other person had previously discovered. 264 00:19:19,619 --> 00:19:24,918 I believe the postulate that lies dormant 265 00:19:24,919 --> 00:19:27,626 within the traditional history of science is 266 00:19:27,625 --> 00:19:33,769 that truth exists in order to be known, yet 267 00:19:33,769 --> 00:19:41,734 the human mind, due to the effect of a number of inhibitions or obstacles, 268 00:19:41,734 --> 00:19:46,154 has not managed to see this truth. 269 00:19:46,154 --> 00:19:50,049 The mind is made to see the truth and 270 00:19:50,049 --> 00:19:53,071 a contingent obstacle is impeding him to see it. 271 00:19:53,071 --> 00:19:56,667 According to some historians, this obstacle could be linked to 272 00:19:56,667 --> 00:20:01,442 socio-economic conditions, or to different forms of mentality, 273 00:20:01,442 --> 00:20:07,930 or to the belief and naivety in old religious myths and moral themes. 274 00:20:07,930 --> 00:20:11,996 All of these could act as obstacles, as blinders 275 00:20:11,996 --> 00:20:14,780 to those who want to see the truth. 276 00:20:14,779 --> 00:20:23,076 In reality the mind is meant to see, it is made to have access to the truth. 277 00:20:23,076 --> 00:20:27,096 In this traditional conception of the history of science, 278 00:20:27,096 --> 00:20:32,584 on the one hand there is an emphasis on the creativity of the individual 279 00:20:32,584 --> 00:20:35,584 who has the right to possess the truth, 280 00:20:35,584 --> 00:20:39,652 and yet this truth is taken back from him due to a system of obstacles 281 00:20:39,652 --> 00:20:45,913 which will prevent him from capturing, formulating and 282 00:20:45,913 --> 00:20:50,710 constructing this truth to which he is essentially entitled to possess. 283 00:20:51,980 --> 00:20:56,577 I believe the problem that is being posed is the exact opposite. 284 00:20:57,000 --> 00:21:03,958 What happens when we witness a great scientific transformation? 285 00:21:05,151 --> 00:21:10,519 In a great scientific transformation, for instance the birth of biology 286 00:21:10,519 --> 00:21:14,625 in the mid 17th century, or the birth of philology 287 00:21:14,625 --> 00:21:17,019 at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. 288 00:21:17,019 --> 00:21:21,047 It is true that a number of obstacles, prejudices 289 00:21:21,047 --> 00:21:25,483 and preconceived ideas tumble and disappear. 290 00:21:25,483 --> 00:21:31,404 What strikes me is that science, at the moment of its birth, 291 00:21:31,404 --> 00:21:36,619 not only gets rid of a certain number of obstacles, 292 00:21:36,619 --> 00:21:41,639 but also eliminates and masks a certain amount 293 00:21:41,640 --> 00:21:47,253 of existing knowledge and wisdoms. 294 00:21:47,252 --> 00:21:50,417 It's as if applying a new grid 295 00:21:50,417 --> 00:21:53,981 that, while it allows for the appearance of phenomena 296 00:21:53,981 --> 00:21:57,232 that had been previously masked, it also masks 297 00:21:57,232 --> 00:21:59,610 already existing knowledge. 298 00:21:59,611 --> 00:22:02,520 Therefore a science, the advancement of science 299 00:22:02,519 --> 00:22:04,076 and the acquisition of science, 300 00:22:04,076 --> 00:22:08,999 is not simply the oblivion of old prejudices, or the fall of certain obstacles. 301 00:22:08,999 --> 00:22:13,190 It is a new grid that masks certain things 302 00:22:13,190 --> 00:22:16,000 while allowing for the appearance of new knowledge. 303 00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:22,692 Therefore, when I criticize the notion of creativity, what I mean is that 304 00:22:22,692 --> 00:22:27,737 truth is not acquired through a kind of continuous and cumulative creation, 305 00:22:27,737 --> 00:22:32,764 but through a set of grids stacked on top of one another. 306 00:22:32,763 --> 00:22:36,638 I think in part we're slightly talking in cross-purposes 307 00:22:36,638 --> 00:22:39,638 because of a different use of the term creativity. 308 00:22:39,638 --> 00:22:43,028 In fact, I should say that my use of the term creativity 309 00:22:43,028 --> 00:22:45,580 is a little bit idiosyncratic 310 00:22:45,580 --> 00:22:49,481 and therefore the onus falls on me, not on you in this case. 311 00:22:49,481 --> 00:22:55,790 But when I speak of creativity, I'm not attributing to the concept 312 00:22:55,790 --> 00:23:03,564 the notion of value that is normal when we speak of creativity. That is, 313 00:23:03,565 --> 00:23:06,174 when you speak of scientific creativity, 314 00:23:06,174 --> 00:23:09,174 you're speaking, properly, of the achievements of a Newton. 315 00:23:09,287 --> 00:23:13,189 But in the context in which I have been speaking about creativity, 316 00:23:13,189 --> 00:23:16,189 it's a normal human event. 317 00:23:16,189 --> 00:23:23,624 I'm speaking of the kind of creativity that any child demonstrates 318 00:23:23,624 --> 00:23:27,774 when he's able to come to grips with a new situation: 319 00:23:29,172 --> 00:23:33,333 describe it properly, react to it properly, tell one something about it, 320 00:23:34,371 --> 00:23:38,338 think about it in a new fashion for him and so on. 321 00:23:38,337 --> 00:23:42,634 I think it's appropriate to call those creative acts, 322 00:23:42,634 --> 00:23:46,116 but of course without thinking of those acts as being the acts of a Newton. 323 00:23:46,116 --> 00:23:50,806 It's the lower levels of creativity that I've been speaking of. 324 00:23:50,806 --> 00:23:54,116 Now, as far as what you say about the history of science is concerned, 325 00:23:54,116 --> 00:23:56,262 I think that's correct and illuminating, and particularly 326 00:23:56,262 --> 00:24:03,484 relevant in fact to the kinds of enterprise that I see lying before us 327 00:24:03,484 --> 00:24:07,853 in psychology and linguistics and the philosophy of the mind. 328 00:24:07,854 --> 00:24:10,989 That is, I think there are certain topics that have been, 329 00:24:10,989 --> 00:24:14,600 in your words, repressed or put aside 330 00:24:14,599 --> 00:24:20,719 during the scientific advances of the past few centuries, century and a half. 331 00:24:20,720 --> 00:24:24,355 But now, I think we can overcome, 332 00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:28,537 it's possible to put aside those limitations and forgettings, 333 00:24:28,537 --> 00:24:33,358 and to bring into our consideration precisely the topics that animated 334 00:24:33,358 --> 00:24:38,129 a good deal of the thinking and speculation of the 17th and 18th century, 335 00:24:38,130 --> 00:24:40,747 and to incorporate it within a much broader 336 00:24:40,747 --> 00:24:48,940 and I think deeper science of man that will give a fuller role, 337 00:24:48,940 --> 00:24:53,259 though it is certainly hoped not to give a complete understanding 338 00:24:53,259 --> 00:24:59,930 to such notions as innovation and creativity and freedom 339 00:24:59,930 --> 00:25:07,860 and the production of new elements of thought and behavior 340 00:25:07,859 --> 00:25:10,623 within some system of rule and schematism. 341 00:25:10,624 --> 00:25:13,091 Those are concepts that I think we can come to grips with. 342 00:25:13,090 --> 00:25:18,929 I believe that what Mr. Chomsky said and what I tried to show 343 00:25:18,930 --> 00:25:21,783 is actually very similar. 344 00:25:21,782 --> 00:25:28,502 Indeed, there exist only possible creations, possible innovations. 345 00:25:28,502 --> 00:25:33,012 In terms of language or knowledge, 346 00:25:33,012 --> 00:25:37,948 one can only produce something new by putting into play 347 00:25:37,949 --> 00:25:43,206 a certain number of rules that will define 348 00:25:43,205 --> 00:25:47,769 the acceptability or the grammaticality of certain statements 349 00:25:47,769 --> 00:25:50,248 or which will define, in the case of knowledge, 350 00:25:50,248 --> 00:25:53,248 the scientific character of the statements. 