Raids on Human Consciousness: Writing, Anarchism, and ViolenceHowever one looks at violence -- as an instrument of bureaucracy or ideology; as a product of racial, gender, or class antagonisms; or as the inevitable result of power politics -- it is an integral part of every social system and is one of the most pressing problems of our tortured century. In Raids on Human Consciousness Arthur Redding examines the contention that violence, be it the mass product of revolutionary uprising or a private sadomasochistic indulgence, may be taken to instill in those who commit it the capacity for radical change. Conscious that mainstream theory considers violence deviant, a departure from the normal equilibrium of social and aesthetic structures, while other critiques take it to be integral to any dynamic system, Redding begins with the anarchist inquiry into the relationship of violence to the imaginary representation of modern communities. He explores the "public images" of anarchism in literature and popular culture and emphasizes the diverse strategies by which modern writers encounter, derive, deflect, and manipulate fantasies of political violence. Redding recognizes that language fails when confronted with the extreme suffering of human bodies. Acknowledging that flesh is subject to war, torture, and everyday brutality -- violations to which language can never do justice -- he nonetheless finds it urgent to reclaim language on the far side of suffering. |
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... becomes a failure for political action , so uneasy with the serial contradic- tion of its own policy , becomes in ... become a special , “ apo- litical , " case in fictions of anarchism , as we shall see ) transgresses the limits of ...
... becomes coterminous with social life in general : now all the levels become " acculturated , " and in the society of the spectacle , the image , or the simulacrum , everything has at length become cultural , from the superstructures ...
... become like Mussolini , but attach yourself to the untamed molecular flows and you become like Hitler . The historical impact of this oedipal usage of the National Socialist episode , and most particularly — of course — the holocaust ...
Contents
Satire Georges Sorel | 30 |
Anarchism and | 71 |
Violence and Modernism | 117 |
Copyright | |
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Raids on Human Consciousness: Writing, Anarchism, and Violence Arthur F. Redding No preview available - 1998 |