A teach-in held by the Platypus Affiliated Society Manchester on the 30th of January 2020, explaining in basic terms what is meant by 'the dialectic', through Theodor W. Adorno's An Introduction to Dialectics.
Teach-in by Efraim Carlebach of the Platypus Affiliated Society at the LSE SU Platypus Society on 5 December 2019, on the history of the Labour party and its relationship to the Left, and the December 2019 UK general election.
Teach-in at Aarhus by Platypus member Victor Cova.
Description:
The contemporary left seems weaker than ever. Compared to the uprisings of the 1960s, to say nothing of the world revolution of the 1920s, the events that followed the 2008 crisis (#Occupy, Arab revolutions, Movement of the Squares, Black Lives Matter...) were nothing short of disappointing. Marxism had inspired many of these earlier revolutionary attempts, but now seems hopelessly obscure. Where left-wing movements continue to talk about "capitalism", "class", and "revolution", it is rarely clear what they mean by these words.
What is capitalism? What is capital? Why did Marx write a critique of political economy? How did this contribute to a world revolutionary movement? What has the failure of this world revolution meant for the Left? Is Marxism about revealing relations of domination that are concealed by ideology?
Teach-in, veranstaltet von der Platypus Affiliated Society im Café C.I. - Club International in Wien am 11. Oktober 2019.
„In den 1980er Jahren verabschiedete sich eine ganze Generation Intellektueller im Zeichen der Postmoderne von jeglicher Utopie. Doch bereits zuvor war die Neue Linke in den 60er und 70er Jahren mit ihrer Rückkehr zu Marx gescheitert. Aus Sicht von Althusser inszenierten die Studenten weltweit 1968 eine „ideologische Revolte“. Sie revolutionierten den kulturellen Überbau, aber nicht die sozialen und politischen Verhältnisse. Er bemerkte damit das Ende der Neuen Linken, die sich dafür entschied, Politik gegen Protest einzutauschen. Das politische Scheitern der Neuen Linken 1968 ebnete sowohl der Post-Moderne als auch dem Post-Marxismus den Weg. Ihre historischen und intellektuellen Ursprünge kreuzen sich.“
A teach-in at the University of California Santa Cruz. Tracing the decline of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) in Mexico, the rise of Neoliberalism, and the election of AMLO, this teach-in asks how the failure of the Left in the past century informs Mexican Democracy in the 21st century.
