Lewis d'Avigdor | Wheaton College, MA (original) (raw)
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Papers by Lewis d'Avigdor
Sydney University Beauchamp Historical Prize, 2010
If Marxism is the opiate of intellectuals, then the sixties was a time of both intoxication and w... more If Marxism is the opiate of intellectuals, then the sixties was a time of both intoxication and withdrawal. The New Left sought to redefine the very essence of what constituted “the political” by challenging the rationality of the authoritarian right and also the verities of the Marxist, proletarian orientated Left. This dynamic and heterogeneous New Left, which was partly constituted by and related to the counter-culture, the anti-war and civil rights movements, sought to reorientate society and themselves, which involved new ways of thinking about society, politics, protest and perhaps most important of all, of being. Students who took part in the “Great Refusal”, viewed their lifeworld as dominated by instrumental rationality and systemic injustice, although, despite their rejection of materialist values, the class-based concerns of the Old Left still lingered. Whilst the Vietnam War which epitomised all that was wrong with society was a major politicising catalyst, the New Left ...
New Matilda, 2013
The Government is intending to review the legal protections currently offered to environmental gr... more The Government is intending to review the legal protections currently offered to environmental groups who engage in secondary boycotts.
On Friday 28 January 1972, 350 white, predominantly student activists, and 50 Aboriginal activist... more On Friday 28 January 1972, 350 white, predominantly student activists, and 50 Aboriginal activists gathered at the Action Conference on Racism and Education, which would run for five days at the University of Queensland. On the opening night, Aboriginal activists seized control over the Conference proceedings. This chapter takes the assertion of black control as its central concern, revealing the ways in which Black Power activists confronted racism and paternalism, not only from the state and society writ large, but more insidiously, from their white allies on the New Left. Black Power activists posed a challenge to the white New Left and revealed the limits of their radicalism. The Conference provides a window through which to explore the tensions that arose as Aboriginal activists sought to build a broader movement while insisting on Aboriginal control. Aside from the issue of Black leadership, debates at the Conference also engaged the Marxian privileging of class over race as the analytical category through which to understand ongoing Aboriginal dispossession, as well as the role that Women’s Liberation could play in the Black Power movement. This chapter provides an account of the emergence of the Aboriginal Black Power movement, which is framed as a self-conscious attempt to decolonise the settler-state. It seeks to recover the political structure of this moment as well as the possibilities and limits of black and white solidarity.
Participatory democracy was one of the core tenets of the New Left student movements that emerged... more Participatory democracy was one of the core tenets of the New Left student movements that emerged in Australia in the 1960s. However, scant attention has been given to the idea within the literature on the New Left. This article examines an experiment in participatory democracy that took place in the Department of Philosophy at Sydney University in the 1970s. Following a series of strikes, the Philosophy department was split in two, with one half, the Department of General Philosophy, operating under a democratic constitution for six years from 1973 to 1979. This case study reveals a great deal about the intellectual history of the student New Left and the centrality of participatory democracy within it.
Sydney University Beauchamp Historical Prize, 2010
If Marxism is the opiate of intellectuals, then the sixties was a time of both intoxication and w... more If Marxism is the opiate of intellectuals, then the sixties was a time of both intoxication and withdrawal. The New Left sought to redefine the very essence of what constituted “the political” by challenging the rationality of the authoritarian right and also the verities of the Marxist, proletarian orientated Left. This dynamic and heterogeneous New Left, which was partly constituted by and related to the counter-culture, the anti-war and civil rights movements, sought to reorientate society and themselves, which involved new ways of thinking about society, politics, protest and perhaps most important of all, of being. Students who took part in the “Great Refusal”, viewed their lifeworld as dominated by instrumental rationality and systemic injustice, although, despite their rejection of materialist values, the class-based concerns of the Old Left still lingered. Whilst the Vietnam War which epitomised all that was wrong with society was a major politicising catalyst, the New Left ...
New Matilda, 2013
The Government is intending to review the legal protections currently offered to environmental gr... more The Government is intending to review the legal protections currently offered to environmental groups who engage in secondary boycotts.
On Friday 28 January 1972, 350 white, predominantly student activists, and 50 Aboriginal activist... more On Friday 28 January 1972, 350 white, predominantly student activists, and 50 Aboriginal activists gathered at the Action Conference on Racism and Education, which would run for five days at the University of Queensland. On the opening night, Aboriginal activists seized control over the Conference proceedings. This chapter takes the assertion of black control as its central concern, revealing the ways in which Black Power activists confronted racism and paternalism, not only from the state and society writ large, but more insidiously, from their white allies on the New Left. Black Power activists posed a challenge to the white New Left and revealed the limits of their radicalism. The Conference provides a window through which to explore the tensions that arose as Aboriginal activists sought to build a broader movement while insisting on Aboriginal control. Aside from the issue of Black leadership, debates at the Conference also engaged the Marxian privileging of class over race as the analytical category through which to understand ongoing Aboriginal dispossession, as well as the role that Women’s Liberation could play in the Black Power movement. This chapter provides an account of the emergence of the Aboriginal Black Power movement, which is framed as a self-conscious attempt to decolonise the settler-state. It seeks to recover the political structure of this moment as well as the possibilities and limits of black and white solidarity.
Participatory democracy was one of the core tenets of the New Left student movements that emerged... more Participatory democracy was one of the core tenets of the New Left student movements that emerged in Australia in the 1960s. However, scant attention has been given to the idea within the literature on the New Left. This article examines an experiment in participatory democracy that took place in the Department of Philosophy at Sydney University in the 1970s. Following a series of strikes, the Philosophy department was split in two, with one half, the Department of General Philosophy, operating under a democratic constitution for six years from 1973 to 1979. This case study reveals a great deal about the intellectual history of the student New Left and the centrality of participatory democracy within it.