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?

>grad school

>>24522839 (OP)

>>Witness by Whittaker Chambers
>>School of Darkness by Bella Dodd
>>Radical Son by David Horowitz
>>Unplanned by Abby Johnson
QRD on all these books?

>>24522839 (OP)
Not sure what you mean.

>>24522898
I read Witness for school. Chambers is a great writer and there is a lot of emotion in this book. It’s his life story of his shitty childhood, his initiation into communism, his realization how shitty communism is, and exposing his former commie buddy and high ranking state department flunky Alger Hiss as a dirtbag red.

As to gradanon,

1) why wouldn’t these people have a superior understanding of these organizations? They were literally members.

2) Why wouldn’t they have guilt about their vile actions? They were part of groups that covertly attempted to subvert their own homelands in service of a genocidal foreign power.

And 3) why wouldn’t they attempt to bring their former “comrades” down? A genuine apology is 1 percent words, 99 percent action.

>>24522839 (OP)
i don't understand the necessity of a deconstruction in this context

>>24524086
Traitors to the omnicause make gradanon seethe so he’s going to get back at them by writing a paper “deconstructing” them that only a teaching assistant is ever going to read. That’ll show em.

>>24522839 (OP)
Slave morality is slave morality. Did this one just become worthless?

>>24524105
I'm not sure actually. I was reading Hegel earlier and a quote stuck out to me, paraphrased, "Analysis then is the disassembly of an idea out of the form in which it has become familiar into its essential moments," and then something about how the intended effect is that the idea can then impress the intellect without the shadow cast by the previous assumed familiarity. To this end, what is called a deconstruction is not necessarily something in opposition or even hatred of the thing deconstructed. Still, it seems that gradanon has a reasonable evidence base and the work of analysis from this point is the very thing for which he will be graded, so it is odd that he would ask a bunch of presumably unqualified strangers on the internet to do it for him.

>>24522839 (OP)
> Saul-to-Paul
> from leftist to right-winger

Saul of Tarsus was a Pharisee, though.

The story arc you describe here may apply to the books you list--I haven't read them, so I don't know--but it doesn't sound like Saul of Tarsus.

>>24522839 (OP)
Sounds like a bunch of Jewish and commie seethe honestly.

>>24524079
> 2) Why wouldn’t they have guilt about their vile actions? They were part of groups that covertly attempted to subvert their own homelands in service of a genocidal foreign power.
Doesn’t justify snitching, especially if they had substantial power in the group and recruited others into it.

>>24524121
What do you mean?

>>24524079
>1) why wouldn’t these people have a superior understanding of these organizations? They were literally members.

Because they have bad blood with them and feel the urge to take them down, and also because their personal experience in the group (or with the group’s ideology) doesn’t account for the experiences of others who stayed in said group?

Or in some cases, when they turned state (like Chambers and Dodd) they were compelled by the feds to lie and exaggerate so the feds would have an easier time making their case.

>>24524079
The problem with Chambers’ book is how he’s heavily manipulative. He keeps invoking the idea that there’s a great conspiracy of satanic communist infiltration in America yet never reveals it and buries it in 700 pages thinking the readers will forget. Keep in mind, the notion of a “global communist conspiracy” was a hit talking point during the early Cold War, similar to the Pizza Gate/alleged pedophile sex trafficking ring conspiracies of today.

>>24522839 (OP)
>>Unplanned by Abby Johnson
Kek, I remember watching the film at my church. It was corny af.

>>24524327
David Horowitz made up a bunch of accusations against the Black Panthers which turned out not to be true.

>>24522898
>QRD on all these books?

"Witness" -- Chambers was a fucked up guy, joined Communist Party USA and was part of its underground network, wife refused to abort their child which lead him down the path of religious conversion, claimed he understood the godlessness of communism so he quit, became a Christian, and then snitched on CPUSA during the 2nd Red Scare ("McCarthyism"). Book is highly melodramatic and presents a highly good-vs-evil Manichaean worldview. Chambers also blames intellectuals for propagating communism in America, heavily promotes Christianity as the only way to save the world from the communist menace, and is overall a sensationalist asshole.

"School of Darkness" -- Bella Dodd was an Italian immigrant who longed to fit in with American society and culture, joined CPUSA in the mid 1930s, recruited a bunch of CPUSA-affiliated teachers into the Teachers Union in New York, worked her way up to become very successful in the Party, fell out with the Party soon after Earl Browder got purged, ended up leaving CPUSA and became a born-again Catholic after meeting with Fulton Sheen, Sheen then convinced her to snitch on the Party during McCarthyism as a form of "repentance". Basically, Dodd was desperately searching for validation her entire life. When communists didn't want her anyone she became Catholic and anti-communist and got validation from that crowd.

"Radical Son" -- Horowitz grew up being raised by CPUSA-affiliated parents, was raised to believe in communism, became a big name activist in the 60s New Left, worked with the Black Panthers, then had a falling out with the Panthers, accused them of murdering a friend of his, had a complete falling out with leftist politics and embraced Reaganite conservatism in the 80s. Most of his memoir is about "growing up" and realizing the leftist beliefs his parents raised him with were "wrong". He also hates intellectuals and is highly self-righteous.

"Unplanned" -- Abby Johnson worked at Planned Parenthood and became very successful at it. She became a clinic director. Then, one day she allegedly witnessed a fetus being aborted on an ultrasound and this destroyed her mentally. She became a staunch anti-abortion activist afterwards. A lot of details in her memoir have been scrutinized by her former coworkers. Her book doesn't have some great metaphysical discussion on the "evils of leftism" as the other three but it's a more contemporary conversion memoir, so.

>>24522839 (OP)
By "deconstruct" you mean like Derrida or whatever?