Michel Foucault famously wrote in Madness and Civilization, “The ultimate language of madness is that of reason.”[1] Foucault was referring to liberal civilization—born of the Enlightenment—a civilization that extolled the virtues of materialistic rationalism, individualism, market economics, private property, which ends in the slow erosion of the communitarian bonds that had shaped human society since pre-modernity. … Continue reading Our Brave New Century
Socialism
Karl Marx’s Dialectical Historicism
One of the core elements to Karl Marx’s philosophy was his dialectical materialism and historicism, which come together in his dialectical historicism. Most people are probably familiar with it. There are five distinct stages (or epochs) of history: slavery, feudalism, capitalism, socialism, and communism. But the movement of history is not linear-progressive, it is cyclical; … Continue reading Karl Marx’s Dialectical Historicism
Shulamith Firestone’s “Dialectic of Sex”
Shulamith Firestone is one of the most important, if not the most important, feminist philosopher of the 20th century. Though little known to most, she is required reading in most gender studies and women’s studies courses. Her most famous work was published when she was 25 years old: The Dialectic of Sex. In her work she synthesizes … Continue reading Shulamith Firestone’s “Dialectic of Sex”
Leo Strauss on the Three Waves of Modernity
Leo Strauss (1899-1973) was one of the most important historians of political philosophy in the 20th century. A Jewish emigre to America in the 1930s, Strauss made his name as an exegete of the classics (Plato, Aristotle, and Thucydides especially; Al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Maimonides among Arab-Islamic and Jewish medieval philosophers, and Sts. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas … Continue reading Leo Strauss on the Three Waves of Modernity
Michel Foucault, Homosexuality, and Capitalism
Michel Foucault is a famous French postmodernist. He is derided by opponents as a thorough-going Marxist. He is derided by Marxists for not being a Marxist. He started out on the revolutionary left, politically, but pivoted to being the godfather of the sexual revolution in the 1960s and 1970s before dying of AIDS. What few … Continue reading Michel Foucault, Homosexuality, and Capitalism
Postmodernism and Liberal Accompaniment: A Review of David North’s “The Frankfurt School, Postmodernism and the Politics of the Pseudo-Left: A Marxist Critique”
It is commonplace for many to associate postmodernism with being far-left, and, indeed, part of the Marxist and socialist tradition. We have already explored how social democracy and even democratic socialism are not, by classical and orthodox Marxist standards, part of the Marxist or socialist tradition. Rather, the Second International condemned social democracy and democratic … Continue reading Postmodernism and Liberal Accompaniment: A Review of David North’s “The Frankfurt School, Postmodernism and the Politics of the Pseudo-Left: A Marxist Critique”
Introduction to Political Aesthetics
Political aesthetics has been an important topic of political philosophy ever since the publication of Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. For Burke’s critics, his sudden criticism of the French Revolution was shocking if not an act of apostasy given his previous support for the American Revolution. For Burke and his defenders, both … Continue reading Introduction to Political Aesthetics
Athens, Jerusalem, and Leftwing Politics
Leo Strauss was famous for his reading of Western culture, history, and politics as a division between Athens and Jerusalem. Borrowing from the Christian philosopher and theologian Tertullian, who famously bemused “What has Athens got to do with Jerusalem?”, Strauss recontextualized the question and thesis of Tertullian as one of oppositional antagonism which, nevertheless, is … Continue reading Athens, Jerusalem, and Leftwing Politics
Marx Against the “Socialists”
Socialism, especially “democratic socialism,” is all the rage. It was all the rage in the 1800s. It was all the rage in the 1900s. And it is all the rage in the 2000s, especially since 2008. To paraphrase Aristotle, to speak falsely of something is to speak falsely of it; to speak truthfully of something … Continue reading Marx Against the “Socialists”
