How the Counter-Culture shaped the Culture of Unfreedom

How the Counter-Culture shaped the Culture of Unfreedom

 September 4, 2018  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

“THE WORD ‘CONSERVATIVE’ IS USED by the BBC as a portmanteau word of abuse for anyone whose views differ from the insufferable, smug, sanctimonious, naïve, guilt-ridden, wet, pink orthodoxy of that sunset home of the third-rate minds of that third-rate decade, the nineteen-sixties.”1 Writing for the Independent back in 1990, former Conservative cabinet minister, Norman Tebbitt, demonstrated how the 1960s counter-culture still enraged traditionalists. Hard to believe today, but for conservatives the impact of the 1960s was as problematic as trade unions and flying pickets. [Read More]
1960s  counter-culture 

The politics of Critical Theory

Third Annual Platypus International Convention: Opening plenary

 July 9, 2011  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

THE OPENING PLENARY of the third annual Platypus Affiliated Society international convention, held April 29–May 1, 2011 at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, was a panel discussion between Nicholas Brown of the University of Illinois at Chicago, Chris Cutrone of Platypus, Andrew Feenberg of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, and Richard Westerman of the University of Chicago. The panelists were asked to address the following: “Recently, the New Left Review published a translated conversation between the critical theorists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer causing more than a few murmurs and gasps. [Read More]
1960s  György Lukács  Herbert Marcuse  Karl Korsch  Vladimir Lenin  Max Horkheimer  Platypus Convention  Rosa Luxemburg  Theodor W. Adorno  Critical Theory  Frankfurt School 

Rethinking the New Left (Chicago, 11/9/10)

 November 9, 2010  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Public forum organised by the Platypus Affiliated Society on November 9th 2010 at the University of Chicago. Co-sponsored by The Global Voices Lecture Program of International House, with the support of the University of Chicago Student Activities Fund Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Mark Rudd Alan Spector Osha Neumann Tim Wohlforth Moderated by Spencer A. Leonard Description The memory of the 1960s, which has long kindled contestation and debate on the means and ends of freedom politics, is rapidly fading into the political unconscious. [Read More]
1960s  Anarchism  Marxism  Movement  New Left  Politics  SDS  Socialism 

'You don't need a Marxist to know which way the wind blows'

'You don't need a Marxist to know which way the wind blows'

 June 10, 2010  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

ON THURSDAY MARCH 11, 2010, Platypus Review Editor-in-Chief Spencer A. Leonard interviewed the prominent 1960s radical and last National Secretary of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Mark Rudd, to discuss his recently published political memoir, Underground. In April, Leonard’s interview with Rudd, prepared in conjunction with Atiya Khan, was broadcast in two parts on “Radical Minds” on WHPK-FM 88.5 Chicago. Podcasts are available at the above link . Below is an edited transcript of the interview. [Read More]
1960s  Mark Rudd  SDS 

New Left Regress

The Militant Turn in the Late 1960s

 May 29, 2010  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A panel discussion held on May 29, 2010 at the second Platypus International Convention at SAIC. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Greg Gabrellas Pam C. Nogales C. Spencer A. Leonard Description The late 1960s and early 1970s witnessed the rise of a new militancy and sectarianism on the Left. Whether in the case of the Black Panthers, the Weather Underground, the Gay Liberation Front, or many other currents on the Left, developments from that time did much to shape the New Left’s legacy as it comes down to the present. [Read More]
Platypus International Convention 2010  1960s  1970s  Black Panthers  Gay liberation front  New Left  Weather Underground 

Adorno's Leninism

 April 21, 2010  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A talk given by Platypus member Chris Cutrone at Loyola University, on April 21st, 2010. Cosponsored by Pi Sigma Tau, STAND, and SAF. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Transcript in Platypus Review #37 Description The German Marxist critical theorist Theodor W. Adorno (1903-69) is known, along with his friend and mentor Walter Benjamin, for the critique of mid-20th century art and culture. What is less well understood is the specific character of Adorno’s Marxism, how his political perspective related to his philosophical concerns. [Read More]
1920s  1930s  1940s  1960s  Vladimir Lenin  New Left  Old Left 

2006 interview with Juliet Mitchell

 February 14, 2009  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Juliet Mitchell: “I don’t think anti-psychiatrists such as Laing and Cooper saw the schizophrenic as the madman telling the truth. What we had were two sets of rigidity, we had the pathological dimension of psychosis in paranoia, schizophrenia: delusions – which are delusions, let’s face it. But then we had the normative delusions of an acceptable psychotic status quo, which is what our political world very often is. For me, the question is whether the person who is suffering from the extreme pathological dimension of psychosis can find sufficient freedom to not need that refuge, whether he or she is able to come with a critique of the normative psychosis of the political social world. [Read More]
1960s  /20th Century  academy  activism  Discussion  Feminism  Freud  Juliet Mitchell  movement  Psychoanalysis  Socialism 

University of Chicago, SAIC, MIT, NYU reading group starts January 11

University of Chicago, SAIC, MIT, NYU reading group starts January 11

 January 1, 2009  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

1960s paths not taken (1): Civil Rights - Black Power Platypus Marxist readings for Sunday January 11, 2009 Richard Fraser, [Two Lectures on the Black Question in America and Revolutionary Integrationism](http://www.bolshevik.org/history/Fraser/Fraser01.html)(1953) James Robertson and Shirley Stoute, “For Black Trotskyism” (1963) Spartacist League, “Black and Red “ Class Struggle Road to Negro Freedom” (1966) Bayard Rustin, “The Failure of Black Separatism” (1970)** At two locations in Chicago: University of Chicago Reynolds Club 5706 S. [Read More]
1960s  America  black Trotskyism  class struggle  freedom  integrationism  James Robertson  Marxism  Reading group  Richard Fraser  separatism  Shirley Stoute 

A Prelude to the History of the Left

 November 1, 2007  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

THE PLATYPUS HISTORIANS GROUP is a collective of members of Platypus who are researchers into the history of the Left. We will be publishing this series on the History of the Left under this collective authorship to indicate the collaborative nature of our research and the questions it raises. Each article under this byline will be written by one or several members of this collective, but with contributions and review by as many others of this group as possible and appropriate to the topics essayed. [Read More]
1789  1917  1960s  1968  Capitalism  Defeat  Enlightenment  History of the Left  Humanity  Marxism  Movements  Ronald Reagan  Sectarianism  Socialism  Stalinism  The Platypus Historians Group  Trotskyism