so i recently got into a kind of lame pissing contest online with a friend of mine that all stemmed from something he said that i felt was elitist. he then accused me of pulling out "the privilege card", at which point all hell broke loose, but that is neither here nor there. what it got me thinking of though is how do we relate within our own activities and organizing in terms of: outreach, "educating", and consciousness raising; involvement in communities and spreading our movement or ideals; and creating spaces, skills, and relationships that further movement.
the above mentioned friend with whom i exchanged obscenities views his most valuable contribution to be spreading information through the act of educating those who they feel to be not as knowledgeable about their cause, specifically the animal rights movement. to me though this feels like an imposition and hierarchical, that by assuming that one has a more valid "truth" than others ignores basic facts. what about the fact that people for one reason or another have causes and reasons for how they eat? that the ideas of mainstream veganism don't relate to every neighborhood? of course one can say they try not to impose their ideas in places or situations that don't fit, but the bottom line is that when you have an absolutist approach you better make sure your message is universal. good luck with that.
anyway! i have older anarchist friends (in their 30s, oh my god so old!) who having been active in explicitly anarchist scenes decided to work for the last few years with other groups such as non-profits, community gardens, etc etc etc. as anarchists they have certain perspectives and opinions that clash with those of the other community organizers they collaborate with, but they also have skills, experience, and motivations in common. and i've seen them do amazing work, and whether intentionally or not i've noticed a more radical slant in community orgs.
it just seems that working together and contributing to what a community immediately needs is way better than coming at somebody with your pet cause. this isn't co-opting, hopefully, as long as it is done respectfully and consensually.so in my opinion, leave the "educating" to those marxists socialist bastards. instead go see who is doing something already and help. if nothing is happening, ask people what they want to do then go do it. we don't need leaders, in fact we work much better without them.
please share what you think!
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Hi Ken. I get what you're saying. I don't disagree with there being leaders (it's a natural instinct), but I do disagree with there being ONE leader. It's a silly concept really. I like group consensus. I've been in situations where it was best for me to follow the instructions or vision of someone else, and on the flip side where people followed my vision. Both are great! I think one of the major problems is that people can't let go of their ego for 5 seconds enough to realize they hardly know anything. If we all could be ok with that fact, we'd all be better friends and citizens, stewards, whatever you want to call it. I would like to have a conversation with you sometime about anarchy and your disdain for socialism. For me, parts of socialism make sense because the underlying notion is that everyone has an equal advantage. If everyone had good medicine, good work, good living situation, and an opportunity to learn, then we'd have a better chance at expressing our human nature of radness because we wouldn't have to be stuck competing against one another. I have to learn more about anarchy, because I see anarchy as a kind of free-for-all, survival of only the smartest, strongest, etc. Anyway, you're post reminds me of a great conversation I had with a friend like ten years ago. I was eating things like hot dogs at the time, and he came into my life and one night he just asked, "do you eat meat?" and i said yes. and he asked "can i tell you why i think eating meat is bad?" and there was no judgement or guilt trip or anything, just him sharing with me. And it made me think about it more than when anyone had ever yelled at me or scolded me for eating meat, etc. I think that's what it's all about... when we want to teach people the way we think is right, not to judge them for not already doing it (or for being opposed to it)... it's hard to do because we believe in our thing. I'm learning how to do this now when I talk about religion to the church-going folks. As far as what you say about your anarchist friends that have teamed up with "organized" folks.. I say go to it! If everyone's feeling good about what's happening and the work being done, who cares what label or department you belong to. Does being an anarchist mean that you shouldn't do work with people who have organized? I don't like rules like that. I think we should all just be letting our truth hang out and we should do what makes us and everyone else feel good. I mean, what does anarchy say about giving and generosity? What does it say about duty and responsibility? Yeah we need to talk!<<my rant. See you soon! -Em
ReplyDeleteyeah i agree with the general gist of your argument. In previous anarchist projects i was involved in there was always the hope that we would form meaningful relationships with a broad base of community members. something i have learned is that if you want to engage with people where they are at you have to be willing to make real, meaningful relationships with people, one by one. There is no anarchist or any other project that will attract a diverse group of committed people just because it is a cool project. the relationship are the key. and that shit is slow. K, your very last sentence caught my eye. its is an anarchist staple. the whole thing about no leaders. It is so much more complicated than that. i see no contradiction with the idea of leaders and anarchism. we kill ourselves before we even get started by taking our critiques to absurd lengths. there would be no tradition to celebrate if we were completely against the idea of leaders. i would prefer to start from the idea that we all need to be leaders. leadership looks different in different scenarios. we dont like figure heads and people with rigid leader titles and roles. that is good. but that doesnt mean leadership is bad. there is actually an irony here i think because we dont want to privilege the individual, but instead we have this kind of weird faith in this mystical journey of the disconnected individual into consciousness. most of us had leaders of some sort who helped us in our journey. maybe we prefer to call them friends or something else. the catch is that i would reject this whole argument that i have just made if it was being made by someone who was super privileged and seeking to justify their leadership role as the "enlightened educator". by this i mean someone who wants to stand up front and preach, unwilling the unglorious behind the scenes support (leadership by deed) work and without forming respectful two-way relationships with people. anyways, maybe that'l start a conversation
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yeah thats definitely a rad response. i really only had a gist to post, and i was sort of fishing for contributions. im a big fan of lots of things being followed by "by deed", whether its leadership, education, propaganda, etc etc and ive always like the idea/occurrence of a sort of roving leadership that arises during situations when necessary. but i also think unless you have a really good group that clicks it does take those relationships that you talk about. but i dont think leadership can be sought so much as skills, experiences can be acknowledged and shared when theyre relevant.
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