Some people (lol me) benefit from more structured discussions!
Let’s use this post to share questions as top level comments. I’m going to re-post some of the questions I had from this post and also from the lists of more generic book club questions found in this post. Anyone who has read/listened to the chapter should feel welcome to respond to any question. You don’t need to be an expert or to “know” the answer. Use this space to work out your own thoughts. This is valuable to your comrades!
Please feel free to post your own, and don’t be shy! We are here to learn and discuss. It’s okay to not get it all and you can’t learn if you don’t ask 💖
I think those are ideas driven by his background as a psychiatrist, yes. They do echo Marx’s “Opium of the masses” - religion or, here, superstition, as a pacifier. In that sense Fanon explains how those beliefs serve an integral part in upkeeping the status quo, how they detract from the material conditions of those people and the real oppression they’re suffering from.
The conclusion, I believe, is that belief can only impede the reversal of violence for so long before it reaches its end. There is a time where it isn’t enough, when the oppressed do rise up. So that ritual catalyst for violence or sexual desire or whatever else isn’t needed and dissolves.
Wow, thanks Mosquibee! That was really helpful.