351 00:25:53,752 --> 00:25:59,400 Thus, we can roughly say that linguists before Mr. Chomsky mainly insisted 352 00:25:59,401 --> 00:26:04,342 on the rules of construction of statements 353 00:26:04,342 --> 00:26:11,937 and less on the innovation represented by every new statement, 354 00:26:11,936 --> 00:26:14,936 or the hearing of a new statement. 355 00:26:15,003 --> 00:26:17,802 In the history of science or in the history of thought 356 00:26:17,803 --> 00:26:23,212 we placed more emphasis on individual creation. 357 00:26:23,211 --> 00:26:33,397 We had kept aside and left in the shadows these communal, general rules 358 00:26:33,397 --> 00:26:40,235 which obscurely manifest themselves through every scientific discovery, 359 00:26:40,236 --> 00:26:44,591 every scientific invention, and even every philosophical innovation. 360 00:26:44,590 --> 00:26:48,520 These are not only linguistic rules but also epistemological rules, 361 00:26:48,520 --> 00:26:51,520 which characterize contemporary knowledge. 362 00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:55,780 Well, perhaps I can try to react to those comments 363 00:26:55,780 --> 00:26:57,740 within my own framework in a way 364 00:26:57,740 --> 00:27:00,215 which maybe will shed some light on this. 365 00:27:00,215 --> 00:27:04,902 How is it that we are able to construct any kind of scientific theory at all? 366 00:27:04,903 --> 00:27:07,891 How is it that, given a small amount of data, 367 00:27:07,891 --> 00:27:12,384 it's possible for various scientists, for various geniuses even, 368 00:27:12,384 --> 00:27:13,931 over a long period of time, 369 00:27:13,931 --> 00:27:17,657 to arrive at some kind of a theory, at least in some cases, 370 00:27:17,656 --> 00:27:20,901 that is more or less profound and more or less empirically adequate? 371 00:27:20,902 --> 00:27:22,999 This is a remarkable fact. 372 00:27:22,999 --> 00:27:26,818 And, in fact, if it were not the case that these scientists, 373 00:27:26,818 --> 00:27:28,511 including the geniuses, 374 00:27:28,650 --> 00:27:34,146 if they didn't have built into their minds somehow an obviously 375 00:27:34,145 --> 00:27:37,861 unconscious specification of what is a possible scientific theory, 376 00:27:37,862 --> 00:27:41,208 then this inductive leap would certainly be quite impossible. 377 00:27:41,208 --> 00:27:45,641 Just as if each child did not build into his mind 378 00:27:45,641 --> 00:27:49,889 the concept of human language in a very narrowing way, 379 00:27:50,050 --> 00:27:52,067 then the inductive leap from data 380 00:27:52,067 --> 00:27:54,298 to knowledge of a language would be impossible. 381 00:27:54,298 --> 00:27:56,630 So even though the process of, let's say 382 00:27:56,630 --> 00:27:59,630 deriving knowledge of physics from data 383 00:27:59,890 --> 00:28:05,276 is far more complex, far more difficult for an organism such as us, 384 00:28:05,276 --> 00:28:09,816 far more drawn out in time, requiring intervention of genius... 385 00:28:09,816 --> 00:28:13,389 Nevertheless in a certain sense the achievement 386 00:28:13,388 --> 00:28:15,753 of discovering physical science 387 00:28:15,913 --> 00:28:18,847 or biology or whatever you like, 388 00:28:18,847 --> 00:28:22,992 is based on something rather similar to the achievement of the normal child 389 00:28:22,992 --> 00:28:26,779 in discovering the structure of his language. That is, it must be achieved 390 00:28:26,779 --> 00:28:29,521 on the basis of an initial limitation, 391 00:28:29,521 --> 00:28:32,521 an initial restriction on the class of possible theories. 392 00:28:32,929 --> 00:28:37,315 And the fact that science converges and progresses, that itself shows us 393 00:28:37,315 --> 00:28:40,614 that such initial limitations and structures exist. 394 00:28:40,614 --> 00:28:44,539 That is, I don't think that scientific progress is simply a matter of 395 00:28:44,539 --> 00:28:48,402 accumulative addition of new knowledge 396 00:28:48,402 --> 00:28:51,402 and absorption of new theories and so on. 397 00:28:51,717 --> 00:28:55,938 Rather I think it has this sort of jagged pattern that you describe, 398 00:28:55,938 --> 00:28:59,520 forgetting certain problems and leaping to new theories... 399 00:28:59,519 --> 00:29:01,819 And transforming the same knowledge. 400 00:29:01,819 --> 00:29:08,496 But I think that one can perhaps hazard an explanation for that fact. 401 00:29:09,076 --> 00:29:11,015 Oversimplifying grossly, 402 00:29:11,015 --> 00:29:13,377 I really don't mean what I'm going to say now literally, 403 00:29:13,376 --> 00:29:18,019 it's as if, as human beings of a particular biologically given organism, 404 00:29:18,019 --> 00:29:21,904 we have in our heads, to start with, 405 00:29:21,980 --> 00:29:26,387 a certain set of possible intellectual structures, possible sciences. 406 00:29:27,559 --> 00:29:31,358 Now, in the lucky event that some aspect of reality 407 00:29:31,358 --> 00:29:36,042 happens to have the character of one of these structures in our mind, 408 00:29:36,251 --> 00:29:37,983 then we have a science. 409 00:29:38,310 --> 00:29:43,410 And it's because of this initial limitation in our minds 410 00:29:43,411 --> 00:29:48,172 to a certain kind of possible science that provides 411 00:29:48,173 --> 00:29:51,247 the tremendous richness and creativity of scientific knowledge. 412 00:29:52,112 --> 00:29:54,339 It's important to stress that, 413 00:29:54,338 --> 00:29:57,338 this has to do with your point about limitation and freedom, 414 00:29:57,338 --> 00:29:59,481 if it were not for these limitations, 415 00:29:59,481 --> 00:30:02,481 we would not have the creative act of going 416 00:30:02,481 --> 00:30:05,865 from a little bit of knowledge, a little bit of experience, 417 00:30:05,865 --> 00:30:10,008 to a rich and highly articulated and complicated array of knowledge. 418 00:30:10,008 --> 00:30:13,113 It's precisely because of that that the progress of science, I think, has 419 00:30:13,113 --> 00:30:19,459 the erratic and jagged and transformational character that you described. 420 00:30:19,459 --> 00:30:22,383 And that doesn't mean that everything is ultimately going to fall 421 00:30:22,383 --> 00:30:24,780 within the domain of science. Quite the contrary. 422 00:30:24,780 --> 00:30:28,979 Personally I believe that many of the things we would like to understand, 423 00:30:28,979 --> 00:30:31,370 and maybe the things we would most like to understand, 424 00:30:31,369 --> 00:30:35,891 such as the nature of man, or the nature of a decent society, 425 00:30:35,892 --> 00:30:37,000 or lots of other things, 426 00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:40,071 might really fall outside the scope of possible human sciences. 427 00:30:40,323 --> 00:30:44,989 Well I think we have now two questions out of this statement. 428 00:30:44,989 --> 00:30:48,721 One question is: if you can agree, Mr. Foucault, 429 00:30:48,721 --> 00:30:51,721 do you agree with the statement 430 00:30:51,721 --> 00:30:54,353 about the combination of limitation, fundamental limitation? 431 00:30:54,353 --> 00:30:57,959 It is not a matter of combination. 432 00:30:57,959 --> 00:31:03,705 Creativity only becomes possible thanks to a system of rules: 433 00:31:03,704 --> 00:31:08,130 it is not a mixture of order and freedom. 434 00:31:08,131 --> 00:31:16,648 Freedom can only be truly exercised thanks to a system of regularity. 435 00:31:16,647 --> 00:31:23,792 Where perhaps I don't completely agree with Mr. Chomsky is when 436 00:31:23,792 --> 00:31:29,181 he places these regularities within the sphere 437 00:31:29,182 --> 00:31:31,628 of the human mind or human nature. 