On the Idea of Communism - Conference 13th,14th & 15th March
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/bih/news/communism
“It’s just the simple thing that’s hard, so hard to do.”(B.Brecht)
The year of 1990 stands for the triple defeat of the Left: the retreat of the
social-democratic Welfare State politics in the developed First World, the
disintegration of the Soviet-style Socialist states in the industrialized Second
World, and the retreat of emancipatory movements in the Third World. A
certain epoch was thereby over, the epoch which began with the October
Revolution and was characterized by the Party-State form of organization.
Does this mean that the time of radical emancipatory politics is over?
In recent years, there are multiple signs which indicate the need for a new
beginning. The utopia of the 1990, the Fukuyamaist “end of history” (liberal-
democratic capitalist as the finally found natural social order) died twice in the
first decade of the XXIst century. While the 9/11 attacks signaled its political
death, the financial crisis of 2008 signals its economic death. In these new
conditions, the task is not only to reflect on new strategies, but to radically
rethink the most basic coordinates of emancipatory politics. One should go
well beyond the rejection of the Party-State Left in its “Stalinist” form – a
common place today -, and extend this rejection to the entire field of
the “democratic Left” as the strategy to reform the system from within its
representative-democratic state form. Much more than the debacle of the
Really-Existing Socialism, the defeat of 1990 was the final defeat of
this “democratic Left.” This defeat raises the question: is “Communism” still
the name to be used to designate the horizon of radical emancipatory
projects? In spite of their theoretical differences, the participants share the
thesis that one should remain faithful to the name “Communism”: this name is
potent to serve as the Idea which guides our activity, as well as the
instrument which enables us to expose the catastrophes of the XXth century
politics, those of the Left included.
The symposium will not deal with practico-political questions of how to
analyze the latest economic, political, and military troubles, or how to organize
a new political movement. More radical questioning is needed today - this is a
meeting of philosophers who will deal with Communism as a philosophical
concept, advocating a precise and strong thesis: from Plato onwards,
Communism is the only political Idea worthy of a philosopher.
“The communist hypothesis remains the good one, I do not see any other. If
we have to abandon this hypothesis, then it is no longer worth doing anything
at all in the field of collective action. Without the horizon of communism,
without this Idea, there is nothing in the historical and political becoming of
any interest to a philosopher. Let everyone bother about his own affairs, and
let us stop talking about it. In this case, the rat-man is right, as is, by the
way, the case with some ex-communists who are either avid of their rents or
who lost courage. However, to hold on to the Idea, to the existence of this
hypothesis, does not mean that we should retain its first form of presentation
which was centered on property and State. In fact, what is imposed on us as
a task, even as a philosophical obligation, is to help a new mode of existence
of the hypothesis to deploy itself.” (Alain Badiou)
Speakers:
Judith Balso, Alain Badiou, Bruno Bosteels, Terry Eagleton, Peter Hallward,
Michael Hardt, Jean-Luc Nancy, Toni Negri, Jacques Ranciere, Alessandro
Russo, Alberto Toscano, Gianni Vattimo, Slavoj Zizek
Friday 13th March, Saturday 14th March & Sunday 15th March
Registration is essential: Standard - £100 Birkbeck Staff and all
Students - £45
Public booking form for Standard - £100 and Non-Birkbeck students - £45
Birkbeck booking form (login required) for Birkbeck Staff and Students - £45
To pay by cheque please click here
*Please note the venue has changed to:
Logan Hall
Institute of Education, University of London
20 Bedford Way
London WC1H 0AL (map and general information click here)
Programme (subject to change) - click here
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