Noam Chomsky - Violent Revolution

[mcming]

You can tell that he is such a genius linguist because he can speak without moving his lips.

[maxmidgett]

“If you want to get killed in 5 minutes that’s a good suggestion.” Haha

[carlsagananarchist]

I think I understand what Chomsky is getting at. He isn't saying a revolution has to be 100% nonviolent, but the violent aspect is a very very small aspect of a revolutionary movement and isn't even worth discussing this early in the game. History has proven that revolutions that rely too heavily on violence end up becoming dictatorships.

[thomassinha]

Chomskys disdain for the interviewer here is palpable and hilarious

[Syncopator]

Ya gotta love Chomsky-- he answers the questions the guy should have asked, given the ones he actually asked were mostly nonsense. What's unfortunate is that he has to keep explaining to people in essence, that labels are just that, and the very fact that someone saw fit to try to apply a label, can be a sign someone with an axe to grind is intentionally attempting to mislabel it.

[Johnconno]

He's doing that hilarious ventriloquist act again.

[cougar]

Unfortunately, Chomsky gave only one of the two conditions he asserted necessary to achieve a revolution that would "carry us forward." ( ≈ 16:00)
That was: "dedicated support by a large majority of the population."
He did note: " ... we are so remote from that point" and presumably considered
condition #2 irrelevant.

[leroitiaks]

The premise is wrong. One cannot take the so-called Terror out of the historical context and try to justify or criticise it.
The violence of the people is justified by the violence of the state at the time. In that sense, if a revolution will be violent if and when the state response to it is violent. Any other fake debate is irrelevant and just good for bourgeois thinkers who are safe in their lives and can afford to criticise the state mildly.
You cannot expect a well-to-do person with a safe and stable situation (economic, social, political, etc…) to understand the plights of the poor living under repression (economic, social, political, etc…). Similarly, you cannot expect that same person to understand and accept the poor’s response to repression.

[tonys]

The interviewer tries to be intellectual, but some of his questions are silly.

[NoFutureInThis]

This interview sounds like that between a professor who is practical and realistic and a grad student who just started reading theory and is dying to see validation of that theory.

[joshuapray]

If your question or statement begins with, "people are saying, " or "many people think, " or "there's a lot of interest in, " stop, rethink, and don't ask/say it. If it's true, go find a source, start your question with genuine information. This interviewer is obviously coming from a genuinely interested position, but looking for concrete answers to nebulous ideas is doomed from the start.

[bruceruttan]

I always appreciate Noam's reflexive turning of the question back on the asker. Gives him time to choose an attack and absorb what the asker is really looking for.

[EricSmith]

If you are going to ask Chomsky a question, you bring your A game.

[youngeagle]

Violence is not a tactic or a moral issue but a social condition.

[bntagkas]

the whole point against violent revolution is this:
people have the power, they just dont know it.
when people realize what they want, and that they have the power to take it(which as chomsky says you can clearly see we are very far from), violence would only serve a purpose as self defense literally. as chomsky notes, to make a proper revolution you must have a large majority of the population on your side. so a really huge peaceful movement can achieve much more than a violent one. you could have potentially 10s or ever 100+ millions of peoples on the street, you could literally walk to the presidents residence under certain circumstances and simply announce that the people no longer wish for him to continue serving them, and do the same for whatever governors or how ever the country is structured. after all they are suposedly there...to serve the people's interests. now they have their bosses, the people, outside the door, firing them effective immediately. the question is what are the armed forces going to do. and theres alot of evidence to suggest a totally non violent movement would make even psychopaths in the army think twice before starting to shoot down a huge mass of unarmed nonviolent people in the streets, as opposed to an angry mass of people looking like a walking zombie weapon ready to unleash at any second, threatening any observing non participant greatly.

[danielnorman]

1.) Build small Cooperatives. 2.) Build community defense militias, 3.) Build neighborhood councils, 4.) Take over the local city council and municipal boards, 5.) Collectivize basic utilities, 6.) build medium sized cooperatives, 7.) pressure/force coopertivization on larger local firms. 8.) link up cooperatives into mutual support networks, 9.) form federations of cooperatives on a larger scale with other cities going down the same path, 10.) establish a federal revolutionary council 11.) brace for impact

[jamiehartman]

I think the problem is that we define violence too narrowly, by referring to only to physical trauma. But violence can be economic, or social, or legal as well.

[soumyajitchatterjee]

"... has to be backed by a majority of the population, people who realise that they can't attain their goals under the current regime..." .. my question is how do we deal with societies that are partisan or diverse? where the reality of one group/class is vastly different from that of the other ? Is the use of violence (riots, lootings) by agitated people illegitimising the revolution ?

[DerekSpeareDSD]

here we are in 2024 and we are basically at the threshold of the choice of "are we there or not?" I believe we are pretty damn close.

[Mortebianca]

I agree that the only violence in revolution should be the strictly necessary one.
I also agree that, when there's majority consensus, a lot of violence is unnecessary since you have the power to basically stop the machine from working.
I also agree we are far from that point.

Where I disagree: that if majority supports the idea of overthrowing the elites, then very little violence will be necessary.
Armies will not always support mass movements (even when the majority of the population is with them), because of propaganda. Also, sometimes there's asymmetry in power, weapons' access and other things which make violence kinda unavoidable.
Finally, there's an ethical argument for violent revolution might sometimes be necessary: suppose a dictatorship is in place, yet you still don't have an 80% support for Revolution. What should you do? No matter how violent, any revolution will not make as many deaths as the total deaths the dictatorship will produce.