Slavoj Žižek, Donald Trump, and the Left

Slavoj Žižek, Donald Trump, and the Left

 August 29, 2017  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society  • Other languages: Ελληνικά

A CHANNEL 4 NEWS INTERVIEW with the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek circulated on the internet during November 2016, just days before the U.S. presidential election. In the video, the leftist philosopher appears in his usual manner – twitchy, repeatedly rubbing his nose – as he answers the question as to who would win his vote if he were American. Without hesitation, Žižek belts out, “Trump!” Then he elaborates: Trump is not the better candidate, or even likable, but Clinton poses the threat of absolute inertia. [Read More]
Donald Trump  Liberalism  Slavoj Žižek 

Horkheimer in 1943 on party and class

 January 12, 2016  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Without a socialist party, there is no class struggle, only rackets HORKHEIMER’S REMARKABLE ESSAY “On the sociology of class relations” (1943)1 is continuous with Adorno’s contemporaneous “Reflections on class theory” (1942) as well as his own “The authoritarian state” (1940/42), which similarly mark the transformation of Marx and Engels’s famous injunction in the Communist Manifesto that “history is the history of class struggles.” All of these writings were inspired by Walter Benjamin’s “On the concept of history” (AKA “Theses on the philosophy of history,” 1940), which registered history’s fundamental crisis. [Read More]
/20th Century  Capitalism  Communist party  Critical theory  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel  History  Vladimir Lenin  Liberalism  Karl Marx  Marxism  Max Horkheimer  Political party  Socialism  Socialist  Socioeconomic  SYRIZA  Theodor W. Adorno  Walter Benjamin 

Back to Herbert Spencer!

Industrial vs. militant society

Back to Herbert Spencer!

 January 12, 2016  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

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]
Anti-imperialism  Anti-war  Benjamin Constant  Capitalism  Carl Schmitt  Freedom  Martin Heidegger  Imperialism  Karl Marx  Liberalism  Libertarian  Max Weber  Friedrich Nietzsche  Paul Lafargue  Socialism  Theodor W. Adorno  Herbert Spencer  Featured Articles 

The Sandernistas

The final triumph of the 1980s

The Sandernistas

 December 17, 2015  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

THE CAMPAIGN CYCLE for the 2016 general election in the U.S. has been characterized by some throwbacks to the 1980s, most notably in the two major party challengers, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Most remarkably, the Sanders campaign has introduced the word “socialism” into mainstream political discourse. It’s clear that what socialism means in Sanders’s mouth, however, is New Deal liberalism – despite the poster of Eugene V. Debs that hangs in Sanders’s Senate office. [Read More]
Bernie Sanders  Liberalism  New Deal  /2016 American Presidential Election 

Marx's liberalism?

An interview with Jonathan Sperber


Marx's liberalism?

 July 1, 2013  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

ON JUNE 25, 2013, Spencer A. Leonard and Sunit Singh interviewed Jonathan Sperber, historian of the 1848 revolutions and author of the acclaimed new biography Karl Marx: A Nineteenth Century Life (2013), on the radio show Radical Minds broadcast on WHPK – FM (88.5 FM) Chicago. What follows is an edited version of the interview that was conducted on air. Spencer A. Leonard: Let me start off by asking a very general question. [Read More]
Marxism  Liberalism 

An exposé of classic liberalism?

A reply to Domenico Losurdo

An exposé of classic liberalism?

 September 1, 2012  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

THE INTERVIEW WITH DOMENICO LOSURDO in Platypus Review 46, which coincided with translation into English of his book Liberalism: A Counter-History, seems to be part of a broader attempt to raise the estimation of him as theoretician of the Left.1 His role as a new standard-bearer for the Left, however, does not especially interest me. I am interested in the central claims of Liberalism that the interviewers should have – but failed – to challenge him on. [Read More]
Book Review  Domenico Losurdo  Liberalism 

Liberalism and Marx

Liberalism and Marx

 May 1, 2012  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

ON MARCH 17, 2012, Ross Wolfe and Pam Nogales of the Platypus Affiliated Society interviewed Domenico Losurdo, the author, most recently, of Liberalism: A Counter-History (2011). What follows is an edited transcript of their conversation. Full audio and video recordings of the interview can be found by clicking the above links. Liberalism A counter-history Ross Wolfe: How would you characterize the antinomy of emancipation and de-emancipation in liberal ideology? [Read More]
Domenico Losurdo  Liberalism  Karl Marx  Marxism 

Lenin's politics

A rejoinder to David Adam on Lenin's liberalism

Lenin's politics

 September 25, 2011  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

THE PRINCIPAL MISTAKE MADE by those who contemplate Lenin’s political thought and action is due to assumptions that are made about the relation of socialism to democracy. Lenin was not an “undemocratic socialist” or one who prioritized socialism as an “end” over the “means” of democracy. Lenin did not think that once a majority of workers was won to socialist revolution democracy was finished. Lenin was not an authoritarian socialist.1 [Read More]
Vladimir Lenin  Liberalism  Exchanges 

History of Humanity

1600-1763

 July 27, 2011  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

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]
Philadelphia Media  Bourgeois  Bourgeois revolution  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel  Immanuel Kant  Liberal  Liberalism  Karl Marx  Friedrich Nietzsche  Radical bourgeois philosophy  Jean-Jacques Rousseau