438 00:31:31,628 --> 00:31:34,112 I ask myself whether one cannot discover 439 00:31:34,113 --> 00:31:37,000 this system of regularity and of constraint 440 00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:38,922 that makes science possible, 441 00:31:38,922 --> 00:31:43,939 somewhere else, even outside the human mind: 442 00:31:43,939 --> 00:31:50,359 in social forms, in relations of production, in class struggles, etc. 443 00:31:50,844 --> 00:31:56,273 But what is the reason for you to discuss the death of man 444 00:31:56,272 --> 00:32:02,388 or the end of the period of the 19th and 20th century? 445 00:32:02,388 --> 00:32:05,237 But this is not related to what we are talking about. 446 00:32:05,194 --> 00:32:11,891 I don't know, because I was trying to apply 447 00:32:11,892 --> 00:32:17,500 what you have said in relation to your anthropological concept. 448 00:32:17,633 --> 00:32:20,163 You have already refused to speak 449 00:32:20,163 --> 00:32:23,163 about your own creativity and freedom, right? 450 00:32:23,163 --> 00:32:28,550 Well, I'm wondering what are the psychological reasons for this. 451 00:32:28,550 --> 00:32:31,550 You can wonder about it, but I can't help that. 452 00:32:31,550 --> 00:32:37,754 But what are the objective reasons, 453 00:32:37,755 --> 00:32:40,755 in relation to your perception of understanding, 454 00:32:40,755 --> 00:32:47,022 of knowledge, of science, for refusing to answer personal questions? 455 00:32:47,021 --> 00:32:52,106 Does it have to do with your conception of society? 456 00:32:52,106 --> 00:32:55,591 When there is a problem for you to answer a question, 457 00:32:55,592 --> 00:33:00,167 what are your reasons for making a problem out of a personal question? 458 00:33:00,166 --> 00:33:03,087 No, I'm not making a problem out of a personal question. 459 00:33:03,087 --> 00:33:06,101 I make of a personal question an absence of a problem. 460 00:33:07,227 --> 00:33:13,388 In the entire tradition of the history of thought, ideas and sciences, 461 00:33:13,387 --> 00:33:16,070 one has always questioned the problem of knowing. 462 00:33:16,070 --> 00:33:19,404 At what age was Newton weaned 463 00:33:19,404 --> 00:33:22,404 in order to conceive the law of universal gravitation? 464 00:33:22,894 --> 00:33:27,849 At which period did Cuvier meet his first mistress 465 00:33:27,849 --> 00:33:31,282 in order to finally make the discovery of fossils 466 00:33:31,282 --> 00:33:34,282 and of comparative anatomy, etc.? 467 00:33:34,282 --> 00:33:37,301 I believe these types of analyses, which I am now caricaturing, 468 00:33:37,301 --> 00:33:40,301 are not very interesting. 469 00:33:40,713 --> 00:33:43,255 It is much more interesting to understand 470 00:33:43,256 --> 00:33:46,256 the transformations of a certain knowledge 471 00:33:46,256 --> 00:33:55,384 within the general field of science and within the so-called vertical field, 472 00:33:55,384 --> 00:33:58,191 which consists of a society, a culture, 473 00:33:58,191 --> 00:34:01,000 a civilization at a particular moment in time. 474 00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:03,971 Once we finally grasp the totality of this transformation, 475 00:34:03,971 --> 00:34:09,317 we realize that the little individual moments of a wise man's life 476 00:34:09,317 --> 00:34:11,181 are not important. 477 00:34:12,221 --> 00:34:15,666 Foucault's last comment suggests yet again 478 00:34:15,666 --> 00:34:19,649 how the individual life of the researcher tends to disappear from sight. 479 00:34:19,969 --> 00:34:22,847 But then what about the relation between man and his culture 480 00:34:22,847 --> 00:34:26,559 when it comes to politics, also when asking the question 481 00:34:26,559 --> 00:34:29,398 of how we can change culture and society? 482 00:34:29,398 --> 00:34:34,925 After all, one can show that in the history of science and culture, 483 00:34:34,925 --> 00:34:39,369 the input of the individual plays an almost negligible role, 484 00:34:39,369 --> 00:34:45,826 but the question 'how do I act?', the political question, remains standing. 485 00:34:46,193 --> 00:34:49,612 It may thus become clear by now 486 00:34:49,612 --> 00:34:52,612 that the political question, from Foucault's perspective, 487 00:34:52,923 --> 00:34:59,788 rapidly develops into "how far can mankind escape from its own culture?" 488 00:35:00,492 --> 00:35:03,320 It is important to note that Foucault 489 00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:08,808 doesn't want to distance himself from politics. In the contrary, he says: 490 00:35:08,809 --> 00:35:14,043 "I would have to be ideologically blind to not interest myself for that 491 00:35:14,043 --> 00:35:16,853 which is most substantial to human existence: 492 00:35:16,853 --> 00:35:19,853 economic relations, power relations, you name it" 493 00:35:20,396 --> 00:35:23,016 Therefore, Chomsky and Foucault do agree 494 00:35:23,016 --> 00:35:26,016 on the importance of the political question. 495 00:35:26,393 --> 00:35:30,335 It may also be informative to explicitly mention 496 00:35:30,335 --> 00:35:35,688 that Chomsky defines anarcho-syndicalism as his political standpoint. 497 00:35:35,688 --> 00:35:41,947 In his opinion, it is necessary to abolish the different forms of capitalism 498 00:35:41,947 --> 00:35:47,762 in order to favor direct workers' participation in workers' councils and so on. 499 00:35:47,762 --> 00:35:52,242 Decentralization, socialization and participation 500 00:35:52,242 --> 00:35:56,333 are keywords in Chomsky's political program. 501 00:35:56,333 --> 00:35:59,923 Chomsky might say he sees no obvious relationship 502 00:35:59,923 --> 00:36:02,858 between his scientific and political views, 503 00:36:02,858 --> 00:36:05,297 but the following opening statement reveals 504 00:36:05,297 --> 00:36:10,887 that he heads straight from his scientific conceptions to politics. 505 00:36:10,887 --> 00:36:16,117 His political and scientific views may not flow logically from one another, 506 00:36:16,117 --> 00:36:18,802 but they certainly are heading in the same direction. 507 00:36:19,721 --> 00:36:22,981 Let me begin by referring to something that we have already discussed. 508 00:36:22,646 --> 00:36:28,541 That is, if it is correct, as I believe it is, 509 00:36:25,673 --> 00:36:34,153 that a fundamental element of human nature is the need for creative work 510 00:36:34,293 --> 00:36:39,682 for creative inquiry, for free creation 511 00:36:40,565 --> 00:36:45,777 without the arbitrary limiting effects of coercive institutions, 512 00:36:46,117 --> 00:36:51,373 then, of course, it will follow that a decent society should 513 00:36:51,373 --> 00:36:54,246 maximize the possibilities for this 514 00:36:54,246 --> 00:36:57,775 fundamental human characteristic to be realized. 515 00:36:58,222 --> 00:37:05,143 That means trying to overcome the elements of repression and oppression 516 00:37:05,143 --> 00:37:10,987 and destruction and coercion that exist in any existing society, 517 00:37:10,987 --> 00:37:14,460 ours for example, as a historical residue. 518 00:37:14,460 --> 00:37:23,195 Now a federated, decentralized system of free associations, 519 00:37:23,264 --> 00:37:27,038 incorporating economic as well as social institutions, 520 00:37:27,039 --> 00:37:30,697 would be what I refer to as anarcho-syndicalism. 521 00:37:30,697 --> 00:37:35,454 And it seems to me that it's the appropriate form of social organization 522 00:37:35,454 --> 00:37:39,548 for an advanced technological society, in which human beings 523 00:37:39,548 --> 00:37:44,416 do not have to be forced into the position of tools, of cogs in the machine; 524 00:37:44,416 --> 00:37:50,449 in which the creative urge that I think is intrinsic to human nature, 525 00:37:50,449 --> 00:37:53,048 will in fact be able to realize itself in whatever way it will, 526 00:37:53,048 --> 00:37:54,956 I don't know all the ways in which it will. 527 00:37:54,956 --> 00:38:01,632 In this respect, I would say I am much less advanced than Mr. Chomsky. 