At the 2015 NYC Anarchist Bookfair: Marcuse and Bakunin, Magón and Benjamin

I will be speaking at this year’s New York City Anarchist Bookfair (NYC ABF), this Saturday, 18 April, at 3:30pm in the New School.  The topic of my comments will be “Marcuse and Bakunin, Magón and Benjamin: Investigating Mutual Affinities.”  I hope to see you there!  A description follows:

“This talk will examine the close affinities among four important historical radicals, half of them renowned anarchists from Russia and Mexico—Mikhail Bakunin and Ricardo Flores Magón, respectively—and the other half German critical theorists: Herbert Marcuse and Walter Benjamin. The similarities between Marcuse and Bakunin on the one hand and Magón and Benjamin on the other are striking, in terms of philosophy, revolutionary commitment, and biographies. Marcuse and Bakunin share a common passion for Hegelian dialectics, the radical negation of the status quo, and the critique of Karl Marx, while Magón and Benjamin share an enthusiasm for journalism and the written word in subverting bourgeois society and converge in their views on revolutionary armed struggle, in addition to having both experienced a sordidly tragic fate in U.S. federal prison and at the hands of European Fascists, respectively, due to their revolutionary militancy. Indeed, all four thinkers have numerous affinities among themselves that transcend this convenient dyadic coupling I have suggested. With this presentation, I seek to review the mutual affinities among these radicals and then to present some reflections on the meaning of their thoughts and lives for anarchist and anti-systemic struggle today, particularly in terms of ecology, feminism, and global anti-authoritarianism.”

Tags: 2015 NYC ABF, anarchism, anarcho-collectivism, anarcho-communism, anti-authoritarianism, anti-state communism, collectivist anarchism, counter-violence, critical theory, dialectics, fascism, Frankfurt School, Germany, Hegel, Herbert Marcuse, insurrectionism, Karl Marx, libertarian communism, Marxism, Mexico, Mikhail Bakunin, Nazis, negation, NYC ABF, NYC ABF 2015, PLM, revolution, RFM, Ricardo Flores Magón, Russia, violence, Walter Benjamin