AT THE PLATYPUS European Conference, I suggested that there is a modern theory of crisis that is no longer fit for purpose. It belongs to modern political theory in general. It is not exclusively Marxist. You’ll find it in Lenin and Adorno, but also in Jürgen Habermas and Reinhart Koselleck. Indeed, you’ll even find it in Robert Dahl, if you know where to look.

I IDENTIFY STRONGLY WITH the wrongly accused. So does America more broadly. And Trump has been wrongly accused. If you are in the right, then there is no need to lie. And they have lied about Trump.

LENIN’S LEGACY TODAY is an accursed share. Lenin is a specter haunting us after a century which has failed to fundamentally transcend the terms he set for revolutionary politics. The philosopher Theodor Adorno described this historical situation as one wherein “Philosophy, which once seemed outmoded, remains alive because the moment of its realization was missed.” The work of Adorno can be understood as reflecting on that missed moment for the realization of philosophy, which had been heralded by Karl Marx in 1844 as the proletarian revolution, and which the communist militant Karl Korsch had announced Lenin as symbolizing in 1923.

THE EXPRESSION “IDENTITY POLITICS” refers to a tendency among individuals who belong to a particular social group (religion, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) to build exclusive political alliances with members of the same social group, especially as a way of rectifying historical injustices. While identity-based movements do have the potential to raise awareness and rectify historical injustices, they can also be co-opted to reinforce systems of hierarchy.

Wie die Gewerkschaftsbewegung im Zweiten Deutschen Kaiserreich können heutige intersektionale Bewegungen die Selbstorganisation von Marginalisierten bewerkstelligen, die sich dadurch ihrer Marginalisierung entledigen können. Das Motto von Platypus lässt sich so wie folgt reformulieren: Nicht die Linke ist tot, bloß der Marxismus.

Der Ursprung alles menschlichen Lebens ist die Sexualität und alle Geschichte ist die Geschichte von Klassenkämpfen. Aber als wissenschaftlicher und politischer Begriff ist Sexualität ebenso wie Sozialismus und Marxismus ein Produkt der Moderne. Das Teach-in will der Frage nachgehen, wie Marxistinnen und Marxisten seitdem das Verhältnis von sexueller Befreiung und sozialistischer Revolution beurteilten und charakterisieren.