WHAT IS THE ROLE of the intellectual in a revolutionary working-class movement? How does the separation of theory from practice affect the development and utility of Marxism? And how did the twin phenomena of the Frankfurt School and Trotskyism succeed — or fail — in addressing the tasks of their historical moment? These are the questions that lie at the heart of Walter Held’s 1939 essay “Critical theory without political practice?”
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I AM A FOUNDING member of Platypus and one of the authors of our Statement of Purpose and the Platypus Review’s Editorial Statement. I bear some responsibility for starting our now 18-year-old organization, which is currently active in universities across three continents. I am also a historian of intellectual history, social reform, and the crisis of liberalism in the 19th century, and I teach undergraduates at the University of Chicago. Platypus is a Millennial Left organization, among the last which have survived the tumultuous decade and a half.
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IN EARLY MARCH 2024, two photos, each of a disturbing leaflet produced and circulated in Times Square in New York ostensibly in support of Palestinians, began circulating widely on X/Twitter. On each leaflet, superimposed over the Palestinian flag, was a slogan: “Rape is resistance” on one, and “Babies are occupiers too” on the other. “Free Palestine,” the subscript read, “by any means necessary.” Despite calls for other images of the leaflets to establish their origins and authenticity, only these two have appeared.
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WHEN THINKING ABOUT the works of Leo Tolstoy, one would be forgiven if the first books that come to mind are Anna Karenina (1887)and War and Peace (1869); they are his most famous titles after all. However, many might be surprised by what some would call his political magnum opus, The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894). Titled after a verse in Luke 17, this book outlines Tolstoy’s major deviation from standard Christian dogma and doctrine of the Russian Orthodox, and, indeed, the majority of major Church doctrines around the world.
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ON APRIL 17, 2024, the students of Columbia University’s “Apartheid Divest” coalition, led by Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, erected an encampment, a “liberated zone” with posters copied straight from the Columbia occupation of 1968. As this encampment began, Columbia’s President Shafik was sitting before congress to testify about the rise of antisemitism on college campuses. When she returned to campus, President Shafik ordered the destruction of the encampments and the arrest of over 100 student protesters.
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