Meeting Peter Marcuse, Urban Theorist and Son of Herbert Marcuse

Peter Marcuse

At a conference on the legacy of 9/11 for New York convening tomorrow at a site near Ground Zero, I will be attending a lecture of the son of the famed Frankfurt School critical theorist Herbert Marcuse, Peter, who is a professor of Urban Design at Columbia University.  Whatever my qualms with his father regarding the politics of the New Left, I am of course thrilled to have the chance to meet him.  I have added his blog to my blogroll, as well.

3 thoughts on “Meeting Peter Marcuse, Urban Theorist and Son of Herbert Marcuse

  1. you will be proud to know that i am using a marxist framework for one of my debate cases!
    i have to argue that animal rights are necessary to uphold justice and according to David Sztybel: “There is no doubt that Marx and Engels rejected animal rights. However, they did embrace the communist principle, “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his need. ” Further- more, they acknowledged that nonhuman animals have needs. So the principle can enjoin us to respect animals’ needs, even if they lack cer- tain abilities (e.g., tool-making, perhaps even self-consciousness). I argue that it is essentially speciesist to restrict this principle to human beings, and that its acceptance implies either animal rights or a sub- stantive equivalent. Marxism may have to undergo a profound dialectical transformation in light of the implications of its own maxim.”

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