[Reader-list] Getting Radicalized, Slow And Painful By Robert Jensen (fwded)

[Venugopalan K M]

   Here is an interesting account of radicalism as seen by Robert Jensen:

    http://www.countercurrents.org/jensen150709.htm


"..coming to understand that the world’s pain is the product of
profoundly unjust social systems helped me understand a different kind
of personal pain I had been struggling with. Most of my life I had
felt like a bit of a freak, like someone out of step with the culture
around him. There’s nothing dramatically wrong with me physically or
psychologically, but I always struggled to fit in. I had always had a
lingering sense that I didn’t want what others around me seemed to
want. Because of my privilege, the world offered me a lot, and I am
grateful for much of what I have -- work I have usually enjoyed, an
adequate income, relative safety. But I could never figure out how to
be normal -- how to kick back with the guys; how to get excited about
sports, television, or the latest hit music; how to care about what
kind of car I drove. In many ways I had it made, on the surface, but
that sense of being out of step always dragged me down..."