The Politics of the Contemporary Student Left
Embedding doesn’t seem to be working well, but here is the link.
I’m with the speakers here. But I’ve been known to rant about the perils of anti-intellectualism, post-modernism and identity politics to a fault.
Panel Discussion:
Alexander L. Hanna (chair): former organizer for United Students Against Sweatshops
Atlee McFellin: Students for a Democratic Society, New School Radical Student Union
Pam Nogales: Platypus (New York)
C. J. Pereira Di Salvo: former organizer for United Students Against Sweatshops
Laurie Rojas: Platypus (Chicago), former member of Students for a Democratic Society
This panel seems pretty narrow. Platypus folks drove Emahunn crazy at the SDS convention in 2008.
From the people I’ve spoken to I gather that the SDS convention in 2008 was kind of a disaster to begin with.
Some of the Platypus views on Lenin and the legacy of 1917 I disagree with (though probably not as vehemently as others within YDS), but in general I think their critique of the current “lefts” politics are right on the money.
Though I might add that I can make the same criticisms and see the same flaws without quoting Adorno ad nauseam.
The fact that they are just a bunch of different reading groups analyzing trends in the left and the contemporary left and don’t aspire to become some grouplet planning to take the helm of a world revolution is refreshing. Their criticism of the politics of both romanticized lefts — the 1930s one and even worse the muddled politics of the New Left — is refreshing.
The work I’ve done with progressive groups in Washington DC has made me pretty much in accord with Playpus’ analysis, especially in regard to identity politics. And I have obviously been exposed to the postmodernism that is rampant in parts of academia. That being said, this current crisis could do a lot to marginalize that movement and lead to a retreat to a more classically Marxian intellectual discourse.
But Platypus are a total non-factor in DC so I haven’t had anything but passing conversations with any of their members, so I can’t testify to how amiable they are in person.
When it comes to people who read Frankfurt School texts for leisure I’ve come to expect the worst