The Platypus Affiliated Society

NYU Summer 2018: 50 years of 1968: readings from the New Left

Between us we can change this rotten society. Now, put on your coat and make for the nearest cinema. Look at their deadly love-making on the screen. Isn’t it better in real life? Make up your mind to learn to love. Then, during the interval, when the first advertisements come on, pick up your tomatoes or, if you prefer, your eggs, and chuck them. Then get out into the street, and peel off all the latest government proclamations until underneath you discover the message of the days of May and June.

Stay awhile in the street. Look at the passers-by and remind yourself: the last word has not yet been said. Then act. Act with others, not for them. Make the revolution here and now. It is your own. C’est pour toi que tu fais la révolution.

— Daniel and Gabriel Cohn-Bendit, Obsolete Communism: The Left-Wing Alternative

Tuesdays 7-9pm

167 Canal Street

5th Floor

New York, NY 10013

Further background readings

+ Kirkpatrick Sale, SDS (1973)
+ Massimo Teodori, The New Left (1969)
+ Harold Jacobs, Weatherman (1970)

• required / + recommended reading

Primary book source*

• Carl Oglesby, ed. The New Left Reader (1968)

Week 1 | June 12

• Stuart Hall, "Introducing New Left Review"
• C. Wright Mills, "Letter to the New Left" and "The politics of responsibility" *
• Leszek Kolakowski, "The concept of the Left" *
• Herbert Marcuse, "Conclusion to One-Dimensional Man" *

Week 2 | June 19

• Carl Oglesby, "The idea of the New Left" *
• Louis Althusser, "Contradiction and over-determination" *
+ Althusser, "Marxism and humanism"

Week 3 | June 26

• Cliff Slaughter, "What is revolutionary leadership?"
• Revolutionary Tendency of the Socialist Workers Party/U.S., "In defense of a revolutionary perspective"
• Spartacist League, "Genesis of Pabloism"

July 3 | No meeting

Week 4 | July 10

• Malcolm X, "I don't mean bananas" *
• Huey Newton, "A prison interview" *
• Spartacist League, "Soul power or workers' power? The rise and fall of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers"
+ Harold Cruse, from The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual Part 1 Part 2

Week 5 | July 17

• Andre Gorz, from Strategy for Labor *
• Stuart Hall, Raymond Williams, E.P. Thompson, from The May Day Manifesto *

Week 6 | July 24

• Daniel and Gabriel Cohn-Bendit, "The battle of the streets," from Obsolete Communism: The Left-Wing Alternative *
• Rudi Dutschke, "On anti-authoritarianism" *
• Mark Rudd, "Columbia: Notes on the Spring rebellion" *
• Sorbonne students' open assembly of June 13-14, 1968, "The appeal from the Sorbonne" *
• Tom Fawthorpe, Tom Nairn, David Triesman, "Three student risings" *

Week 7 | July 31

• Marcuse, "The question of revolution" (1967)
+ Theodor Adorno, “Late Capitalism or Industrial Society?” (AKA “Is Marx Obsolete?”) (1968)
+ Esther Leslie, Introduction to the 1969 Adorno-Marcuse correspondence (1999)
+ Adorno and Herbert Marcuse, correspondence on the German New Left (1969)
• Adorno, “Marginalia to Theory and Praxis” (1969)
• Adorno, “Resignation” (1969)
+ Adorno, Interview with Der Spiegel magazine (1969)

Coda

+ Marcuse, "The failure of the New Left" (1975)

Film Screening (Dates TBD)

+ Brother Outsider: The Bayard Rustin Story
+ Rebels with a Cause: The SDS
+ Medium Cool
+ Columbia Revolt
+ The Weather Underground
+ Finally Got the News

[. . .]

"Has 'the Left' Acommodated Trump (and Putin)?: A Debate" - MHI panel at Left Forum 2018

Panel hosted by the Marxist Humanist Initiative at the Left Forum in New York City. The discussion was moderated by MHI member Ravi Bali.

Speakers:

Daphne Lawless, Fightback
Brendan Cooney, MHI
Chris Cutrone, Platypus Affiliated Society
Anne Jaclard, MHI
Bill Weinberg, CounterVortex

Tens of millions of Americans and people around the world, including some of “the left,” have regarded Trump and Trumpism as exceptional threats to our well-being that must be resisted tooth-and-nail. But others have argued that anti-Trumpism is a problem, that concerns about Trumpism are a distraction from struggles against neo-liberalism and U.S. state power, and/or that the left should reach out to Trump’s anti-establishment and populist base. This debate featured speakers with different positions on these and related questions. Among the issues considered was whether or not the positions one opposes are genuinely “of the left.”

[. . .]

Marx@200 at the Left Forum 2018 (New York)

Held June 1, 2018 at the Left Forum at John Jay College in New York.

