{"id":21,"date":"2018-08-08T19:16:44","date_gmt":"2018-08-08T23:16:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/?page_id=21"},"modified":"2019-03-11T10:38:26","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T14:38:26","slug":"8-13","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/8-13\/","title":{"rendered":"8\/13 | The Idea of Communism &#8211; January 23, 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fzUa0otOF3Q\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/h1>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">Aristides Baltas, philosopher and former <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Aristides_Baltas\">Minister of Culture of Greece<\/a>,\u00a0Eduardo Cadava, Department of English, <a href=\"https:\/\/english.princeton.edu\/people\/eduardo-cadava\">Princeton University<\/a>,\u00a0Rosalind Morris, anthropologist, <a href=\"https:\/\/cgt.columbia.edu\/about\/people\/committee-faculty\/rosalind-c-morris\/\">Columbia University<\/a>.\u00a0and Bernard E. Harcourt, CCCCT, <a href=\"https:\/\/cgt.columbia.edu\/about\/people\/committee-faculty\/bernard-e-harcourt\/\">Columbia University<\/a>,<\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">read and discuss<\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.versobooks.com\/books\/513-the-idea-of-communism\"><em>The Idea of Communism<\/em><\/a>, edited by\u00a0Slavoj \u017di\u017eek et al. (selections), Verso Books 2010-2016<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/8-13\/8-13-b-and-w\/#main\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-4655\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-4655\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/03\/8.13-b-and-w.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"468\" height=\"157\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/03\/8.13-b-and-w.png 548w, https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/03\/8.13-b-and-w-300x101.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The \u201cIdea of Communism\u201d: The place to start,\u00a0naturally, is to underscore the distinctly Platonic resonance of the expression itself and of our object of study. To discuss the \u201cIdea of Communism\u201d\u2014with a capital \u201cI\u201d\u2014is to explore communism\u2019s ideal form, its essence, unsullied by the faulty and illusory human experiences we have had with it. It is to leave behind the shadows, to emerge from our cavernous history, to resume the search for the truth and true ambition of communism. This is the platonic orientation of <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/lectures-on-nietzsche-alain-badiou-with-bruno-bosteels-on-december-1-2016\/\">Badiou<\/a> and his \u201ccommunist hypothesis\u201d\u2014namely, the effort to explore, beyond Marxist theory of the nineteenth century and Leninist and Maoist practices of the twentieth century, the guiding ideal or norm or \u201cregulative Ideal.\u201d It is what gave rise to the many interventions by political philosophers and critical thinkers, such as Slavoj Zizek, <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/etienne-balibar-communism-as-commitment-imagination-and-politics\/\">\u00c9tienne Balibar<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/lectures-on-nietzsche-alain-badiou-with-bruno-bosteels-on-december-1-2016\/\">Bruno Bosteels<\/a>, Peter Hallward, <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/rosalind-c-morris-unpopular-politics-the-collective-the-communist-and-the-popular-in-recent-thai-history\/\">Rosalind Morris<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/uprising1313\/claudia-pozzana-politics-and-philosophy-in-mao\/\">Claudia Pozzana<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/uprising1313\/alessandro-russo-mao-on-uprising-and-revolution\/\">Alessandro Russo<\/a>, and others collected in the multiple volumes, <em>The Idea of Communism\u00a0<\/em>(Verso). It is what motivates Aristides Baltas\u2019s reflections <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/aristides-baltas-the-names-of-communism\/\">in his introduction<\/a> to the edited volume, <em>The Names of Communism?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>But how does \u201cthe Idea of Communism,\u201d with its distinctly platonic edge, fit in a series on \u201cpraxis,\u201d such as Praxis 13\/13? The platonic method, perhaps more than most philosophical approaches, tends toward the pole of <em>theoria<\/em>: It is contemplation and <em>knowing\u00a0<\/em>thyself\u2014<em>gnothi seauton<\/em>\u2014that achieve the highest form of praxis. So is the method wedded to a platonic outcome, one that might tell us more about ideal republics than how to get there, or can it be plied to a more engaged and robust praxis?<\/p>\n<p>What work does it do, in effect, to focus on the \u201cIdea of Communism\u201d for an inquiry into praxis?<\/p>\n<p>This is the question we explore in Praxis 8\/13 and we welcome you to the discussion!<\/p>\n<p>[Read the full introduction <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/bernard-e-harcourt-introduction-to-the-idea-of-communism\/\">here.<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a9 Bernard E. Harcourt.]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/8-13\/side-shot-2\/#main\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-4526\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-4526\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/01\/side-shot-2-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"427\" height=\"320\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/01\/side-shot-2-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/01\/side-shot-2-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/01\/side-shot-2-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 427px) 100vw, 427px\" \/><\/a><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Aristides Baltas, philosopher and former Minister of Culture of Greece,\u00a0Eduardo Cadava, Department of English, Princeton University,\u00a0Rosalind Morris, anthropologist, Columbia University.\u00a0and Bernard E. Harcourt, CCCCT, Columbia University, read and discuss \u00a0The Idea of Communism, edited by\u00a0Slavoj \u017di\u017eek et al. (selections), Verso&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/8-13\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1603,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-21","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1603"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}