A radicle is the embryonic precursor to a plant’s root structure. It lies dormant in the seed, waiting for the right conditions that will allow it to push into the soil, find water, and eventually stabilize the plant in the earth.

A free radical is a molecule containing an atom with an unpaired electron. This unpaired electron is highly unstable, making it extremely favorable to for the free radical to take an electron from another atom, or to interact with another radical1. Under the right conditions, a radical can cause a chain reaction, spreading further and further until the raw materials of the reaction are consumed. The awesome power of radicals makes itself apparent when we see a combustion reaction destroy acres of forest.

Free radicals are not inherently destructive, though. Indeed, we rely on carefully-controlled radical reactions with each and every breath. Oxygen is so vital for us precisely because of its well-suitedness to the free radical-based reaction of oxidative phosphorylation, the very chemical reaction which supplies our body with a steady supply of ATP.

A radical is someone who supposes that in order to improve society, a fundamental break must be made. Like the embryonic seed, the political radical is not potentiated until the right historical context presents itself. And when it does, the political radical ==is like a== free radical – potentiated for destruction but also construction.

This site, then, is a home for my essays. In them, ==I hope to embody the ideals represented by the radicle, the chemical radical, and the political radical==.

  1. This extreme favorability to interact with and alter another molecule is what we mean when we say that a chemical is “reactive.” ↩