Papers by Bradley Macdonald
The Encyclopedia of Political Thought, Sep 15, 2014
Herbert Marcuse was a political theorist associated with the first generation of the Frankfurt Sc... more Herbert Marcuse was a political theorist associated with the first generation of the Frankfurt School, a group of interdisciplinary scholars who promoted and developed a critical theory of society. While all the theorists in this group shared a basic commitment to uncovering the roots and conditions of human oppression and repression in advanced industrial society and to developing philosophical, cultural, and political resources designed to bring about human liberation, Marcuse's theory became the most famous and the most directly political one during their lifetime. Keywords: critical theory; Frankfurt School; Marxism
Strategies: Journal of Theory, Culture & Politics, 2003
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2003 State University of New York All r... more Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2003 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book ...
Because he views Marx as a complex series of tensions and contradictions, Macdonald moves beyond ... more Because he views Marx as a complex series of tensions and contradictions, Macdonald moves beyond a traditional philosophical hierarchy in which ontology functions as a static ground for politics. It is perhaps what would appear to be the most dated aspects of Marx's thought ...
American Political Science Association, 2001
A distinguished political sociologist, Richard F. Hamilton is perhaps best known for Who Voted fo... more A distinguished political sociologist, Richard F. Hamilton is perhaps best known for Who Voted for Hitler? (1982). More recently his attention has shifted to the broader methodolog- ical issues raised by the empirical claims of sociological macrotheories. This critical study of three versions of Marx- ism-the original statement by Marx and Engels and two rival reformulations, by Eduard Bernstein at the end of the nineteenth century and by Lenin during World War I-is to be seen in the light of this concern.
Emancipations
The presidency of Trump has produced an increasing sense that we are possibly moving into a perio... more The presidency of Trump has produced an increasing sense that we are possibly moving into a period of fascism in the United States. In this essay, we wish to look closely at conditions which define this current political period by taking seriously Max Horkheimer’s plea to see the necessary relation of capitalism to protofascist potentials and fascist aspirations within our liberal democratic context. Drawing upon the work of Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and others, we will look more closely at the particular political economic conditions that underlie the development of our one-dimensional society, in which “totalitarian” economic-technical control, rampant consumerism, and growing indebtedness and precarity create ripe conditions for the production of destabilizing political discourses that allow fascism to flourish in language and memes, if not necessarily within concrete statist forms that proudly proclaim the end of democracy. While noting the way in which the culture indust...
New Political Science, 2018
When Marx proclaimed the importance of not just interpreting the world but actually changing it, ... more When Marx proclaimed the importance of not just interpreting the world but actually changing it, he initiated an important imperative that has existed within all forms of critical theory up to today. Drawing upon the work of Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse, we use their unique way of looking at the theory/praxis couplet as an avenue to rethink the role of critical theory as a form of "scholar-activism." Theory, to paraphrase Adorno, lives on because the moment to realize it was missed; and it is because of this lack of immediate utility that theory occupies a space of resistance. Nonetheless, as Marcuse avered, theory itself may retreat into the privileged space of scholastic philosophy if it does not constantly engage activist movements that challenge the historical and social conditions of human oppression. In the first part of the essay, we will look at Adorno and Marcuse's critical theories as well as their own political engagements to clarify the concept of critical theory as scholar-activism. In the second part of the essay, we will demonstrate the importance of this particular kind of scholaractivism in the context of (and against the logic of) the neoliberal university.
Perspectives on Politics, 2014
New Political Science, 2006
ABSTRACT
1 Paper prepared for the Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association, Penn ... more 1 Paper prepared for the Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association, Penn State University, March 11-13, 2005. All rights reserved. I can be contacted at: Dept. of Political Science, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80523. E-mail: [email protected] 2 Leaving aside the mainstream news media, the importance of Negri’s thought to activist circles is clearly indicated by Hardt and Negri’s “Forward” to the publication of the papers and talks from the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre in 2002. See Another World is Possible: Popular Alternatives to Globalization in the World Social Forum, W. Fischer and T. Ponniah, eds. (London: Zed Books, 2003), pp. xvi-xix. In terms of academic circles, Negri’s interest can be seen in the following: the publication of a double issue of Rethinking Marxism (Volume 13, Number 3/4, Fall/Winter 2001) devoted to Empire; Debating Empire, G. Balakrishan, ed. (London: Verso, 2003); a special issue of Strategies, V...
