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You are here: The Platypus Affiliated Society/Archive for category 2012


Panel held on April 16th, 2012, in Boston, as part of the 3 Rs panel series.

Thanks to Doug Enaa Greene (http://www.youtube.com/user/dwgthed) for the video recording.

“After the failure of the 1960s New Left, the underlying despair with regard to the real efficacy of political will, of political agency, in a historical situation of heightened helplessness, became a self-constitution as outsider, as other, rather than an instrument of transformation. Focused on the bureaucratic stasis of the Fordist, late 20th Century world, the Left echoed the destruction of that world by the dynamics of capital: neoliberalism and globalization.

The idea of a fundamental transformation became bracketed and, instead, was replaced by the more ambiguous notion of ‘resistance.’ The notion of resistance, however, says little about the nature of that which is being resisted, or of the politics of the resistance involved.

‘Resistance’ is rarely based on a reflexive analysis of possibilities for fundamental change that are both generated and suppressed by the dynamic heteronomous order of capital. ‘Resistance’ is an undialectical category that does not grasp its own conditions of possibility; it fails to grasp the dynamic historical context of capital and its reconstitution of possibilities for both domination and emancipation, of which the ‘resisters’ do not recognize that that they are a part.”

— Moishe Postone, “History and Helplessness: Mass Mobilization and Contemporary Forms of Anticapitalism” (Public Culture¸ 18.1: 2006)

Reform, revolution, resistance: what kind of weight do these categories hold for the Left today? How are they used, to where do they point, and what is their history? Join the Platypus Affiliated Society for a discussion concerning a question that has renewed immediacy in light of the #Occupy movement.

Panelists:
Jeff Booth (Socialist Alternative)
Gayge (Common Struggle Libertarian Communist Federation)
Joe Ramsey (Kasama Project)
Laura Lee Schmidt (Platypus)
J. Phil Thompson (MIT)

II. Was ist “revolutionärer Marxismus”?

Zweiter Teil der Platypus Lesegruppe: Was ist die “Linke?” — Was ist “Marxismus?”


Immer Freitags um 16 Uhr. Erste Sitzung: 20.04

Goetheuniversität Frankfurt

Studierendenhaus, Campus Bockenheim

Mertonstr. 26-28

Beginn: Freitag, 20. April 2012 // Kontakt: frankfurt@platypus1917.org

Neueinsteiger sind herzlich wilkommen!


• vorausgesetzte / + empfohlene Texte


Woche 1.: 20. April 2012

• Rosa Luxemburg, Sozialreform oder Revolution (1899)

Woche 2.: 27. April

• W.I. LeninWas tun? (1902)
+ Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate / A&Z, Introducing Lenin and the Russian Revolution /Lenin for Beginners (1977)

Woche 3.: 4. Mai

• Leo TrotzkiErgebnisse und Perspektiven (1906)

+ Tariq Ali and Phil Evans, Introducing Trotsky and Marxism / Trotsky for Beginners (1980)


Woche 4.: (Termin wird bekannt gegeben)

• W.I. LeninStaat und Revolution (1917)

Lenin, Sozialismus und KriegI. Kapitel:Die Grundsätze des Sozialismus und der Krieg 1914/1915(1915)


Woche 5.: 18.05

• Rosa LuxemburgWas will der Spartakusbund? (1918)

 Rosa Luxemburg, Unser Programm und die politische Situation (1918)

+ LuxemburgDie Ordnung herrscht in Berlin (1919)
+ Sebastian HaffnerDie deutsche Revolution 1918/19 (1968)

Woche 6.: 25.05

 W.I. LeninDer „Linke Radikalismus“, die Kinderkrankheit im Kommunismus (1920)

+ Lenin, Notizen eines Publizisten (1922/24)


Woche 7.: 01.06

• Lukács, “Der Standpunkt des Proletariats” (= Teil III. des Kapitels “Die Verdinglichung und das Bewußtsein des Proletariats”) In: Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein (1923)


Woche 8.: 08.06

• Leo Trotzki, 1917 – Die Lehren des Oktobers (1924)


