David Black [Philosophy] is the scientific expression of a certain fundamental human attitude… toward being and beings in general, and through which a historical-social situation often can express itself more clearly and deeply than in the reified, practical spheres of life. — Herbert Marcuse[1] CHRIS CUTRONE WRITES, “What the usual interpretive emphasis on Lukács occludes [...]
December 6th, 2009 | PR web editor | 3 comments | ContinuedAll Posts Tagged With: "marxist"
Book review: Karl Korsch, Marxism and Philosophy
Chris Cutrone
KARL KORSCH’S SEMINAL ESSAY on “Marxism and Philosophy” (1923) is a historical treatment of the problem from Marx and Engels’s time through the 2nd International to the crisis of Marxism and the revolutions of 1917–19 in Russia, Germany and beyond. More specifically, Korsch took up the development and vicissitudes of the relation between theory and practice in the history of Marxism, which he considered the “philosophical” problem of Marxism. Korsch, like Georg Lukács and the thinkers in Frankfurt School critical theory, was inspired by the “subjective” aspect of Marxism exemplified by Lenin’s irreducible role in the October Revolution. Korsch was subsequently denounced as a “professor” in the Communist International and quit the movement, embracing council communism and shunning Marxian theory, writing an “Anti-Critique” in 1930 that critiqued Marxism as such, and by 1950 actively seeking to liquidate the difference between Marxian and anarchist approaches. In so doing, Korsch succumbed to what Adorno termed “identity thinking.” By assuming the identity of theory and practice, or of social being and consciousness in the workers’ movement, Korsch abandoned his prior discernment and critical grasp of their persistent antagonism in any purported politics of emancipation.
September 3rd, 2009 | admin | 10 comments | Continued
Trotsky on art and politics: “with a sword or at least a whip in hand”
Re: Platypus: “They had friends, they had enemies, they fought, and exactly through this they demonstrated their right to exist.” – Trotsky, on the history of new political and artistic movements (1938) http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/06/artpol.htm Not a single progressive idea has begun with a “mass base,” otherwise it would not have been a progressive idea. It is [...]
February 26th, 2009 | Chris Cutrone | 0 comments | Continued
Platypus NYC Marxist reading group
Platypus NYC meets Sundays 2-4PM
New York University
295 Lafayette St. 4th floor
contact: pam.nogales@gmail.com
SAIC reading group Spring 2009
Platypus chapter at SAIC meets Sundays at
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
112 S. Michigan Ave.
Room 707
1-4pm
[contact: ian.morrison.a@gmail.com]
January 11th, 2009 | admin | 0 comments | Continued
University of Chicago Marxist reading group Winter-Spring 2009
Platypus chapter at University of Chicago meets Sundays at
Reynolds Club 5706 S. University Ave.
2nd floor South Lounge
2-5PM
For more information contact mtorre3@artic.edu
University of Chicago, SAIC, MIT, NYU reading group starts January 11
1960s paths not taken (1): Civil Rights – Black Power Platypus Marxist readings for Sunday January 11, 2009 · Richard Fraser, Two Lectures on the Black Question in America and Revolutionary Integrationism (1953) · James Robertson and Shirley Stoute, “For Black Trotskyism” (1963) Spartacist League, “Black and Red — Class Struggle Road to Negro Freedom” [...]
January 1st, 2009 | admin | 0 comments | Continued
School of the Art Institute of Chicago marxist reading group meetings
SAIC chapter meets Sundays at 112 S. Michigan Ave. room 707 (7th floor) 1-4PM Contact lrojas@saic.edu if you are not affiliated with SAIC.
December 11th, 2008 | admin | 0 comments | Continued
Obama and Clinton: “Third Way” politics and the “Left”
Chris Cutrone For the “Left” that is critical of him, the most common comparison made of Obama is to Bill Clinton. This critique of Obama, as of Clinton, denounces his “Centrism,” the trajectory he appears to continue from the “new” Democratic Party of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) expressed by Clinton and Gore’s election in [...]
December 1st, 2008 | Platypus Review editor | 1 comment | Continued
Capital in history: The need for a Marxian philosophy of history of the Left
Chris Cutrone [Español] [Ελληνικό] [Deutsch] [The following is a talk given at the Marxist-Humanist Committee public forum on The Crisis in Marxist Thought, hosted by the Platypus Affiliated Society in Chicago on Friday, July 25, 2008.] I want to speak about the meaning of history for any purportedly Marxian Left. We in Platypus focus on [...]
October 1st, 2008 | Platypus Review editor | 7 comments | Continued