We live in a society of an imposed forgetfulness, a society that depends on public amnesia.
Angela DavisRead
Radical simply means 'grasping things at the root.'
Interpretation
Radical thinking involves seeking the fundamental truths behind societal issues instead of addressing only surface-level problems.
Angela Davis's quote emphasizes that being radical is about understanding and addressing the core causes of societal issues. It suggests that true change requires a deep analysis of the roots of problems rather than just dealing with the symptoms, advocating for thoughtful and profound approaches to social justice and reform.
In practice
In a speech about social justice, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of addressing systemic issues.
We live in a society of an imposed forgetfulness, a society that depends on public amnesia.
Well, we see an increasingly weaker labor movement as a result of the overall assault on the labor movement and as a result of the globalization of capital.
Racism is a much more clandestine, much more hidden kind of phenomenon, but at the same time it's perhaps far more terrible than it's ever been.
Imprisonment has become the response of first resort to far too many of our social problems.
It's true that it's within the realm of cultural politics that young people tend to work through political issues, which I think is good, although it's not going to solve the problems
When children attend schools that place a greater value on discipline and security than on knowledge and intellectual development, they are attending prep schools for prison.
Of the two powers, the two categories that take possession of us when we enter the world (from where?), space is by far the less mysterious. It, too, undergoes transformations. Time, on the other hand, is a hostile element, truly treacherous, I would even say against human nature.
Flashbacks rarely involve language. Mine certainly didn't. They were visual, motor, and sensory, and they took place in a relentless, horrifying present.
Let us treasure up in our soul some of those things which are permanent..., not of those which will forsake us and be destroyed, and which only tickle our senses for a little while.
Democracy is necessarily despotism, as it establishes an executive power contrary to the general will; all being able to decide against one whose opinion may differ, the will of all is therefore not that of all: which is contradictory and opposite to liberty.
Anyone who hasn't experienced the ecstasy of betrayal knows nothing about ecstasy at all.
I never gave up Christianity until I was forty years of age.
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