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Radicalism Quotes

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Radicalism Quotes

“What we have witnessed in our own time is the death of universities as centres of critique. Since Margaret Thatcher, the role of academia has been to service the status quo, not challenge it in the name of justice, tradition, imagination, human welfare, the free play of the mind or alternative visions of the future. We will not change this simply by increasing state funding of the humanities as opposed to slashing it to nothing. We will change it by insisting that a critical reflection on human values and principles should be central to everything that goes on in universities, not just to the study of Rembrandt or Rimbaud.”

ImaginationJusticeTraditionUniversityAcademiaRadicalismHumanities2010RembrandtRadical PoliticsReactionary PoliticsArthur RimbaudMargaret ThatcherPublic UniversityTuition Fees Uk2010 Uk Student Protests
Author:Terry Eagleton
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“A more subtle misconception is that of a hypostasis of evil as indestructible reality, a kind of primal scene, a sort of substratum of accumulated death-drive. The radicality of evil is seen as that of a naturally inevitable force, associated always with violence, suffering and death. Hence Sloterdijk's hypothesis that 'the reality of reality is the eternal return of violence'. To which he opposes a 'pacifism that is in keeping with our most advanced theoretical intuitions, a deep-level pacifism, based on a radical analysis of the circularity of violence, deciphering the forces that determine its eternal return'. A radical analysis, then, to remedy the radical evil. But can a 'radical' analysis have a finality of whatever kind? Is it not itself part of the process of evil?”

EvilAnalysisRemedyVengeancePacifismRadicalismDeath DriveSloterdijk
Book:The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact
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“The matter on which I judge people is their willingness, or ability, to handle contradiction. Thus Paine was better than Burke when it came to the principle of the French revolution, but Burke did and said magnificent things when it came to Ireland, India and America. One of them was in some ways a revolutionary conservative and the other was a conservative revolutionary. It's important to try and contain multitudes. One of my influences was Dr Israel Shahak, a tremendously brave Israeli humanist who had no faith in collectivist change but took a Spinozist line on the importance of individuals. Gore Vidal's admirers, of whom I used to be one and to some extent remain one, hardly notice that his essential critique of America is based on Lindbergh and 'America First'—the most conservative position available. The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has—from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness.”

PoliticsUnited StatesInfluenceRevolutionIndiaHumanismIsraelContradictionIndividualismIrelandConservatismCollectivismFrench RevolutionPartisanshipRadicalismFree ThoughtThomas PaineSpinozismEdmund BurkeGore VidalAmerica First CommitteeCharles LindberghIsrael Shahak
Book:Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left
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“Over the years, quite a few sonnets never saw the light of day, because every time I write something radical, I always ask myself three questions - first, is it true - second, is it kind - and finally, is it necessary? And often it's at the final question, that I'm reluctantly compelled to press delete on quite a few texts. Yet I don't regret it, in fact, once I do delete that bit of my creation, I feel a huge load off my back - because, my mission is not mindless radicalism, my mission is mindful humanizing of the world. In the absence of heart, even truth becomes mindless - and the mindless never know they're mindless, they feel like it's an act of courage.”

TruthHumanismToleranceCrueltySufismPeace ActivistMindlessRadicalismSelf CorrectionHumanistic Psychology
Book:The God Sonnets: Naskar Art of Theology
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“Over the years, quite a few sonnets never saw the light of day, because every time I write something radical, I always ask myself three questions - first, is it true - second, is it kind - and finally, is it necessary? And often it's at the final question, that I'm reluctantly compelled to press delete on quite a few texts. Yet I don't regret it, in fact, once I do delete that bit of my creation, I feel a huge load off my back - because, my mission is not mindless radicalism, my mission is mindful humanizing of the world.”

TruthHumanismToleranceCrueltySufismPeace ActivistMindlessRadicalismSelf CorrectionTolerant
Book:The God Sonnets: Naskar Art of Theology
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“Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”

InspirationalHumanityFreedomCompassionInequalityKinshipRadicalismSubversion
Book:Debs: His Life, Writings and Speeches
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“It's almost hard to imagine anything more undemocratic than the view that political officials should not debate American wars in public, but only express concerns 'privately with the administration.' That's just a small sliver of Johnson's radicalism: replacing Feingold in the Senate with Ron Johnson would be a civil liberties travesty analogous to the economic travesty from, say, replacing Bernie Sanders with Lloyd Blankfein.”

WarPoliticsDemocracyEconomicsConservatismRight WingCivil LibertiesRadicalism2010Bernie SandersUnited States SenateUnited States Elections 2010Lloyd BlankfeinRon JohnsonRuss FeingoldUs Senate Wisconsin 2010
Author:Glenn Greenwald
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“If you let people shit all over your doorstep, you’re the one who looks like shit, not them. Go and shit on their doorstep. Or are you too liberal, prissy and up yourself for that? There’s nothing worse than dilettantes, posers and Ignavi. If you’ve got no fire in your belly, fuck off! Go and let someone shit on you. We’re not interested in coprophiliacs.”

