On February 7, 2020, at Boston College, the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a panel titled "Freedom in the Anthropocene".
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.
On September 27, 2019, at the Democracy Center in Cambridge, MA, the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a teach-in led by Platypus members Divya M. and Soren W. on capital in history.
What is the development of freedom in human history from the Platypus perspective?
In the mid-19th century, Marx and Engels famously observed that a "specter was haunting Europe: the specter of Communism". 170 years later, it is Marxism itself that haunts us, while capitalism remains.
What does it mean that Marx and Marxism still appeal, while political movements for socialism are weak or non-existent? What were Marxism's original points concerning radical possibilities for freedom that might still speak to the present?
Does Marxism even matter?
