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A Discussion With Dean Spade
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Dean Spade is the author of "Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During this Crisis and the Next", and "Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law". Well known for highlighting the ways that mutual aid can be a direct response to societal needs as well as a transformative practice that shifts our reliance away from the state and toward each other, Spade has just published a new book called "Love in a Fucked Up World: How to Build relationships, hook up, and raise hell together". Informed by over two decades of experience pushing for trans liberation and racial and economic justice, Spade's new book discusses the urgency of building sustainable, accountable, and truly abolitionist interpersonal relationships that empower us to resist state violence over the long haul. In a time of increasing despair, he urges us to move beyond symbolic actions and embrace riskier, more meaningful forms of action that require trust, deep solidarity, and real vulnerability. We touch on Spade's personal journey of radicalization, think about some of the potential of this moment, and unpack some concrete tools for self-reflection and expression.
In addition to Spade's books, check out the "Five Questions for Cultivating Solidarity When Responding to Political Repression", downloadable in English & Spanish here: https://www.communityjusticeexchange.org/en/resources-all/five-questions-for-cultivating-solidarity
Follow Dean Spade:
Twitter – https://x.com/deanspade
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/spade.dean
Personal website – https://www.deanspade.net/
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Transcript
Introduction to 'The Beautiful Idea' Podcast
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello. You're listening to The Beautiful Idea, a podcast from a collective of several anarchist and autonomous media producers scattered around the world. We're bringing you interviews and stories from the front lines of autonomous social movements and struggles, as well as original commentary and analysis.
00:00:25
Speaker
Follow us on Mastodon and at thebeautifulidea.show. Thanks for listening.
Interview with Dean Spade Begins
00:00:43
Speaker
All right. Hi, I'm here with Dean Spade, author of Mutual Aid, Building Solidarity During This Crisis and the Next and Normal Life, Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law. He's just published a new book called Love in a Fucked Up World, How to Build Relationships, Hook Up and Raise Hell Together. Thanks for being here, Dean. Would you like to introduce yourself for our audience?
Dean Spade's Background and Influence
00:01:06
Speaker
Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk to you. What else is there say about me? I've i've been doing things in movements for trans liberation and racial and economic justice and against militaries for about 25 years in different parts of the U.S. primarily and spend most of my time these days in Seattle on Duwamish land.
00:01:27
Speaker
You're actually the reason that I didn't go to law school. So it's an honor to be speaking with you right now. love that actually works. like Almost everybody's like, oh, I feel like I said that too, still goes to law school. So thank you so much for here.
00:01:43
Speaker
No, it's it's great. I had a ah close friend and in college who was also looking at at law school and then found your work and she started circling it around. And here we are doing very different things with our lives now. So not to discredit, we do need movement lawyers, but I really appreciated your guidance in my early twenty s So thank you for Thank you for that.
00:02:05
Speaker
I'm glad it worked out. Yeah.
Themes in 'Love in a Fucked Up World'
00:02:08
Speaker
I see references in your new book to a lot of lessons I've picked up over the years from writers like Carla Bergman, Nick Montgomery, Clementine Morgan, Miriam Caba, Jessica Fern.
00:02:21
Speaker
And I really appreciate the way that you're that you weave together the personal with the political in the way that I see a lot of those writers doing, especially in this new book.
Mutual Aid in Political Challenges
00:02:30
Speaker
So i I want to talk about that in a minute, but first I thought it would be good if we could provide a little bit of background to listeners on some of your other work since The Beautiful Idea is an autonomous anarchist podcast, and we cover a lot of mutual aid efforts around the country and the world, including some of the incredible work that's been happening recently in response to climate catastrophe in places like Los Angeles and
00:02:55
Speaker
North Carolina. And i i heard you give an amazing anti lib rants on another podcast previously. And so i want to make space for you to do that here.
00:03:06
Speaker
But right now, and we've we've been talking about this a lot on our podcast is just like the new context in light of the Trump regime. But we're seeing what happens when people think they can rely on the system to change
State Systems vs. Mutual Aid
00:03:19
Speaker
the system. And in a time of increasing cuts to social safety nets,
00:03:24
Speaker
A lot of people might feel an increasing desire to lobby the state for better welfare policy and support. And so I wanted to ask you, how since you've written so much about mutual aid, how do we balance the urgency to get our needs met without reifying dependency on the state?
