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Life
He argued that philosophy had been describing the world when it should be changing it, and then described it more precisely than almost anyone.
He was born in Martinique, studied psychiatry in France, and spent his life analyzing what colonialism does to the mind, and what it takes to undo it.
Connection
Karl Marx applied to colonial condition Frantz Fanon — Fanon extended Marxist analysis of alienation and class to the specific situation of colonialism: the colonized person is not merely exploited economically but psychologically unmade. The struggle is for consciousness, not just conditions.
Ideas
Words
“Philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.”
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
“Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it.”
“The colonist makes history and is conscious of making it. And because he constantly refers to the history of his metropolis, he clearly indicates that he himself is the extension of that metropolis.”
Key Moments
1849
Permanent exile in London
1867
Capital, Volume I published
1956
Joins the Algerian revolution
1961
The Wretched of the Earth dictated while dying
Works
Capital, Volume I
The Wretched of the Earth