528 00:38:02,061 --> 00:38:11,766 That is, I admit not being able to define, not even to propose, 529 00:38:11,766 --> 00:38:17,108 an ideal social model for the functioning 530 00:38:17,108 --> 00:38:20,108 of our scientific or technological society. 531 00:38:21,228 --> 00:38:27,492 However, one of the tasks that seems urgent and immediate to me, 532 00:38:27,492 --> 00:38:30,925 over and above anything else, is this: 533 00:38:30,925 --> 00:38:36,240 it is the custom, at least in our European society, 534 00:38:36,240 --> 00:38:41,730 to consider that power is localized in the hands of the government 535 00:38:41,730 --> 00:38:46,847 and that it is exercised through a certain number of particular institutions, 536 00:38:46,847 --> 00:38:56,119 such as the administration, the police or the army. 537 00:38:56,119 --> 00:39:03,309 One knows that all these institutions are made to transmit and apply orders 538 00:39:03,309 --> 00:39:06,838 and to punish those who don't obey. 539 00:39:06,838 --> 00:39:16,101 But I believe that political power also exercises itself 540 00:39:16,101 --> 00:39:20,264 through the mediation of a certain number of institutions 541 00:39:20,264 --> 00:39:26,692 that appear to have nothing in common with political power 542 00:39:26,692 --> 00:39:30,623 and as if they are independent from it, but in fact they are not. 543 00:39:30,623 --> 00:39:36,985 One knows that the university and more generally all teaching systems, 544 00:39:36,985 --> 00:39:42,148 which simply appear to disseminate knowledge, 545 00:39:42,148 --> 00:39:51,104 are made to maintain a certain social class in power 546 00:39:51,103 --> 00:39:57,893 and to exclude the instruments of power of another social class. 547 00:39:58,934 --> 00:40:01,904 Another example is psychiatry, 548 00:40:01,905 --> 00:40:06,089 which in appearance is also intended for the good of humanity 549 00:40:06,088 --> 00:40:09,043 is at the knowledge of psychiatrists. 550 00:40:09,369 --> 00:40:13,385 Psychiatry is another way to bring to bear 551 00:40:13,385 --> 00:40:17,244 the political power over a social class. 552 00:40:17,257 --> 00:40:19,461 Justice is yet again another example. 553 00:40:19,460 --> 00:40:26,270 It seems to me that the real political task in our contemporary society 554 00:40:26,271 --> 00:40:29,952 is to criticize the workings of institutions, 555 00:40:29,952 --> 00:40:32,952 particularly the ones that appear neutral and independent, 556 00:40:32,952 --> 00:40:39,369 and to attack them in such a way that the political violence, 557 00:40:39,369 --> 00:40:43,374 which has always exercised itself obscurely through them, 558 00:40:43,373 --> 00:40:46,990 will finally be unmasked so that one can fight against them. 559 00:40:46,990 --> 00:40:52,072 If we seek to advance straight away 560 00:40:52,072 --> 00:40:55,451 a profile or a formula of the future society 561 00:40:55,608 --> 00:41:00,087 without having thoroughly criticized all the relations between 562 00:41:00,088 --> 00:41:03,088 the different forms of political violence that are exercised within our society, 563 00:41:03,088 --> 00:41:06,461 we run the risk of letting them reproduce 564 00:41:06,461 --> 00:41:12,789 even as the noble and apparently pure forms, such as anarcho-syndicalism. 565 00:41:13,135 --> 00:41:17,152 I would certainly agree with that, not only in theory but also in action. 566 00:41:17,152 --> 00:41:21,581 That is, there are two intellectual tasks: 567 00:41:21,581 --> 00:41:24,581 one, and the one which I was discussing, 568 00:41:24,581 --> 00:41:30,202 is to try to create the vision of a future just society. 569 00:41:30,945 --> 00:41:36,297 Another task is to understand very clearly the nature of power 570 00:41:36,297 --> 00:41:39,565 and oppression and terror and destruction in our own society. 571 00:41:39,565 --> 00:41:43,810 And that certainly includes the institutions you mentioned, as well as 572 00:41:43,811 --> 00:41:48,387 the central institutions of any industrial society, namely 573 00:41:48,387 --> 00:41:54,512 the economic, commercial and financial institutions, in particular 574 00:41:54,512 --> 00:41:58,032 in the coming period, the great multinational corporations, 575 00:41:58,032 --> 00:42:01,765 which are not very far from us physically tonight [Philips in Eindhoven]. 576 00:42:01,764 --> 00:42:05,259 Those are the basic institutions of 577 00:42:05,259 --> 00:42:09,471 oppression and coercion and autocratic rule 578 00:42:09,760 --> 00:42:12,028 that appear to be neutral; after all they say: 579 00:42:12,027 --> 00:42:14,792 "Well, we're subject to the democracy of the market place" 580 00:42:14,847 --> 00:42:20,546 Still, I think it would be a great shame to put aside entirely 581 00:42:21,864 --> 00:42:26,218 the somewhat more abstract and philosophical task of 582 00:42:26,219 --> 00:42:32,095 trying to draw the connections between a concept of human nature 583 00:42:32,094 --> 00:42:35,094 that gives full scope to freedom 584 00:42:35,242 --> 00:42:40,527 and dignity and creativity and other fundamental human characteristics, 585 00:42:41,208 --> 00:42:47,214 and relate that to some notion of social structure in which those properties 586 00:42:47,215 --> 00:42:51,300 could be realized and in which meaningful human life could take place. 587 00:42:51,300 --> 00:42:55,704 And in fact, if we are thinking of social transformation or social revolution, 588 00:42:56,420 --> 00:42:59,297 though it would be absurd of course to draw out in detail 589 00:42:59,297 --> 00:43:02,297 the point that we are hoping to reach; 590 00:43:02,539 --> 00:43:06,074 still we should know something about where we think we are going, 591 00:43:06,074 --> 00:43:09,000 and such a theory may tell it to us. 592 00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:10,907 Yes, but then isn't there a danger here? 593 00:43:10,907 --> 00:43:16,215 If you say that a certain human nature exists, 594 00:43:16,215 --> 00:43:21,649 that this human nature has not been given in our contemporary society 595 00:43:21,648 --> 00:43:24,648 the rights and possibilities 596 00:43:25,025 --> 00:43:27,415 that will allow it to realize itself... 597 00:43:27,795 --> 00:43:29,884 That's really what you have said, I believe. 598 00:43:29,884 --> 00:43:37,559 And if one admits this, doesn't one risk defining this human nature, 599 00:43:37,559 --> 00:43:40,559 which is at the same time ideal and real, 600 00:43:40,559 --> 00:43:43,377 which has been hidden and repressed until now, 601 00:43:43,376 --> 00:43:46,418 doesn't one risk defining it in terms 602 00:43:46,418 --> 00:43:52,404 borrowed from our society, from our civilization, from our culture? 603 00:43:52,405 --> 00:43:55,405 I will give an example by greatly simplifying it. 604 00:43:56,344 --> 00:44:01,903 Marxism, at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, 605 00:44:01,903 --> 00:44:11,621 admitted that in capitalist societies man hadn't reached his full potential 606 00:44:11,621 --> 00:44:14,621 for development and self-realization; 607 00:44:14,621 --> 00:44:20,190 that human nature was effectively alienated in the capitalist system. 608 00:44:20,190 --> 00:44:25,530 And Marxism ultimately dreamed of a liberated human nature. 609 00:44:25,530 --> 00:44:34,360 However, what model did it use 610 00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:38,407 to conceive and dream of this human nature? 611 00:44:38,407 --> 00:44:41,401 It was, in fact, the bourgeois model. 612 00:44:42,974 --> 00:44:46,806 Marxism considered that a happy society 613 00:44:46,806 --> 00:44:49,806 was a society that gave room, for example, 614 00:44:49,806 --> 00:44:54,222 to a bourgeois type of sexuality, to a bourgeois type of family, 615 00:44:54,222 --> 00:44:57,221 to a bourgeois type of aesthetic. 