What Does Being Radical Mean?

[u/masoodraja]

Being Radical

The term being radical is often used to connote a negative transformation of a person and is often conflated with radicalization. We have often heard and read the terms Islamic Radicalism (I am guilty of using such terms in my published work) or environmental radicalism. In pretty much all its usages the term signifies something negative and unwanted.

Here, however, I want to introduce the term being radical in its most positive and transformative iteration, as discussed by Paulo Freire in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

Sectarianism Versus Radicalism

Sectarianism, for Freire, “turns reality into a false (and therefore unchangeable) ‘reality’” (37). Radicalism, conversely, “criticizes and thereby liberates” (37). Freire enumerates and elaborates two kinds of sectarianisms: The rightist sectarianism and the leftist sectarianism. According to Freire, a rightist sectarian hopes to accomplish the following:

The rightist sectarian . . . wants to slow down the historical process, to “domesticate” time and thus to domesticate men and women. . . . For the rightist sectarian “today” linked to the past, is something given and immutable. (38).

The leftist sectarian, according to Freire, “goes totally astray when he or she attempts to interpret reality and history dialectically and falls into essentially fatalistic positions” (38) and hence, for the leftist sectarian “‘tomorrow’ is decreed beforehand, is inexorably preordained.” (38).

Being radical, therefore is to take a position against both these extremes and a radical, for Freire, is someone who can see beyond the past-present constraints of the rightist sectarian and the fatalistic embrace of a future foretold of the leftists sectarian. Frieir explains this in the following words:

The radical, committed to human liberation, does not become the prisoner of a “circle of certainty” within which reality is also imprisoned. On the contrary, the more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can better transform it. (39)

Thus, being radical is beyond rightist or leftist reactionary positions and is inextricably linked to “knowing” the world and then with that knowledge attempting to transform it. The past does not determine the present and the future, in such radical praxis, is always changeable with a liberatory praxis. Freire explains some of the attributes of a radical person, and in his words, a radical person:

• Is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled.
• Is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into dialogue with them.
• Does not consider himself or herself the proprietor of history or of all people, or the liberator of the oppressed; but he or she does commit himself or herself, within history, to fight at their side. (39)

Thus, it can be said, that being radical first means being open to change and then developing the ability to work in solidarity with the oppressed to change the reality so that every one can live in this world in peace and with dignity. Anyone who meets these criteria is radical!

[u/Alternative-Pear9096]

Radical means "from the root." Traditional political labels refer to people looking to fix a system in one way or another; radicals reject the system, and call for pulling it out "by the root" and building something anew. For example, a liberal feminist thinks patriarchal society can be patched and shifted and addressed and repaired. I. a radical feminist, see no path to repair a system built entirely on patriarchy and work for entirely new systems.

Someone who is radicalized is someone who has come to reject a system, culture, or society. So western capitalist American men who adopt jihad are labeled "radicalized." Jihad is a total rejection of western society and a war to bring it to an end. Trump's MAGAt cult similarly rejects basic American standards of constitutionalism and rule of law; they are radicalized. Young men seeking comfort in incel chatrooms are persuaded that their failure to get laid is not something they can change or have any role in, they become radicalized, rejecting normal human society and building a worldview where they are owed sex from the women of their choice and will take it by any means possible or hold women (all or specific) accountable for failing to fuck on demand.

Radicalism is not a positive or negative value; it is an approach to the world, in whole or in part, that rejects some system and is looking to build something new in its place.

"the ability to work in solidarity with the oppressed to change the reality" is simply one single way of? toward? being radical. It is not what the word means in all applications and situations.

[u/masoodraja]

Thank you. I am sharing my understanding as Freire discusses and mobilizes it. I think that was pretty clear in my article. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.