“Emancipatory politics must always destroy the appearance of a ‘natural order’, must reveal what is presented as necessary and inevitable to be a mere contingency, just as it must make what was previously deemed to be impossible seem attainable.” Mark Fisher (2009) WSS would like to invite you all to our first public event of…
“The common-sense notion that ‘There is a time and place for everything’ gets carried into a set of prescriptions which replicate the social order by assigning social meanings to spaces and times.” -David Harvey, The Condition of Post Modernity For our first public lecture of 2022 we welcome Quentin Findlay to present on the rise…
“However specious in theory the project might be of giving education to the labouring classes of the poor, it would, in effect, be found to be prejudicial to their morals and happiness; it would teach them to despise their lot in life, instead of making them good servants in agriculture and other laborious employments to…
After considerable interest from Society members who met up last week, we have decided to complete our winter film series, shortened though it was by covid-19 circumstances, as originally planned with a short notice screening of Ken Loach’s 1969 film Kes. Based on the novel Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines, Kes follows the…
“We are living in a epoch where there is combat between commercialism, or the system of reckless waste, and communism, or the system of neighbourly common sense.” -William Morris, 1895. “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” -William Morris For our first event outside…
“Wherever capitalism appears, in pursuit of its mission of exploitation, there will Socialism, fertilized by misery, watered by tears, and vitalized by agitation be also found, unfurling its class-struggle banner and proclaiming its mission of emancipation.” -Eugene V. Debs, The American Movement, 1898. ——————————————————- Politics in the United States today can be difficult to untangle….
Otesánek | Little Otik by Jan Švankmajer (2000) The Canterbury Socialist Society warmly invites any and all to the first in its four-part winter film series in which Sionainn Byrnes introduces the Czech film Otesánek by Jan Švankmajer. Based on the eponymous fairy tale by Karel Jaromír Erben, Otesánek depicts an infertile couple who, having…
“In a political struggle of class against class, organisation is the most important weapon.” -Engels ——————————————— For our third annual “State of the Unions” event Canterbury Socialist Society are grateful to host a panel of speakers on the topic of the Employment Contracts Act (1991) and its legacy. The act marked an enormous transformation of…
A joint event with the Maritime Union of New Zealand, the Rail and Maritime Union of New Zealand, and the Canterbury Socialist Society to commemorate 70 years since one of New Zealand’s most bitter industrial disputes. Due to Covid Level-2 restrictions the event was not advertised entirely publicly and was primarily attended by members of…
“This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils,…