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• Monday, November 17, 2008 06:44 AM

  For Augo Knocke

  I don't know about who should or shouldn't turn off whose judgment and "learn something about his/her self at long last" (I may not have quoted you quite right because I don't have the computer skill(s) to know how to see your "text" and type some words of my own at the same time). Isn't that maybe being a little judgmental? [? ;-)]

  That aside; I learned something quite useful to/for "myself" from reading your categorizations of the more or less "radical". You see, I guess I thought of radicalism itself as more a conceptual category than an extremism-of-behavior one. If you're crazed or demented (temporarily or permanently) the extent of extremism of your behavioral choices is often these days (for better or worse I honestly don't -- for the moment any way -- know) adjudged by standards such as the Diagnostic and Statistical [psychiatric] Manual and/or by the courts. The (o.k., so ?"my circle"? were all to greater or lesser degree "eggheads") "radical" choice I and a group of 12 (count 'em 12) people -- for whom Noam Chomsky became the "talking head" while still a young bright-[unknown]-guy-on-the-horizon in the M.I.T. linguistics department -- chose an official, government-notified refusal to pay, in our annual taxes, the amount of money we calculated was what the federal government was spending on the military budget. We notified our senators that we were setting this money aside in a special account, to be repaid to the government when the war was stopped. [We were legally advised that we could be tried for conspiracy and, if convicted, sentenced to I think it was then 12 years in jail (but at least not at Guantanamo).] "My" (Massachusetts) Senators at the time were Senators Edward Brooke and Senator "Ted" Kennedy. I received a courteous note of acknowledgment from Brooke (then a young Republican); nothing from Kennedy. We all know where Noam has gone and what he's done in the intervening years. As my husband also had a record as a convicted felon for having declared as a conscientious objector in World War II (of all things?!), I suggested he not join with the 12 of us in case we were in fact sent to jail. We got a note from a friend of his to whom he'd reported his support of me in what I chose who'd written saying he hadn't realised my husband was "such a radical". My husband wrote him back some egghead remark about "radical' meaning "going to the root". [Sounds like loony math to me?! ;-)]

  My point? I don't know whether violence is "more radical" than other choices or whether it's just ... well more violent. A poorer choice? More extremist. Is that what "radicalism" means to you? Extremism?

  I'd really like to know more of your experiences and opinions.

  salonmarte

  —salonmarte Read salonmarte's other letters
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