00:03:40
Speaker
and And what do you think are some of the opportunities and risks of this particular moment? Yeah, I mean, you know, what's happening is so bad. I was just texting with my friend who has been doing, you know, direct legal services to people on public benefits for years and years and years, for probably for 20 years. And he was just talking about the significance of what what's going to it's going to mean for 7,000 people to be fired from the Medicaid system, you know, and just like how many people are going to die from the kinds of slashes to
00:04:11
Speaker
poverty related services that are already so weak and thin and exclude so many people and give such like incredibly low benefits that you could never live off of them. But even like the further destruction of that, like thin, thin, thin, you know, inadequate safety net is like, you know, really deadly.
00:04:30
Speaker
And i think it, yeah, it can be easy to have the response that be like, we need to ask them, don't, don't cut it. Right. Which, which I think, you know, hasn't been working for, all of our lifetimes, right? Like it's like the the Republicans and the Democrats have both been like completely united in criminalizing poverty and like making it harder and harder to get the basic, you know, really crappy welfare benefits that exist in, um you know, adding lots of like stigmatizing ideas around them and like stigmatizing like work requirements. You know, it's just like every everyone in our government is like down with that. And now we're seeing like a really terrifying speed up.
00:05:06
Speaker
of that process that's already been happening our whole lives. And what on the one hand, what i hope is that people will be like, wow, there is no getting anything out of this government. There's no getting anything out of this Supreme Court. like these like it is Our opponents have it locked down. Could we finally return our energies to caring for each other and fighting them directly instead of asking
Direct Action and Liberal Co-opting
00:05:26
Speaker
them for things? like What do they have to look like for us to stop orienting towards moral persuasion as the technique, you know, like, and I, it feels like hopefully, right? Like maybe more people.
00:05:37
Speaker
And that happened last time Trump was elected, there was a real turn towards Well, it was complicated in 2016. On the one hand, I think I was really frustrated, and this is part of what led to me to writing the book Mutual Aid. felt like there was like a message coming in 2016 from like Planned Parenthood and the ACLU and stuff, like, we've we've got this, like donate to us. you know and like planned parent I mean, the ACLU had like these really irritating things on its website, like, click here to say you...
00:06:01
Speaker
support the constitution like just like directing people who are appropriately terrified and scared and angry to meaningless symbolic action and then donation right and for me that's really scary because people get there's those moments where more people are mobilizable and we really want to invite them to like action that will feel satisfying to them connect them to more people help them grow new solidarities, help them learn new new ways of understanding what's happening, that our movements have been, you know, just regenerating that analysis instead of just so directing people to more kind of like meaningless action.
00:06:32
Speaker
So I feel like, you know, 2025 is another one of those moments where a lot of newly scared and angry people, you know, are like, oh my God, like what is happening? What do we do?
00:06:43
Speaker
And where I really want us to really, you know, invite them deeply into direct action and mutual aid as the response is. On the other hand, on the one hand, it's like, okay, it's a moment where there it's a total dead end to appeal to the government. Maybe people will well join us in in direct action and mutual aid.
00:07:00
Speaker
On the other hand, these are also moments where the Democrats and liberals regroup and become more, they move further to the right because all they have to do is distinguish themselves from Trump. So they're all, you know, it's very, this is what happened last time. Like I, one of the moments of this for me was was living Washington state and the Washington state electeds had like a joint press conference that was like, you know, the mayor of Seattle who was, you know, and part of building this horrible youth jail that we were fighting and the governor and all these people who are all doing like these horrible anti-poor racist you know terrible things and they have a press conference and they declared Washington hate-free state and they like decried Trump and like talked about how they love trans people and Muslim people
00:07:43
Speaker
And like, literally, these are the exact same people who are killing trans people and Muslim people and poor people and everybody. But they can just like, it's like this low hanging fruit where they can just be like, we're not Trump. And yeah this idea of a hate free state, utterly meaningless garbage, like hasn't there's no enforcement power. It has no relationships, at any policies that they're actually doing to our communities.
