Overview of all pages with the tags #Critical Theory

Notes on Lukács, "Standpoint of the Proletariat"

April 27, 2009 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

I am writing with some very brief notes on the 3rd part of Lukács’s essay “Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat,” “The Standpoint of the Proletariat,” which is very important for Platypus’s grasp of the self-understanding of the revolutionary Marxism in 1917-19 that Lukács was trying to theoretically digest.—In a certain sense, this piece by Lukács is the culmination of all the prior readings we have done by Luxemburg, Lenin, Trotsky, Lukács and Korsch. [Read More]

notes on Feb. 15 reading Korsch "Marxism and Philosophy" (1923)

February 15, 2009 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

‘[Humanity] always sets itself only such problems as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely it will always be found that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or are at least understood to be in the process of emergence’ [Marx, Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859)]. This dictum is not affected by the fact that a problem which supersedes present relations may have been formulated in an anterior epoch. [Read More]

/20th Century Chris Cutrone crisis critical theory Discussion History ideology Karl Korsch Vladimir Lenin Karl Marx Marxism Philosophy Platypus Revolution Rosa Luxemburg Socialism vulgar Marxism

Obama and Clinton

"Third Way" politics and the "Left"

December 1, 2008 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

FOR THE “LEFT” that is critical of him, the most common comparison made of Obama is to Bill Clinton. This critique of Obama, as of Clinton, denounces his “Centrism,” the trajectory he appears to continue from the “new” Democratic Party of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) expressed by Clinton and Gore’s election in 1992. Clinton’s election was seen as part of the triumph of “Third Way” politics that contemporaneously found expression in Tony Blair’s “New” Labour Party in Britain. [Read More]

Bill Clinton Consciousness Critical theory Depoliticization Emancipation Marxism Movement Neo-liberalism Barack Obama Politics Profiles Rosa Luxemburg Socialism The Left Third Way Workers

To the victor, the spoils

Review of Artforum's May 2008 issue May '68'

September 1, 2008 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

We succeeded culturally. We succeeded socially. And we lost politically… I always say: ‘thank God!’ —Daniel Cohn-Bendit in interview on 1968, conducted by Yascha Mounk for The Utopian (2008) [O]ne asks with whom the adherents of historicism actually empathize. The answer is inevitable: with the victor… Whoever has emerged victorious participates to this day in the triumphal procession in which the present rulers step over those who are lying prostrate. [Read More]

Walter Benjamin

May 1, 2008 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

WALTER BENJAMIN OCCUPIES a unique place in the history of modern revolutionary thought: he is the first Marxist to break radically with the ideology of progress. His thinking has therefore a distinct critical quality, which sets him apart from the dominant and “official” forms of historical materialism, and gives him a formidable methodological superiority. This peculiarity has to do with his ability to incorporate into the body of Marxist revolutionary theory insights from the Romantic critique of civilization and from the Jewish messianic tradition. [Read More]

Anarchism Bolshevism Critical theory Frankfurt School French Revolution György Lukács Historical materialism History Ideology Karl Marx Marxism Profiles Progress Theology Theory Violence Walter Benjamin

The science that wasn't

The orthodox Marxism of the early Frankfurt School and the turn to Marxist Critical Theory

May 1, 2008 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

FROM THEIR CANONIZATION in the 1960s through their appropriation by postmodernism in the 1980s, the writings of the Frankfurt School have had their Marxian dimension minimized, vulgarized and ultimately ignored. Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse and Max Horkheimer, the only names of the Frankfurt Institute of Social Theory’s roster that seem to be remembered today, have instead become characterized as anything from old-timey liberals to mystical eclectics; from Left Hegelian hippies to ivory tower elitists. [Read More]

History of the Left Frankfurt school Critical theory

The Left is dead! Long live the Left!

Vicissitudes of historical consciousness and possibilities for emancipatory social politics today

November 1, 2007 | The Platypus Affiliated Society • Other languages: Ελληνικά

The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. —Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1852) The theorist who intervenes in practical controversies nowadays discovers on a regular basis and to his shame that whatever ideas he might contribute were expressed long ago – and usually better the first time around. —Theodor W. Adorno, “Sexual Taboos and the Law Today” (1963) [Read More]

19th Century /20th Century capitalism consciousness counterrevolution crisis Vladimir Lenin Critical Theory defeat depoliticization emancipation György Lukács Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel History History of the Left humanity ideology Imperialism Industrial Revolution Iraq Karl Korsch liberalism Marxism Karl Marx Moishe Postone Negative Dialectics New Left Friedrich Nietzsche opportunism Philosophy Political economy Politics postmodernism Revolution Robert Pippin Rosa Luxemburg Social Democracy Social Democratic Party of Germany SPD Socialism society Stalinism Theodor W. Adorno utopianism Walter Benjamin war

Review: "The Common Sense"

November 1, 2007 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

MY FIRST IMPRESSION UPON ENTERING Haseeb Ahmed’s installation, “The Common Sense,” which opened at Around the Coyote Gallery on September 5th was one of open space. It was an openness that contrasted sharply with the hundreds of paintings, photographs, sculptures that cluttered the rest of the many other galleries that opened that Night in Wicker Park’s FlatIron Building. Such a contrast pointed out the fact that, more a piece of interior architecture than a collection of installed objects, the central element to be experienced in Ahmed’s installation was space itself. [Read More]

Aesthetics Architecture Art Critical theory Exhibition Installation Islam Marxism Muslim Religion Sculpture Society