Panelists:

Spencer Leonard - Platypus Affiliated Society
Terrell Carver - Professor of Political Theory at the University of Bristol
Christoph Lichtenberg - International Bolshevik Tendency

Description:

This year marked the 200th birthday of Karl Marx, than whom, as even his ideological opponent Isaiah Berlin had to admit, "no thinker in the nineteenth century has had so direct, deliberate and powerful an influence upon mankind." This panel seeks to bring together intellectuals committed to exploring Marx’s legacy in this post-Marxist age, those who, once more, seek somehow to bring that legacy to bear upon the world. Accordingly, we want to raise the question: What is the legacy of Marx’s life as a revolutionary intellectual -- that is, the legacy of the political writings and activities he contributed to the workers’ movement for socialism?

[. . .]

NYU Platypus primary Marxist Reading Group Winter–Spring 2018

II. Introduction to revolutionary Marxism

• required / + recommended reading

Marx and Engels readings pp. from Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader (Norton 2nd ed., 1978)

Winter 2018

I. What is the "Left?" -- What is "Marxism?"

Week 10. What is Marxism? V. Reification | Jan. 10, 2018

• Georg Lukács, “The phenomenon of reification” (Part I of “Reification and the consciousness of the proletariat,” History and Class Consciousness, 1923)

+ Commodity form chart of terms

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

Week 11. What is Marxism? VI. Class consciousness | Jan. 17, 2018

• Lukács, Original Preface (1922), “What is Orthodox Marxism?” (1919), “Class Consciousness” (1920), History and Class Consciousness (1923)
+ Marx, Preface to the First German Edition and Afterword to the Second German Edition (1873) of Capital (1867), pp. 294–298, 299–302

Week 12. What is Marxism? VII. Ends of philosophy | Jan. 24, 2018

• Korsch, “Marxism and philosophy” (1923)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Marx, To make the world philosophical (from Marx's dissertation, 1839–41), pp. 9–11
+ Marx, For the ruthless criticism of everything existing (letter to Arnold Ruge, September 1843), pp. 12–15
+ Marx, "Theses on Feuerbach" (1845), pp. 143–145

Winter–Spring 2018

II. Introduction to revolutionary Marxism

Week 13. Revolutionary leadership | Jan. 31, 2018

• Rosa Luxemburg, “The Crisis of German Social Democracy” Part 1 (1915)
• J. P. Nettl, “The German Social Democratic Party 1890–1914 as a Political Model” (1965)
• Cliff Slaughter, “What is Revolutionary Leadership?” (1960)

Week 14. Reform or revolution? | Feb. 7, 2018

• Luxemburg, Reform or Revolution? (1900/08)
+ Eugene Debs, "Competition versus Cooperation" (1900)

Week 15. Lenin and the vanguard party | Feb. 14, 2018

• Spartacist League, Lenin and the Vanguard Party (1978)

Week 21. Mar. 28, 2018 (spring break)

Week 22. Failure of the revolution | April 4, 2018

• Luxemburg, “What does the Spartacus League Want?” (1918)
• Luxemburg, “On the Spartacus Programme” (1918)
+ Luxemburg, "German Bolshevism" (AKA "The Socialisation of Society") (1918)
+ Luxemburg, “The Russian Tragedy” (1918)
+ Luxemburg, “Order Reigns in Berlin” (1919)
+ Eugene Debs, “The Day of the People” (1919)
+ Sebastian Haffner, Failure of a Revolution: Germany 1918–19 (1968)

Week 23. Apr. 11, 2018 [Platypus international convention]

Week 24. Retreat after revolution | Apr. 18, 2018

• Lenin, “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)
+ Lenin, "Notes of a Publicist" (1922)

Week 25. Dialectic of reification | Apr. 25, 2018

• Lukács, “The Standpoint of the Proletariat” (Part III of “Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat,” 1923). Available in three sections from marxists.org: section 1 section 2 section 3
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

Week 26. Lessons of October | May 2, 2018

• Trotsky, The Lessons of October (1924) [PDF] + Trotsky, "Stalinism and Bolshevism" (1937)

Week 27. Trotskyism | May 9, 2018

+ Trotsky, "To build communist parties and an international anew" (1933)
• Trotsky, The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International (1938)
+ Trotsky, "Trade unions in the epoch of imperialist decay" (1940)
+ Trotsky, Letter to James Cannon (September 12, 1939)

Week 28. The authoritarian state | May 16, 2018

• Friedrich Pollock, "State Capitalism: Its Possibilities and Limitations" (1941) (note 32 on USSR)
• Max Horkheimer, "The Authoritarian State" (1942)

Week 29. On the concept of history | May 23, 2018

• epigraphs by Louis Menand (on Edmund Wilson) and Peter Preuss (on Nietzsche) on the modern concept of history
+ Charles Baudelaire, from Fusées [Rockets] (1867)
+ Bertolt Brecht, "To posterity" (1939)
+ Walter Benjamin, "To the planetarium" (from One-Way Street, 1928)
+ Benjamin, "Experience and poverty" (1933)
+ Benjamin, Theologico-political fragment (1921/39?)
• Benjamin, "On the Concept of History" (AKA "Theses on the Philosophy of History") (1940) [PDF] • Benjamin, Paralipomena to "On the Concept of History" (1940)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

