Radicalized

Radical

The word reverberates with a kind of defiance, a subterranean pulse that unsettles and compels. It traces its lineage to the Latin radix, meaning root—a quiet beginning, a buried origin. And yet, over time, it has twisted into something untamed, something incendiary. It has become the barricade, the raised fist, the line in the sand. But to be radical is, at its core, to return. To dig deep, to unearth what has always been there.

The philosophical roots of ‘radical’ stretch across centuries, winding through the tangled corridors of thought. In the ancient world, radicalism was found in the birth of philosophy itself—in Socrates’ relentless questioning, in Diogenes’ rejection of convention, in the Stoics’ defiant embrace of virtue over pleasure. To be radical then was to interrogate the very foundations of reality, to live in accordance with reason or nature, even when it meant standing apart from society.

The medieval era saw radicalism entwined with faith and heresy. Mystics who claimed direct communion with the divine, theologians who dared to challenge orthodoxy, reformers who sought to purify the church—these were the radicals of their time. Figures like Meister Eckhart and Joan of Arc embodied a radicalism that was both spiritual and existential, an uncompromising demand for truth beyond institutional control.

The Enlightenment found its radicalism in reason and revolution, in tearing down monarchies and erecting new social orders. It was the era of Locke, Rousseau, and Voltaire, of bold proclamations that human rights and self-governance were not privileges but birthrights. Radicalism here was a force of upheaval, a defiant assertion that the world could be remade through the will of the people.

The modern era fractured radicalism into myriad forms. The Romantics sought radical individuality, the Marxists radical class struggle. The existentialists found theirs in despair and freedom, in standing at the precipice of nothingness and choosing—without divine assurance, without safety nets. Kierkegaard’s radical leap of faith, Nietzsche’s radical transvaluation of values, Sartre’s radical responsibility in the face of an indifferent universe. Radical, for them, was not extremity for its own sake; it was excavation. A stripping away of illusion to reveal the raw, trembling self beneath.

Postmodernism, with its suspicion of grand narratives, redefined radicalism yet again. Now, to be radical was to deconstruct, to question the very structures that shaped perception. Derrida’s dismantling of language, Foucault’s critique of power, the radical embrace of multiplicity and fragmentation—these were the intellectual battlegrounds of the late twentieth century.

But the modern world does not leave room for such subtlety. In contemporary discourse, ‘radical’ has been commandeered, its meaning contorted into something rigid, something edged with threat. It has been flattened into spectacle. In the age of media saturation, to be radical is to be extreme, to exist at the margins, to demand change at all costs. The quiet depth of the root is lost amid the clamor of slogans and soundbites. It is not enough to believe; one must declare, disrupt, dismantle. Radicalism becomes a performance, an aesthetic.

And yet, there are forms of radicalism that defy these narratives, that reject the expectation of violence or division. There is a radicalism that does not destroy, but tends. That does not burn, but burrows. Caregiving, in its purest form, is one such radical act.

To care for a child with complex medical needs is to live at the intersection of love and futility, to navigate a landscape shaped by uncertainty, exhaustion, and the quiet violence of bureaucratic indifference. It is to bear witness, every day, to a world that was not built for them, and to insist, nevertheless, on their place within it. It is to fight battles no one sees, to endure forms of grief that have no clear resolution. And in this, caregiving is radical—not because it is extreme, but because it reaches back to the root of what it means to be human.

Radical patience. Radical presence. Radical hope.

These are not the things that modern radicalism celebrates. They are not disruptive in ways that can be televised, not dramatic in ways that garner headlines. And yet, they are acts of profound defiance. To sit beside a hospital bed, knowing you cannot change the prognosis but refusing to leave. To push back against a system that sees your child as an anomaly rather than a life worth honoring. To love without conditions, without guarantees. These are not small things. These are acts of excavation, of stripping away the illusions of control and certainty that so many cling to. These are radical acts because they demand everything and promise nothing.

To live radically, then, is not to live at the edges, but to live at the depths. It is to look suffering in the face and refuse to turn away. It is to embrace joy—not as a fleeting distraction, but as an assertion of meaning in a world that offers none freely.

What would it mean to live a life based on radical joy? Radical empathy? Radical acceptance? It would mean rejecting the narratives that tell us our worth is measured by our productivity, our independence, our adherence to the expected arc of existence. It would mean finding beauty in the unlikeliest places—in the rhythmic hum of a ventilator, in the gentle weight of a child’s hand resting in yours, in the quiet victories of another day endured, another moment shared.

It would mean, ultimately, to return. To dig deep. To unearth what has always been there.

Radical. Rooted. Unyielding in love.