Join us in the Hudson Valley in August for a week-long program on Democracy, Ecology & Social Movements, also featuring an advanced track on the politics and philosophy of social ecology.
Interview with a young revolutionary from Kobane, also a careful student of Ocalan’s thinking. He offers a brief account of his experiences as well as reflections on the Rojava Revolution, social ecology, and Turkey’s recent betrayal of the Kurdish Movement: "Unless the Middle East overcomes the nation-state, it can never be a peaceful region."
A recent article in the journal Antipode situates Murray Bookchin's theory of dialectical naturalism within the broader dialectical tradition, and contrasts his approach with Herbert Marcuse's technological pessimism.
• Based in north-central Vermont, the Institute for Social Ecology has offered experiential radical education and support for grassroots organizing and community-building for more than 40 years.
• Social Ecology advocates a reconstructive and transformative outlook on social and environmental issues, and promotes a directly democratic, confederal politics. Social Ecology envisions a moral economy that moves beyond scarcity and hierarchy, toward a world that reharmonizes human communities with the natural world, while celebrating diversity, creativity and freedom.
Institute for Social Ecology Annual Summer Gathering
August 19, 2016, 1:00pm - August 21, 2016, 3:00pm
Marshfield, VT, United States
The ISE cordially invites you to attend our annual Summer Gathering for a weekend of engaging political discussion, great food, and a chance to socialize with fellow social ecologists in the beautiful Vermont countryside.
Events of the past year have triggered an exciting surge of public interest in Social Ecology. The transformation within the Kurdish liberation movement, the legacy of Occupy, the Sanders campaign, debates prompted by Black Lives Matter on the relationship between race and class, the inability of Syriza and other left parties to reign in neoliberalism; all these have all underscored the urgent need for Social Ecology’s holistic critique and reconstructive political vision.
While grassroots movements like Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter have energized millions, they have faced difficulties moving from protest to social transformation. This has in turn allowed radical energy to be channeled into traditional electoral politics in the name of pragmatism. Yet despite inspiring calls for “political revolution” and “democratic socialism,” history has repeatedly shown the structural limits faced confronted by parties and electoral politics, resulting in a long line of disappointments from various social democratic parties, the German Greens, to the Obama presidency.
This year’s gathering will address the relationship between the state, socialism, and social change, addressing questions including: how does Social Ecology point us beyond the pendulum of street protest and state power? How should radicals relate to state power and electoral campaigns generally? How do we assess the limits of electoral politics versus the limits of prefigurative politics? Why do many reject engagement with the state on principle yet embrace economic alternatives which remain embedded in capitalist power? How can we ensure our critique of the state does not unwittingly legitimize the neoliberal project of dismantling the welfare state? Why has no coherent socialist alternative to neoliberal capitalism emerged? What might this look like, and how should we get there?
We hope you’ll join us for a stimulating weekend exploring these themes and more, while also taking time to relax, hike, dance, play pool, soak in the wood-fired hot tub, or swim in the solar pool. The gathering is a unique opportunity to renew the Social Ecology community in person, renew old friendships and make new ones, connecting with like-minded people from around the world.
Institute for Social Ecology Annual Summer Gathering August 19-21, 2016 – Marshfield, Vermont
The ISE cordially invites you to attend our annual Summer Gathering for a weekend of engaging political discussion, great food, and a chance to socialize with fellow social ecologists in the beautiful Vermont countryside. This year's theme is Social Ecology, Socialism, and the State.
A complete French translation of Murray Bookchin’s classic Post-Scarcity Anarchism is finally available thanks to Vincent Gerber and Écosociété press - Bravo et merci! ... See MoreSee Less
A complete French translation of Murray Bookchin’s classic Post-Scarcity Anarchism is finally available thanks to Vincent Gerber and Écosociété press. Bravo et merci!