Chomsky on Anarchism.pdf - Zine Library

OBJECTIVITY AND LIBERAL SCHOLARSHIP
32
coed by insurgency. The justification, were the question raised, is inherent in
the assumption that we live "in a world in which loss of national independence
is often synonymous with communist control, and communism is implicidy
considered to be irreversible." Thus, by Orwellian logic, we are actually
defending national independence when we intervene with military fo rce to
proteC[ a ruling elite from internal insurgency.35
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of scholarly work such as this is the way
in which behavioral-science rhetoric is llsed to lend a vague aura of respectability.
One might construct some such chain of associations as this. Science, as
everyone knows, is responsible, moderate, unsentimental, and otherwise good.
Behavioral science tells us that we can be concerned only with behavior and
control of behavior. Therefore we should be concerned only with behavior and
control ofbehavior;36 and it is responsible, moderate, unsentimental, and otherwise
good to comrol behavior by appropriately applied reward and punishment.
Concern fo r loyalties and attitudes is emotional and unscientific. As
rational men, believers in the scientific ethic, we should be concerned with
manipulating behavior in a desirable direction, and not be deluded by mystical
notions of freedom, individual needs, or popular will.
Let me make it clear that I am not criticizing the behavioral sciences
because they lend themselves to such perversion. On other grounds, the
"behavioral persuasion" seems (0 me co lack merit; it seriously mistakes the
method of science and imposes pointless methodological strictures on the
study of man and society, bur this is another matter entirely. It is, however, fair
to inquire to what extent the popularity of this approach is based on its
demonstrated achievements, and to what extem its appeal is based on the ease
with which it can be refashioned as a new coercive ideology with a faintly scientific
tone. (In passing, I think it is worth mention that the same questions
can be raised outside of politics, specifically, in connection with education and
therapy.)
The assumption that the colonial power is benevolent and has the interests
of the natives at heart is as old as imperialism itself. Thus the liberal Herman
Merivale, lecturing at Oxford in 1840, lauded the "British policy of colonial
enlightenment" which "stands in contrast to that of our ancestors," who cared
little "about the internal government of their colonies, and kept them in subjection
in order to derive certain supposed commercial advantages from them,"
whereas we "give them commercial advantages, and tax ourselves for their benefit,
in order to give them an interest in remaining under our supremacy, that
we may have the pleasure of governing them."3? And our own John Hay in
1898 outlined "a partnership in beneficence" which would bring freedom and
civilization to Cuba, Hawaii, and the Philippines, just as the Pax Britannica
had brought these benefits to India, Egypt, and South Africa.38 But although
the benevolence of imperialism is a familiar refrain, the idea that the issue of
benevolence is irrelevant, an improper, sentimental consideration, is some-