Hey guys! welcome to chapter two of the Wretched of the Earth! Here is the summary and analysis we will be using for this book, feel free to use this to follow along if you cant complete the reading or need help catching up.
Chapter two is one of my favorites. It paints a wonderful painting of the colonized society and its potential paths and pitfalls to revolution. The key to this chapter is understanding the different players involved in a colonized society and the tensions between each other.
Some (optional) discussion questions:
1.Who is the lumpenproletariat? Why are the essential to a revolution, why is discounting their potential a mistake?
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Who are the urban proletariat? what kind of positions do they have? why do they represent the "bourgeoisie fraction of the colonized population"?
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Who are the rural masses, why are they often a hindrance to revolutions in the past, why are they also crucial? What role do witch doctors and tribal chief play in the lives of the rural masses?
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Where will the political education of the masses come from? Why is it important?
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What is the weakness of spontaneity?
Bonus: Try to tie in the concepts from chapter two to a real life countries, such as the events in Niger or Haiti (who is the lumpenproletariat, what are they doing ect).
feel free to ignore the discussion questions if they dont serve you, and just comment any thought, questions, and critiques you have of the chapter! also due dates are not conducive to a real education people! always go at your own pace you don't have to comment today.
English translation by Richard Philcox – https://ia801708.us.archive.org/3/items/the-wretched-of-the-earth/The Wretched Of The Earth.pdf – you'd be reading from page 42 to 311 of this PDF, 270 pages
English translation by Constance Farrington – https://abahlali.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Frantz-Fanon-The-Wretched-of-the-Earth-1965.pdf
Original French text – https://monoskop.org/images/9/9d/Fanon_Frantz_Les_damnés_de_la_terre_2002.pdf
English audio version – https://inv.tux.pizza/playlist?list=PLZ_8DduHfUd2r1OOCtKh0M6Q9xD5RaR3S – about 12h20m – Alternative links
soundcloud audio book english https://soundcloud.com/listenleft/sets/frantz-fanon-the-wretched-of-the-earth
Schedule
8/20/23 - pre-face and chapter one On violence
8/27/23- chapter two Grandeur and Weakness of Spontaneity
9/3/23- chapter three The Trials and Tribulations of National Consciousness
9/10/23- chapter four On National Culture
9/17/23 chapter five Colonial war and Mental Disorders and conclusion
thank you for the feedback. I will figure out how to ping people then get on that. about a week and a half ago the schedul was set in place by making a post about it, I will add the schedule too the post. you can also find last weeks post here https://hexbear.net/post/384886 please let me know if there is anything else I can fix. and i do agree it would be cool if this was stickied this is an important book and im not sure im doing a good enough job getting people involved.
I recommend edit the post to repost the schedule. I won't be able to join this conversation because I didn't know ahead of time, but if I knew chapter 3 is in two weeks or whatever I could find time to read and participate. Edit: oh I see you did that - maybe edit the formatting so it's crystal clear what date goes with which chapter?
And I would message the mods about stickying this for a day
fixed! and I will message the mods is there someone in particular who chooses the stickies? I know @Vampire@hexbear.net is the theory mod, i will message him. thank you so much!
Stickied. I mean stuck. I mean stickinated. I mean sticky'ied.
thank you!!
Pinging people is easy, just type @ and then the username and a dropdown list appears. I'd suggest pinging everyone who commented in any of the threads, including the first brainstorming one
will do thank you!