00:08:01
Speaker
And so to me, like, that's a a scary thing about this kind of moment is it can be a yucky regrouping. for liberals and Democrats, because like any alternative looks amazing compared to this like openly like racist death cult you know genocidal nightmare, like ah a softer genocide looks you know like somehow appealing maybe to people. are like So it's hard. like It's a really difficult moment where like our job is to meet people in the kind of fear that and the kind of awakening first for a lot of people, like fear and and anger that that this like explicitly horrible regime can bring out and like the feeling of like hopelessness that people are having, I'm hoping, can be an actual grieving of illusions about what can happen under a colonial government here in the United States. like I would love people to be like, oh my God. like And for the whole election, I hope, is like a death knell for liberalism. People are just like, oh my God, the Democrats are a bunch of imperialist, xenophobic, awful people too.
00:08:59
Speaker
wow, is there anything else? It's so hard to to face my fear around. It's just us. We just have each other. When I've been told my whole life not to trust others, can i get together with others and and form a faith in our, in our goodness and and in our courage and care for one another and learn about how people have fought back in the past and are fighting back all over the world and just instead think my only hope is appealing to, you know, a system that has just continued to deliver the same, you know, downward spiral my whole life to the point where we're, you know, facing extinction.
00:09:32
Speaker
huh Yeah, it's,
Radicalization and Symbolic Gestures
00:09:34
Speaker
it's really interesting. It makes me sort of wonder about you know, what what you're saying about funneling people into sort of meaningless actions, like with this thing with the ACLU that you that you mentioned, or sort of public spectacle that ultimately doesn't doesn't actually change anything on the ground.
00:09:51
Speaker
And I'm hearing more and more people talk about the need to move away from sort of symbolic actions and more towards, with an awareness of of the real risks that people are running and And people are talking more and more about the importance of moving out of doing actions that are going to wind up in like purposeful arrest and instead into things that maybe require more risk and more trust.
00:10:18
Speaker
But it's interesting to think about, like, how do you actually cultivate that kind of discernment with people, especially people that are just moving, moving into these spaces? And I don't know, it's also an opportunity to just sort of reflect on like what actually radicalizes people.
00:10:33
Speaker
And how do we cultivate those opportunities for people? And so I'm curious if you have thoughts about about that question. And also if you could talk about what radicalized you. i know you you talk some about it in the book. You share a lot about your own in your new book and and in your previous work. You talk about your own personal experiences, but I think that's helpful as we're talking about this question of like cultivating discernment in people and bringing people into more radical spaces.
Sustainability in Activist Groups
00:11:01
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I think this is the this is a hard question. Like what helps people get in? I spend a lot of my time directly supporting like groups of people who are doing mutual aid work or doing chapter based work. Like they're a chapter of Students for Justice of Palestine or Dissenters or Jewish Voice for Peace or, you know, some like, you know, some very small where they're doing like direct support to unhoused people in their towns or direct support to people in prison or whatever.
00:11:25
Speaker
And in all of those groups, we have a lot of deep conversations about how to kind of keep bringing new people into the group, right? A lot of groups get kind of like frozen. Like there's like a certain number of us and then we're so focused on on this very high, you know, inevitably any work we're doing, the level of need is enormous.
00:11:40
Speaker
And it can be hard to remember to do all the extra work to be like, let's have an orientation for new people. Let's figure out what welcomes them. What's going to attract them? Is it going to be a cultural event, a film screening? Is it going to be a meeting about this particular thing? Should be indoors or outdoors, daytime or nighttime? You know, like what do, what will get more people? you know, it's just, we live in like a void and,
00:11:56
Speaker
antisocial society and even people really, really, really care about something, they have a hard time making themselves go out and do something about it with others. There's lots of like fear around other people and and not that people are and a lot of people feel very burnt out and exhausted, I think, because of the media context and like the doom scrolling and that, you know, also like working a lot to pay the highest rents that have ever existed on the planet.