616 00:44:57,221 --> 00:45:02,664 And it is moreover very true that this has happened in the Soviet Union: 617 00:45:02,929 --> 00:45:10,554 for humans to finally be able to realize their true nature 618 00:45:10,554 --> 00:45:16,110 a kind of society, simultaneously real and utopic, had been reconstituted 619 00:45:16,110 --> 00:45:20,775 and transposed from the bourgeois society of the 19th century. 620 00:45:21,197 --> 00:45:28,847 The result, that you also realized, I think, is that it is difficult to conceive 621 00:45:28,847 --> 00:45:32,308 of what human nature precisely is. 622 00:45:32,309 --> 00:45:34,903 Isn't there a risk that we will be led into error? 623 00:45:34,902 --> 00:45:38,253 Mao Zedong spoke of a bourgeois human nature 624 00:45:38,253 --> 00:45:40,173 and a proletarian human nature, 625 00:45:40,173 --> 00:45:43,074 and he believes they are not the same thing. 626 00:45:43,074 --> 00:45:47,198 I think that in the intellectual domain of political action, 627 00:45:47,199 --> 00:45:52,916 that is the domain of trying to construct a vision of a just and free society 628 00:45:52,916 --> 00:45:56,161 on the basis of some notion of human nature 629 00:45:56,161 --> 00:45:59,561 In that domain we face the very same problem that we face 630 00:45:59,561 --> 00:46:02,561 in immediate political action. 631 00:46:02,561 --> 00:46:05,737 For example, to be quite concrete, 632 00:46:05,737 --> 00:46:08,737 a lot of my own activity really has to do with the Vietnam War, 633 00:46:08,846 --> 00:46:12,157 and a good deal of my own energy goes into civil disobedience. 634 00:46:12,157 --> 00:46:19,076 Well, civil disobedience in the U.S. is an action undertaken 635 00:46:19,076 --> 00:46:24,440 in the face of considerable uncertainties about its effects. 636 00:46:25,818 --> 00:46:29,200 For example, it threatens the social order in ways which might, 637 00:46:29,199 --> 00:46:32,000 one might argue, bring on fascism. 638 00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:34,992 That would be very bad for America, for Vietnam, 639 00:46:34,992 --> 00:46:36,496 for Holland and for everyone else. 640 00:46:36,793 --> 00:46:41,733 So that is one danger in undertaking this concrete act. 641 00:46:41,733 --> 00:46:44,963 On the other hand there's a great danger in not undertaking it, namely 642 00:46:44,963 --> 00:46:48,681 if you don't undertake it, the society of Indochina 643 00:46:48,681 --> 00:46:51,681 will be torn to shreds by American power. 644 00:46:51,681 --> 00:46:55,264 And in the face of those uncertainties one has to choose a course of action. 645 00:46:55,264 --> 00:46:57,966 Similarly, in the intellectual domain, 646 00:46:57,965 --> 00:47:02,168 one is faced with the uncertainties that you correctly pose. 647 00:47:02,465 --> 00:47:06,017 Our concept of human nature is certainly limited, 648 00:47:06,016 --> 00:47:11,765 partial, socially conditioned, constrained by our own character defects 649 00:47:11,766 --> 00:47:17,224 and the limitations of the intellectual culture in which we exist. 650 00:47:17,224 --> 00:47:22,686 Yet at the same time it's of critical importance that we have some direction, 651 00:47:22,686 --> 00:47:27,992 that we know what impossible goals we're trying to achieve, 652 00:47:27,992 --> 00:47:30,992 if we hope to achieve some of the possible goals. 653 00:47:31,427 --> 00:47:34,115 And that means that we have to be bold enough 654 00:47:34,115 --> 00:47:40,047 to speculate and create social theories on the basis of 655 00:47:40,047 --> 00:47:46,920 partial knowledge, while remaining very open to the strong possibility 656 00:47:46,920 --> 00:47:50,031 and in fact overwhelming probability, that at least in some respects 657 00:47:50,032 --> 00:47:53,032 we're very far off the mark. 658 00:47:53,981 --> 00:47:58,372 Well, perhaps it is interesting to go on a little bit further 659 00:47:58,371 --> 00:48:00,371 into this problem of strategy. 660 00:48:00,617 --> 00:48:03,617 So, for example, in the case of Holland, 661 00:48:03,617 --> 00:48:06,617 we had something like a population census. 662 00:48:07,255 --> 00:48:12,612 You were obliged to fill in your papers, and so on. 663 00:48:12,612 --> 00:48:17,479 So if you refused to fill in your papers, you would call it civil disobedience? 664 00:48:18,139 --> 00:48:21,139 I would be a little bit careful about that, because 665 00:48:21,585 --> 00:48:25,568 going back to a very important point that Mr. Foucault made, 666 00:48:25,568 --> 00:48:30,864 one does not necessarily allow the state to define what is legal. 667 00:48:30,864 --> 00:48:34,724 The state has the power to enforce a certain concept of what is legal, 668 00:48:34,724 --> 00:48:39,161 but power doesn't imply justice or correctness even, so the state 669 00:48:39,161 --> 00:48:43,072 may define something as civil disobedience and may be wrong in doing so. 670 00:48:43,072 --> 00:48:49,667 For example, in the U.S. the state defines it as civil disobedience to, 671 00:48:49,668 --> 00:48:53,358 let's say derail an ammunition train that's going to Vietnam. 672 00:48:53,358 --> 00:48:56,576 And the state is wrong in defining that as civil disobedience 673 00:48:56,576 --> 00:48:59,576 because it's legal and proper and should be done. 674 00:48:59,576 --> 00:49:03,836 It's proper to carry out actions that will prevent the criminal acts of the state, 675 00:49:03,835 --> 00:49:08,534 just as it's proper to violate a traffic ordinance in order to prevent a murder. 676 00:49:08,534 --> 00:49:11,955 If I was standing at a street corner and the traffic light were red, 677 00:49:11,956 --> 00:49:14,956 I was standing in my car 678 00:49:14,956 --> 00:49:17,776 and I drove across the traffic light to prevent somebody from, let's say 679 00:49:17,775 --> 00:49:21,692 machine-gunning a group of people, of course that's not a violation of law. 680 00:49:21,693 --> 00:49:23,757 It's an appropriate and proper action. 681 00:49:23,757 --> 00:49:26,796 No sane judge would convict you for such an action. 682 00:49:26,795 --> 00:49:29,527 Similarly, a good deal of what the state authorities 683 00:49:29,527 --> 00:49:33,376 define as civil disobedience is not really civil disobedience. 684 00:49:33,394 --> 00:49:36,500 In fact, it's legal, obligatory behavior 685 00:49:36,583 --> 00:49:39,369 in violation of the commands of the state, 686 00:49:39,369 --> 00:49:41,773 which may or may not be legal commands. 687 00:49:41,773 --> 00:49:46,263 So one has to be rather careful about calling things illegal, I think. 688 00:49:46,264 --> 00:49:49,264 Yes, but I would like to ask you a question. 689 00:49:49,264 --> 00:49:56,385 When, in the United States, you commit a truly illegal act... 690 00:49:56,385 --> 00:49:59,385 Which I regard as illegal, not just the state... 691 00:50:00,168 --> 00:50:05,337 When the state considers it illegal. 692 00:50:05,829 --> 00:50:11,079 Do you make your action because you find it just, 693 00:50:11,079 --> 00:50:14,079 by virtue of an ideal justice? 694 00:50:14,420 --> 00:50:22,417 Or do you make it because class struggle renders it useful and necessary? 695 00:50:22,418 --> 00:50:25,204 Do you refer to an ideal justice? 696 00:50:25,204 --> 00:50:29,222 Again, very often when I do something which the state regards as illegal, 697 00:50:29,222 --> 00:50:32,907 I regard it as legal because I regard the state as criminal. 698 00:50:33,219 --> 00:50:36,344 But in some instances that's not true. 699 00:50:36,344 --> 00:50:39,230 Let me be quite concrete about it and 700 00:50:39,231 --> 00:50:42,231 move from the area of class war to imperialist war, 701 00:50:42,519 --> 00:50:45,590 where the situation is somewhat clearer and easier. 