What's Left of Philosophy

In today’s episode we talk about Guy Debord’s critique of life under modern capitalism by looking at his scathing and provocative The Society of the Spectacle. Is it true that all that was once lived is now mere representation? That the whole of society is mediated by an endless proliferation of passifying images? That the fullness of life has been replaced by its bloodless negation in survival? Because it sure feels like it! We discuss what exactly he means by spectacle, reflect on whether and how it’s possible to maintain his distinction between real needs and pseudo-needs, and consider what a politics without representation would, ahem, look like. And we talk some real trash on North American suburbia, whose surface-level image of homogeneous conflictless positivity is the true legitimation mechanism of capitalism here in the dying imperial core. It's a lot of fun, actually!leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphilReferences:Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (New York: Zone Books, 1994).Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

In this patron-exclusive episode, we continue our series on the concept of dialectics by talking about Adorno’s Negative Dialectics. We reflect on what a non-closed dialectical system would look like, why Adorno is definitely not the defeatist he’s often caricatured as being, and what it means for us to hold onto utopian promises for a better world from within the administered nightmare of modern capitalism. Along the way we try to hone in on what’s special about Adorno’s negative dialectics, especially in comparison with what we get out of Kant and Hegel. And we give Heidegger an appropriately hard time for being just the worst.This is just a small clip from the full episode, which is available to patrons:patreon.com/leftofphilosophyReferences:Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics, trans. E.B. Ashton (New York: Continuum, 2007).Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

In this episode we are joined by Nathan DuFord to discuss their new book Solidarity in Conflict: A Democratic Theory. We unpack why they believe solidarity ought to be theorized as a political concept rather than moral injunction. For DuFord, we risk missing that solidarity is what the oppressed do with one another and that the oppressed will have disagreements within their solidary groups if we undertheorize the political dimensions of solidarity. We go on to discuss the relationships between trust and conflict, whether groups formed in solidarity can last forever, and contemporary questions concerning conflict in left organizations. If you believe in solidarity you won’t want to miss this episode!leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil References:Nathan DuFord [published under Rochelle DuFord], Solidarity in Conflict: A Democratic Theory (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2022).Music:Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

In this episode we talk about the most important Marxist thinker during the time of the Second International, Karl Kautsky. We talk about his infamous claim that the breakdown of capitalism is historically inevitable, what he thinks socialist praxis should look like in a liberal democracy, and what the concentration of large-scale capital means for your small business. Plus at some point we realize that almost all anti-socialist arguments are actually just confused anti-capitalist ones, which we find irresistibly delightful. We’re in old-school classical Marxist territory for this one, folks! leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil References: Karl Kautsky, “The Commonwealth of the Future,” in The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program), translated by William E. Bohn (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1910). Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

In this episode we talk with the wonderful Jason Read about his work on the concept of transindividuality and what it means for critical social theory, Marxist notions like alienation and reification, and traditional conceptions of freedom and equality. It’s bad news for anyone who thinks politics can be directly derived from ontology, but incredibly productive theoretically and practically if you're willing to think social relations as processes. Also Will admits he’s almost ready to confess his Spinozism, so that’s a clear win.follow us @leftofphilReferences:Jason Read, The Production of Subjectivity: Marx and Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 2022)Jason's blog: http://www.unemployednegativity.com/Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

In this episode we talk psychoanalytic theory and practice. With Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle as our touchstone, we get speculative about human desire, the death drive, and the relationship between psychoanalysis and political struggle. We discuss the problem of scaling up from individual psychology to collective organizations, the opacity of the subject, and some of the psychosocial pathologies peculiar to the United States here in the twenty-first century. We could all use a bit more transference!leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphilReferences:Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, trans. and ed. James Strachey (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1989).Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

In this episode we discuss James Boggs’s 1963 The American Revolution: Pages from a Negro Worker’s Notebook. We talk about Boggs’s materialist conception of rights as “what you make and what you take.” In Boggs we find a novel conception of rights that are grounded in social power. We delve into the dangers automation and structural unemployment present to rights to life and happiness while wondering if a “workless” society would truly be a better one. In the end, we extend a figleaf to egalitarian liberals and offer to heal their psychic distress by showing them that they are already revolutionaries (comrades, join us: the water's fine!). patreon.com/leftofphilosophy | @leftofphil References: James Boggs, The American Revolution: Pages from a Negro Worker’s Notebook, with a New Introduction by Grace Lee Bogs and Additional Commentary (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2009). James Boggs, “Toward a New Concept of Citizenship,” in Pages from A Black Radical’s Notebook: A James Boggs Reader, ed. Stephen M. Ward, with an Afterword by Grace Lee Boggs (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011). C.L.R. James, “The Revolutionary Answer to the Negro Problem in the United States,” at https://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/works/1948/07/meyer.htm Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

In this episode we kick off our new series called “What is Liberalism?” with private property, conquest, and a discussion about John Locke’s apologia for both. We appreciate the efforts of the left to civilize liberalism in the wake of its own civilizing efforts across the globe, but we ask whether it’s really possible to separate economic and political liberalism to make liberalism work for the left. Our experiences in DEI workshops suggest not, although many who are smarter than Locke have tried. The full episode is available on our patreon!patreon.com/leftofphilosophy | @leftofphil References: John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, ed. C.B. Macpherson (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1980) Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

In this episode we discuss the work of György Lukács, focusing on the reification essay from his seminal 1923 book History and Class Consciousness. We talk about why it’s not great that the commodity form has penetrated every aspect of social life, why we need to retain the category of totality in spite of loud protests from postmodernists, and what’s special about the standpoint of the proletariat. Welcome to capitalism, folks: real contradictions and necessary illusions abound. But it’s not over yet! patreon.com/leftofphilosophy | @leftofphil References: Georg Lukács, History and Class Consciousness, trans. Rodney Livingstone (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1972) Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

In this episode, we discuss the infamous Nazi jurist and political philosopher Carl Schmitt, with particular focus on his 1923 book The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy. We attempt to better understand the right-wing, Schmittian case against both liberal ‘parliamentarianism’ and ‘Marxist socialism’, while trying to discern his positive political vision. Doing so requires assessing his paradoxical claim that democracy and dictatorship are perfectly compatible, and that dictatorship is good, actually. We end by asking what the hell a ‘Left Schmittian’ is, asking what if anything he has to offer for leftist theory and practice today. patreon.com/leftofphilosophy | @leftofphil References: Carl Schmitt, The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy, trans. Ellen Kennedy (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2000) Carl Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth, trans. G.L. Ulmen (New York: Telos Publishing, 2003) Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, trans. George Schwab (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007) Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com