Week 30. Reflections on Marxism | May 30, 2018

• Theodor Adorno, “Reflections on Class Theory” (1942)
• Adorno, “Imaginative Excesses” (1944–47)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Adorno, Dedication, "Bequest", "Warning: Not to be Misused" and "Finale", Minima Moralia (1944–47)
+ Horkheimer and Adorno, "Discussion about Theory and Praxis" (AKA "Towards a New Manifesto?") [Deutsch] (1956)

Week 31. Theory and practice | Jun. 6, 2018

+ Adorno, “On Subject and Object” (1969)
• Adorno, “Marginalia to Theory and Praxis” (1969)
• Adorno, “Resignation” (1969)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Adorno, “Late Capitalism or Industrial Society?” (AKA “Is Marx Obsolete?”) (1968)
+ Esther Leslie, Introduction to the 1969 Adorno-Marcuse correspondence (1999)
+ Adorno and Herbert Marcuse, correspondence on the German New Left (1969)

[. . .]

NYU Reading Group (Fall 2017-Winter 2018): What is the Left? What is Marxism?

NYU Reading Group (Fall 2017 – Winter 2018): What is the Left? What is Marxism?

required/ + recommended reading
Marx and Engels readings pp. from Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader (Norton 2nd ed., 1978)

Week A. Radical bourgeois philosophy I. Rousseau: Crossroads of society | Aug. 7, 2017

Whoever dares undertake to establish a people’s institutions must feel himself capable of changing, as it were, human nature, of transforming each individual, who by himself is a complete and solitary whole, into a part of a larger whole, from which, in a sense, the individual receives his life and his being, of substituting a limited and mental existence for the physical and independent existence. He has to take from man his own powers, and give him in exchange alien powers which he cannot employ without the help of other men.

-- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract (1762)

Max Horkheimer, "The little man and the philosophy of freedom"(1926–31)
epigraphs on modern history and freedom by James Miller(on Jean-Jacques Rousseau), Louis Menand(on Edmund Wilson), Karl Marx, on "becoming" (from the Grundrisse, 1857–58), and Peter Preuss (on Nietzsche)

+ Rainer Maria Rilke, "Archaic Torso of Apollo" (1908)

+ Robert Pippin, "On Critical Theory" (2004)

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality(1754) PDFsof preferred translation (5 parts): [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Rousseau, selectionfrom On the Social Contract (1762)

Week B. Radical bourgeois philosophy II. Hegel: Freedom in history | Aug. 14, 2017

G.W.F. Hegel, Introduction to the Philosophy of History(1831) [HTML] [PDF pp. 14-128] [Audiobook]

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

Week C. Radical bourgeois philosophy III. Nietzsche (1): Life in history | Aug. 21, 2017

Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Use and Abuse of History for Life(1874) [translator's introduction by Peter Preuss]

+ Nietzsche on history chart of terms

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

Week D. Radical bourgeois philosophy IV. Nietzsche (2): Asceticism of moderns | Aug. 28, 2017

+ Human, All Too Human: Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil (1999)

Nietzsche, selectionfrom On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)
Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals: A Polemic(1887)

Week E. 1960s New Left I. Neo-Marxism | 2017 U.S. Labor Day weekend (Cancelled)

Martin Nicolaus, “The unknown Marx”(1968)

+ Commodity form chart of terms

Theodor W. Adorno, “Late Capitalism or Industrial Society?” (AKA “Is Marx Obsolete?”)(1968)
Moishe Postone, “Necessity, labor, and time”(1978)

+ Postone, “Interview: Marx after Marxism” (2008)

+ Postone, “History and helplessness: Mass mobilization and contemporary forms of anticapitalism” (2006)

+ Postone, “Theorizing the contemporary world: Brenner, Arrighi, Harvey” (2006)

Week F. 1960s New Left II. Gender and sexuality | Sep. 11, 2017

Juliet Mitchell, “Women: The longest revolution”(1966)
Clara Zetkin and Vladimir Lenin, “An interview on the woman question”(1920)
Theodor W. Adorno, “Sexual taboos and the law today”(1963)
John D’Emilio, “Capitalism and gay identity”(1983)

Week G. 1960s New Left III. Anti-black racism in the U.S. | Sep. 18, 2017

Richard Fraser, “Two lectures on the black question in America and revolutionary integrationism”(1953)
James Robertson and Shirley Stoute, “For black Trotskyism”(1963)

+ Spartacist League, “Black and red: Class struggle road to Negro freedom” (1966)

+ Bayard Rustin, “The failure of black separatism” (1970)

Adolph Reed, “Black particularity reconsidered”(1979)

+ Reed, “Paths to Critical Theory” (1984)

Week H. Frankfurt School precursors | Sep. 25, 2017

Wilhelm Reich, “Ideology as material power”(1933/46)
Siegfried Kracauer, “The mass ornament”(1927)

+ Kracauer, “Photography” (1927)

Week 1. What is the Left? I. Capital in history | Oct. 2, 2017

Max Horkheimer, "The little man and the philosophy of freedom"(1926–31)
epigraphs on modern history and freedom by Louis Menand(on Marx and Engels) and Karl Marx, on "becoming"(from the Grundrisse, 1857–58)
Chris Cutrone, "Capital in history"(2008)