00:12:22
Speaker
And so like, it's very hard to just, first of all, figure out how to get people out of the house or out of the, aunt you know, into the, whatever the venue or situation that you're organizing people on.
Dean Spade's Political Awakening
00:12:32
Speaker
And then the second piece is like how to get them to keep coming. You know, like sometimes I it was just, I was just meeting with a group that has had like about 250 people, like, like really come to something and join this one particular signal thread and like really engage at least once.
00:12:46
Speaker
and and even just getting those people to come back, right? Like, and that's people who already did make me do the hardest step of like joining a group for the first time, potentially, right? yeah That means they were highly motivated and also took the kind of like social and emotional risks. So I think this is a really big question. And what we, one of the things we need is to be like, we're just going to relentlessly invite people and we're not going to take it personally when they don't show up again or when you know, some of our events don't didn't get a big, that lot of not a lot of people came. Like we have to be pretty like resilient. And I think part of that is with each other, like in our groups, we have to like,
00:13:20
Speaker
cultivate like a kind of like joyfulness and ability to like find satisfaction with each other, even if not all of our events go well or are popular, or even if we get stumped for a while, like how do we stay with it? I think a lot of people also, because our culture is so avoidant and antisocial will be like, I tried, I tried activism once and it didn't work, or I tried transformative justice once and it didn't really, I hear things like that a lot. And it's like, what, you know, and no one's like got a, you know, perfect formula here. Conditions are horrid.
00:13:48
Speaker
for everything we're trying to do. So how do we, you know, like stick together and be playful as much as possible about it. And like, yeah, we got to make stuff, meet people's social and emotional needs, be fun. Like, feel like you might meet friends there. I feel like people might listen to you there. Like just inviting people to into boring meetings where they don't totally know what's going on or,
00:14:07
Speaker
where they weren't caught up or, you know, like there's gotta be like, you know, people try a lot of great stuff, like have a, have a buddy system so that someone really welcomes you in and follows up with you after have special orientation meetings, make sure there's time for people to really say why they're here. Like this might be their first time getting to talk about these politics with other people who understand, like, you know, just like, what ah you know, use, like do things that are culturally pleasurable for people, like include dance or food or song or prayer or whatever that community is into, you know, like,
00:14:35
Speaker
just all of those pieces for me what what got me politicized I mean i grew up in a context where I felt very i felt very critical what was going on around me like I was living in the 80s in like rural central Virginia and it was like very extreme like racism and and like racial segregation like inside my school bus inside my school like those kinds of pieces and I was like my mom was poor and we were on welfare and like I was aware of like bad things happening to her the low age jobs she had.
Pre-Internet Activism and Engagement
00:15:05
Speaker
And I was aware of my own like class status. And, you know, as we were, me and my sister and my mom were like cleaning people's houses. And some of those people went to my school and like, I was just very aware of like those class differences and the kind of like various humiliations that circulated around that. And I was, you know, as I came into adolescence, very aware of like all the sexual violence and sexism in my peer group and, you know happening to me and all my friends and like,
00:15:29
Speaker
I think that was the first thing that politicized me i mean, I had a sense that like, I had a sense of being like different and pissed and outside in certain ways, and also like wanting to fit in that kind of combination of things. And then i think in my teens, I like, because of the wonderful lyrics of a Salt-N-Pepa song, I like had a feminist awakening, like in the middle of the night about like some things that were happening in my social circle.
00:15:50
Speaker
And then like sought out, like I like went to a library and like read Roe versus Wade. like i like what And I like you know found some random book on like, like women in spirituality and then like somebody gave me backlash by Susan Faludi and I read that that was actually really helpful because it was just like a more like overtly sort of like a book about the political culture and then i yeah and then I i bet you know eventually like left home and found queer found out that you could be queer and you know, and then sort of built from there. Eventually, like in my late teens, I was living in New York City and, you know, Giuliani was mayor. And I, that was where i really like met people through my retail and nightlife jobs and like got involved in like a, but like a radical, like, you know, multi-issue anti-Giuliani sort of political genre that was happening there where I was learning about like what was happening at Rikers and like what was happening with the zoning out of sex work out of Times Square. And,
00:16:44
Speaker
You know, I was working in bars that were being raided by fire marshals because Giuliani was like trying to close gay bars. And I was like, you know, learning about the whole history of AIDS activism, working with a lot of people who'd been in ACT UP and like understanding more about police violence, you know like things were like kind of, you know, the taxi drivers were in a battle with Giuliani and there was a lot of stuff about the mental health system and about like the welfare system. were doing a lot of protests about the welfare system and how to treat people with AIDS. And there was like, you know, kind of, it became,
00:17:11
Speaker
things started to come together for me. That was like the mid nineties. It's like, you know, welfare reform immigration reform in, you know, under Clinton, both my parents were immigrants and my, you know, I'd grown up on welfare. So I felt like some kind of like connection and identity with like what was happening.
