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 

Introduction to the history of the Left

Changes in the meaning of class struggles

 March 1, 2008  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Why do we need a “history of the Left?” PLATYPUS DIFFERS FROM OTHER TENDENCIES and organizations on the Left to the extent that we find it necessary and desirable to reexamine the history of the Left to help understand problems on the Left in the present. For focusing on the history of the Left and its problems, Platypus has been accused by a variety of Marxists of obscuring the “fundamental social divide” of the “class struggle” of the “proletariat” vs. [Read More]
History of the Left  History 

Ba'athism and the history of the Left in Iraq

Violence and politics

 March 1, 2008  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

SINCE THE 1960s the saturation of brutality and violence in Iraq has caused considerable confusion among Leftists in regards to both its political meaning and causes. One cannot fully understand the character of Saddam Hussein’s Arab Ba’ath Socialist Party without taking into account that it achieved political power by systematically killing off the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) and quelling other political dissent with acts of extreme cruelty. The eight year battle of attrition instigated by Hussein, known as the Iran-Iraq War, caused over half a million Iraqi deaths, and the ethnic cleansing campaigns directed against the Kurds resulted in countless more. [Read More]
ANSWER  Anti-Americanism  Anti-war  Ba'athism  Hadi Saleh  Hanna Batatu  History of the Left  Ian Morrison  Ideology  Imperialism  Iraq  Iraqi Communist Party  Kanan Makiya  Vladimir Lenin  Nationalism  Politics  Racism  Ramsey Clark  Reactionary  Regression  Republic of Fear  Saddam Hussein  Unions  US Labor Against the War  Violence  War 

The Failure of Pakistan

A Concise History of the Left

 February 1, 2008  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

THE PRESENT-DAY CRISIS IN PAKISTAN resists adequate historicisation in pithy news headlines. Yet its concrete expressions include the autocratic state-of-emergency imposed by General Musharraf; the violent rise of Islamic fundamentalism, first in the anarchic north-west, but increasingly also in the cities; the over-dependence on economic as well as military assistance from the U.S.; the massive expansion of the army into civilian sectors, especially commerce; and the ever growing socioeconomic disparities – in short: the failure of Pakistan. [Read More]
History of the Left  Pakistan 

Organization, political action, history, and consciousness

On anarchism and Marxism

 February 1, 2008  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Socialism is the first popular movement in world history that has set itself the goal of bringing human consciousness, and thereby free will, into play in the social actions of mankind… to try to take its history into its own hands; instead of remaining a will-less football, it will take the tiller of social life and become the pilot to the goal of its own history. —Rosa Luxemburg, The Crisis of German Social Democracy (1915) [Read More]
Anarchism  Consciousness  Exchanges  History  History of the Left  Marxism  Organization  Political action 

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