702 00:50:45,590 --> 00:50:49,345 Take international law, a very weak instrument as we know, 703 00:50:49,344 --> 00:50:52,826 but nevertheless it incorporates some rather interesting principles. 704 00:50:52,827 --> 00:50:57,198 International law, in many respects, is the instrument of the powerful. 705 00:50:58,331 --> 00:51:03,393 That is, international law permits much too wide a range 706 00:51:03,393 --> 00:51:06,393 of international forceful intervention 707 00:51:06,641 --> 00:51:11,790 in support of existing power structures that define themselves as states 708 00:51:11,791 --> 00:51:14,934 and against the interests of masses of people who happen to be 709 00:51:14,934 --> 00:51:17,900 organized in opposition to states. 710 00:51:17,900 --> 00:51:21,643 But, in fact, international law is not solely of that kind. 711 00:51:21,643 --> 00:51:24,630 And in fact there are interesting elements of international law, let's say 712 00:51:24,630 --> 00:51:26,729 embedded in the UN Charter, 713 00:51:26,728 --> 00:51:30,943 which permit, in fact I believe require the citizen to act 714 00:51:31,090 --> 00:51:36,231 against his own state in ways that the state will falsely regard as criminal. 715 00:51:36,231 --> 00:51:38,364 Nevertheless, he's acting legally, 716 00:51:38,364 --> 00:51:44,199 because international law also happens to prohibit the threat or use of force 717 00:51:44,199 --> 00:51:47,730 in international affairs, except under some very narrow circumstances 718 00:51:47,730 --> 00:51:51,039 of which, for example, the war in Vietnam is not won. 719 00:51:51,039 --> 00:51:54,342 Which means that in the particular case of the Vietnam War, 720 00:51:54,342 --> 00:51:56,342 the one that interests me most, 721 00:51:56,342 --> 00:51:59,360 the American state is acting in a criminal capacity. 722 00:51:59,360 --> 00:52:03,641 And people have the right to stop criminals from murdering people. 723 00:52:03,641 --> 00:52:07,910 Just because the criminal happens to call your action illegal 724 00:52:07,911 --> 00:52:10,489 when you try to stop him, it doesn't mean it is illegal. 725 00:52:10,489 --> 00:52:13,451 A perfectly clear case of that is the present case of 726 00:52:13,451 --> 00:52:17,293 the Pentagon Papers in the U.S., which I suppose you know about. 727 00:52:17,293 --> 00:52:20,867 Reduced to its essentials and forgetting legalisms, what is happening is 728 00:52:20,867 --> 00:52:25,380 that the state is trying to prosecute people for exposing its crimes. 729 00:52:25,380 --> 00:52:27,891 That's what it amounts to. 730 00:52:27,891 --> 00:52:31,583 So it is in the name of a purer justice 731 00:52:31,583 --> 00:52:36,799 that you criticize the functioning of justice? 732 00:52:37,842 --> 00:52:41,584 It is important for me to know about this, because 733 00:52:41,583 --> 00:52:48,048 In France there is currently a debate about this problem of justice 734 00:52:48,048 --> 00:52:56,228 and that of a popular judicial institution. 735 00:52:56,302 --> 00:53:01,458 A certain number of people, including Sartre, 736 00:53:01,458 --> 00:53:09,164 believe that in order to make a critique of the current penal system 737 00:53:09,164 --> 00:53:19,312 or of police practices, we have to create a kind of tribunal, 738 00:53:19,900 --> 00:53:27,137 which in the name of an ideal, a superior and generally a human justice, 739 00:53:27,137 --> 00:53:32,489 will condemn the practices of the French judges or policemen. 740 00:53:32,489 --> 00:53:38,773 Moreover, there is another group of people, myself included, 741 00:53:38,773 --> 00:53:47,409 who say this shouldn't be done because when they refer to an ideal justice, 742 00:53:47,409 --> 00:53:51,219 which the tribunal is supposed to apply, 743 00:53:51,219 --> 00:53:58,974 they refer to a certain number of judicial ideas that were formed in our time 744 00:53:58,974 --> 00:54:03,123 by a certain group of individuals who are themselves, 745 00:54:03,123 --> 00:54:08,721 directly or indirectly, a product of their societies. 746 00:54:09,780 --> 00:54:13,903 We have to attack the practices of justice, 747 00:54:13,903 --> 00:54:18,711 we have to attack the police and their practices: 748 00:54:18,711 --> 00:54:23,043 but in terms of war and not in terms of justice. 749 00:54:23,043 --> 00:54:28,333 Surely you believe that your role in the war is a just role, 750 00:54:28,333 --> 00:54:32,708 that you're fighting a just war, to bring in a concept from another domain. 751 00:54:32,708 --> 00:54:35,473 And that, I think, is important. 752 00:54:35,474 --> 00:54:37,369 If you thought that you were fighting an unjust war, 753 00:54:37,369 --> 00:54:40,369 you couldn't follow that line of reasoning. 754 00:54:40,778 --> 00:54:43,519 I would like to slightly reformulate what you said. 755 00:54:43,519 --> 00:54:45,204 It doesn't seem to me that the difference is between 756 00:54:45,204 --> 00:54:48,204 legality and ideal justice. 757 00:54:48,923 --> 00:54:52,150 It's rather between legality and better justice. 758 00:54:52,150 --> 00:54:55,887 Now this better system may have its defects, it certainly will. 759 00:54:55,887 --> 00:55:01,212 But comparing the better system with the existing system, and not 760 00:55:01,213 --> 00:55:05,592 being confused into thinking that our better system is the ideal system, 761 00:55:05,592 --> 00:55:09,317 we can then argue, I think, as follows: that the concept of legality 762 00:55:09,317 --> 00:55:12,559 and the concept of justice are not identical. 763 00:55:12,559 --> 00:55:15,231 They're not entirely distinct either. 764 00:55:16,115 --> 00:55:23,019 Insofar as legality incorporates justice in this sense of better justice, 765 00:55:23,019 --> 00:55:26,360 referring to a better society, then 766 00:55:26,704 --> 00:55:31,092 we should follow and obey the law, and force the state to obey the law, 767 00:55:31,436 --> 00:55:33,614 and force the great corporations to obey the law, and 768 00:55:33,648 --> 00:55:37,541 force the police to obey the law. If we have the power to do so. 769 00:55:40,416 --> 00:55:45,511 If in those areas where the legal system happens to represent 770 00:55:45,512 --> 00:55:50,664 not better justice, but rather the techniques of oppression 771 00:55:50,664 --> 00:55:54,072 that have been codified in a particular autocratic system, 772 00:55:54,072 --> 00:55:57,639 then a reasonable human being should disregard and oppose them, 773 00:55:57,639 --> 00:56:01,858 at least in principle. He may not, for some reason, do it in fact. 774 00:56:01,858 --> 00:56:06,542 I would simply like to reply to your first sentence, when you said that 775 00:56:06,541 --> 00:56:11,797 if you didn't consider the war you wage against the police to be just, 776 00:56:11,797 --> 00:56:13,260 you wouldn't wage it. 777 00:56:13,260 --> 00:56:17,423 I would like to reply to you in terms of Spinoza and tell you that 778 00:56:17,423 --> 00:56:23,969 the proletariat doesn't wage war against the ruling class 779 00:56:23,969 --> 00:56:26,617 because it considers such a war to be just. 780 00:56:26,617 --> 00:56:31,782 The proletariat wages war against the ruling class because it wants, 781 00:56:31,782 --> 00:56:34,782 for the first time in history, to take power. 782 00:56:34,782 --> 00:56:37,034 And it's because it wants to take power 783 00:56:37,034 --> 00:56:39,105 that it considers such a war to be just. 784 00:56:39,146 --> 00:56:40,348 Yeah, I don't agree with that. 785 00:56:40,347 --> 00:56:42,592 One wages war to win, not because it is just. 786 00:56:42,592 --> 00:56:45,287 I don't personally agree with that. For example, if 787 00:56:45,286 --> 00:56:49,668 I could convince myself that attainment of power by the proletariat 788 00:56:49,668 --> 00:56:53,000 would lead to a terroristic police state, 789 00:56:53,500 --> 00:56:58,422 in which freedom and dignity 790 00:56:58,422 --> 00:57:03,178 and decent human relations would be destroyed, 791 00:57:03,179 --> 00:57:05,478 then I wouldn't want the proletariat to take power. 