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Does radicalism require deliberate rejection of learning?
He’s a total radical, probably the most radical president we’ve ever had in terms of his definition of the power of the presidency. There’s nothing more dangerous than a radical who doesn’t have information, doesn’t learn from information and doesn’t learn from the past.
-Seymour Hersh, in a symposium at Tufts University
This statement brings a question to my mind: Is it possible to remain a radical (of whatever stripe) if one does learn from information and does learn from the past?
4 Responses to “Does radicalism require deliberate rejection of learning?”
“Is it possible to remain a radical (of whatever stripe) if one does learn from information and does learn from the past?”
I think this question answers itself when you phrase it differently:
Do we know people who are still radicals, even though they have learned from information and/or from the past? Obviously, yes.
The problem isn’t that they don’t learn, it’s how they process the information.
I’m sorry I missed this yesterday.
Don’t radicals sometimes triumph? Isn’t the existence of the United States of America evidence of that? Triumphant radicals re-set the status quo. That gives subsequent radicals something different to react to.
A better question might be, Is human progress a slow and steady evolution, or is it punctuated by pressure wrought by radicals?
Another better, though unhappier, question might be, What happens when radicals gain power but procede to fail?
I think it does. I was watching a show on young Earth creationists and there was a geologist who was rejecting everything he knew and working as hard as he could to twist geology to match his new religious beliefs. I wasn’t impressed with his arguments.
Aren’t you guys assuming that the radicals are always wrong? What if a person holds a radical philosophy and learns information that forces him to rethink, but perhaps the information only alters his perception of the course to take, not the underlying philosophy. Arguably (because some will obviously think the underlying philosophy has been proven wrong), I’d throw out an example of a neo-con who’s rethought his beliefs and at least has shown the ability to learn from mistakes: Fukayama.