cut back on over-use of 'radical'

2 files changed, 7 insertions, 7 deletions

diff --git a/chapter2.md b/chapter2.md
index cf88f5b..f4eba4e 100644
--- a/chapter2.md
+++ b/chapter2.md
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ Among the numerous complaints commentators have expressed about catastrophic
 green rhetoric, I will examine three in particular. First, it is alleged that
 catastrophic language encourages a fatalistic outlook and therefore persuades
 audiences that no proposed solution can be credible. Second, catastrophe is
-supposed to promote business as usual and shut down radical discourses,
+supposed to promote business as usual and shut down critical discourses,
 preventing rhetors from proposing truly credible solutions. Third, critics argue
 that catastrophic thinking flattens out power relationships and thus contributes
 to the 'death of politics,' driving rhetors to use the universal 'we' instead of
@@ -174,7 +174,7 @@ For some rhetors, the urgency of the crisis means that
 established power structures must be supported to work at full throttle, and we
 certainly haven't got time to replace or transform them. But if, as
 many political analysts contend, green harms are an inevitable
-consequence of business as usual, then such narratives obstruct the radical
+consequence of business as usual, then such narratives obstruct the
 political critique needed to propose a truly credible solution to green
 issues. For example, the International Monetary Fund recently reported:
 
@@ -187,8 +187,8 @@ The IMF presumes that massive capital flows can only come from the private
 sector, ignoring the fact that many historical economic transformations have been
 driven by command-and-control. Tacitly, the IMF assumes that the neoliberal
 order, in which governments are held hostage by markets, is permanent and
-inevitable. The figure of climate catastrophe functions here to shut down
-radical imagination. This contributes to the tendency of green rhetors
+inevitable. The figure of climate catastrophe functions here to prevent audiences from
+imagining a different kind of society. This contributes to the tendency of green rhetors
 to propose incredible solutions, such as voluntary austerity, impossible global
 agreements, or 'smart' market fixes isolated from a sustainable political
 programme.
diff --git a/chapter3.md b/chapter3.md
index 838c4d0..98b6c2a 100644
--- a/chapter3.md
+++ b/chapter3.md
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ audience, John's visions of catastrophe were essential to his critique of the
 Roman Empire. In contrast to the accusations of fatalism, conservatism and
 death-of-politics levelled against contemporary green catastrophism, John's
 catastrophism motivated his audience to action, undermined dominant ideologies,
-and exposed economic social structure as a basis for radical political critique.
+and exposed economic social structure as a basis for political critique.
 Further, catastrophism only scratches the surface of John's apocalypticism, and
 I'll show how three further aspects of his apocalyptic language add to his
 rhetorical strategy. In the next chapter, I'll show how these features of John's
@@ -107,7 +107,7 @@ which he wants his audience to endure. Thus, as Ben Witherington III puts it:
 
 Using this alternative catastrophic dialectic, exhorting his audience to endure
 an ongoing disaster rather than avert a future one, is essential to John's
-radical politics. Andrew Chester [@chaos-new-creation] has explored in detail
+politics. Andrew Chester [@chaos-new-creation] has explored in detail
 how John subverted the dominant Greek value-system, beginning with the
 observation that in Rev 6:12-17, God's life-sustaining creative acts of Gen 1
 are threatened with total annihilation:
@@ -173,7 +173,7 @@ analysis of power structures within Greek society, and particularly between the
 rich and poor among Asian Christian churches.
 
 As a result, apocalypticism has been a powerful force helping to mobilise
-radical social movements – for better and for worse – continually throughout
+transformative social movements – for better and for worse – continually throughout
 Christian history. The Gregorian reforms, the Lombards, the Hussites, the
 Lutherans, the Diggers, Columbus and the American 'Founding Fathers,' the
 French, American and Haitian Revolutions, the numerous evangelical revivals, the