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submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by thelastaxolotl@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

Frantz Fanon, born on this day in 1925, was a West Indian Pan-Africanist philosopher and Algerian revolutionary most known for his text The Wretched of the Earth.

Fanon was born to an affluent family on the Caribbean island of Martinique, then a French colony which is still under French control today. As a teenager, he was taught by communist anti-colonial thinker Aimé Césaire (1913 - 2008).

Fanon was exposed to much European racism during World War II. After France fell to the Nazis in 1940, a Nazi government was set up in Martinique by French collaborators, whom he describedas taking off their masks and behaving like "authentic racists".

Fighting for the Allied forces, Fanon also observed European women liberated by black soldiers preferring to dance with fascist Italian prisoners rather than fraternize with their liberators.

While completing a residency in psychiatry in France completing, Fanon wrote and published his first book, "Black Skin, White Masks" (1952), an analysis of the negative psychological effects of colonial subjugation upon black people.

Following the outbreak of the Algerian revolution in November 1954, Fanon joined the Front de Libération Nationale, a nationalist Algerian party. Working at a French hospital in Algeria, Fanon became responsible for treating the psychological distress of the French troops who carried out torture to suppress anti-colonial resistance, as well as their Algerian victims.

While organizing for Algerian independence in Ghana, Fanon was diagnosed with leukemia that would ultimately kill him. He spent the last year of his life writing his most famous work, "The Wretched of the Earth" (French: Les Damnés de la Terre). The text provides a psychiatric analysis of the dehumanizing effects of colonization and examines the possibilities of anti-colonial liberation

Following a trip to the Soviet Union to treat his leukemia, Fanon came to the U.S. in 1961 for further treatment in a visit arranged by the CIA. Fanon died in Bethesda, Maryland on December 6th, 1961 under the name of "Ibrahim Fanon", a Libyan nom de guerre he had assumed in order to enter a hospital after being wounded during a mission for the Algerian National Liberation Front.

"In the World through which I travel, I am endlessly creating myself."

Biography :fanon:

The Wretched of the Earth PDF

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[-] Keld@hexbear.net 7 points 4 days ago

Hey so its late and I'm having some trouble falling asleep so I'm dropping a take.

In paradox games... who are you playing as? Like what role are you inhabiting. If you play a red alert game you're inhabiting the role of some unseen and unheard commander, if you play Mario you're playing Mario usually. In paradox games you're playing a different thing. In a paradox game you're not playing the head of state or head of government those come and go, you're not playing a commander those also come and go, and when you're playing hoi4 for instance you remain in control as your nation succumbs to fascism or the revolution overthrows tbe old regime so you're not playing the government either. You're playing the weltgeist, you're playing the national spirit as a numen. Paradox games are fascist national mysticism taken to its logical extent.

[-] Euergetes@hexbear.net 3 points 3 days ago

in hoi4 you're the war department. this is why the control of the civilian economy is sort of oblique, they're vaguely following wartime directives but you get granular control of war industries that are entirely under the military. also you only the strategic level of military direction, you don't get to tell x battalion to flank or whatever because that's below your pay grade.

but a lot of paradox devs would probably agree with the weltgeist thing, they are europeans after all

[-] Moss@hexbear.net 3 points 3 days ago

I think that the simplest answer is that you're playing as the state

[-] Keld@hexbear.net 2 points 3 days ago

Youre playing as "the state" separate from the people in it and given agency and power. Its the fascist conception of the national spirit.

[-] Breath_Of_The_Snake@hexbear.net 4 points 4 days ago

It varies. In Victoria you assume the role of the spirit of the nation. In crusader kings you occupy the role of the dynasty. so on and so forth

this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2025
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