whenever i hear modern "philosophy" heavyweights talk i just see them as missing the puzzle piece of theology. here chomsky is talking to foucault, arguing that there is some "absolute basis" although he "cant sketch it out" that grounds things like justice. thats what god is bro
foucault is basically saying justice is made up, its just another social construction used to perpetuate certain hierarchies, u cant appeal to human nature because thats a construct too. chomsky knows this is wrong but cant appeal to anything supraphysical so has no real argument
i feel theres something deeply significant in this conversation in general. watched it a ton of times. its an illustration of the clear distinction between people who say its all a construct but still believe in higher ideals and people who actually act like its all a construct
theres also something in it about how bleak the “post-modern” or, what would you call it, relativist atheist-leftist (?) worldview is. its such a dark lens despite its facade of commitment to higher ideals (because it inevitably deconstructs those ideals anyway)
you can actually see in real time that chomsky realizes that hes making a fallacious and illogical (within his worldview) statement by designating these values as "true" with no concrete basis. look how he says the word "true" after hitting a mental wall. fascinating
