A SENIOR TEACHING COLLEAGUE of mine at the University of Chicago revised the college core syllabus, which he said needed to be “brought into the 21st century.” What he really meant by this was brought into the 20th century — specifically, the late 20th century. But the 20th century was determined by the 19th century. There was very little that was new, and most of it was bad.
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“THE REVOLUTION MAROONED,” published in the Platypus Review #114, contains valuable observations on the heroism and tragedy of the Cuban revolution. It also demonstrates how Trotskyist methodology has lost the ability to explain the present convincingly. An examination of how Trotskyists responded to the Cuban revolution reveals degenerative weaknesses in their interpretation, most notably an equivocal conception of Stalinism.
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MARK FISHER WAS OFTEN ASKED what "capitalist realism" is. His most interesting answer was that it is “a pathology of the Left.” Fisher thought the Left, in its pathology, had capitulated to neoliberalism, and thus to capitalism. This raises the question of whether the end of neoliberalism will mean the end of capitalist realism, and even the end of capitalism.
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WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SAY that Platypus is the psychoanalyst of the Left? Thinking through this analogy can provide some clarity about the Platypus project and its relationship to the existing Left.
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It is my hope that this reflection, comprising a mélange of history and anecdote, will serve the socialist with the patience for a critical perspective in the 21st century. There is no time like the present for the Left to reconsider the Cuban Question.
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