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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... threat of disorganization em- bodied by the terrifying figure of the anarchist . As Reynold Humphries ( 1988 ) writes , Conrad fantasizes a unity that has everywhere slipped away from the world he lives in as a stronghold against those ...
... threat was embodied for them in " woman " rather than in the " Jew . " The contagious threat represented by the woman ( or Jew ) must be met and contained by the scapegoating and sacrificial violence of “ law and order " ( even if it ...
... threat to one's own status ) . The success of threats depends on orchestrated hysteria , as we have seen . Likewise , hysteria depends on threats , on violence , even where it is merely hysterical consumption . THE CATACLYSM OF CULTURE ...
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 |