Workingclasshistory - Blog Posts
On this day, 7 December 1928, Avram Noam Chomsky, legendary activist, linguist and author was born to a Jewish immigrant family in Philadelphia. Chomsky came to prominence as an activist as an outspoken critic of the Vietnam war, for which he was arrested several times and placed on President Richard Nixon’s official list of enemies. He has since become one of the world’s leading critics of US foreign-policy, and one of the most cited scholars alive. Politically Chomsky usually identifies with currents including libertarian socialism and anarchism, stating: “I was attracted to anarchism as a young teenager, as soon I began to think about the world beyond a pretty narrow range, and haven’t seen much reason to revise those early attitudes since.” And despite dark times, Chomsky believes that we have to face our challenges with optimism: “Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, it’s unlikely you will step up and take responsibility for making it so. If you assume that there’s no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, there are opportunities to change things, there’s a chance you may contribute to making a better world. The choice is yours.” Yesterday, WCH was very happy to host the launch of Chomsky’s new book with author James Kelman, Between Thought and Expression Lies a Lifetime: Why Ideas Matter. You can get it, along with our book for which Chomsky contributed the foreword, in our online store: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/noam-chomsky https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1871057279746080/?type=3
On this day, 9 December 1842, one of the founders of contemporary anarchist communism, Peter Kropotkin was born. An activist, scientist, and philosopher, he abandoned his aristocratic background in favour of the revolutionary working class struggle. He participated in the 1917 Russian revolution, and wrote numerous influential works, including Mutual Aid: a Factor of Evolution. In this work he criticised interpretations of the ideas of Charles Darwin which focused on competition, and highlighted instances of cooperation in the natural world. “If we … ask Nature: ‘who are the fittest: those who are continually at war with each other, or those who support one another?’ we at once see that those animals which acquire habits of mutual aid are undoubtedly the fittest. They have more chances to survive, and they attain, in their respective classes, the highest development of intelligence and bodily organization.” These ideas continue to be influential today. Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote of Kropotkin: “I would hold that Kropotkin’s basic argument is correct. Struggle does occur in many modes, and some lead to cooperation among members of a species as the best pathway to advantage for individuals. If Kropotkin overemphasized mutual aid, most Darwinians in Western Europe had exaggerated competition just as strongly. If Kropotkin drew inappropriate hope for social reform from his concept of nature, other Darwinians had erred just as firmly (and for motives that most of us would now decry) in justifying imperial conquest, racism, and oppression of industrial workers as the harsh outcome of natural selection in the competitive mode.” We have made available several of Kropotkin’s works, as well as a brand new beautiful illustrated edition of Mutual Aid in our online store. Check them out here: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/peter-kropotkin https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1871872012997940/?type=3