14 November 2012
Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS
Audio Link (click here)
Panelists:
Matthew Furlong (Foundation Year and Contemporary Studies Programme, King's University)
David Howard (Historical and Critical Studies, NSCAD University)
John Hutton (student activist, Dalhousie)
Clare O'Connor (Toronto activist and author)
From the financial crisis and the bank bail-outs to the question of "sovereign debt"; from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street; from the struggle for a unified European-wide policy to the elections in Greece and Egypt that seem to have threatened so much and promised so little -- the need to go beyond mere "protest" has asserted itself: political revolution is in the air, again.
At the same time, the impending general election in the U.S. seems, by comparison, to be a non-event, despite potentially having far-reaching consequences for teeming issues word-wide. Today, the people -- the demos -- seem resigned to their political powerlessness, even as they rage against the corruption of politics. Hence, while contemporary demands for democracy to politicize the demos, they are also indicative of social and political regression that asks urgently for recognition and reflection. Demands for democracy "from below" end up being expressed "from above": The 99%, in its already obscure and unorganized character, didn't express itself as such in the various recent elections, but was split in various tendencies, many of them very reactionary.
Democracy retains an enigmatic character, since it always slips any fixed form and content, since people under the dynamic of capital keep demanding at times "more" democracy and "real" democracy. But democracy can be like Janus: it often expresses both the progressive social and emancipatory demands, but also their defeat, their hijacking by an elected "Bonaparte".
What is the history informing the demands for greater democracy today, and how does the Left adequately promote -- or not -- the cause of popular empowerment?
What are the potential futures for "democratic" revolution, especially as understood by the Left?
Questions for panelists to consider:
- What would you consider as “real” democracy, as this has been a primary demand of recent spontaneous forms of discontent (e.g. Arab Spring, Occupy, anti-austerity protests, student strikes)?
- What is the relationship between democracy and the working class today? Do you consider historical struggles for democracy by workers as the medium by which they got “assimilated” to the system, or the only path to emancipation that they couldn’t avoid trying to take?
- Do you consider it as necessary to eschew established forms of mass politics in favor of new forms in order to build a democratic movement? Or are current mass form of politics adequate for a democratic society?
- Why has democracy emerged as the primary demand of spontaneous forms of discontent? Do you also consider it necessary, or adequate, to deal with the pathologies of our era?
- Engels wrote that “A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is”. Do you agree? Can this conception be compatible with the struggle for democracy?
- How is democracy related with the issue of possibly overcoming capital?
- Is there a difference between the ancient and the modern notion of democracy and, if so, what is the source of that difference? Does “real” democracy share more with the direct democracy of ancient polis?
- Is democracy oppressive, or can it be such? How would you judge Lenin’s formulation that: “…democracy is also a state and that, consequently, democracy will also disappear when the state disappears.”
A panel event held on November 14th, 2012, at Dalhousie University. The first iteration of our "Democracy and the Left" international panel series.
Panelists:
Matthew Furlong (Foundation Year and Contemporary Studies Programme, King’s University)
David Howard (Historical and Critical Studies, NSCAD University)
John Hutton (student activist, Dalhousie)
Clare O’Connor (Toronto activist and author)
From the financial crisis and the bank bail-outs to the question of “sovereign debt”; from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street; from the struggle for a unified European-wide policy to the elections in Greece and Egypt that seem to have threatened so much and promised so little — the need to go beyond mere “protest” has asserted itself: political revolution is in the air, again.
At the same time, the impending general election in the U.S. seems, by comparison, to be a non-event, despite potentially having far-reaching consequences for teeming issues word-wide. Today, the people — the demos — seem resigned to their political powerlessness, even as they rage against the corruption of politics. Hence, while contemporary demands for democracy to politicize the demos, they are also indicative of social and political regression that asks urgently for recognition and reflection. Demands for democracy “from below” end up being expressed “from above”: The 99%, in its already obscure and unorganized character, didn’t express itself as such in the various recent elections, but was split in various tendencies, many of them very reactionary.
