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Radical Philosophy Review

(papers from the 2018 last conference)

Volume 23, Issue 1, 2020
Strategies of Resistance

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1. Radical Philosophy Review: Volume > 23 > Issue: 1
George Fourlas, José Jorge Mendoza, Cory Wimberly Guest Editors’ Introduction
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articles
2. Radical Philosophy Review: Volume > 23 > Issue: 1
Esther Isaac “Pure Means” and the Possibilities of the Past: Walter Benjamin, Strikes, and the Intersections of Theory and History
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In his essay “Critique of Violence,” Walter Benjamin argued that only certain types of strikes can be considered revolutionary, while others—i.e., most bread and butter, or “political” strikes—tacitly rely on the violent logics of the state. This paper suggests, however, that by reading Benjamin against himself and applying his discussion of “pure means” to those “political” strikes, the extent to which even these basic collective actions represent effective “strategies of resistance” becomes evident. This framework requires an interdisciplinary approach to radical labor studies, combining political theory with history in order to identify and analyze past instances of joyful community-building during strikes. Relying also on a historical case study—the 1926 miners’ lockout in South Wales—and Benjamin’s own writings on the discipline of history, this paper contends that strikes, and the “alternative communities” they encourage workers and their families to build, present enormous revolutionary potential. When theory and history are studied together, and when we pay close attention to the actual tactics of solidarity that make up strike actions, this potential is uncovered.
3. Radical Philosophy Review: Volume > 23 > Issue: 1
Pedro Lebrón Ortiz Resisting (Meta) Physical Catastrophes through Acts of Marronage
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The colonial process constituted a twofold catastrophe. On the one hand, the genocide and enslavement of racialized bodies, along with the large-scale destruction of their lands was a material, or physical, catastrophe. On the other hand, colonialism led to a reconfiguring of intersubjectivities which constituted a “metaphysical catastrophe” according Puerto Rican philosopher Nelson Maldonado-Torres. This metaphysical catastrophe relegates the racialized subject beneath the zones of being and non-being leading to dehumanization and permanent war. This text intends to illuminate ways in which analectical marronage, as an existential state of Being, resists this twofold catastrophe brought about by the imperial enterprise.
4. Radical Philosophy Review: Volume > 23 > Issue: 1
Jorge Lizarzaburu The Zapatista Revolution: Recognition, Redistribution, and the Limits of Identity Politics
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This essay examines the poem “Angelitos Negros” as a description of social inequity underlain by Latin-American histories of colonialism. Following Nancy Fraser, I analyze the poem as an illustration of the perils of embracing “identity politics” separated from redistributive claims. As Fraser notices, contemporary critique is often content elevating identity struggles to the foreground while simultaneously pushing wealth redistribution to the background. In this light, the paper concludes proposing the Zapatista revolution as an example of a movement whereby claims of identity and redistribution have been successfully combined to produce social change in a manner that responds to the issues that “Angelitos Negros” evinces.
5. Radical Philosophy Review: Volume > 23 > Issue: 1
Richard Schmitt But What If We Cannot Agree?
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A central challenge common to democratic processes is the inability of citizens to reach agreement on any given matter. Most frequently these disagreements are settled by vote, victory going to the majority. But majority rule is a fairly recent technique. Traditionally decisions were made by some form of non-opposition. This paper describes several versions of that decision-making technique and then shows how mediation methods, also known as “ADR” (Alternative Dispute Resolution), can replicate these traditional ways of overcoming disagreement. The paper argues that these techniques are frequently superior to electoral methods of reaching agreement.
6. Radical Philosophy Review: Volume > 23 > Issue: 1
Karsten J. Struhl Ecosocialism: A Buddhist-Marxist Approach
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I shall argue that the solution to the ecological crisis will require a combined political-economic and psychological-spiritual approach. Specifically, I will argue that while there is no way to avoid eco-catastrophe within the framework of capitalism, ecosocialism understood as a political-economic construct focused wholly or even primarily on the survival and flourishing of our species is not a sufficient solution and could, in its anthropocentric and productivist form, exacerbate the problem. What is needed is an understanding of ecosocialism that is both biocentric and ecocentric, an ecosocialism that is sensitive to the suffering and inherent value of the members of other species as well as to the inherent value of whole ecosystems. It will require a new radically different mode of being and a radically new sensibility. I will argue that Buddhism can make a valuable contribution both to the construction of such a society and to the political praxis necessary to achieve it.
7. Radical Philosophy Review: Volume > 23 > Issue: 1
Benjamin Stumpf The Whiteness of Watching: Surveillant Citizenship and the Carceral State
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This article seeks to develop a concept I term surveillant citizenship, referring to a historically-emergent civic national and moral discourse that prescribes citizen participation in surveillance, policing, and law enforcement. Drawing on philosophy of race, surveillance studies, critical prison studies, and cultural theory, I argue that the ideological projects attached to the ‘War on Crime’ and the ‘War on Drugs’ sought to choreograph white social life around surveillant citizenship—manufacturing consent to police militarization, prison expansion, and mass incarceration, with consequences relevant to the future of antiracist strategy.
book reviews
8. Radical Philosophy Review: Volume > 23 > Issue: 1
Anne F. Pomeroy Rethinking Political Ethics
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9. Radical Philosophy Review: Volume > 23 > Issue: 1
L. Sebastian Purcell The Environmental Crisis and Liberation
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10. Radical Philosophy Review: Volume > 23 > Issue: 1
Kristian E. Vasquez The Damnés of the Americas
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11. Radical Philosophy Review: Volume > 23 > Issue: 1
Ronald K. Warren Reconstructing Racism and Racial Embodiment
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12. Radical Philosophy Review: Volume > 23 > Issue: 1
Contributors
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