Spectres of Revolt: On the Intellect of Insurrection and Philosophy from Below

by Richard Gilman-Opalsky

In 1848, Karl Marx declared that a communist specter was haunting Europe. In 1994, Jacques Derrida considered how the specter of Marx would haunt the post-Cold War world. In Specters of Revolt Gilman-Opalsky argues that the world is haunted by revolt, by the possibility of events that interrupt and disrupt the world, that throw its reality and justice into question. But recent revolt is neither decisively communist nor decisively Marxist. Gilman-Opalsky develops a theory of revolt that accounts for its diverse critical content about autonomy, everyday life, anxiety, experience, knowledge, and possibility. The 1994 uprising of the Mexican Zapatistas set the stage for new forms of revolt against a newly expanded power of capital. In the 20 years since, on up through the recent phase of global uprisings that began in 2008 with the Greek revolts, insurrection has spoken in the ''Arab Spring, '' in Spain, Turkey, Brazil, and in the U.S. in Occupy Wall Street, Ferguson, and Baltimore, among other places. In light of recent global uprisings, Gilman-Opalsky aims to move beyond the critical theory of revolt to an understanding of revolt as theory itself. Making use of diverse sources from Raoul Vaneigem and Felix Guattari to Julia Kristeva and Raya Dunayevskaya, Specters of Revolt explores upheaval as thinking, the intellect of insurrection, and philosophy from below

Genres: Politics, Philosophy

370 pages, Paperback

Published July 28, 2017

About the author

Richard Gilman-Opalsky is Associate Professor of Political Philosophy in the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Springfield. His work primarily concerns theories of revolution, contentious politics, philosophy of praxis, and capitalism and its culture.

Reviews

[Matthew Lowery · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really phenomenal book which does an admirable job of drawing out what is so important about the revolt. Gilman-Opalsky's thesis is not just that the revolt can and must be understood theoretically and philosophically, but that the revolt - each in its complex singularity - expresses a reasonable and rational philosophical and theoretical content. This, I take it, is really the core thesis, though with Gilman-Opalsky's wonderful prose, I never minded the various twists, turns, and - occasionally - indulgences the book takes in order to get there. But he really does a great job of not only emphasising the importance of the revolt, and that it really does express something very important, but provides a crucial reflection on the role of the intellectual in relation to the real movement, arguing that at this juncture more than any other, 'intellectuals' need to be learning from the autonomous social movements, not lecturing them and prescribing their praxis in advance. Gilman-Opalsky seems to operate within the Autonomist-Marxist tradition, and is clearly influenced primarily by Marx, Raya Dunayevskaya, Felix Guattari, Gilles Deleuze, and the work of Situationists Guy Debord and Raoul Vaneigem. His broadsides against Anarchists are unfortunate, not least because a more measured and sympathetic engagement with Anarchist thinkers and activists might have shed further light on the link between theorists and autonomus social movements.

Nevertheless, a superb book which is likely to change the way you think about the world.

[M. Leibowitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent introduction to insurrectionary theory. Gilman-Opalsky does an excellent job breaking down postmodernism, its importance to recent development leftist and anarchist currents, and the joys and communicative ecstasy of insurrection. Sure, he desperately needs to take his own advice and tone down the ideological bent (i.e. you can draw from Marx without being a Marxist, just as Gilman-Opalsky feels free to cite Jacques Camatte as Marxist without reconciling Camatte's importance to anti-civ theory and his later repudiation of Marxism) but if you can get past the constant digs at so-called anarchists, it's an otherwise perfect overview.

[Tanat · Rating 4 out of 5]

**** | “The insurrectionary energies of everyday people, when they fracture the repressive conditions of everyday life, are not meant to be clearly grasped, but rather, to be dangerously beyond anyone’s grasp. This is indeed precisely what makes a world so haunted by specters of revolt so frightening to the administrations of social control (i.e. law enforcement, political power): Revolt is only revolt when it is out of their control.” (p. 174)