The Conformist Rebellion

Marxist Critiques of the Contemporary Left

Elena Louisa Lange, Joshua Pickett-Depaolis

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
• Year: 2022
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9798881850722
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Political Philosophy

With the rise of myriad forms of identity politics which corresponds to a new "Trinity Formula" of leftist analysis of capitalism (class, race, and gender), major currents in the contemporary radical left in the past decades have shifted their aim. This book addresses the ideological, theoretical, and practical dilemmas of the contemporary academic and activist left from a Marxist standpoint.

Covering contemporary developments in Left thought and ideology and putting them into social and historical context, the chapters provide a theoretical confrontation with the myriad ways it has tended to accommodate itself to neoliberal ideology, rather than fundamentally opposing it.

The contrast between the Marxian emancipatory project and what the progressive left has made of it has never been more glaring than now, a time in which capital no longer seems to confront a political barrier. It is this predicament that The Conformist Rebellion evaluates, for a renewed approach to emancipation from capital.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Illustrations
• Introduction
• Part I: From Class to Community—Race, Gender, and Cross-Class Struggles
• Chapter 1: Antidiscrimination and the End of Marxism: The Roots of Contemporary Politics in Cold War Theory and Culture
• Chapter 2: The Dubious Wonder of Identity
• Chapter 3: The Meaning of “Gender” in Current Debates of the Left: A Discussion between Elena Louisa Lange, Joshua Pickett-Depaolis, and Jane Clare Jones
• Chapter 4: Mourning and Melancholia: The Millennial Left between New Left and Old Left
• Chapter 5: The Poverty of Immediacy: A Critique of the Communization Current
• Part II: The Culture of the Conformist Rebellion—Culture Wars, Identity Politics, and Art
• Chapter 6: Popular Sovereignty, Left Liberalism, and the Brexit Culture Wars
• Chapter 7: Dictatorship Contra Critique
• Chapter 8: Cultural Representation: The Backlash against Woke Aesthetics as Anti-politics
• Chapter 9: On What Art Is Not: Or Art as a Left-Wing Hobby
• Part III: Eclipse of Emancipation—Confronting Streams in the Academic and Activist Left Today
• Chapter 10: Racial Capitalism and Social Form
• Chapter 11: Is Postcolonial Theory’s Ethical Turn a Political Dead End?
• Chapter 12: Growth and the Appropriation of Nature: Left-Wing Misanthropy, the Rise of Authoritarianism, and the Pro-Capitalist Character of Environmental Discourse
• Chapter 13: Outside(r) Fetishisms: Pathologies of Displaced Critique
• Bibliography
• Index
• Author Biographies