Articles tagged “Hudis; Peter”

Celebrating the Centenary of Raya Dunayevskaya  (1910-1987)

Video of meeting at Loyola University Chicago featuring presentations by Peter McLaren (UCLA), David Schweickart (Loyola University), Sandra Rein (University of Alberta), Ba Karang (West Africa), Kevin Anderson (University of California, Santa Barbara), and Peter Hudis (Loyola University). We have also posted the written texts or summaries for some of the presentations.

A report from the successfully concluded Founding Conference of the International Marxist-Humanist Organization, Chicago, July 3-4, 2010

It is necessary to look at Marx’s work as a whole, not fragment him into the economic, political, or philosophical dimension alone. In analyzing the global economic crisis, especially in Greece, we need to ask why so many of the current critiques from the left have stressed making the rich not the workers pay, rather than the uprooting of the capitalist system itself.  Here another look at Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Program alongside Dunayevskaya’s writings on the dialectics of organization and philosophy is crucial.  We also need to develop the politicalization of philosophy in light of recent events in Iran, Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine, and elsewhere. — Editors

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Interview by Simon Birnbaum with Peter Hudis and Kevin Anderson [Published in German as “Der Obama-Effekt untergräbt die Linke,” iz3w No. 317 (Freiburg, March-April 2010), pp. 33-35]

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Of all the problems and contradictions that have afflicted the radical movement since the time of Marx, those pertaining to the dialectics of organization has proven to be the most difficult and perplexing of them all. Leftist groups and radical tendencies of various sorts have come and gone over the years, but the effort to develop revolutionary organizations on the basis of the insights of dialectical philosophy remains a task to be done.

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“Far from expressing a sequence of never-ending progression, the Hegelian dialectic lets retrogression appear as translucent as progression and indeed makes it very nearly inevitable if one ever tries to escape regression by mere faith.”—Raya Dunayevskaya (1)

It may seem ironic that a moment so typified by the crisis of capital calls for a serious critique of the crisis on the Left; however, in the present moment it has become impossible to take on the crisis of existing society without facing the limitations found in prevailing leftist responses to it.

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My main argument is that blaming “greedy capitalists” for the present crisis is completely misguided, misleading, and counterproductive… And we will continue to deflect attention from the inhumanity of capital itself so long as focus on such epiphenomenonal factors as greedy capitalists instead of the structural contradictions of the global capitalist system.

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Die Schriften Raya Dunayevskayas, einer Schlüsselfigur des marxistischen Humanismus in den USA, skizzieren eine Philosophie der Befreiung, die dem modischen Abgesang auf die Dialektik ebenso entgegensteht wie einem Verharren in reiner Negativität. Gemäß Lenins Diktum, dass ein kluger Idealismus dem klugen Materialismus näher stehe als ein dummer Materialismus, unternimmt Dunayevskaya eine Hegel-Lektüre, die Subjekt, Praxis und Freiheit ins Zentrum rückt. Ebenso entschieden richtet sie Marx’ Philosophie der Revolution nicht nur gegen den östlichen Staatskapitalismus, sondern auch gegen Theoretiker des “Westlichen Marxismus” wie Georg Lukács, Karl Korsch oder Theodor W. Adorno – gestützt auf die Überzeugung, dass keine Philosophie ihren Namen verdient, die nicht die “Stimmen von unten” in sich aufnimmt. Was Dunayevskayas Denken von akademischer Selbstgenügsamkeit abhebt, ist nicht zuletzt diese Orientierung an den Kämpfen ihrer Zeit – von den wilden Streiks in den USA über den ungarischen Aufstand 1956 bis zur neuen Frauenbewegung in den siebziger Jahren.

An exploration of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit 200 years after its publication, with particular attention to Dunayevskaya’s interpretation of Hegel’s absolute knowing as a new beginning rather than a closed totality — Editors

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A look at labor struggles in auto and other industries in light of the deepening economic crisis, especially the housing bubble — Editors

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An examination of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution fifty years later, focusing on the creativity of its workers councils, the differing responses to the revolution at the time by C.L.R. James and Raya Dunayevskaya, and the relationship of these to what can be done to overcome today’s crisis in developing an alternative to capitalism. — Editors

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