ActionToleranceIntoleranceAutonomyRetaliationShitRadicalism
Book:The Mathmos
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“Darwin did not know what a bitter satire he wrote on mankind ... when he showed that free competition, the struggle for existence, which the economists celebrate as the highest historical achievement, is the normal state of the animal kingdom. Only conscious organization of social production, in which production and distribution are carried on in a planned way, can lift mankind above the rest of the animal.”

FreedomDemocracyRevolutionSocialismRadicalCommunismRadicalismFree ThoughtFree ThinkerEngelism
Author:Friedrich Engels
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“I find myself making excuses for this kind of bullying behavior. Not everyone has been to college, learned trans 101, studied queer theory... But this is unfair to myself and other trans people. I've come to realize that understanding me isn't a matter of being an intellectual. Likewise, one doesn't have to be a radical to respect my feelings. Decent people consider how their comments affect others.”

AcceptanceToleranceQueerTransgenderRadicalism
Author:Elliot Deline
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“Connell’s initial assessment of the reading was not disproven. It was culture as class performance, literature fetishised for its ability to take educated people on false emotional journeys, so that they might afterwards feel superior to the uneducated people whose emotional journeys they liked to read about. Even if the writer himself was a good person, and even if his book really was insightful, all books were ultimately marketed as status symbols, and all writers participated to some degree in this marketing. Presumably this was how the industry made money. Literature, in the way it appeared at these public readings, had no potential as a form of resistance to anything.”

ArtLiteratureCapitalismRadicalismClassismIntellectual Snobbery
Book:Normal People
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“Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression. We are being manufactured in droves in the ghetto streets, places like attica, san quentin, bedford hills, leavenworth, and sing sing. They are turning out thousands of us. Many jobless Black veterans and welfare mothers are joining our ranks. Brothers and sisters from all walks of life, who are tired of suffering passively, make up the BLA.”

RadicalismRacial InequalityBlack LiberationBlack Revolutionaries
Book:Assata: An Autobiography
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“In the past, when gays were very flamboyant as drag queens or as leather queens or whatever, that just amused people. And most of the people that come and watch the gay Halloween parade, where all those excesses are on display, those are straight families, and they think it's funny. But what people don't think is so funny is when two middle-aged lawyers who are married to each other move in next door to you and your wife and they have adopted a Korean girl and they want to send her to school with your children and they want to socialize with you and share a drink over the backyard fence. That creeps people out, especially Christians. So, I don't think gay marriage is a conservative issue. I think it's a radical issue.”

LoveReligionHatePoliticsMarriageGayActivismQueerRadicalismGlbtSame Sex Marriage
Author:Edmund White
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“Many [Tudor-era religious radicals] believed then, exactly as Christian fundamentalists do today, that they lived in the 'last days' before Armageddon and, again just as now, saw signs all around in the world that they took as certain proof that the Apocalypse was imminent. Again like fundamentalists today, they looked on the prospect of the violent destruction of mankind without turning a hair. The remarkable similarity between the first Tudor Puritans and the fanatics among today's Christian fundamentalists extends to their selective reading of the Bible, their emphasis on the Book of Revelation, their certainty of their rightness, even to their phraseology. Where the Book of Revelation is concerned, I share the view of Guy, that the early church fathers released something very dangerous on the world when, after much deliberation, they decided to include it in the Christian canon." [From the author's concluding Historical Note]”

ReligionDestructionCrueltyHolocaustFundamentalismApocalypseOrthodoxyManiaArmageddonRadicalismBook Of Revelation
Book:Revelation
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“Hvis du tar til orde for at Europa en gang skal bli fritt for muslimer, tar du samtidig til orde, i beste fall, for en tvangsdeportering av mer enn femti millioner mennesker vekk fra det europeiske kontinentet. I verste fall tar du til orde for voldshandlinger mot en religiøs gruppering som allerede er sterkt utsatt for fordommer og hets. Hvis målet ditt er at islam skal utryddes fra Europa, kan du ikke samtidig påstå at du er fredelig sjel som aldri har hatt som formål å skade noen. Du må skjønne at politikken du forfekter faktisk handler om mennesker. Og du må tåle å bli møtt med motargumenter. At noen motsier argumentene dine betyr ikke at du knebles. Det betyr at du deltar i debatten.”

IslamGenocideFree SpeechFreedom Of SpeechExtremismXenophobiaRadicalismIslamophobiaDeportation
Book:Ytringsfrihet: 10 essays
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“Land was to the nomads what a deity is to the initiated: one may draw on its might, but not lay claim to it. Amma herdsmen roamed the vast steppe at will in search of a green pasture and watering hole, with little regard for man-made boundaries. They questioned why a settled society should behave any differently, why one man should toil in the service of another merely because the stronger had staked out something that had never belonged to him in the first place.”