Democracy retains an enigmatic character, since it always slips any fixed form and content, since people under the dynamic of capital keep demanding at times “more” democracy and “real” democracy. But democracy can be like Janus: it often expresses both the progressive social and emancipatory demands, but also their defeat, their hijacking by an elected “Bonaparte”.
What is the history informing the demands for greater democracy today, and how does the Left adequately promote — or not — the cause of popular empowerment?
What are the potential futures for “democratic” revolution, especially as understood by the Left?
Questions for panelists to consider:
What would you consider as “real” democracy, as this has been a primary demand of recent spontaneous forms of discontent (e.g. Arab Spring, Occupy, anti-austerity protests, student strikes)?
What is the relationship between democracy and the working class today? Do you consider historical struggles for democracy by workers as the medium by which they got “assimilated” to the system, or the only path to emancipation that they couldn’t avoid trying to take?
Do you consider it as necessary to eschew established forms of mass politics in favor of new forms in order to build a democratic movement? Or are current mass form of politics adequate for a democratic society?
Why has democracy emerged as the primary demand of spontaneous forms of discontent? Do you also consider it necessary, or adequate, to deal with the pathologies of our era?
Engels wrote that “A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is”. Do you agree? Can this conception be compatible with the struggle for democracy?
How is democracy related with the issue of possibly overcoming capital?
Is there a difference between the ancient and the modern notion of democracy and, if so, what is the source of that difference? Does “real” democracy share more with the direct democracy of ancient polis?
Is democracy oppressive, or can it be such? How would you judge Lenin’s formulation that: “…democracy is also a state and that, consequently, democracy will also disappear when the state disappears.”
A teach-in on the Communist Manifesto
Hosted by the Platypus Affiliated Society at Dalhousie
Part of the NSPIRG Alt-101 Radical Frosh Series
Thursday 7pm | September 20, 2012
Room 302, Student Union Building, Dalhousie University
In the mid-19th century, Marx and Engels famously observed in the Communist Manifesto that a ‘specter’ was haunting Europe — the specter of Communism. 160 years later, it is ‘Marxism’ itself that continues to haunt Left.
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 of departure for considering radical possibilities for freedom that still speak to the present? How does Marxism still matter?
A conversation concerning the history and legacy of the struggles for sexual liberation. What successes and setbacks have shaped the prospect for LGBTQ and feminist organizing today? Held on Thursday, September 13, 2013, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada.
Panelists:
Karin Cope, Professor of Historical and Critical Studies, NSCAD
Kevin Kindred, Nova Scotia Rainbow Action Project
Evan Coole, Queer Activist, Organizer and Educator
Ashley Weger, Platypus Affiliated Society
Moderated by Cam Hardy (Platypus Affiliated Society)
Questions for panelists:
1. How did the LGBTQ rights movement become such? What has its relation to the Left been, and how has the contemporary political focus on same-sex marriage affect that relation? What are the potentials and limits of present politics and organization around equality and legality? What successes and limitations has it met?
2. How does economic life shape our imaginations about what sexual freedom will look like? For example, arguments for marriage equality have often been made in terms of all the economic disadvantages one faces if one can't marry--extra taxes, loss of healthcare, etc. Does marriage equality solve these issues? Or, counter to marriage, consider the importance of the legal protection of sex work to many on the Left. How are and should economics and sex be bound in sex work? Should sex work be abolished or protected? What role would the State play in a Left that seeks to decrease both human economic precariousness and human dependence on the economy more generally?
3. Marriage has always been about the linking of the intimate and the public. The demand that "love" dominate marriage--its development in the 19th century away from a mere economic arrangement between parents--was a way to demand that the public sphere as represented in the state recognize the power and value of individual life. If once progressive, though, this also comes to represent the naturalization of the state as the voice of authority over private life, as well as the retention of the family form which has represented ages of abuse (of women, children, etc.), and enshrines the principle of property over people. What forms of personal/public relation are possible now? What relationship ought the Left fight for between love, the private and the public?
