Romancing the Oppressed: The New Left and the Left Out

1996 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
New Left ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Poor ◽  
American Society ◽  
The 1960S

In the 1960s, the New Left sought to transform American society by mobilizing the most oppressed and excluded groups—blacks, the poor, unemployed youths. This article explores both the causes and consequences of the powerful attraction that the American New Left felt for the oppressed and downtrodden. The political thought and actions of the New Left cannot be reduced to psychological motives but must instead be rooted in the New Left's commitment to radical egalitarian social relations and values. While there is much that can be admired in the New Left's deep and sincere concern for the disadvantaged, the New Left's romance with the oppressed also had darker, illiberal consequences that led many in the New Left to excuse and justify the very sort of oppression they had originally sought to oppose.

The Curious Origins of Airline Deregulation: Economic Deregulation and the American Left

2019 ◽  
Vol 93 (4) ◽  
pp. 729-753 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reuel Schiller
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
New Left ◽  
The Political ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Regulatory Policies ◽  
Airline Deregulation ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Political Right ◽  
American Left

This article examines the politics of airline deregulation in the 1970s, and the events that led to the passage of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. It links the antibureaucratic, antiregulatory policies of the 1970s to ideas closely connected to the New Left, the counterculture, and other left-wing subcultures that dominated high and low thought in the 1960s. By linking this source of antibureaucratic sentiment to the politics of airline deregulation, this article suggests a new direction for historians who study the American state in the last decades of the twentieth century. As they focus their attention on the rise of market-based, neoliberal regulatory policies, they should look for their origins not only in the growing strength of the intellectual and political right, but also in the political thought and practice of the 1960s left.

Campus Politics

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Zimmerman
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
The Political ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
The Us ◽  
In Loco Parentis ◽  
Political Left ◽  
American Society ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Political Right ◽  
Campus Politics

Universities are usually considered bastions of the free exchange of ideas, but a recent tide of demonstrations across college campuses has called this belief into question, and with serious consequences. Such a wave of protests hasn't been seen since the campus free speech demonstrations of the 1960s, yet this time it is the political Left, rather than the political Right, calling for restrictions on campus speech and freedom. And, as Jonathan Zimmerman suggests, recent campus controversies have pitted free speech against social justice ideals. The language of trauma--and, more generally, of psychology--has come to dominate campus politics, marking another important departure from prior eras. This trend reflects an increased awareness of mental health in American society writ large. But it has also tended to dampen exchange and discussion on our campuses, where faculty and students self-censor for fear of insulting or offending someone else. Or they attack each other in periodic bursts of invective, which run counter to the “civility” promised by new speech and conduct codes. In Campus Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know®, Jonathan Zimmerman breaks down the dynamics of what is actually driving this recent wave of discontent. After setting recent events in the context of the last half-century of free speech campus movements, Zimmerman looks at the political beliefs of the US professorate and students. He follows this with chapters on political correctness; debates over the contested curriculum; admissions, faculty hires, and affirmative action; policing students; academic freedom and censorship; in loco parentis administration; and the psychology behind demands for "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces." He concludes with the question of how to best balance the goals of social and racial justice with the commitment to free speech.

A ‘Mediterranean New Left’? Comparing and Contrasting the French PSU and the Italian PSIUP

2010 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 309-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
DANIEL A. GORDON
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
New Left ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
Self Management ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
New Evidence

AbstractThis article argues that Gerd-Rainer Horn's model of a ‘Mediterranean New Left’ encompassing both the French Parti socialiste unifié (PSU, 1960–1990) and the Italian Partito socialista italiano di unità proletaria (PSIUP, 1964–1972) needs to be significantly revised. It agrees that, half a century on from the events which gave rise to their foundation, this much misunderstood part of the political spectrum, midway between social democracy and the far left, is worthy of rescue from the ‘enormous condescension of posterity’, but questions how similar the two parties actually were. Major differences emerge, especially in the nature of each party's relationship with communism, with the philosovietism of the PSIUP contrasting with the PSU's evolution towards an anti-Leninist decentralist socialism of self-management. Yet, at the same time, important new evidence is uncovered about the concrete political and personal links that developed between leading intellectuals of the PSIUP and PSU, an example being the friendship of the Italian parliamentarian and theorist Lelio Basso with the journalist Gilles Martinet, later French ambassador to Italy. Other transnational links, both across the Mediterranean and to eastern Europe, are explored. Furthermore, the location of the roots of both parties in the 1940s generation of anti-fascist resistance calls into question prevailing assumptions equating the New Left with the youth of the 1960s, with wider implications for our understanding of the development of the European left across the twentieth century.

scholarly journals Why consensus? Prefiguration in three activist eras

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 286-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Polletta ◽  
Katt Hoban
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
New Left ◽  
Democratic Society ◽  
The Political ◽  
Organizational Forms ◽  
Political Repression ◽  
Democratic Practices ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Historical Periods

Activists have long justified their egalitarian organizational forms in prefigurative terms. Making decisions by consensus, decentralizing organization, and rotating leadership serves to model the radically democratic society that activists hope to bring into being. Our comparison of consensus-based decision-making in three historical periods, however, shows that activists have understood the purposes of prefiguration in very different ways. Whereas radical pacifists in the 1940s saw their cooperative organizations as sustaining movement stalwarts in a period of political repression, new left activists in the 1960s imagined that their radically democratic practices would be adopted by ever-widening circles. Along with the political conditions in which they have operated, activists’ distinctive understandings of equality have also shaped the way they have made decisions. Our interviews with 30 leftist activists today reveal a view of decision-making as a place to work through inequalities that are informal, unacknowledged, and pervasive.

