The Regrettable Century
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 salvage project capable of sparking a new workers' movement for socialism. A clean, honest, and unsentimental melancholy is required; we are cultivating one and would like to share it with you.
“The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned. I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.”
-- Antonio Gramsci
The Regrettable Century
Scattered Thoughts on Melancholia and the Organization of Pessimism
We read a bunch of stuff about Walter Benjamin and Enzo Traverso and tried to have a conversation about it.
We've only managed to reinforce the idea that "The organization of pessimism" is the only slogan that can save us from death.
Traverso, Enzo. Left-wing melancholia : Marxism, history, and memory. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. Print.
Against Revolutionary Pessimism and Optimism: Revolutionary Realism by J. Moufawad Paul
http://moufawad-paul.blogspot.com/2016/10/against-revolutionary-pessimism-and.html
An Invisible Underground River: On Left-Wing Melancholia- Michael Lowy
https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3289-an-invisible-underground-river-on-left-wing-melancholia
How to kill a zombie: strategizing the end of neoliberalism- Mark Fisher
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/how-to-kill-zombie-strategizing-end-of-neoliberalism/
Walter Benjamin’s Gothic Marxism and The Organization of Pessimism: Michael Lowy
https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/article/walter-benjamin-and-surrealism
Victor Serge: Indispensable Critic of Leftist Illusion- Mitchel Abidor
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/02/28/victor-serge-indispensable-critic-of-leftist-illusion/
Four Reasons the European Left Lost- Wolfgang Streeck
https://jacobinmag.com/2019/05/european-parliament-elections-results-left?fbclid=IwAR0IIEH5W8SrlH9EfJ31XDLDFjvTZ2lp-ucok0GtxtpDsWzsrSMHQ_oB9DM
The Organization of Pessimism: Profane Illumination & Anthropological Materialism in Walter Benjamin
https://www.academia.edu/33848834/The_Organization_of_Pessimism_Profane_Illumination_and_Anthropological_Materialism_in_Walter_Benjamin