00:17:25
Speaker
And i the interesting is the question and related to like right now is like, why did I go out and do stuff about it? Like, that's like, I i really can see compared to now if you were interested in something, you had to literally go out and find people because there wasn't an internet context to feed.
Technology's Impact on Activism
00:17:42
Speaker
that You couldn't just take kind of symbolic action on the internet and feel like you've done something and like you've been seen and heard, which like you just had to either like find a group. And also like, yeah, like when you, like if you left home, you couldn't like really stay touch to people from back home. So you had to go find new people, new peers. Like I think now a lot of my students, they stay in touch with their friends from high school or their friends from college. And they're like,
00:18:03
Speaker
not finding a new group. They're not like, oh, I have to go to this like goofy dance or this like weird art club or something to just find some people. And so their lives have less like less relationships in them and less like local relationships that have depth where someone might like care for you if you were sick or like support you if you're in a relationship crisis. Like I think that we the lack of technology back then like pushed us towards each other.
00:18:27
Speaker
in a different way. Obviously there's ways in which I, you know, the first trans people I ever met were online. I'm not saying that's bad to meet people online, but there was like a kind of necessity for like joining groups that I think is different now and our lives are mediated by, by being social online. And I do think that that can discourage people like joining up with people and being, taking the risk of like, so these people aren't like me or none of them are like me or what's it going to be like at this meeting? i have to go up by myself or but one friend, like taking that social risk I think has become harder and like we're out of practice.
Abolitionism vs. Reformism
00:18:58
Speaker
Hmm. Wow. That's a really, that's a really good point. It makes so much sense. I think. your Your other work focuses heavily on the differences between abolitionism and reformism and the importance of abolishing prisons, what intersectional organizing can look like, why mutual aid is critical for collective liberation.
00:19:19
Speaker
And your new book is really distinctly personal. And i think this sort of speaks to something you were saying earlier, like how do we meet people's social and emotional needs? And you market this new book.
00:19:31
Speaker
Well, I don't know if if that's how you're seeing it, but i that I've been listening to some of your other interviews and, and, you know, read the book itself and like you market it as a self-help book for radicals. Right. And I'm wondering why you chose to write about interpersonal relationships and patterns and, and how you're linking this with your previous work.
00:19:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, i for me, there's a there's a there's a like us there they're all the same project, right? So like in normal life, I'm talking about this question, like how do we how do we have movements that actually make change and what are some of the obstacles to it, right? So I'm talking about the ways that like the neoliberal context, like trans a certain kind of trans politics is emerging in neoliberal context where there's this blueprint of this gay and lesbian rights formation that's pro-police, pro-military, you know, very much aligned with capitalism, has like an illusion about how like changing the law changes people's lives and about like, you know, equal opportunity and all of these other very conservative concepts. And I'm saying like trans politics should not follow this blueprint, even though people assume that it as is like sort of the forgotten stepsister that should be brought into that.
00:20:38
Speaker
And I'm so basically asking like, how does change actually work? What are some of the illusions about change under you know, the racial capitalist context of the US, s the colonial context of the US, what are the illusions about the law system here, and what, you know, what actually works. And I'm saying like, yeah, like formal legal equality is critical race theorists call it doesn't work. It doesn't deliver the goods. We can see that from all the different groups of people that, that, you know, try to avail themselves of that and still remain at the bottom and the most criminalized,
Historical Role of Mutual Aid
00:21:04
Speaker
etc. And and we should instead orient towards like actually changing what people's experiences are, not changing what the law says about us. And so I'm directing us towards mutual aid and and abolition, like destroying these systems rather than trying to be like recognized by them.
