15.02.2024
The New Society
The New Society
Where to look for it and how to bring it closer
https://libcom.org/article/facing-reality-clr-james-and-grace-lee-boggs
The book is the most loved title on my reading list. I got the recommendation last year when I was in my Castoriadis era. First, it came as a surprise that the Greek (post)Marxist Cornelius Castoriadis who is most known for his work “The Imaginary Institution of Society” and the Marxist historian C.L.R James who is best known for his seminal work on the Haitian revolution “The Black Jacobins” have published a book together. On the other hand, it completely makes sense: Both writers were militant Trotskyists in the 1950s and 60s who challenged and expanded Marxism from different perspectives: James introduced the Haitian slaves as main protagonists on stage of the world revolution. Castoriadis insisted that “creativity” and “imagination” – terms that seem completely co-opted by neoliberalism today - are social categories central to any revolutionary project.
Just the fact that this book exists is an exciting reminder how Marxism is not a finished project but an open intellectual tradition which brings together different theoretical currents and perspectives united in, well, the aim to make the world a better place. The title and the subtitle are a dialectical unit that remind us of the aspiration that thinking can have: If we are interested in a new society, we have to face reality. By facing reality, we can find the traces that lead to a new society.
Just imagine someone proposing the idea to a publisher today: “Hey, the other day I met a comrade in Paris, we sat down in a café to have a flat white and we came up with this essay idea. It’s basically on the new society, where to look for it and how to bring it closer. What do you think?”