792 00:57:05,478 --> 00:57:09,744 In fact the only reason for wanting any such thing, I believe, is because 793 00:57:09,744 --> 00:57:15,605 one thinks, rightly or wrongly, that some fundamental human values 794 00:57:15,606 --> 00:57:18,606 will be achieved by that transfer of power. 795 00:57:19,606 --> 00:57:21,965 I will answer you this: 796 00:57:24,032 --> 00:57:27,221 When the proletariat takes power, 797 00:57:27,221 --> 00:57:32,570 it may be quite possible that the proletariat will exert 798 00:57:32,570 --> 00:57:36,493 towards the classes over which it has just triumphed, 799 00:57:36,494 --> 00:57:42,780 a violent, dictatorial and even bloody power. 800 00:57:42,780 --> 00:57:46,402 I can't see what objection anyone could make to this. 801 00:57:46,402 --> 00:57:53,522 But if you ask me what would happen if the proletariat exerted this 802 00:57:53,523 --> 00:58:01,152 bloody, tyrannical and unjust power towards itself, then I would say 803 00:58:01,152 --> 00:58:06,552 this could only occur if the proletariat hadn't really taken power 804 00:58:06,552 --> 00:58:11,739 but a class outside the proletariat, 805 00:58:11,739 --> 00:58:14,739 or a group of people inside the proletariat, 806 00:58:14,818 --> 00:58:20,114 or a bureaucracy or petit bourgeois elements, had taken power. 807 00:58:20,114 --> 00:58:23,393 Well, I'm not at all satisfied with that theory of revolution 808 00:58:23,393 --> 00:58:26,393 for a lot of reasons, historical and others. 809 00:58:26,393 --> 00:58:28,911 But even if one were to accept it for the sake of argument, 810 00:58:28,911 --> 00:58:34,677 still that theory is maintaining that it is 811 00:58:34,693 --> 00:58:38,116 proper for the proletariat to take power and exercise it 812 00:58:38,226 --> 00:58:41,585 in a violent and bloody and unjust fashion, because 813 00:58:41,585 --> 00:58:44,585 it is claimed, in my opinion falsely, 814 00:58:44,724 --> 00:58:49,123 that that will lead to a more just society, 815 00:58:49,123 --> 00:58:52,137 in which the state will wither away, in which the proletariat 816 00:58:52,137 --> 00:58:54,315 will be a universal class and so on and so forth. 817 00:58:54,315 --> 00:58:56,771 If it weren't for that further justification, 818 00:58:56,771 --> 00:59:01,534 the concept of a dictatorship of the proletariat, 819 00:59:01,534 --> 00:59:04,534 violent and bloody, would certainly be unjust. 820 00:59:04,534 --> 00:59:07,534 For example, I am not a committed pacifist. 821 00:59:09,349 --> 00:59:13,380 I would not hold that it is under all imaginable circumstances 822 00:59:13,380 --> 00:59:15,738 wrong to use violence, even though 823 00:59:15,826 --> 00:59:18,505 use of violence is in some sense unjust. 824 00:59:18,505 --> 00:59:21,913 I believe that one has to estimate relative injustices. 825 00:59:21,914 --> 00:59:29,134 But the use of violence and the creation of some degree of injustice 826 00:59:29,134 --> 00:59:34,836 can only itself be justified on the basis of the claim and the assessment, 827 00:59:34,835 --> 00:59:37,592 which always ought to be undertaken very, very seriously 828 00:59:37,592 --> 00:59:39,445 and with a good deal of skepticism, 829 00:59:39,445 --> 00:59:42,257 that this violence is being exercised because 830 00:59:42,257 --> 00:59:45,706 a more just result is going to be achieved. 831 00:59:46,166 --> 00:59:51,484 If it does not have that grounding, it really is totally immoral, in my opinion. 832 00:59:51,483 --> 01:00:02,197 As far as the aim of the proletariat in leading a class struggle is concerned, 833 01:00:02,197 --> 01:00:09,880 I don't think it would be sufficient to say that it is in itself a greater justice. 834 01:00:09,880 --> 01:00:16,240 What the proletariat will achieve by expelling the ruling class 835 01:00:16,240 --> 01:00:19,240 and by taking power 836 01:00:19,240 --> 01:00:23,909 is precisely the suppression of class power in general. 837 01:00:23,909 --> 01:00:28,631 Okay, but that's the further justification. 838 01:00:28,630 --> 01:00:29,792 That is the justification, 839 01:00:29,793 --> 01:00:32,211 but not in terms of justice but in terms of power. 840 01:00:32,210 --> 01:00:34,201 But it is in terms of justice. It's because the 841 01:00:34,202 --> 01:00:38,442 end that will be achieved is claimed as a just end. 842 01:00:39,371 --> 01:00:44,150 No Leninist or whatever you like would dare to say 843 01:00:44,150 --> 01:00:47,875 "We, the proletariat, have the right to take power, 844 01:00:47,876 --> 01:00:51,909 and then throw everyone else into crematoria" 845 01:00:52,469 --> 01:00:55,240 If that were the consequence of the proletariat taking power, 846 01:00:55,338 --> 01:00:57,164 of course it would not be appropriate. 847 01:00:57,164 --> 01:01:01,284 The idea is, and for the reasons I mentioned I'm skeptical about it, 848 01:01:01,284 --> 01:01:05,074 that a period of violent dictatorship, 849 01:01:05,074 --> 01:01:08,074 of perhaps violent and bloody dictatorship, is justified because 850 01:01:08,563 --> 01:01:13,021 that will mean the submergence and termination of class oppression, 851 01:01:13,021 --> 01:01:16,021 a proper end to achieve in human life. 852 01:01:16,661 --> 01:01:20,793 But it seems to me that, in any case, the notion of justice itself 853 01:01:20,793 --> 01:01:24,298 functions within a society of classes 854 01:01:24,434 --> 01:01:28,896 as a claim made by the oppressed class 855 01:01:28,896 --> 01:01:33,248 and as a justification by the oppressive class. 856 01:01:33,331 --> 01:01:34,976 I don't agree with that. 857 01:01:34,976 --> 01:01:38,637 And in a classless society, 858 01:01:38,637 --> 01:01:44,765 I am not sure that we would still use this notion of justice. 859 01:01:44,764 --> 01:01:48,170 Well, here I really disagree. I think that 860 01:01:48,170 --> 01:01:51,748 there is a sort of an absolute basis, 861 01:01:51,748 --> 01:01:55,211 if you press me too hard I'll be in trouble because I can't sketch it out, 862 01:01:56,969 --> 01:02:02,003 ultimately residing in fundamental human qualities, 863 01:02:02,003 --> 01:02:06,434 in terms of which a "real" notion of justice is grounded. 864 01:02:06,434 --> 01:02:14,846 I think it's too hasty to characterize our existing systems of justice 865 01:02:14,847 --> 01:02:17,847 as merely systems of class oppression. 866 01:02:17,847 --> 01:02:21,207 I don't think that they are that. I think that they 867 01:02:21,300 --> 01:02:23,430 embody systems of class oppression 868 01:02:23,429 --> 01:02:26,340 and they embody elements of other kinds of oppression, 869 01:02:26,340 --> 01:02:30,337 but they also embody a kind of a groping towards the 870 01:02:30,338 --> 01:02:37,560 true, humanly valuable concepts of justice and decency 871 01:02:37,559 --> 01:02:42,489 and love and kindness and sympathy and so on, which I think are real. 872 01:02:42,615 --> 01:02:45,085 Well, do I have time to answer? 873 01:02:45,085 --> 01:02:45,940 Yes 874 01:02:45,940 --> 01:02:48,024 How much? 875 01:02:48,025 --> 01:02:51,025 Two minutes. 876 01:02:51,025 --> 01:02:54,025 Well I would say that is unjust! 877 01:02:54,927 --> 01:02:56,517 Absolutely, yes. 878 01:02:58,277 --> 01:03:01,277 No, but I don't want to answer in so little time. 879 01:03:01,277 --> 01:03:10,174 I will simply say that I can't help but to think that 880 01:03:10,175 --> 01:03:15,373 the concepts of human nature, of kindness, of justice, 881 01:03:15,373 --> 01:03:18,539 of human essence and its realization... 