Dialectics of Liberation Congress

The congress on the Dialectics of Liberation was an international congress organised in London between 15 and 30 July 1967. It was organised by the American educationalist Joe Berke. The scope of the conference was to "demystify human violence in all its forms, and the social systems from which it emanates, and to explore new forms of action". A short film, Ah, Sunflower, directed by Robert Klinkert and Iain Sinclair, and featuring R. D. Laing, Allen Ginsberg, Stokely Carmichael and others, was filmed around the Dialectics of Liberation conference.

History

In 1965 R. D. Laing, and colleagues, came together as a community for themselves and people in a state of psychosis. As a result, Kingsley Hall became home to the Philadelphia Association and one of the most radical experiments in psychiatry.

In January 1967, International Times announced that "This summer, in July, the Institute of Phenomenological Studies will make the move. A congress will convene in London on the Dialectics of Liberation. The congress intends to examine and expose the system of societal and inter-personal influences that converge on us from birth. This means clearing the field of all preconceptions regarding who, what and where we are, as well as all manner of socially convenient academic conventions that are propped up by politics, ideology and false philosophical justifications. For we are taught, and coerced, to see things through a filter of politically arrived at and socially sanctioned lies. The entire world as we "know" it must be demystified."

The organizing group consisted of four psychiatrists who were very much concerned with radical innovation in their own field - to the extent of counter-labelling their discipline as anti-psychiatry. The four were Dr. R. D. Laing, Dr. David Cooper, Dr. Joseph Berke and Dr. Leon Redler.

The conference

As summarised by historian Alexander Dunst,

the intellectual luminaries at the Congress included Gregory Bateson, Herbert Marcuse and Stokely Carmichael. Allen Ginsberg gave a lecture, read poetry, and led chants. Ginsberg quoted Burroughs at length, who preferred to sit in the audience during the day, and then get high with Laing in the evenings. CLR James spoke, as did a number of Black British and Caribbean writers: the poets Andrew Salkey and John LaRose, as well as the Cuban novelist Edmundo Desnoes, author of Memories of Underdevelopment. The activist and Buddhist monk Thich Nat Han reported from Vietnam and the Marxist philosopher Gajo Petrovic analyzed the political situation in Yugoslavia. Emmett Grogan, who co-founded a San Francisco community action group called The Diggers, gave a lecture as did Julian Beck, from the Living Theatre in New York.

2012 reenactment

An event was staged in February 2012 at Kingsley Hall which used actors to speak the words of the original contributors to the 1967 event.

External links

• The Congress on the Dialectics of Liberation (for the Demystification of Violence), Roundhouse, 15-30 July 1967
• Dialectics 1967 Dialektikon 2012 - International Times, 4 May, 2012