Strategies: Journal of Theory, Culture & Politics, 2003
Strategies: Journal of Theory, Culture & Politics, 2003
What kept the two factions [legitimists and Orléanists] apart was not any so-called principles, i... more What kept the two factions [legitimists and Orléanists] apart was not any so-called principles, it was their material conditions of existence, two different kinds of property; it was the old opposition between town and country, the rivalry between capital and landed property. That at the same time old memories, personal antipathies, hopes and fears, prejudices and delusions, sympathies and antipathies, convictions, articles of faith and principles bound them to one or the other royal house, who ever denied this? On the different forms of property, the social conditions of existence, arises an entire superstructure of different and peculiarly formed sentiments, delusions, modes of thought and outlooks on life. The whole class creates and forms them from the material foundations on up and from the corresponding social relations. (Karl Marx 1)
Rethinking Marxism, 1995
... As Raoul Vaneigem, another important member of the Situationist Inter-national, argued: ... e... more ... As Raoul Vaneigem, another important member of the Situationist Inter-national, argued: ... experienced cable TV viewer whose projected longing for something really interesting to watch is continually dashed no matter how many channels she “surfs.” As Bruce Springsteen put it ...
Perspectives on Politics, 2007
Political Theory and the Ecological Challenge. Edited by Andrew Dobson and Robyn Eckersley. New Y... more Political Theory and the Ecological Challenge. Edited by Andrew Dobson and Robyn Eckersley. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 270p. $75.00 cloth, $29.99 paper. African American Environmental Thought: Foundations. By Kimberly K. Smith. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007. 264p. $29.95. Irrespective of what some students of political theory might claim, transformations within the discipline—especially in terms of concept formation and substantive foci—are oftentimes closely related to developments within real-world political discourses and practices. One notable example, of course, is the way in which the feminist movement in the 1960s brought about not only important transformations in our understanding of the history of political thought (e.g., in terms of the troubling position of many canonical theorists on the “private” status of women), but also new ways to reconceptualize politics today. With the “ecological challenge” confronting the world today, it is no wonder that there is now a new subfield within the discipline of political theory (in the United States, at least, it goes under the name of “environmental political theory”), one that is involved in a major rethinking of the history of political thought, not to mention the deconstruction and reconstruction of important political traditions and concepts to meet these challenges.
New Political Science, 2012
ABSTRACT
New Political Science, 2013
aligning with those who seek to exclude sectors of the marginalized. In other words, localism can... more aligning with those who seek to exclude sectors of the marginalized. In other words, localism can just as easily lead to nationalism and exclusion as it can to unification of multiple movements into a single anti-capitalist revolution. In the end, Harvey encourages a model that pulls together “informal laborers along traditional union lines” with neighborhood associations, the “politicization of urban-rural relations, the creation of nested hierarchies and leadership structures along egalitarian assemblies, [and] the mobilization of forces of culture and of collective memories...” (p. 150). While there is a need for a hierarchy, we should not think of it as a standard top-down relation, but, instead, as a more democratic organization, in which citizens, as members, are “democratic subjects with power of decision at different levels,” within a “league of socialist cities”; but most importantly, while there may be disputes within, all are united in the struggle against the capitalist law of value dictating our social relations (pp. 152–153). Though Harvey has a clear message, the book does not flow from chapter to chapter. Each comes across as an autonomous essay, only loosely held together by the focus on the city as a site of exploitation and subversion. However, while he does not give a Federalist Papers-type account of how a new anti-capitalist political and social state ought to look, he does offer an in-depth analysis of where to begin looking for seeds of this movement and what the left can do to nurture it.
Journal of the History of Philosophy, 2009
Ecology and Revolution, 2018
Uniquely among the members of the Frankfurt School of Critical Social Theory, Herbert Marcuse wro... more Uniquely among the members of the Frankfurt School of Critical Social Theory, Herbert Marcuse wrote about the ecology. He advocated a practical strategy for revolutionary ecological liberation.
Strategies: Journal of Theory, Culture & Politics, 2002
Strategies: Journal of Theory, Culture & Politics, 2002
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Papers by Bradley Macdonald