In Search of a New Left, Then and Now

Abstract

When Ron Scapp and Brian Seitz asked me to participate in this collective adventure, the journal Platypus had just published a rather long biographical interview with me. This format permitted me to bring together personal experience with theoretical reflection. Doug LaRocca, whom I’d never met, had “discovered” my Specter of Democracy; we then talked, on tape, and he did a first edit of my rambling reflections. I then reworked the material, trying to stay within the informal but comprehensive structure of our conversation(which can be found at http://platypus1917.org/2012/10/01/petrified-relations-must­be-forced-to-dance-interview-with-dick-howard/). Unfortunately, questions of copyright prevented its republication in this volume. In its place, I agreed to return briefly to put some of the themes invoked in that interview. I’ve introduced subtitles in the text in order to recall the liveliness of the question-and-answer format of the dialogue.