Dialectic At Work: For Roses and Bread: On Marxism as a Theory of Overcoming Trauma

Jun 21, 2024

Explore the timeless relevance of Marxian theory through personal anecdotes of migration and trauma. Discover how a father's bravery during Nazism influenced generations. Delve into the interplay of trauma, psychoanalysis, and Marxism, advocating for societal understanding over individual blame. Hear about a remarkable journey from biochemistry to activism, shaped by influential mentorship at Harvard. This engaging dialogue exposes the connections between identity, justice, and the ongoing quest for meaning in a complex world.

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ANECDOTE

Refugee Parents' Lasting Trauma

Richard Wolff grew up with parents who fled Nazism and carried deep, lasting trauma from arrests, camps, and loss.
That family history shaped his lifelong need to understand social causes rather than personalize suffering.

INSIGHT

Understanding As A Form Of Coping

Wolff explains his father's coping method: try to understand trauma to gain mastery instead of resigning to it.
He treats analysis as a way to avoid becoming a psychological victim of historical violence.

ANECDOTE

Harlem Commute Sparked Awareness

As a child riding through Harlem, Wolff noticed black residents living in poverty and asked his father why.
Those early observations pushed him to seek explanations for visible social injustice rather than accept it.

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[Season 1 Episode 1] For Roses and Bread: On Marxism as a Theory of Overcoming Trauma

In this episode, "For Roses and Bread: On Marxism as a Theory of Overcoming Trauma", the Dialectic goes to work to explore the following question: Why Marx? Why Marxian Theory?

We begin with this, our inaugural episode, with a deep dive into Professor Richard Wolff's life. His upbringing, education and what led him to dedicate his life to the Marxian project.

We argue that among the diverse reasons why people choose to study Marxism is that it provides an analysis of the 'urgent living problems' that confront us as individuals, as societies, and as a global community. The great dialectician, Lukacs, famously remarked that the Marxist dialectic is revolutionary since it not only seeks to understand the world but also, as Marx rightly pointed out, to change it.

With that in mind, we explore the life and times of Professor Richard D Wolff as a point of entry into the theory we are about to explore. We dive into the sociohistorical circumstances, during and after World War II, that turned a man born to middle-class European immigrants who were fleeing to the United States to escape Nazism into a critic of capitalism.

This is crucial to the aims of the podcast since the theoretical and political concepts that we will explore in upcoming podcasts were shaped, in part, by the experience and backgrounds of Richard Wolff and Stephen Resnick.

After watching this episode, viewers will begin to see how Marxism provides a way of dealing with an unjust and unfair world; not by imploding internally, nor by blaming ones' self for one's miseries, or by victimizing others. Instead, we examine our trauma as a manifestation of the larger problem, the historical bourgeois epoch called capitalism.

We should then be able to appreciate that Marx provided a disturbing yet profound critique of capitalism that is critical to understanding the real cause of our misery: it is just the way capitalism works. Marxist knowledge then is crucial for anyone who wishes to change it.

About

The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community.

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