After the recent discussion of Luxemburg’s pamphlet on Reform or Revolution? (1900/08), there might be some confusion regarding the relationship between Luxemburg’s formulations and the raison d’etre of Platypus as an organized project today. — What is the point of reading Luxemburg today? Whereas Luxemburg was critiquing Eduard Bernstein and other “revisionists’” arguments that the [...]
All Posts Tagged With: "society"
note on recent readings: Slaughter, Nettl, Luxemburg
Five questions to the student Left
Pam C Nogales, Benjamin Shepard An interview with SDS member Rachel Haut published in the September issue of this publication provoked widespread comment in radical circles. (1) We welcome the discussion but worry that it remains ensconced within the sterile jargon and petty antinomies of the actually-existing- Left. More fundamental questions exist than, say, the [...]
Finance capital: Why financial capitalism is no more “fictitious” than any other kind
The Platypus Historians Group WITH THE PRESENT FINANCIAL MELT-DOWN in the U.S. throwing the global economy into question, many on the “Left” are wondering again about the nature of capitalism. While many will be tempted to jump on the bandwagon of the “bailout” being floated by the Bush administration and the Congressional Democrats (including Obama), [...]
To the victor, the spoils: Review of Artforum’s May 2008 issue “May ’68″
Benjamin Blumberg “We succeeded culturally. We succeeded socially. And we lost politically.… I always say: ‘thank God!’” — Daniel Cohn-Bendit in interview on 1968, conducted by Yascha Mounk for The Utopian (2008) “[O]ne asks with whom the adherents of historicism actually empathize. The answer is inevitable: with the victor.… Whoever has emerged victorious participates to [...]
Vicissitudes of historical consciousness and possibilities for emancipatory social politics today
“The Left is Dead! — Long Live the Left!” Chris Cutrone “The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.” — Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1852) “The theorist who intervenes in practical controversies nowadays discovers on a regular basis and to his shame that [...]
Review: “The Common Sense”
Marco Torres My first impression upon entering Haseeb Ahmed’s installation, “The Common Sense,” which opened at Around the Coyote Gallery on September 5th was one of open space. It was an openness that contrasted sharply with the hundreds of paintings, photographs, sculptures that cluttered the rest of the many other galleries that opened that Night [...]
