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Miguel Abensour's "Democracy Against the State," New York, May 7, 2011
February 7, 2011 - 8:36pm -- jim
Democracy Against the State
Marx and the Machiavellian Moment
Miguel Abensour
Saturday May 7th, 2011 7:00 PM
Brecht Forum
Miguel Abensour with Max Blechman, Martin Breaugh & Simon Critchley
In the "Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right,” the young Marx elliptically alludes to a "true democracy" whose advent would go hand in hand with the disappearance of the State. Miguel Abensour’s rigorous interpretation of this seminal text reveals an “unknown Marx” who undermines the identification of democracy with the state and defends a historically occluded form of politics.
True democracy does not entail the political and economic power of the State, but it does not dream of a post-political society either. On the contrary, the battle of democracy is waged by a demos that invents a public sphere of permanent struggles, a politics that counters political bureaucracy and representation. Democracy is "won" by a people forewarned that any dissolution of the political realm in its independence, any subordination to the state, is tantamount to annihilating the site for gaining and regaining a genuinely human existence.
In this explicitly heterodox reading of Marx, Miguel Abensour proposes a theory of "insurgent" democracy that makes political liberty synonymous with a living critique of domination.
Author Miguel Abensour will discuss his new book with Simon Critchley (New School for Social Research), Martin Breaugh (University of Ottawa) and Max Blechman (Kingston University & Sorbonne). Miguel Abensour (University of Paris) was an editor of the Paris-based periodicals Textures, Libre and Tumultes. He is the editor of the "Critique de la politique" series (with the Payot & Rivages editions) since 1974, which notably introduced the "Frankfurt School" thinkers to France. He was for several years the director of the Collège International de Philosophie, and is Professor Emeritus at the University of Paris.
In his books and his numerous articles, Abensour strives to reconcile democracy, conceived as "savage democracy" or "insurgent democracy," with the idea of utopia, whose history he has critically analyzed in several books. He has moreover published numerous articles on Emmanuel Levinas, Claude Lefort, Saint-Just, socialist utopia (Pierre Leroux, William Morris), Blanqui and the various representatives of the Frankfort School, in particular T. W. Adorno.
An important anthology of writings in honor of his thought was published in France under the title: *Critique de la Politique. Autour de Miguel Abensour* (Sens & Tonka, 2006).
Sliding scale: $6/$10/$15
Free for Brecht Forum Subscribers
Democracy Against the State
Marx and the Machiavellian Moment
Miguel Abensour
Saturday May 7th, 2011 7:00 PM
Brecht Forum
Miguel Abensour with Max Blechman, Martin Breaugh & Simon Critchley
In the "Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right,” the young Marx elliptically alludes to a "true democracy" whose advent would go hand in hand with the disappearance of the State. Miguel Abensour’s rigorous interpretation of this seminal text reveals an “unknown Marx” who undermines the identification of democracy with the state and defends a historically occluded form of politics.
True democracy does not entail the political and economic power of the State, but it does not dream of a post-political society either. On the contrary, the battle of democracy is waged by a demos that invents a public sphere of permanent struggles, a politics that counters political bureaucracy and representation. Democracy is "won" by a people forewarned that any dissolution of the political realm in its independence, any subordination to the state, is tantamount to annihilating the site for gaining and regaining a genuinely human existence.
In this explicitly heterodox reading of Marx, Miguel Abensour proposes a theory of "insurgent" democracy that makes political liberty synonymous with a living critique of domination.
Author Miguel Abensour will discuss his new book with Simon Critchley (New School for Social Research), Martin Breaugh (University of Ottawa) and Max Blechman (Kingston University & Sorbonne). Miguel Abensour (University of Paris) was an editor of the Paris-based periodicals Textures, Libre and Tumultes. He is the editor of the "Critique de la politique" series (with the Payot & Rivages editions) since 1974, which notably introduced the "Frankfurt School" thinkers to France. He was for several years the director of the Collège International de Philosophie, and is Professor Emeritus at the University of Paris.
In his books and his numerous articles, Abensour strives to reconcile democracy, conceived as "savage democracy" or "insurgent democracy," with the idea of utopia, whose history he has critically analyzed in several books. He has moreover published numerous articles on Emmanuel Levinas, Claude Lefort, Saint-Just, socialist utopia (Pierre Leroux, William Morris), Blanqui and the various representatives of the Frankfort School, in particular T. W. Adorno.
An important anthology of writings in honor of his thought was published in France under the title: *Critique de la Politique. Autour de Miguel Abensour* (Sens & Tonka, 2006).
Sliding scale: $6/$10/$15
Free for Brecht Forum Subscribers