🚀 go-pugleaf

WHERE IS SOCIETY GOING?
developing a marxist critique


Outside a few anti-intellectual idiots in ACT and the Business
Roundtable, and the propaganda of the Prime Minister�s Department, it is
difficult to find anyone who thinks that we are living in the best of
all possible worlds.

Most people are dissatisfied with the state of the world and the way
their lives are shaped by it.  But most are also passively resigned to
acceptance of the status quo.  The general attitude is that this may not
be much, but it�s all we�ve got and there�s nothing much we can do about
it.  These low horizons have been created by slump capitalism and serve
only to sustain a system long since passed its best-by date.  

In reality the technological and scientific progress made already shows
that we could all have much better lives.  Even at the most basic level,
take the example of hunger.  The technological capacity exists to turn
Africa into a continent capable of producing enough food to feed 35
billion people - about 7 times the current world population!  But this
is not done, because under capitalism profitability overrides human need
and the general improvement of human life.  Things only get produced if
more profits can be made through such activity than anywhere else.  The
profit drive actually acts as a barrier to growth and human progress.

As society languishes in the wasteland, caught in the contradiction
between what is possible and what we are currently lumped with, there
has been a growth of pessimism and irrationalism.  The slump and the
demise of the old mass movements, especially the labour movement, leave
people with an increasingly individuated outlook, prone to moral panics
and calls for greater social regulation.  These are the pervasive moods
of our time.

�revolution� magazine and the Canterbury University Marxist Society are 
all about challenging these moods, raising horizons and showing what is
possible.  We argue for a revolution in outlook as the necessary
prerequisite for a social revolution.  And to help the process along we
are sponsoring a weekend of education and discussion following the end
of exams.

The purpose of the weekend is to begin to come to grips with
contemporary trends in society, politics, economics, science and culture
and start to develop a response that, while rooted in today�s reality,
points to the necessity - and possibility - of achieving human
liberation.  It will be held in Christchurch over Saturday/Sunday
November 15-16.


Saturday, November 15:

SLUMP CAPITALISM AND THE END OF HISTORY
Why does society appear to have come to a standstill?  Why have the
elite not been able to find solutions to the slump?  Are we at the end
of history?  Is this as good as it gets?  

POSTMODERNISM: THE CULTURAL LOGIC OF SLUMP CAPITALISM
How is the slump and decay of society reflected at the intellectual
level?  What is postmodernism and why has it arisen at this point in
time?  Can we free ourselves through alternative discourses or is
something more needed?

THE RUSH TO THE CENTRE: POLITICS IN THE ERA OF MMP
The big questions about society appear to be off the agenda and
politicians increasingly appear to stand for nothing.  The left has
become the centre (and in some cases the right).  What does MMP reflect
about the decay of society?  How does MMP mean further decay?

MORAL PANICS: RISK PARANOIA IN A DEAD-END SOCIETY
As Gramsci noted, the decay of bourgeois society produces a host of
�morbid symptoms�.  Moral panics are a good example.  Why are we faced
with a plague of them at present and why do even sections of the left
fall for them?  Why is it important to challenge them and how can we do
so?


Sunday, November 16:

CULTURAL INVENTION AND SOCIAL CONTROL
What is culture and how does it arise?  Can cultures be preserved or
invented?  How does cultural invention amount to a form of social
control?  Do we need to respect �cultural diversity� or defend
universalism as the way to liberation?

SCIENCE AND THE RISE OF IRRATIONALISM
The rise of irrationalism is another of the �morbid symptoms� of the
decay of society.  What forms does irrationalism take and why do so
many, including people on the left, embrace it?  Why is science
important to human liberation?

REFORMULATING THE PROJECT OF HUMAN LIBERATION TODAY
This session will sum up the themes of the weekend and chart some
initial points around which we can begin to develop an intellectual
challenge to the debilitating moods which are so prevalent in society
today.  


For further information, write to �Weekend�, P.O. Box 513, Christchurch,
or email plf13@pophost.canterbury.ac.nz