ABSTRACT
Gunnar Olsson's voyages into the uncharted frontiers of language have bedeviled, bewildered, and bewitched readers for nearly thirty years. His essays and books have posed serious challenges for the earnest reader, and not a few have given up in frustration. Most fundamentally, we might say that he seeks to smash the taboos of socialization that prevent human beings from understanding the workings of power and keep them obedient and pliable. The task of understanding not only what it means to be human but also the nature of the very reality in which we find ourselves. The author argues that we can learn much about how to approach the writings of Gunnar Olsson by considering the parallels of his work to another group of radicals seeking to correct our ontological understanding of existence. This chapter reviews some of the major social roles embodied by this tradition.