882 01:03:18,539 --> 01:03:21,945 All of these are notions and concepts 883 01:03:21,945 --> 01:03:26,027 that have been created within our civilization, 884 01:03:26,027 --> 01:03:31,355 our knowledge system and our form of philosophy, 885 01:03:31,355 --> 01:03:36,322 and that, consequently, are part of our class system 886 01:03:36,322 --> 01:03:44,369 and one can't, however regrettable it may be, put forward these concepts 887 01:03:44,369 --> 01:03:51,455 to describe or justify a fight that should, and shall in principle, 888 01:03:51,456 --> 01:03:55,423 overthrow the very fundaments of our society. 889 01:03:55,422 --> 01:04:02,206 This is an extrapolation for which I can't find the historical justification. 890 01:04:03,387 --> 01:04:09,528 Well, I think we can start immediately the discussion. 891 01:04:13,471 --> 01:04:16,733 Mr. Chomsky, I would like to ask you one question. 892 01:04:16,733 --> 01:04:21,027 In your discussion you had the vocabulary 893 01:04:21,027 --> 01:04:24,027 "proletariat", "we as proletarians". 894 01:04:24,275 --> 01:04:27,417 It's the irony of history that at the moment, 895 01:04:27,418 --> 01:04:30,418 young intellectuals coming from the middle class and upper class, 896 01:04:30,394 --> 01:04:35,771 call themselves proletarians and say "We must join the proletarians" 897 01:04:35,771 --> 01:04:39,801 But I don't see any class-conscious proletarians, 898 01:04:39,800 --> 01:04:41,809 and that's a great dilemma. 899 01:04:41,960 --> 01:04:45,164 It is not true in our given society 900 01:04:45,164 --> 01:04:48,878 that all people are doing useful, productive work 901 01:04:48,878 --> 01:04:52,184 or self-satisfying work, obviously that's very far from true. 902 01:04:52,184 --> 01:04:58,567 Lots of people are excluded from the possibility of productive labor. 903 01:04:58,567 --> 01:05:00,900 And I think the revolution, if you want, 904 01:05:00,900 --> 01:05:03,900 should be in the name of all human beings. 905 01:05:03,900 --> 01:05:08,936 but it will have to be conducted by certain categories of human beings 906 01:05:08,936 --> 01:05:11,873 and those will be, I think, the human beings who really are 907 01:05:11,873 --> 01:05:14,873 involved in the productive work of society. 908 01:05:14,873 --> 01:05:17,791 Now what that is will differ, depending on the society. 909 01:05:17,791 --> 01:05:22,373 In our society it, I think, includes intellectual workers. 910 01:05:22,851 --> 01:05:25,547 So I think that the student revolutionaries, if you like, 911 01:05:25,547 --> 01:05:29,101 have a point, a partial point. 912 01:05:29,101 --> 01:05:33,949 That is, it's a very important thing in a modern advanced industrial society 913 01:05:33,949 --> 01:05:38,739 how the trained intelligentsia identify themselves. 914 01:05:38,739 --> 01:05:41,805 If they're going to be technocrats, let's say 915 01:05:41,806 --> 01:05:46,362 or servants of either the state or private power. Or alternatively, 916 01:05:46,362 --> 01:05:48,424 whether they are going to identify themselves as part of the workforce 917 01:05:48,425 --> 01:05:51,893 who happen to be doing intellectual labor. If the latter, then they 918 01:05:53,556 --> 01:05:58,900 can and should play a decent role in a progressive social revolution. 919 01:05:58,900 --> 01:06:02,498 If the former, then they're part of the class of the oppressors. 920 01:06:04,547 --> 01:06:09,500 I have one small additional question, or more a remark to you. 921 01:06:09,501 --> 01:06:13,500 That is: how can you, with your very courageous attitude 922 01:06:13,500 --> 01:06:19,586 towards the war in Vietnam, survive in an institution like MIT, 923 01:06:19,586 --> 01:06:22,858 which is known here as one of the Great War contractors 924 01:06:22,858 --> 01:06:27,009 and intellectual makers of this war? 925 01:06:27,010 --> 01:06:32,416 There are two aspects to that: one is the question how MIT tolerates me, 926 01:06:32,416 --> 01:06:35,416 and the other question is how I tolerate MIT. 927 01:06:35,416 --> 01:06:37,836 Well, as to how MIT tolerates me, 928 01:06:37,835 --> 01:06:42,107 here again, I think, one shouldn't be overly schematic. 929 01:06:43,193 --> 01:06:48,356 It's true that MIT is a major institution of war research. 930 01:06:48,356 --> 01:06:52,764 But it's also true that it embodies very important 931 01:06:52,764 --> 01:06:56,581 libertarian values, which are, I think, 932 01:06:56,581 --> 01:07:00,445 quite deeply embedded in American society, fortunately for the world. 933 01:07:01,525 --> 01:07:04,745 They're not deeply embedded enough to save the Vietnamese 934 01:07:05,643 --> 01:07:10,037 but they're deeply enough embedded to prevent far worse disasters. 935 01:07:10,038 --> 01:07:13,619 And here, I think, one has to be a bit qualified. That is, 936 01:07:13,619 --> 01:07:17,282 There is imperial terror and aggression, there is exploitation, 937 01:07:17,282 --> 01:07:20,629 there is racism, lots of things like that. 938 01:07:20,628 --> 01:07:27,153 But there's also a real concern, coexisting with it, for individual rights 939 01:07:27,153 --> 01:07:30,153 of a sort which, for example, are embodied in the Bill of Rights, 940 01:07:30,552 --> 01:07:34,050 which is by no means simply an expression of class oppression. 941 01:07:34,416 --> 01:07:37,626 It is also an expression of the necessity to defend 942 01:07:37,626 --> 01:07:40,626 the individual against state power. 943 01:07:40,755 --> 01:07:46,134 Now these things coexist. It's not that simple, it's not just all bad or all good. 944 01:07:46,536 --> 01:07:53,300 And it's the particular balance in which they coexist that makes an institute 945 01:07:53,300 --> 01:07:57,320 that produces weapons of war be willing to tolerate, 946 01:07:57,320 --> 01:08:00,320 in fact in many ways even encourage, to be quite honest, 947 01:08:00,320 --> 01:08:03,286 a person who is involved in civil disobedience against the war. 948 01:08:03,286 --> 01:08:06,286 Now as to how I tolerate MIT, that raises another question. 949 01:08:06,286 --> 01:08:09,898 There are people who argue, and I have never understood the logic of this, 950 01:08:09,898 --> 01:08:14,407 that a radical ought to dissociate himself from all oppressive institutions. 951 01:08:16,253 --> 01:08:19,483 The logic of that argument is that Karl Marx shouldn't have studied 952 01:08:19,483 --> 01:08:22,483 in the British Museum, which, if anything, was the symbol 953 01:08:22,483 --> 01:08:27,076 of the most vicious imperialism in the world, the place where 954 01:08:27,076 --> 01:08:29,399 all the treasures of Empire were gathered, 955 01:08:29,399 --> 01:08:32,399 the rape of the colonies was all poured in there. 956 01:08:32,604 --> 01:08:36,539 But I think Karl Marx was quite right in studying in the British Museum. 957 01:08:36,539 --> 01:08:39,275 He was right in using the resources 958 01:08:39,275 --> 01:08:42,275 and in fact the liberal values of the civilization 959 01:08:42,275 --> 01:08:45,166 that he was trying to overcome, against it. 960 01:08:46,529 --> 01:08:49,192 And I think the same applies in this case. 961 01:08:49,192 --> 01:08:52,296 But aren't you afraid that your presence at MIT 962 01:08:52,296 --> 01:08:54,557 gives them a clean conscience? 963 01:08:54,556 --> 01:08:57,494 I don't see how, really. I mean, I think 964 01:08:57,494 --> 01:09:01,787 my presence at MIT serves marginally to 965 01:09:02,167 --> 01:09:06,218 I hope a lot, I don't know how much, to increase student activism 966 01:09:06,217 --> 01:09:09,217 against a lot of the things that MIT stands for, for example. 967 01:09:10,954 --> 01:09:15,199 Ladies and gentlemen, I think this has to be the end of the debate. 968 01:09:15,199 --> 01:09:18,164 Mr. Chomsky, Mr. Foucault, 969 01:09:18,164 --> 01:09:23,132 I thank you very much for your far-going discussion 970 01:09:23,246 --> 01:09:27,336 on both the technical and theoretical way, as the political way. 971 01:09:28,953 --> 01:09:34,657 I thank you very much both on behalf of the audience, here and at home.