Woche 9.: 15.06

• epigraphs by Louis Menand (on Edmund Wilson) and Peter Preuss (on Nietzsche) on the modern concept of history
+ Bertolt Brecht, “An die Nachgeborenen” (1939)
+ Benjamin, Erfahrung und Armut (1933)
+ Benjamin, Theologisch-politisches Fragment (1921/39?)
+ Benjamin, Zum Planetarium (aus: Einbahnstraße, 1928)
• Walter Benjamin, Über den Begriff der Geschichte (1940)
• BenjaminParalipomena zu den Thesen Über den Begriff der Geschichte (In: GS I) (1940)
• Max Horkheimer“Autoritärer Staat” (1940/42)

Woche 10: 22.06

• Theodor AdornoReflexionen zur Klassentheorie (1942)
• AdornoAusschweifungen (1944–47)
+ Adorno, “Zuneigung”, “Vor Mißbrauch wird gewarnt” und “Zum Ende”, aus: Minima Moralia(1944–47)
+ Horkheimer und Adorno, Diskussion über Theorie und Praxis (1956)

Woche 11 29.06

+ Adorno, “Zu Subjekt und Objekt” (1969)
• Adorno“Marginalien zu Theorie und Praxis” (1969)
• Adorno“Resignation” (1969)
+ Adorno and Herbert Marcuse, correspondence on the German New Left (1969)
+ Esther Leslie, Introduction to the 1969 Adorno-Marcuse correspondence (1999)
+ Adorno, “Spätkapitalismus oder Industriegesellschaft?” (1968)

"Why I joined Platypus" was the Sunday Plenary panel at the Platypus Affiliated Society's 4th Annual International Convention, held at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, March 30 to April 1, 2012. In this panel four members reflect on why they joined Platypus, and what this decision has meant for them. This panel took place on April 1st, 2012, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Speakers:
Chris Cutrone
Thodoris Velissaris
Benjamin Landau-Beispiel
Douglas La Rocca

Thursday, April 26, 2012, 7:00 PM -- 238 Thompson Street, Room 279 (NYU Global Center)

“After the failure of the 1960s New Left, the underlying despair with regard to the real efficacy of political will, of political agency, in a historical situation of heightened helplessness, became a self-constitution as outsider, as other, rather than an instrument of transformation. Focused on the bureaucratic stasis of the Fordist, late 20th Century world, the Left echoed the destruction of that world by the dynamics of capital: neoliberalism and globalization.

The idea of a fundamental transformation became bracketed and, instead, was replaced by the more ambiguous notion of ‘resistance.’ The notion of resistance, however, says little about the nature of that which is being resisted, or of the politics of the resistance involved.

‘Resistance’ is rarely based on a reflexive analysis of possibilities for fundamental change that are both generated and suppressed by the dynamic heteronomous order of capital. ‘Resistance’ is an undialectical category that does not grasp its own conditions of possibility; it fails to grasp the dynamic historical context of capital and its reconstitution of possibilities for both domination and emancipation, of which the ‘resisters’ do not recognize that that they are a part.”

— Moishe Postone, “History and Helplessness: Mass Mobilization and Contemporary Forms of Anticapitalism” (Public Culture¸ 18.1: 2006)

Reform, revolution, resistance: what kind of weight do these categories hold for the Left today? How are they used, to where do they point, and what is their history? Join the Platypus Affiliated Society for a discussion concerning a question that has renewed immediacy in light of the #Occupy movement.

Speakers:

John Asimakopoulos (Institute for Transformative Studies)

Todd Gitlin (Columbia University)

Tom Trottier (Workers' International Committee)

Ross Wolfe (Platypus Affiliated Society)

http://www.facebook.com/events/196015840510823/

Electoral politics are a longstanding problem for the U.S. left. In recent decades, a number of parties have formed as an alternative to the Democratic Party: the Labor Party, the Green Party, and now, the Justice Party. However, these parties risk becoming little more than networks of activists or pressure groups on the Democratic Party, and it still remains unclear whether a serious electoral challenge to the Democratic Party is possible. Radical Minds is pleased to air an edited recording of a panel organized by the Platypus Affiliated Society, which investigates several contemporary approaches to electoral politics and draws out the theories that motivate Leftist third parties. The major speakers, Lenny Brody of the Justice Party and Jason Wright of the International Bolshevik Tendency, consider how the historical achievements and failures of third parties bear upon the present.

Aired on April 10th, 2012 on the Radical Minds radio show.