Radical Philosophy Review

This paper, inspired by Duke University historian Nancy MacLean’s extraordinary book Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America (2017), elaborates the carefully calibrated, multifaceted plan by a billionaire-funded facet of the radical right, deeply disturbed by the fact that so many students have critical views of capitalism, to transform American universities. Its multi-pronged strategy involves the following three steps: (1) Reconfigure the financial superstructure of higher education. Cut public funding for higher education and fill the gap with strategic donor giving. (2) Purge and Recruit: remove left-leaning faculty, develop a counter-intelligentsia of libertarian faculty, and foster the creation of libertarian student organizations on campus. (3) Undermine the general public’s respect for and trust in our colleges and universities by manufacturing controversies that attract widespread attention. This paper examines each of these in detail, with particular attention given to the myriad of privately funded institutional “think tanks” involved in the process.

The revitalization of Indigenous ways of knowing and being with land is central to addressing the devastating impacts of climate change. This article contributes to growing research in Indigenous Climate Change Studies by focusing on connections between ecology, sexuality, and gender. To track the histories of gendered violence for Two Spirit peoples is to also follow the marked wounds of land dispossession, excavation, and exploitation. Conversely, Two Spirit futures are deeply imbricated in not only surviving but also flourishing among post-apocalyptic conditions. Through socio-linguistic analyses of western animacy hierarchies and a historical analysis of colonial fables which casted the racialized-gendered other as monstrous, this article critiques popularized end-of-the-world discourses on climate change narratives. Alternatively, the article concludes by offering a reading of Indigiqueer speculative science fiction, gleaning methods of not only survival and resistance but also resilience amongst post-apocalyptic conditions. Ultimately, this paper argues that the revitalization of Indigenous genders is in-part linked to the present revitalization and protection of ecological life-worlds, centering Two Spirit knowledge at what settlers may fear to be “the end of the world.”

This paper discusses two thinkers who locate the possibility of revolutionary historical change in political projects oriented toward the formation of subjects and cultivation of sensibility. I begin by considering the relationship between historical violence and education in the works of Walter Benjamin. After introducing the provocative association of education with divine violence found in “Toward the Critique of Violence,” I expand on Benjamin’s conception of pedagogical force. Highlighting the centrality of education in Benjamin’s early work, I argue that his account of learning does not depend on the mastery of students by teachers, nor more generally on the mastery of objective reality by a sovereign subject, but on the mastery of the educational relationship by tradition. Drawing on W. E. B. Du Bois’s discussion of the abolition of slavery, I close by describing the revolutionary cultivation of sensibility as a dynamic and collectively achieved mode of historical learning.

In Theory of the Partisan, Carl Schmitt outlines a theory of the history of the partisan beginning in 1808, when the Spanish guerilla defeated Napoleon. After that modern nation states began to integrate guerilla war tactics in their strategies. According to Schmitt, this development was intensified during the 20th century, but in a dangerous manner. Arguably, Russia’s actions in Ukraine 2014 and 2022 suggest that Schmitt’s conception is still relevant for understanding extreme political situations. But why do sovereign states need the partisan? The big loser in this development, however, is the partisan himself, who gets exploited and instrumentalized by regular political actors. Even if Schmitt advocates a less extreme way of using the partisan, he arguably helps placing it under the rule of state actors, a tactic Putin’s Russia deploys in action. Therefore, a political rehabilitation of the partisan from its exploitation is very needed.

In recent years, Rosi Braidotti has proposed to explore the “intersectionality” of natural, social and technological determinations in order to provide a non-dualistic theoretical framework for what she defines as the “critical posthumanities.” In this paper, I polemically engage with Braidotti’s theoretical project by reconstructing the methodological principle through which she endeavors to disentangle the dualisms presupposed by anthropocentrism and humanism. I will argue that the upshot of this methodological procedure is a hypostatization of subjective structures into reality which in turn facilitates an ontological transposition of the political concept of inclusiveness. In highlighting the formal procedure of inclusion by which the posthuman subject conceptualizes difference, this article provides a set of objections to Braidotti’s methodology by evaluating it in terms of the Marxian critique of speculative abstractions.

Margaret McLaren’s ethnographic study that is ostensibly about Indian women’s activism also presents a nuanced critique of liberal human rights discourse and advances a relational cosmopoli­tanism. Her defense of Tagore’s decolonial worldview has much in common with an African Ubuntu ethics, which also eschews pos­sessive individualism in favor of a sociocentric social justice praxis philosophy. McLaren’s book provides an important contribution to questions of women’s empowerment, women’s rights, cultural rites, and situated knowledges.

In Women’s Activism, Feminism, and Social Justice, Margaret McLaren develops and argues for a new theoretical framework, the feminist social justice approach, that can guide ongoing feminist transnational solidarity projects. I briefly map out the main lines of argumentation in McLaren’s book and highlight some of the valuable contributions these arguments make to the intersecting sub-fields of global ethics, global justice, development ethics, and feminist philosophy. I then note two critical thoughts on the book. First, I argue that McLaren’s concessions to rights discourse as a valuable tool for transformative activism undermine and potentially even contradict her own strong critique of rights discourse. Second, I argue that McLaren doesn’t explicitly or develop the latent social epistemology of her feminist social justice approach and discussions of “training” and “education” potentially run counter to this promising but again latent social epistemology.

This article extends and develops themes from my book, Women’s Activism, Feminism, and Social Justice, in response to commentary by Professors Aragon and Nagel. In my remarks I explore what I call “the tricky territory of rights,” as well as feminism, identity, intersectionality, heterogeneity, and complexity, and alternative epistemologies. My interlocuters and I are all skeptical about the notion of human rights for a range of reasons: rights discourse can be too narrow, focusing mainly on legal and political rights; rights can overemphasize the individual at the expense of the collective; rights are part of state apparatus and may be the instrument of despotic leaders; rights as state apparatus are part of the carceral regime and rights may inhibit broader ways of thinking about justice such as human dignity or Ubuntu. In spite of these legitimate criticisms I advocate a strategic use of rights. I also explore themes of identity, intersectionality, heterogeneity, and complexity.

The narrow-the-scope proposal for defining racism posits that a narrow definition is preferable to a wide definition because the former better facilitates interracial dialogue. Important critiques of the narrow-the-scope proposal have so far focused on the content of narrow definitions. This paper argues that it is important to critique the use of narrow definitions, as well. An examination of white uses of the term “racism” reveals that narrow definitions tend to be interchangeable with individualist definitions, as individualism is an effective framework for white co-optation in the service of white interests. Consequently, philosophers interested in theorizing racism for racial justice purposes ought to reject the narrow-the-scope proposal. Individualist forms of racism should be accommodated within a wide conception of racism that centers the phenomenon of white racism.

In memoriam and ongoing engagement, I begin with my earlier critical interpretation and a reinterpretation that shows how Mills was prescient, given the recrudescence of white supremacy now daily evident in the United States. This leads to an historical analysis of the racial contract as the racist contract and of the racist contract as the racist compact. The racist compact endures in society, outside of government, but protected by democracy. This creates backlash and obstruction to progress that progressives often fail to predict. Influenced by Mills and through a shift in his emphases, I propose humanitarianism. Global ideas of humanitarianism bypass nonwhite racial identities are more general than them, and they bypass the white supremacist racial conceptual scheme of hierarchical races.