What Does Radix Mean To Be Radical

As Karl Marx professes “To be radical is to grasp things by the root. But for man the root is man himself” (Qtd Performing Marx: Contemporary Negotiations of a Living Tradition 142). His averment to “grasp things by the root” is a standard notion of radicalism. Literally, the English word “radical” comes from the Latin, radix, meaning “root”, and thus suggests getting to the fundamental basis of one’s concerns. To get the “root” of things is to understand, and act upon, the way in which human issues and concerns are basically linked to the economic mode of production that defines one’s
existence.