Radishes ... a truly radical vegetable

Photography Challenge 03 #photographychallenge03 of the 100 Days of Steem is to snap photos for fruits and vegetables.

So, when I headed off for the day's shopping, I made a point of looking for vegestables to photograph.

My local store is owned by Associated Foods . Their produce section is the terminus of an established food chain. The food is hardy and consistant, but not particularly inspiring. The photo shows the store after its recent remodel.

The store offers a consistant fare throughout the year; However, the food is not quite blog worthy and would not deserve an upvote from the SteemIt Curator.

One of the more interesting aspects of the produce section is that marketer of a local hothouse realized that people would pay more for tomatoes with stems. The price of vine tomatoes is generally twice that of the Romano Tomatoes. Even worse, shoppers are unwittingly buying stems for the price of tomatoes.

So, to create a post worthy of an upvote by the curators, I decided to diverge and publish an essay about a word.

The term "radical" means root. It is the root of the term "radish" (pictured at the top of this post). A Radish (Raphanus raphanistrum) is a member of the mustard family.

The term "radical" became popular among people who were looking for substantive reforms after the US Revolution.

Radical reformers wanted to look beyond superficial constructs in society and solve the root problems that caused inequities.

Henry David Thoreau summed up this meaning with the quote: “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”

Radicals had a tendency to advocate reforms that challenged the social order. Conservatives, in turn, framed reforms (such as the Abolition of Slavery) that challenged the social structure as extremist, and gradually, the term "radical" became a synonym of extremist.

Personally I dislike the way that politicians have twisted the term "radical." We need a word to describe people who challenge fundamental inequities in our society.

The term "radical" has been so thoroughly misused in modern discourse that it is impossible to disentangle it from the negative connotations associated with the term.

However, it is worthwhile to realize that a radish, like the carrot, is radical vegetable simply for the fact that it is a tuber pulled from the earth.

The world could use a few thinkers who strike at the roots of evil rather than just the branches.