The Trouble with Bob

I've been listening to well-regarded musicians whom I've never really been into and trying to listen to them with fresh ears so I've listened to some of Bob Dylan's stuff recently, in particular the albums The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. Whilst there are undoubtedly some great songs (see music player below) I find it really difficult to listen to more than one or two Dylan tracks in a row. This is not so much because of the voice, but because of his phrasing. He has this annoying vocal mannerism of stretching out one word in a line (usually the second last or last word). Whilst this is fine for a single song; repeated song after song as it is on an album like Blonde on Blonde (regarded by many as Dylan's greatest album) it quickly becomes tedious in the extreme. Try as I might I just can't get past being fundamentally annoyed by Bob.

Chomsky & Foucault

I read 'The Chomsky-Foucault Debate on Human Nature' several months ago and meant to post something about it but never got round to it, so I'm probably a bit hazy on the details by now, but the idea is the same.

The main section of the book is basically the transcript of a discussion between the intellectuals (for want of a better word) Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault, followed by some further related articles and interviews. Chomsky and Foucault have some superficial similarities, they are both intellectuals of the left who seek to engage in politics, but the discussion in fact shows how fundamentally different they are in important respects.

The debate starts with their respective backgrounds in linguistics. I'm no linguistics expert but Chomsky's view, extremely simplistically, is that people have innate language abilities. Foucault on the other hand is from the French Structuralist tradition which prefers to see language as a structure which limits and determines the thought of individuals rather than something that individuals use creatively to express their ideas. Structuralism is in this sense the philosophical grandparent of the PC movement. This leads into their views on human nature, with Chomsky believing that people have innate creativity and Foucault sticking with his structuralist framework. Whilst the discussion remains about linguistics and human nature the differences seem primarily to be about technical intricacies but as soon as the discussion moves onto politics the discussion becomes more heated as the implications of these philosophical differences become clear.

The political differences can be shown clearly in this exchange.....

FOUCAULT: But I would merely like to reply to your first sentence, in which you said that if you didn't consider the war you make against the police to be just, you wouldn't make it.

I would like to reply to you in terms of Spinoza and say that the proletariat doesn't wage war against the ruling class because it considers such a war to be just. The proletariat makes war with the ruling class because, for the first time in history, it wants to take power. And because it will overthrow the power of the ruling class, it considers such a war to be just.

CHOMSKY: Yeah, I don't agree.

FOUCAULT: One makes war to win, not because it is just.

CHOMSKY: I don't, personally, agree with that.

For example, if I could convince myself that attainment of power by the proletariat would lead to a terrorist police state, in which freedom and dignity and decent human relations would be destroyed, then I wouldn't want the proletariat to take power. In fact the only reason for wanting any such thing, I believe, is because one thinks, rightly or wrongly, that some fundamental human values will be achieved by that transfer of power.

FOUCAULT: When the proletariat takes power, it may be quite possible that the proletariat will exert towards the classes over which it has triumphed, a violent, dictatorial, and even bloody power. I can't see what objection one could make to this.

For all Chomsky's faults, and they are many, he starts from a fundamental position of valuing the human individual. For Chomsky, unlike Foucault, individuals have an intrinsic value, they are not just blank pieces of paper to be shuffled, re-arranged and re-written in a structuralist re-arrangement of society, not to be valued or despised purely because of their position within a theoretical social framework.

Although the book is subtitled On Human Nature I think it is a recognition of human value rather than a particular view of human nature that is important. Indeed, a rigid view of human nature, and an attempt to re-shape human society and the individuals within that society to conform to it, can be one of the more dangerous political positions, whether it is Hitler's view that some people were naturally masters and some naturally slaves and we'd all be much happier if we just accepted this, or the Marxist closed society where individuals can be free and happy only if they conform to a constrained view of human nature.

It is the valuing of the human individual that, for me, is of fundamental political importance, rather than the old-fashioned differentiation between right and left. Connections can be made with people who have innate respect for individuals wherever they may be on the political spectrum. Avoid the people-haters, on the other hand, at all costs, whether they be of the left or right.

The Dog

It's always a sign that a blog is going downhill when the writer starts posting photos of their pets, but there you go.

For years my daughter pestered me to get a dog but I always refused - our flat is too small, it's too much trouble etc. - but a couple of years ago I finally relented. I have to say that now there are few things more pleasant than taking the dog for a walk up Mount Parker on a Sunday morning. When I don't have time to go up the hill I now take the dog to the new dog adventure playground kindly provided by Swire outside their new office block development in Tai Koo Shing, complete with open strips of grass and swimming facilities.

Of course, dogs are not actually allowed there as the facilities are just for looking at but we usually get about 20 minutes of entertainment for both the dog and passers-by before we get kicked out, and with a cheery 'See you tomorrow!' to the security guard, we're off home.