{"title":"Autopoietic Systems","authors":"Elisabeth Paquette","doi":"10.5840/radphilrev2020325109","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/radphilrev2020325109","url":null,"abstract":"In Autopoiesis and Cognition (1980), Humberto R. Maturana and Franscico J. Varela state that “the way an autopoietic system maintains its identity depends on its particular way of being autopoietic, that is, on its particular structure, different classes of autopoietic systems have different classes of ontogenies” (98). With this in mind, in this article I develop how this conception of autopoietic systems is both present in, and operates through, Wynter’s employment of space and place, poetry, and wonder.","PeriodicalId":402397,"journal":{"name":"Radical Philosophy Review","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115627425","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Climate Disruption, Political Stability, and Collective Imagination","authors":"O. Sandberg","doi":"10.5840/radphilrev2020324108","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/radphilrev2020324108","url":null,"abstract":"Many fear that climate change will lead to the collapse of civilization. I argue both that this is unlikely and that the fear is potentially harmful. Using examples from recent disasters I argue that climate change is more likely to intensify the existing social order—a truly terrifying prospect. The fear of civilizational collapse is part of the climate crisis; it makes us fear change and prevents us from imagining different social relations which is necessary if we are to survive the coming disasters and prevent further escalation. Using affect theory, I claim that our visions of the future affect our ability to act in the present. Rather than imagining a terrifying societal breakdown, we can look at how communities have survived recent disasters to get an image of what we need to expand upon to prepare for the future.","PeriodicalId":402397,"journal":{"name":"Radical Philosophy Review","volume":"62 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130461619","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Pure Means” and the Possibilities of the Past","authors":"Esther Isaac","doi":"10.5840/radphilrev202032106","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/radphilrev202032106","url":null,"abstract":"In his essay “Critique of Violence,” Walter Benjamin argued that only certain types of strikes can be considered revolutionary, while others—i.e., most bread and butter, or “political” strikes—tacitly rely on the violent logics of the state. This paper suggests, however, that by reading Benjamin against himself and applying his discussion of “pure means” to those “political” strikes, the extent to which even these basic collective actions represent effective “strategies of resistance” becomes evident. This framework requires an interdisciplinary approach to radical labor studies, combining political theory with history in order to identify and analyze past instances of joyful community-building during strikes. Relying also on a historical case study—the 1926 miners’ lockout in South Wales—and Benjamin’s own writings on the discipline of history, this paper contends that strikes, and the “alternative communities” they encourage workers and their families to build, present enormous revolutionary potential. When theory and history are studied together, and when we pay close attention to the actual tactics of solidarity that make up strike actions, this potential is uncovered.","PeriodicalId":402397,"journal":{"name":"Radical Philosophy Review","volume":"59 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126320732","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Zapatista Revolution","authors":"Jorge M. Lizarzaburu","doi":"10.5840/radphilrev2020224104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/radphilrev2020224104","url":null,"abstract":"This essay examines the poem “Angelitos Negros” as a description of social inequity underlain by Latin-American histories of colonialism. Following Nancy Fraser, I analyze the poem as an illustration of the perils of embracing “identity politics” separated from redistributive claims. As Fraser notices, contemporary critique is often content elevating identity struggles to the foreground while simultaneously pushing wealth redistribution to the background. In this light, the paper concludes proposing the Zapatista revolution as an example of a movement whereby claims of identity and redistribution have been successfully combined to produce social change in a manner that responds to the issues that “Angelitos Negros” evinces.","PeriodicalId":402397,"journal":{"name":"Radical Philosophy Review","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133729115","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Whiteness of Watching","authors":"Benjamin T. Stumpf","doi":"10.5840/radphilrev2020225105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/radphilrev2020225105","url":null,"abstract":"This article seeks to develop a concept I term surveillant citizenship, referring to a historically-emergent civic national and moral discourse that prescribes citizen participation in surveillance, policing, and law enforcement. Drawing on philosophy of race, surveillance studies, critical prison studies, and cultural theory, I argue that the ideological projects attached to the ‘War on Crime’ and the ‘War on Drugs’ sought to choreograph white social life around surveillant citizenship—manufacturing consent to police militarization, prison expansion, and mass incarceration, with consequences relevant to the future of antiracist strategy.","PeriodicalId":402397,"journal":{"name":"Radical Philosophy Review","volume":"53 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126963089","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"But What If We Cannot Agree?","authors":"R. Schmitt","doi":"10.5840/radphilrev2020219102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/radphilrev2020219102","url":null,"abstract":"A central challenge common to democratic processes is the inability of citizens to reach agreement on any given matter. Most frequently these disagreements are settled by vote, victory going to the majority. But majority rule is a fairly recent technique. Traditionally decisions were made by some form of non-opposition. This paper describes several versions of that decision-making technique and then shows how mediation methods, also known as “ADR” (Alternative Dispute Resolution), can replicate these traditional ways of overcoming disagreement. The paper argues that these techniques are frequently superior to electoral methods of reaching agreement.","PeriodicalId":402397,"journal":{"name":"Radical Philosophy Review","volume":"58 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134570945","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}