Intellectuals and Revolutionary Politics Term Paper

Intellectuals and Revolutionary Politics - Term Paper Example Even though telling the half of the story, this description is perhaps among the most comprehensive ones, shedding light on such a contradictory personality and intellectual path. Another part is told by Sorel’s own ideas expressed in his writings which to one degree or another reveal his preoccupation with themes like integration and disintegration, decadence, rebirth, and decline; as well as his deepest sentiments – the aggressive and overwhelming pessimism and his strong desire of deliverance. His notion of pessimism - as a notion of an advance toward deliverance, closely connected to the knowledge gained from experience of the obstacles resisting the satisfaction of human’s imagination and to the deep conviction of human beings’ natural weakness - perhaps most powerfully reveals the breadth and width of his meandering soul (Sorel, G. 192- 226) Sorel regards pain and suffering as instrumental in riveting human beings to life, and scorns those who promis e easy solutions and rapid improvement, assuming that the natural tendency toward dissolution and decay is a universal law (Talmon, J. L. 453-454). Having embraced the theory of Marx by the early 1890s, George Sorel added some flesh to the confused blur of his ideas; the universal sinner and perpetrator of all the sufferings of the poor has been found, personified by the evils of capitalism. From that point on, the integral trade unionism, as a bearer of a new morality, became the new ‘self-sufficient kingdom of God’ (Talmon 456), whose destine is seen by Sorel ‘to enthrone a new civilization on the ruins of the decaying bourgeoisie. From here to hailing Mussolini as ‘a man no less extraordinary than Lenin’ (Talmon 451), Sorel has had a short way to go. Sorel’s roaming between Marx, trade unionism and fascism is easily explained, given his rejection of the very idea of any guidance, supervision or control, either from outside or from above; whi ch is considered to have prepared him to endorse Mussolini’s famous slogan: ‘Every system is an error, every theory is a prison’ (Talmon 467). This slogan appears to fully match Sorel’s ever seeking (though most of the time on mistaken or strange grounds) spirituality. 2. Both Jean-Paul Sartre and Frantz Fanon long for revolution – Sartre to see his country, France, destroyed, Fanon to see former French colonies liberated. Which of the two seems to want to be destroyed along with the establishment he resists? Why the one and not the other? The preface to Fanon’s book, The Wretched of the Earth, written by Jean-Paul Sartre, delivers a shocking message to the reader, as it comes from a thinker whose outlook on the then world realities and his nature (or posture) of a politically engaged intellectual indicate an emphasis on the humanist values and