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I guess it depends on how you define a political radical, as a radical is one who stands against the status quo. Given that current mainstream politics seeming

I guess it depends on how you define a political radical, as a radical is one who stands against the status quo. Given that current mainstream politics seemingly sees evaluating your own errors as some kind of a weakness, to openly do so right now would be fairly radical for a politician.

colllectorof 8y ago
>a radical is one who stands against the status quo. A radical is someone who is willing to use extreme measures to achieve their political objectives. Nothing to do with the status quo. Totalitarian regimes, for example, usually maintain their status quo with radical zeal and measures.
- inflatableDodo 8y ago
  >A radical is someone who is willing to use extreme measures to achieve their political objectives. The Quakers are political radicals. They are so extreme they utterly refuse to kill people, even when ordered. edit - Given the article about it also on the front page, I thought I'd look it up in the original Mirriam Webster. The result is kind of interesting; >2. (Politics) >One who advocates radical changes in government or social institutions, especially such changes as are intended to level class inequalities; -- opposed to conservative. In politics they [the Independents] were, to use phrase of their own time. "Root-and-Branch men," or, to use the kindred phrase of our own, Radicals. Macaulay. http://lexicon.x10host.com/?w=radical http://lexicon.x10host.com/?w=radical And to contrast with my first port of call, in the Cambridge dictionary you get a politically neutral definition; >believing or expressing the belief that there should be great or extreme social or political change https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/radical https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/radical
  - karlakush 8y ago
    The merriam webster definition is pretty alarming. I have never understood radicalism to have anything to do with class inequality or conservativism. A radical is simply somebody who espouses a rarely held opinion. The Cambridge definition is far closer to being accurate.
- ahoy 8y ago
  Radical as an adjective has to do with fundamental change. If you've seen someone use it the way you describe, I'd argue you've seen the word used wrong.
eesmith 8y ago
The article links to https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0960982218314209 https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S09609822183142... which explains how they define radical: > To typify a spectrum of radical views, we first conducted a separate online survey of 344 US participants (study 1) who completed questionnaires about political issues [4, 19, 20, 21, 22]. We included standard questionnaires about political orientation, voting behavior, attitudes toward specific political issues, intolerance of opposing political attitudes, belief rigidity, and (left- and right-wing) authoritarianism. These questionnaires were selected based on prior models of political radicalism as stemming from a combination of intolerance to others’ viewpoints, dogmatic and rigid beliefs, and authoritarianism, which represents adherence to in-group authorities and conventions, and aggression in relation to deviance from these norms [23, 24, 25]. However, we stress that radicalism is likely to reflect a general cognitive style that transcends the political domain—as exemplified by links between religious fundamentalism and increased dogmatism and authoritarianism [22, 26]—and instead refers to how one’s beliefs are held and acted upon [27].

colllectorof 8y ago

>a radical is one who stands against the status quo. A radical is someone who is willing to use extreme measures to achieve their political objectives. Nothing to do with the status quo. Totalitarian regimes, for example, usually maintain their status quo with radical zeal and measures.

inflatableDodo 8y ago
>A radical is someone who is willing to use extreme measures to achieve their political objectives. The Quakers are political radicals. They are so extreme they utterly refuse to kill people, even when ordered. edit - Given the article about it also on the front page, I thought I'd look it up in the original Mirriam Webster. The result is kind of interesting; >2. (Politics) >One who advocates radical changes in government or social institutions, especially such changes as are intended to level class inequalities; -- opposed to conservative. In politics they [the Independents] were, to use phrase of their own time. "Root-and-Branch men," or, to use the kindred phrase of our own, Radicals. Macaulay. http://lexicon.x10host.com/?w=radical http://lexicon.x10host.com/?w=radical And to contrast with my first port of call, in the Cambridge dictionary you get a politically neutral definition; >believing or expressing the belief that there should be great or extreme social or political change https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/radical https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/radical
- karlakush 8y ago
  The merriam webster definition is pretty alarming. I have never understood radicalism to have anything to do with class inequality or conservativism. A radical is simply somebody who espouses a rarely held opinion. The Cambridge definition is far closer to being accurate.
ahoy 8y ago
Radical as an adjective has to do with fundamental change. If you've seen someone use it the way you describe, I'd argue you've seen the word used wrong.

eesmith 8y ago

The article links to https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0960982218314209 https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S09609822183142... which explains how they define radical: > To typify a spectrum of radical views, we first conducted a separate online survey of 344 US participants (study 1) who completed questionnaires about political issues [4, 19, 20, 21, 22]. We included standard questionnaires about political orientation, voting behavior, attitudes toward specific political issues, intolerance of opposing political attitudes, belief rigidity, and (left- and right-wing) authoritarianism. These questionnaires were selected based on prior models of political radicalism as stemming from a combination of intolerance to others’ viewpoints, dogmatic and rigid beliefs, and authoritarianism, which represents adherence to in-group authorities and conventions, and aggression in relation to deviance from these norms [23, 24, 25]. However, we stress that radicalism is likely to reflect a general cognitive style that transcends the political domain—as exemplified by links between religious fundamentalism and increased dogmatism and authoritarianism [22, 26]—and instead refers to how one’s beliefs are held and acted upon [27].