You know what “radicalized” me? Existing in a poorly regulated capitalist system.
Even regulated Capitalism is brutal, unsustainable, and dangerous.
It's almost like no matter how old or how advanced we get we need somebody to break up our fights and to make us share our toys so that our little siblings can play with them.
That's kind of weird but treating any sufficiently large group of humans like a child eventually becomes a necessity to prevent them from turning into an unregulated group of psychopaths.
That about sums it up, yeah. My beliefs aren't radical, but my thoughts on the means that should be taken to realize them are becoming more radical.
To be fair, wanting to entirely restructure society is radical in the sense that it's a fringe view, not that it's illogical. It is logical, just uncommon.
That said, it's pretty clear that people in the political mainstream see the system as a being perfectly sensible. They genuinely do believe that ideas such as redistribution of property are radical in the sense of being extreme.
All of y'all need to get into the original meaning of that word. Radical basically just means "take a problem by it's roots".
The interesting part is what type of society/politics makes that some kind of slur.
Materialism is thinking of things and their development on the grounds of history and causality, like a play of material and its organisational emergent forms (like ideas and their neurons). Whereas Idealism means imagining some kind of methaphysical structure or idea behind thins, like a god or ghost (Geist, Hegel, Kant...).
Utopia refers to an imagined, but possible world. When well done/thought, it is what you think and feel about how things could be. By definition this seems impossible regarding the currwnt state of affairs, and utopia will never come put as you imagined it. History is too complex for that. It is still necessary to be able to think utopia somewhat, otherwise one cannot hope and everything is eiter determined or irrelevant.
Socialism utopian and scientific for reference
I agree with your takeaway, although the "extreme" definition is right next to it and is perfectly valid too. It's indeed interesting how loaded the word is by default.
3
a: very different from the usual or traditional : extreme
b: favoring extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions, or institutions
c: associated with political views, practices, and policies of extreme change
d: advocating extreme measures to retain or restore a political state of affairs
the radical rightMaterialism is thinking of things and their development on the grounds of history and causality, like a play of material and its organisational emergent forms (like ideas and their neurons). Whereas Idealism means imagining some kind of methaphysical structure or idea behind thins, like a god or ghost (Geist, Hegel, Kant...).
Materialists are reactionaries who imagine that the social conditions of capitalism are immutable realities. Idealists recognise that our consensus reality is socially constructed and approach topics of liberation and equally from a mature mindset.
Take money, for example. A materialist believes that money is valuable because a copper coin and a paper bill has an intrinsic worth. While an idealist knows the fact that the coin is a representation of the social construct of money, and that our reality is controlled by the beliefs of those who value money. Materialists are the people saying we should go back to the gold standard. Idealists are the ones saying to abolish money.
No you got that mixed up. Materialism (sometimes called neo-materialism) is well compatible with the constructivist arguments you are referring to.
It just says the world of ideas develops dialectical with the world of things and acts.
Idealists imagine ideas to have their own realm of existence with a mystical source of power, indepentend from said dialectic.
I, for one, happen to think that basic human decency is pretty radical 😎
I figured that one out when I was, like, 8 years old.
That's not the best argument to use. There are a lot of plans that 8 year olds make, and most of them suck.
Radicalism is relative. The right could probably say something about Jesus in the same vein.
