This page provides a glossary of terms beginning ‘R’. Each term usually provides links to other relevant materials on the FRAW site, and/or to Wikipedia and other on-line sources.
Radicalism is a thread within many political movements. The word ‘radical’ comes from the Latin word, ‘radix’, meaning, ‘root’. Radicalism is a political perspective which seeks to address problems, ‘from their roots’, abandoning all preconceptions and existing structures – finding the solutions which address problems directly without compromise with any obstructive vested interests. It’s for this reason that the term ‘radical’ has such negative perceptions amongst those representing the dominant political and economic ideology. The opposite of ‘radicalism’ is ‘reformism’.
A ‘reactionary’ is someone who responds to social/political challenges by demanding a return to past norms. Often associated with the Conservative Right, the reactionary seeks simplistic solutions to complex problems by applying often redundant measures to solve them (more prisons, more police, stronger borders, etc.) rather than considering contemporary research evidence. Often reactionary messaging is based within a mythical past, not actual historical reality, and in these cases it is often associated with the Far Right/Fascism.
A belief that systemic change cannot happen quickly, and therefore that a compromise must be reached to deliver change in incremental steps. ‘Reformism’ (and later, ‘Gradualism’) was a political strategy born of Industrialism and Urbanism in the Eighteenth Century. Following the French Revolution of 1789, states across Europe knew that the stark poverty and misery born of Industrialism was not amenable to the population; nor was continued subjugation by state security forces; but radical reform risked destabilizing both Europe’s monarchies, the landowning aristocracy, and the new mercantile class. Reformism arose as a means to deliver minimal changes to political and social conditions, to placate a sufficiently influential mass of the population, while leaving the underlying economic structure of the state unchanged. Reformism is characteristic of most Western bourgeois movements which operate from middle class values, to preserve existing social structures and differentiations, rather than more ‘radical’ movements which seek to create wholly new social relations. The opposite of ‘reformism’ is ‘radicalism’.
‘Rewilding’ is an idea promoted by conservationists (often large landowners seeking government funding) proposing that nature is best saved by returning to land to its ‘wild’ state. The concept of ‘Rewilding the People’ is a radical version of this policy which proposes that people should be allowed to return to the land, to live low impact lifestyles, and that this should be facilitated by the state as the simplest way of reducing consumption and pollution. Low impact living and farming methods have a lower ecological footprint than allegedly ‘efficient’ urban lifestyles – but this assumes that modern urban lifestyles, with their implicit high levels of consumption, are the natural state of humans. ‘Rewilding People’ argues from a deep ecological perspective that the natural state of human is living simply, within natural systems, and that industrialism and urban living have created both the global ecological crisis, and the human crises of mental and physical health which accompany it.
The Political Right are associated with the maintenance of traditional values and the economic status quo. The Right represents a broad spectrum: From the social democrats near the Centre; to economic and social Conservatives; to more authoritarian (often religious) Conservatives; to Nationalist and Fascists on the extreme Right. Unlike the Left, the Right – in part due to their innate sense of order and hierarchy – are more disciplined in their politics, and thus more willing to compromise when forming coalitions on the Right. More importantly, as their support for the economic status quo makes them the natural allies of the business and capital-owning class, political parties on the Right receive more financial support from wealthy donors, special interest lobby groups, and privately-funded ‘think tanks’; and for this same reason media corporations favour arguments from the Right in their coverage of issues.