The short article "Why not Trump?" by Chris Cutrone in Platypus Review #89 is both brilliant and deeply flawed. It is brilliant in its provocative polemic, starting with the title, forcing us to engage with the question in a fresh way. This undeniably is what Cutrone intended, a challenge starting with and finally culminating in "the obvious question that is avoided but must be asked by anyone not too frightened to think." Yes, we must ask the question. Yes, we need to think about it clearly. Cutrone is not just right; he is persuasive.
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Max Horkheimers Reaktion von 1928/29 auf Lenins erkenntnistheoretische Streitschrift „Materialismus und Empiriokritizismus“, von Michael Jekel.
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Am 11. November 2015 fand im Rahmen der zweiten europäischen Konferenz der Platypus Affiliated Society an der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt eine Podiumsdiskussion zum Thema „What is the European Union and should we be against it?“ statt. Teilgenommen haben Juan Roch von Podemos, Jens Wissel von der Assoziation für Kritische Gesellschaftsforschung, Nikos Nikisianis von Diktio und Martin Suchanek von der Gruppe Arbeitermacht. Es folgt eine editierte und ins Deutsche übersetzte Transkription der Veranstaltung.
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Stalinism’s impact is difficult to see in the world today. North Korea and Cuba limp along, sponsored by a capitalist China and caudillo-ist Venezuela, respectively. The official Stalinist parties in the Western world remain, at least on paper, but tend to throw support behind Hillary Clinton or the local equivalent. In one way or another, any examination of Stalin is thus historical—not a critique of a living political movement, but of a movement situated in a time remote from our own. The object of investigation is a legacy whose practical effect in the present is deeply obscure.
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Platypus as a project seeks to relate to the contemporary left by focusing on the Left in history. We do this because we think one’s understanding of history is in fact one’s theory of the present, of how the present came to be and what might become of it. We try to understand the left politics of the present in light of what the Left has been, so as to provoke critical reflection. Is the Left today living up to the legacy it inherits? Are we falling short of the aspirations of the past? Must we?
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