A waste of time?
Speaking truth to power is not a favourite saying for that great intellectual Noam Chomsky. Here's what he said about it (sent to us by Maria Brown): 'This is a reference to perhaps the only thing on which I find I disagree with my Quaker friends. On every practical activity I usually agree with them, but I do disagree with them about their slogan of speaking truth to power. First of all, power already knows the truth. They don’t need to hear it from us. Secondly, it’s a waste of time. Furthermore, it's the wrong audience. You have to speak truth to the people who will dismantle and overthrow and constrain power... I'm not interested in telling the people around Bush what they already know.'
posted by Eye @ 10:46 AM
1 Comments:
Chomsky seems to have missed the distinction between TRUTH and FACTS. No Quaker ever said, "Speak Facts to Power"! Indeed, as Chomsky says, this would be pointless: those in power know all the facts we know (and they also know certain facts about the inner workings of government that we don't know).
No, the saying is "Speak Truth to Power", and "Truth" (in Quakerism) means spiritual truth -- something much more than just facts. The powerful may know all the facts, but they may still be starving for spiritual truth!
By speaking (spiritual) Truth to those in power, we appeal to the very highest part of their nature -- to That of God in them, to use traditional Quaker language. We try to change the world, not with outward weapons, but with the inward and spiritual weapon of Truth.
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