The old forms of the left are moribund and the new forms are stupid. We're making a podcast that discusses the need to organize a dialectical pessimism and develop a Marxist salvage project capable of putting up a good fight as the world burns around us. A clean, honest, and unsentimental melancholy is required; we are cultivating one and would like to share it with you.
https://www.patreon.com/theregrettablecentury
episode 29: Dialectic of Defeat: A Collaboration with Red Library, Part II
This week we dive in to the second part of our two part collaboration with Adam from Red Library, who hosts s a great podcast that analyzes and discusses important works of Marxist theory and history. We are big fans, go check them out.
This week we continued our discussion on Dialectic of Defeat: Contours of Western Marxism by Russell Jacoby, so if you haven't listened to the first part, do that now.
In Dialectic of Defeat, Jacoby examines the losers of the Marxist tradition and argues that there is something to be learned from them, even in their defeat. He exhorts us to read the heretics, doubt the orthodoxies, and truly understand all of the rich and varied currents of Marxism, even if they ultimately failed to create a successful revolution.
After all, all of our gods failed us in the end.
Either that, or we failed them.
Jacoby, Russell. Dialectic of defeat : contours of western Marxism. Cambridge, U.K. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Print.
Music:
Current 93/Nurse With Wound- Ballad of the Pale Girl