I now regret even more that I had to leave before the URPE Summer Conference
"Business" meeting (where I assume this issue of excising 'Radical' from our
name came up -- as it has before) and I heartily second the postings of
Feldpauch, Dorman, and Laffey.
There is *much* that could be said about in this debate, and almost all of
it of interest has been said more than once, but -- to repeat a venerable
point in language we might not have used a quarter of a century ago -- the
goal of achieving social institutions which offer equal opportunity to
flourish (or at least the most opportunity possible for those least able to
flourish) remains a *radical* aspiration. This goal is not that difficult to
explain at an elementary level, but it requires creative political economic
analysis (still incomplete and contested) to make more precise, and --
extremely importantly -- it is an ideal overwhelmingly compelling to fellow
humans who think the matter through. We should never give up on this. The
word 'radical' does require *some* explanation, but such explanations are
what URPErs should be delighted to provide.
Frank Thompson
