Friedrich Nietzsche

An abridged version of this article was presented at the 4th Platypus European Conference closing plenary panel discussion, “What is the Future of Socialism?,” with Boris Kagarlitsky (Institute of Globalization and Social Movements), Alex Demirovic (Rosa Luxemburg Foundation), Mark Osborne (Alliance for Workers’ Liberty; Momentum) and Hillel Ticktin (Critique journal), at Goldsmiths University in London on February 17, 2018. The liquidation of [Marxist] theory by dogmatization and thought taboos contributed to the bad practice… The interrelation of both moments [of theory and practice] is not settled once and for all but fluctuates historically… Those who chide theory [for being] anachronistic obey the topos of dismissing, as obsolete, what remains painful [because it was] thwarted… The fact that history has rolled over certain positions will be respected as a verdict on their truth-content only by those who agree with [Friedrich] Schiller that “world history is the world tribunal. [Read More]

HERBERT SPENCER’S GRAVE faces Marx’s at Highgate Cemetery in London. At his memorial, Spencer was honored for his anti-imperialism by Indian national liberation advocate and anti-colonialist Shyamji Krishnavarma, who funded a lectureship at Oxford in Spencer’s name. Marx and Spencer's facing graves.Photograph by Christian Fuchs, http://fuchs.uti.at/ What would the 19th century liberal, Utilitarian and Social Darwinist, Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), who was perhaps the most prominent, widely read and popular philosopher in the world during his lifetime – that is, in Marx’s lifetime – have to say to Marxists or more generally to the left, when such liberalism earned not only Marx’s own scorn but also Nietzsche’s criticism? [Read More]

Eros and Civilization: the title expressed an optimistic, euphemistic, even positive thought, namely, that the achievements of advanced industrial society would enable man to reverse the direction of progress, to break the fatal union of productivity and destruction, liberty and repression – in other words to learn [Nietzsche’s] gay science. — Herbert Marcuse In [ancient] philosophy the duties of human life were treated as subservient to the happiness and perfection of human life. [Read More]

A panel discussion held at Left Forum 2013, at Pace University, on June 9, 2013. Video Recording Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element This panel was transcripted in Platypus Review #61 Speakers Chris Cutrone Spencer A. Leonard Sunit Singh Description Bourgeois society came into full recognition with Rousseau, who in the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality and On the Social Contract, opened its radical critique. [Read More]

A lecture by Platypus member James Vaughn upon the history of humanity between 1600 and 1763, given as part of the Platypus summer 2011 radical bourgeois philosophy reading group. Held on July 27, 2011 in Philadelphia. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Description Platypus Summer Reading Group 2011: Radical Bourgeois Philosophy Rousseau-Smith-Kant-Hegel-Nietzsche We will address the greater context for Marx and Marxism through the issue of bourgeois radicalism in philosophy in the 18 and 19 Centuries. [Read More]

A lecture by Platypus member James Vaughn upon the history of humanity up to 1750, given as part of the Platypus summer 2011 radical bourgeois philosophy reading group. Held on June 30, 2011 at New York University. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Description Platypus Summer Reading Group 2011: Radical Bourgeois Philosophy Rousseau-Smith-Kant-Hegel-Nietzsche We will address the greater context for Marx and Marxism through the issue of bourgeois radicalism in philosophy in the 18 and 19 Centuries. [Read More]

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]