Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bemerkten Marx und Engels in einer berühmten Formulierung: "Ein Gespenst geht um in Europa - das Gespenst des Kommunismus." 160 Jahre später scheint der Marxismus selbst zu einem Gespenst geworden zu sein.
Es scheint, als hätte die Linke im 21. Jahrhundert den Marxismus als möglichen Weg zur Freiheit aufgegeben. Doch griff Marx vor allem in seiner eigenen Zeit ein, um seine Zeitgefährten zu ermuntern, die Gesellschaft zu verändern. Trägt die Linke diese Verantwortung heute wohl nicht mehr? Hat die Linke gar die Problematiken, die Marx aufwarf, beantwortet und ist fortgeschritten?
Ist der Marxismus ĂĽberhaupt noch relevant?
A moderated panel discussion hosted by the Platypus Affiliated Society on the interrelation of capital, history and ecology.
Goldsmiths College, New Cross,
London Borough of Lewisham, London SE14, UK
November 20, 7:30 PM
- Andy Price (New Compass)
- Camilla Royle (Kings College London)
- Camilla Power (University of East London)
- David Black (The Hobgoblin)
Description:
The Dutch atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen recently characterized the period marked by the start of the industrial revolution in the 18th Century to the present as a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. This periodization is meant to capture a change in the history of the planet, namely that for the first time in history its course will be determined by the question of what humanity will become.
This panel will focus on different interpretations of why the Left has failed to deal with the deepening crisis of the Anthropocene through the 19th and 20th Centuries and how and if this problem is interrelated with the growing problems associated with ecological systems across the earth. While Karl Marx would note that the problem of freedom shifted with the industrial revolution and the emergence of the working class - the crisis of bourgeois society that Marx would term capital - the idea of freedom seemed not to survive the collapse of Marxist politics in the 20th Century. We seem to live in a world in which the fate of ecological systems seem foreclosed, where attempts at eco-modernization seem to emerge many steps behind the rate of ecological degradation. For many, degradation of the environment appears a permanent feature of modern society, something which can only be resisted but never transformed.
This panel will consider the relationship between the history of capital and the Left—and thus the issue of history and freedom - and how it may be linked to our present inability to render environmental threats and degradation visible and comprehensible, and by extension, subject to its conscious and free overcoming by society.
November 11th, 6 PM
112 S Michigan Ave, Room 1307
A Platypus film screening, part of our 4 Films on the History of Socialism Screening Series.
"A true story of politics and art in the 1930s USA, centered around a leftist musical drama and attempts to stop its production."
http://www.imdb.com/title/
Directed and Written by Tim Robbins. Starring Hank Azaria, Bill Murray, Joan Cusack, John Cusack, Ruben Blades, Emily Watson, John Turturro, Susan Sarandon, Vanessa Redgrave, Cary Elwes and Angus Macfadyen.
