This open letter, signed among others by Virginie Despentes, Adèle Haenel, Annie Ernaux, Jean-François Bayart and Alexis Jenni, deplores the fact that the link between Western military interventions and terrorist attacks is never questioned.
In conversation with Juan Dal Maso, Razmig Keucheyan discusses twenty-first century critical theory, the need for strategic thinking, and the Marxist perspective on the environmental crisis.
Keucheyan discusses environmental inequality, the past and present of the workers' movement, populism, and the relationship between strategy and theory.
There is a famous line in Lenin saying that "without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement." That is a very profound phrase. Theory serves for two things: to join together struggles that are apparently unrelated, and also as a compass in periods of crisis. It is what tells you whether in this precise moment you should be smashing up banks or standing in elections.
Sociologist Razmig Keucheyan, a professor at the Université Paris IV (Sorbonne), reflects on the fallout of the French presidential election. First published in Spanish at Nueva Sociedad, and then revised in French after the first round results for Contretemps. Translated from the French by David Broder.