16 January 2014

A Defense of Radicalism

I want to submit a not-so radical idea... that we re-


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April 2019

I taught a course one time called "Theories of Revolution".  I started this post several years later, but made this case to them.

John Hickenlooper is running for president.  He eschews the term radical moderate (i think more because he doesn't want to be called a moderate, more than he doesn't want to be called a moderate), but i kind of wish he wouldn't.  I'm not likely going to vote for him in the primaries, but i would be more inclined to support a radical moderate than an establishment progressive. 

In addition to liberal and conservative wings, there was a time when parties also had radical wings and incremental or establishment wings.  A radical approaches solutions and isn't interested in which process gets them there.  The establishment loves the process, the wheel, the way that it is.  They work to turn it this way or that - to the left or to the right, but ultimately it wants things to stay as they are.
Source: comicsverse.com

I've started watching the first season of Cloak & Dagger - the timeline has been updated i'm suddenly behind without it.  It's an origin story - Ty's are in Vodou; Tandy's are in the Mad Scientist.  The structure is of a teen drama, full of life lessons.  While they often feel like cliched nuggets, there is some deeper philosophies at work in them.  A complicated theory of self - that you are not your self, not anymore, anyway. 

It's a radical notion.  We all hold our sense of self seriously - our hopes and fears (what's the difference, right?) are our own - or so we believe.  In reality (ha!), we are a reaction to our surroundings.
"There is nothing in all the worlds that will destroy us like we will."

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