Neoliberalism, the Global Elite, and the Guatemalan Transition: A Critical Macrosocial Analysis

2000 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 89-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
William I. Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Global Economy ◽  
Political System ◽  
Recent Change ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
The Political ◽  
Property Relations ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Socioeconomic System ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Rule Out

Recent change in Guatemala is part of a complex transition that has continued in Central America since the 1960s. It involves the region’s ongoing, gradual, highly conflictive, and contradictory entrance into the global economy and society. The transnational model of society in the Isthmus is inherently unstable, with contradictions internal to global capitalism. The constraints of the exclusionary socioeconomic system undermine efforts to open up the political system as contemplated in the peace accords. Authentic democratization requires a radical redistribution of wealth and power toward the poor majority; but the accords ratify existing property relations and rule out such a redistribution.

scholarly journals THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION OF THE BRITISH NEW LEFT: “CULTURE” AND THE “MANAGERIAL SOCIETY,”C.1956–1962

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 801-820 ◽  
Author(s):  
FREDDY FOKS
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
New Left ◽  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Culturally Sensitive ◽  
Sociological Imagination ◽  
Alasdair Macintyre ◽  
Cultural Criticism ◽  
The Political ◽  
Stuart Hall

Castigated as theoretically naive by Perry Anderson, or praised as culturally sensitive by later writers, the political thought of the “first New Left” has often been understood in relation to F. R. Leavis's cultural criticism. This article seeks to reframe the writings of E. P. Thompson, Stuart Hall, Charles Taylor and Alasdair Macintyre from this period as interventions in a fundamentally sociological debate about the nature of capitalism in the managed economy of postwar Britain.

scholarly journals Diferentes interpretaciones sobre el katarismo. Discusiones desde una perspectiva indianista

Pelícano ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 044
Author(s):  
Valeria Duran
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Quechua Indians ◽  
Cover Up

Different Interpretations about Katarismo. Discussions from an Indianist PerspectiveResumenKatarismo e indianismo son dos expresiones políticas indias que emergen en Bolivia a principios de la década del '60 (indianismo) y del '70 (katarismo). Su peculiaridad consiste en que se constituyen como dos corrientes políticas creadas específicamente por indios aymaras y quechuas –con mayor participación de los primeros respecto de los segundos–. Son varios los autores que coinciden en afirmar que el surgimiento de ambas corrientes se encuentra vinculado a un proceso de resistencia y lucha india, cuyo origen data de la dominación colonial y se extiende hasta la actualidad (Mamani, 2017; Mamani y Cruz, 2011; Portugal y Macusaya, 2016; Reinaga, 2012[1970a]; Velásquez, 2016).Las interpretaciones del katarismo relacionadas a la figura del líder indio Tupak Katari, son las más numerosas y conocidas. Sin embargo, esto no significa que haya claridad a la hora de distinguir entre las diferentes perspectivas ideológico-políticas que asumen el nombre de Katari como referente de lucha. Por este motivo, propongo dialogar con algunas perspectivas que estudian el katarismo, con el fin de mostrar la diversidad de interpretaciones difundidas sobre esta corriente.El objetivo de esta investigación apunta a analizar, desde una perspectiva crítica, algunas interpretaciones históricas sobre el katarismo que tienden a encubrir o invisibilizar la influencia del indianismo dentro del proceso político del katarismo. En este sentido, considero importante indicar que realizaré un abordaje de la temática propuesta desde una perspectiva indianista.AbstractKatarism and Indianism are two Indian political expressions that emerge in Bolivia at the beginning of the 1960s (Indianism) and the 70s (Katarism). Its peculiarity is that they are constituted as two political currents created specifically by Aymara and Quechua Indians -with more participation of the first ones than the second ones-. There are several authors who agree that the emergence of both traditions is related to a process of Indian resistance and struggle, whose origin dates from colonial domination and extends to the present (Mamani 2017, Mamani and Cruz, 2011; Portugal and Macusaya, 2016; Reinaga, 2012[1970a]; Velásquez, 2016).The intepretations of Katarism related to the indian leader Tupak Katari figure, are the most numerous and known. However, this doesn‟t mean that there is clarity when it comes to distinguish between the different ideological-political perspectives that assume the name of Katari as a reference of fight. For this reason, I propose to dialogue with some perspectives that study katarism, in order to show the diversity of interpretations spread about this tradition.The objective of this research aims to analyse, from a critical perspective, some historical interpretations about Katarism that tend to cover up or hide the influence of Indianism within the political process of Katarism. In this way, I believe it‟s important to indicate that I will approach the proposed topic from an Indianist perspective.Key words: Katarism, Indianism, Indian political thought.

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