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'The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses.' - Karl Marx
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Not reporting is bourgeois


 

What would be a deconstruction of the Saul-to-Paul conversion trope?

I'm asking this, because I'm planning on making my grad school thesis the political use of political conversion memoirs and how the Saul-to-Paul trope is utilized in this context. The four political memoirs I'm using (all of them featuring the subject going from leftist to right-winger) are:

>Witness by Whittaker Chambers

>School of Darkness by Bella Dodd
>Radical Son by David Horowitz
>Unplanned by Abby Johnson

All of these memoirs conspicuously follow the exact same story arch: individual (usually presented as naive) gets involved with an "evil" organization (usually a left-wing political group), they rise up to the group's higher ranks due to the group manipulating them insecurities, they engage in unspeakable acts of evil as a high-ranking member of the group, they have a sudden break with said group, either leave voluntarily or are thrown out, then go on to have a right-wing religious conversion, feel incredibly guilt about what their "naive" self had done, and only ends up being redeemed through exposing or snitching on their former comrades. This trope, when used in a political context, is almost always used by the converts to show their superior authority in understanding politics. Many times they present their political conversions from far-left to far-right as a "good vs. evil" type thing.

My question is, how would this political conversion "Saul-to-Paul" narrative be deconstructed or subverted?


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