Raids on Human Consciousness: Writing, Anarchism, and Violence

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University of South Carolina Press, 1998 - Literary Criticism - 275 pages
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However 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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Page 199
( 53 ) In The Logic of Sense Deleuze goes on to develop a theory of the "
phantasm , ” which carries over some of the ideas that we have found in the
anarchist tradition , and the idea of revolutionary desire is clearly one of the main
themes of ...
Page 202
The bigger problem , though I here run the risk of being identified with the
humanist Left , is that Deleuze and Guattari nowhere deny that there is , in fact , a
genocidal desire quite capable of serving fascistic purposes , a desire that has
indeed ...
Page 203
tions of revolutionary desire — “ how immensely the world is simplified , ” writes
Benjamin , “ when tested for its worthiness of destruction ” ( “ Destructive
Character ” 301 ) — and , if it has flinched at this recognition , it is assuredly not
because it ...

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Contents

6
29
Satire Georges Sorel
30
Modern Text
71
Copyright

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Raids on Human Consciousness: Writing, Anarchism, and Violence
Arthur F. Redding
No preview available - 1998

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QR code for Raids on Human Consciousness
TitleRaids on Human Consciousness: Writing, Anarchism, and Violence
Cultural frames, framing culture
Raids on Human Consciousness: Writing, Anarchism, and Violence, Arthur F. Redding
AuthorArthur F. Redding
PublisherUniversity of South Carolina Press, 1998
Original fromthe University of California
Digitized19 Jun 2008
ISBN1570032300, 9781570032301
Length275 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Literary Criticism / American / General
Literary Criticism / Semiotics & Theory
  
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