A panel held on April 5, 2014 at the Sixth Annual Platypus International Convention at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Audio Recording
Panelists
Chris Cutrone (Platypus)
Samir Gandesha (Simon Fraser University)
Nikos Malliaris (Lieux Communs)
Dimitrios Roussopoulos (Transnational Institute of Social Ecology)
Joseph Schwartz (Temple University)
Description
No coarser insult, no baser defamation, can be thrown against the workers than the remark, ‘Theoretical controversies are for the intellectuals’
—Rosa Luxemburg, Reform and Revolution (1900)
Since there can be no talk of an independent ideology formulated by the working masses themselves in the process of their movement the only choice is – either bourgeois or socialist ideology… This does not mean, of course, that the workers have no part in creating such an ideology. They take part, however, not as workers, but as socialist theoreticians, as Proudhons and Weitlings; in other words, they take part only when they are able, and to the extent that they are able, more or less, to acquire the knowledge of their age and develop that knowledge.
—Vladimir Lenin, What is to be Done? (1905)
The liquidation of theory by dogmatization and thought taboos contributed to the bad practice.
—Adorno, Negative Dialectics (1966)
This discussion will reflect on the relationship between revolutionary politics and thinking in the past and present and ask why has it become increasingly difficult to render political life intellectual and intellectual life political today? Panelists will consider the historical role of revolutionary theory as a moment of revolutionary politics, and the ways in which thinking can be held responsible for politics, and politics held responsible for thinking.