4. What do we mean by a liberated sexuality? That which has positioned itself counter to what we might deem âheteronormativeâ has in the past been given the qualification as âabnormal.â In fighting for greater civil equality, these formerly marginalized sexualities have often fought on the basis of their ânaturalâ or ânormalâ characters. Does recognition for equality often homogenize the formerly marginal into normative bonds (e.g. marriage, family, monogamy, etc.), or is sexual emancipation necessarily antagonistic to the sexual mainstream? Are neither of these positions adequate?
A roundtable on the Quebec Left following the student strike / Une table ronde sur l'avenir de la Gauche québecoise à la lumière de la grève étudiante
Hosted by the Platypus Affiliated Society / Présenté par la Platypus Affiliated Society
Monday 6pm | June 18, 2012 / Lundi, 18 heures / le 18 juin 2012
QPIRG McGill 3647 University Street
Download audio (link)
Participants:
Matthew Brett (Canadian Dimension magazine editorial collective, Secretary for the Society for Socialist Studies, Concordia University)
Jamie Burnett (McGill)
Brad Fougere (International Workers of the World (IWW) / Midnight Kitchen)
Coralie Jean (Mouvement Étudiant Révolutionnaire (MER-PCR))
Molly Swain (Gender, Sexuality Diversity, and Feminist Studies Student Association, McGill)
Moderator:
Andony Melathopoulos (Platypus)
Description:
While it is clear that the student strike in Quebec expresses more than just discontent against tuition fee hikes, it’s less clear if there is general agreement among strikers on what follows the strike. For many the strike is about resisting neo-liberalism and its assault on the "modèle québécois", the system of labour legislation, educational reform and public welfare that emerged from the 1960s Quiet Revolution. But for others the strike signals a possibility to go beyond the past. This is has been expressed as a desire to pick up where the 1970s social democracy left off through demands such as free tuition. Others view Quebec's social democratic past as being part of the problem. They judge that parliamentary approaches have grown irrelevant in the face of a direct democracy that has carried the strike through five months in spite of massive police reaction.
The Platypus Affiliated Society is hosting this roundtable to explore these different political visions for the future of the Quebec Left. We encourage political disagreement among participants in the spirit of clarifying the potential directions and further development of the student movement. We assert that only when we are able create an active culture of thinking and debating on the Left without it proving prematurely divisive can we begin to imagine a Leftist politics adequate to the historical possibilities of our moment. We may not know what these possibilities for transformation are. This is why we think it is imperative to create avenues of engagement that will support these efforts
Déscription:
Bien qu'il soit évident que la grève étudiante au Québec exprime plus qu'un simple mécontentement face à la hausse des frais de scolarité, il est moins évident de discerner une position commune parmi les grévistes par rapport à ce qui suivra la grève. Plusieurs voient la grève comme étant une forme de résistance contre le néo-libéralisme et l'assaut que celui-ci exerce sur le "modèle québécois": le système de la législation du travail, de réforme éducative et de sécurité sociale établie lors de la Révolution tranquille des années 60. Mais pour d'autres, la grève signale la possibilité d'aller au delà du passé. Ce point de vue a été exprimé par le désir de prendre la relève de la démocratie sociale des années 70 à travers des demandes comme celle de l'abolition totale des frais de scolarité. Encore d'autres grévistes voient le passé social-démocrate du Québec comme faisant partie du problème. Ceux-ci jugent que l'approche parlementaire est devenue désuète face à une démocratie directe qui a porté la grève pendant 5 mois, en dépit d'une massive réaction policière.
La Platypus Affiliated Society présente cette table ronde dans le but d'explorer ces différentes visions politiques de l'avenir de la Gauche québécoise. Nous encourageons le désaccord politique parmi les participants, dans l'esprit de pouvoir clarifier les directions et développements possibles au sein du mouvement étudiant. Nous affirmons que nous ne pourrions imaginer une politique de gauche, adéquate aux possibilités historiques de notre moment, que lors d'avoir créé une culture de débat et de pensée active au sein de la Gauche elle-même. Il se peut que nous n'avons pas encore pris conscience de ces possibilités de transformation. Voici pourquoi nous croyons en l'impératif de créer des forums de délibération qui soutiendront ces efforts de prise de conscience.
