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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 10
... knew it so well that the repetition of contact could add no vividness to the conviction ; it rather smothered and befogged his im- pression , peopled it with contradictions and difficulties , a violence of reaction , a sense of the ...
... knew about me , the nigger violence " ( 33 ) . " Nigger violence " presents itself here as an avail- able truth , a proposition Wideman considers at length in his book . Yet it is the white boy's truth , not fully in the possession of ...
... knew what I didn't want and what and whom I hated . That was something . And then I thought that , one day , maybe , thereāld be a ... human society in a world which is beautiful , a society which wasn't just disgust " ( 227 ) ...
Contents
Satire Georges Sorel | 30 |
Anarchism and | 71 |
Violence and Modernism | 117 |
Copyright | |
5 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Raids on Human Consciousness: Writing, Anarchism, and Violence Arthur F. Redding No preview available - 1998 |