On February 20, 2019, Spencer A. Leonard interviewed veteran of the New Left and New Communist Movement Carl Davidson, who recently edited a collection of “lost writings of SDS” entitled Revolutionary Youth & the New Working Class (2011). What follows is an edited transcript of that interview. 

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On April 23, 2019, Stephanie Gomez interviewed Earl Silbar, co-editor of the recently published You Say You Want a Revolution: SDS, PL, and Adventures in Building a Worker-Student Alliance (2018). Spencer A. Leonard helped draft the questions. On April 25, an edited version of the original interview was aired in an episode of “Radical Minds,” a radio show on WHPK 88.5 FM in Chicago, hosted by Gomez. What follows is an edited transcript of the interview, including follow-up questions. 

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THE PLATYPUS AFFILIATED SOCIETY'S project is to think through the impact of defeat and decline on the revolutionary Left’s theory and praxis. Although both my political and philosophical opinions differ profoundly from those of Platypus, I find great value in engaging with their viewpoint on the relationship between philosophy and politics. I hope that this essay will contribute to a productive discussion.

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IN A RECENT ARTICLE on the transgender liberation movement, David Faes mobilizes a critique of the electoral strategies of the homo/transnormative political struggle. Faes’s critique reprimands the methods of LGBTQ+ activists on the Left for pursuing social change through “existing civic institutions and the Democratic Party.” While I in no way support the primacy of electoral politics as an emancipatory strategy, I cannot help but disagree with this perspective for ignoring the fact that people suffering from oppression inevitably need to aim for reform in some cases in order to alleviate the pains of marginalization.

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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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