Chomsky on Anarchism.pdf - Zine Library

INTERVIEW WITH BRRRY PRTEMRN
I was reading Isaac Puente the Spanish libertarian communist theorist who
was arguing rather like that. He was arguing that "Well, if one becomes a
teacher one learns by experience. and if one becomes a doctor one learns by
experience. " It wasn't one isn't a doctor when one is 22 but you learn and
maybe that is how anarchism ought to be seen.
At a very general level I think we would all agree. People in the rough range
of those who call themselves anarchists-which is preny broad-there would
at least be a general agreement that, whatever social structures and arrangements
are developed, they ought ro maximize the possibilities for people ro
pursue their own creative potential and you can't make a formula for that.
People are roo different and they ought ro be different and the differences
ought to be encouraged. It's just like with raising children, you want them to
find their own paths. Yo u don't say here's the rigid framework-lots of people
do, but they shouldn't-here is the framework you are supposed to follow. My
own view, and I differ with some of my close friends on this, is that we should
be cautious in trying to sketch out the nature of the fu ture society in too much
detail. It's not that it can't be done. Ir can be done in interesting and different
ways-and it has been done-but I think the real question is to what is extent
is it importam to do it and to what extent is it importam to just try and experiment
and chip away at existing structures?
222 Actually, another problem which I think must be faced is that at any particular
point in human history people have not understood what oppression is.
It's something you learn. Ifl go back to, say, my parents or grandmother, she
didn't think she was oppressed by being in a super patriarchal family where the
father would walk down the street and not recognize his daughter when she
came because-not because he didn't know who she was, bur because you don't
nod to your daughter. It didn't feel like oppression. It just felt like the way life
works. r mean, what psychic effects it had internally-well, that's a complicated
question. But, as anyone involved in any kind of activism knows-say the
women's movement-one of the first tasks is to get people to understand that
they are living under conditions of oppression and domination. It isn't obvious,
and who knows what forms of oppression and domination we are just
accepting without even noticing them. At some further stage of self-enlightenment
and communal understanding we will recognize that those are the things
we have to deal with and we can't plan fo r them if we don't know about them.
Linked to that then. Emma Goldman. as she grew older and feared the foct
that there might not be an immediate revolution, became very influenced by
Gustav Landauer who said the state isn't just out there. It's inside us and
that we have to become ourselves-as fiee as we can be in capitalism, In foct
she was always worried that there may be a chance that people won't be
ready for revolution and that there is a way of developing the politics of the