Tonight, the University of Southern Maine’s Philosophy Symposium, the student philosophy organization, will be hosting a screening of the 2011 German documentary film Marx Reloaded at SPACE followed by a Q&A with USM philosophy professor Jason Read.
Marx Reloaded re-examines the impact of the 19th century socialist philosopher in relation to the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. For many politicians and economists, the crisis was an unfortunate but necessary side effect of free market economics. Now within the past year, the Occupy Movement and other forms of resistance against the presumed standard of the global political market have gained relevance, and filmmaker Jason Barker poses the question: Can we do better?
By assembling a group of top contemporary philosophers from around the globe, Marx Reloaded establishes a simple premise — take the blue pill and continue the world as we know it, or take the red pill and embrace the growing Marxist revival. The film’s red pill advocates, like literary theorists and Empire co-authors Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, believe that the growing communist revival will solve the plight of the crisis-ridden economy and change the very philosophy behind our property and profit dominated lives.
Blue pill advocates, like Adam Smith Institute co-founder and director Eamonn Butler, stridently stand behind the free market economy and believe that extensive government involvement in financial institutions provided banks with the knowledge that, despite the outcome of their loan practices, taxpayers would bail them out.
“Marxism in general feels sort of antiquated to some people,” said Katherine Hulit, the vice president of the symposium. “There is a lot of dialogue that people of our generation might not specifically identify with, but capitalism and means of production are still things that affect us personally on a day-to-day level.”
The Monday screening of Marx Reloaded is part of an ongoing film series at SPACE presented by the Symposium. Previous screenings have included The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema and last semester’s featured screening of An Encounter with Simone Weil. The film starts at 7:30 p.m. and is $7 for general admission and $5 for members. Admission is free for USM students, staff and faculty.
“We pick movies that aren’t just really dense philosophical movies that you’d have to be a philosophy student to understand, but movies that bridge the gap between philosophical academia and the community as a whole,” Hulit said. “This is our way, and the department’s way, of reaching out to the community.”
For more information on upcoming events from the symposium, including additional film screenings and guest lecturers, check out the philosophy department on Facebook or follow them on Twitter @USMPhilosophy.