a radical definition

What does it mean to be radical?
Paulo Freire provides a definition:

Radicalization involves increased commitment to the position one has chosen. It is predominantly critical, loving, humble, and communicative, and therefore a positive stance.

The man who has made a radical option does not deny another man's right to choose, nor does he try to impose his own choice. He can discuss their respective positions. He is convinced he is right, but respects another man's prerogative to judge himself correct. He tries to convince and covert, not to crush his opponent.

The radical does, however, have the duty imposed by love itself, to react against the violence of those who try to silence him-of those who, in the name of freedom, kill his freedom and their own. ..Radicals cannot passively accept a situation in which the excessive power of a few leads to the dehumanization of all.

p9 Freire, Paulo. Education for Critical Consciousness. Continuum: London, 1974.