Sometimes the former forces are in the ascendance, and "democratic governance" is eroded, though anyone familiar with intellectual history would expect that the slogans will be passionately proclaimed as they are drained of substantive content. We happen to be living in such an era, but as often before, there is no reason to suppose that the process is irreversible.

Anarchists try to identify power structures. They urge those exercising power to justify themselves. This justification does not succeed most of the time.

The reason academic disputes are so vicious is that so little is at stake.

[With] military threats, you can see them actually, you can imagine it. People don't think about it enough. But if you think about it for a minute, you can see that a nuclear attack could be the end of everything.

There's something deeply rooted in American culture. You can pretty much identify what it was. You take a look at the history. It was internal conquest. You had to defend yourself against what the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, an enlightened figure, called the attacks of the "merciless Indian savages," whose known way of warfare was torture and destruction. Also you had a slave population, you had to protect yourself against them. You needed guns.

The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn't betray it I'd be ashamed of myself.

The level of destruction and terror and violence carried out by the powerful states far exceeds anything that can imaginably can be done by groups that are called terrorists and subnational groups.