LandBordersOwnershipRadicalismFeudalismNomads
Book:The God Who Begat a Jackal: A Novel
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“Now I've been criticized for advocating that people push their boundaries because sometimes people get caught. Sometimes people get fired. Sometimes people lose their jobs because of pushing the boundaries too far, but it's an interesting experience. They found they didn't want to stay within those limitations that they were pushing. Once people find they can survive outside the limits, they're much happier. They don't want to feel trapped. So I think we can urge people to push the boundaries as far as they can, and if they get in trouble, fine; that's not too bad if that's what they want to do.”

DemocracyProgressBoundariesPushingForwardRadicalismChallenging
Book:We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change
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“You see, it doesn't matter if they're wrong. From 9/11 to recent shootings here in the United States, there's nothing more dangerous than a true believer on his own crazy mission.”

BeliefDangerTerrorMissionsTerrorismWarfareFundamentalismConspiracy TheoryConspiracy TheoriesRadicalismTerroristsConspiraciesZealotryRadicalsFundamentalistsDangerous MindsZealotsTrue BelieversConspiracistsTrue Belief
Book:History Decoded: The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time
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“Most Romans believed that their system of government was the finest political invention of the human mind. Change was inconceivable. Indeed, the constitution's various parts were so mutually interdependent that reform within the rules was next to impossible. As a result, radicals found that they had little choice other than to set themselves beyond and against the law. This inflexibility had disastrous consequences as it became increasingly clear that the Roman state was incapable of responding adequately to the challenges it faced. Political debate became polarized into bitter conflicts, with radical outsiders trying to press change on conservative insiders who, in the teeth of all the evidence, believed that all was for the best under the best of all possible constitutions (16).”

PoliticsChangeConstitutionInstitutionsProtestRebellionExtremismAdvocacyRadicalismDemocratizationChangee
Book:Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician
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“Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

PowerRightsActivismDissentAgitationRadicalismLiberties
Author:Frederick Douglass
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“What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.”

PoliticsPowerRightsSlaveryHuman RightsActivismDissentAbolitionSuffrageAgitationRadicalismLiberties
Author:Frederick Douglass
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“A study of the San Francisco Beat enclave by psychiatrist Dr. Francis Rigney in the late 1950's showed 60 percent "were so psychotic or crippled by tensions, anxiety and neurosis as to be nonfunctional in the competitive world." In contrast, the several studies released so far made of the student radicals at Berkeley show them to be stable, serious, and of above-average intelligence. The point is that the Beats had to "cop out" of the Rat Race because they couldn't perform; the New Left chooses to reject a society it could easily be successful in.”

BeatsActivismLiberalismFree SpeechRadicalismUc BerkeleyFree Speech MovementFsm
Author:Jack Newfield
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“It's the artist's duty to have an artist's life, somehow to obtain time and freedom and then to muster the desire and discipline to make good work out of the life, whether that goodness is in the world's aesthetics, its radicalism, its candor, its singularity, or its universality.”

WorldDesireArtistResponsibilityDutyDisciplineGoodnessWork OutGood WorkAestheticsSingularityCandorMusterUniversalityRadicalism
Book:Epicurean Simplicity
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“The realization that American power could and should be used for the defense of pluralism and as a punishment for fascism came to me in Sarajevo a year or two later... That was an early quarrel between me and many of my Nation colleagues, and it was also the first time I found myself in the same trench as people like Paul Wolfowitz and Jeane Kirkpatrick: a shock I had to learn to get over. The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness.”

PeopleThinkingShouldYearsFirstsTwoRealUsedFoundNationsPartyFirst TimeDefensePunishmentRealizationOur TimeShockRejectsFascismColleaguesGet OverQuarrelsTrenchesPluralismRadicalismAmerican Power
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“I was born into a working class Irish Catholic family at the brutal bottom of the Great Depression. I suppose this early imprinting and conditioning made me a life-long radical. My education was mostly scientific, majoring in electrical engineering and applied math. Those imprints made me a life-long rationalist. I have become increasingly skeptical about, or detached from, the assumption that radicalism and rationalism are the only correct perspectives with which to view life, but they remain my favorite perspectives.”

LongMadeBornViewsClassPerspectiveCatholicBottomMy FavoriteMathRadicalAssumptionEngineeringBrutalWorking ClassLong LifeSkepticalConditioningDetachedElectricalGreat DepressionRationalismRadicalismCatholic FamilyImprintingElectrical Engineering
Author:Robert Anton Wilson
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“Aestheticism and radicalism must lead us to jettison reason, and to replace it by a desperate hope for political miracles. This irrational attitude which springs from intoxication with dreams of a beautiful world is what I call Romanticism. It may seek its heavenly city in the past or in the future; it may preach 'back to nature' or 'forward to a world of love and beauty'; but its appeal is always to our emotions rather than to reason. Even with the best intentions of making heaven on earth it only succeeds in making it a hell - that hell which man alone prepares for his fellow-men.”

MenWorldMayReasonDreamEarthPastBeautifulPoliticalHeavenEmotionCitiesAttitudeHellSucceedSpringMiracleFellowsIntentionAppealsDesperateHeavenlyIrrationalFellow ManRomanticismIntoxicationHeaven On EarthRadicalismBeautiful WorldBest Intentions
Book:The Open Society and Its Enemies
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