00:21:19
Speaker
And then in the mutual aid book, you know that book really came out of watching the moment of the first Trump election and being like oh my god like people have been so lied to about what social movements are so then when they do feel pissed and scared and they go to do something they can be duped by the ACLU into clicking on something about defending the constitution like we've all been told stories about social change that just write mutual aid out of it the example i often use is the Montgomery bus boycott which like I was taught in school it you know was sort of like this person doesn't give up her seat on the bus and then these other people make these speeches and the law changes
00:21:51
Speaker
And like what's written out of that is like thousands of working class black women who like did all these elaborate food projects to raise money, to buy cars, to drive people around and like coordinate people to walk in groups so that like,
00:22:03
Speaker
you know, tens of thousands of people didn't use the bus for 18 months. It's like this giant yeah food and transportation mutual aid project and like also community defense mutual aid project. And like, that's the only thing that makes that thing happen. And it's completely written out of the story.
00:22:18
Speaker
And that I found that even people who are like, you know, kind of supposedly critical teaching about me teaching about social movements, even in college classes, don't include mutual aid. So I was just like, oh my God, this is so infuriating.
Relational Challenges in Movements
00:22:30
Speaker
I was like, this there needs to be like a mutual aid 101, which I first made as a website called Big Door Brigade, like right during right after Trump was elected, that was just a mutual aid toolbox. like These are examples of mutual aid projects from different kinds of issues. like This is what child care ones affect, this is health, whatever.
00:22:46
Speaker
and then And then I wrote ah like an article, because someone invited me to write an article for some journal. I like wrote an article, was okay, maybe this will be taught in classes. And then first it was like, we write this as a book and just like, to So to me, it's the same exact inquiry as normal life. Like how does change happen? And the second half of that book is some people have said reminds them of and of a self-help book. It's very much like, okay, the first half is like, what is mutual aid? What is it not? How is it different from charity? Why is it criminalized by governments, et cetera? And the second half is like, what are common problems that come up in groups and what are ways that we might talk about them in groups and create a group culture around it to like, try to like form a practice that can be more livable and work better and not fall apart. And then, you know,
00:23:26
Speaker
The third book, Love It A Fucked Up World, is just deeper in that question. Like I've just spent 25 years in these movements watching our like very beautiful, much needed, brilliant projects fall apart because we struggle so much relationally. We are just like, you know, we've all been brainwashed by living in a culture that's like brutal and cruel and racist and ableist and sexist. And, you know, we often like copy the capitalist experience of being at work in our groups. We treat each other like we're at a job.
00:23:58
Speaker
We like rush each other. We're like, it's okay to break my body in order to get this done. Like in a very like, so we we act like out, so outcome oriented and, you know, basic feminist inquiry would be like, what's going on in here? This work will be more sustainable for a longer time. If at the end of each,
00:24:15
Speaker
project or the end of each you know campaign or whatever, we are more connected, we're ready to take bigger risks together, we have more confidence in our ideas and our relationships, we have more trust, and instead most groups, that's not what's happening when people are working under dire conditions, which are what we're always doing because we're in such so many disasters and there's so a few people mobilized in our society compared to the needs that we have.
Sustaining Movement Participation
00:24:37
Speaker
People are like really at each other's throats and have like, you know, most people leave the movement because of unresolved conflict that was painful. Like most people's burnout is actually just like, cause really painful conflict happened.
00:24:51
Speaker
And I think most people have very short lives in our movements. Like, i mean, this is obviously just totally anecdotal, but like my experience is that the average movement participant in the United States is somebody who like did something once, like they went to Occupy Sandy or they went to, you know, something in 2020 or whatever. They like joined something for a little while. They had some kind of really hard stuff happen and they never went again. Even if they remain having a politicized identity, carefully follow politics, have this as how they how they think about themselves, they're not doing any organizing anymore.
00:25:22
Speaker
And that is not okay. Like we need people to come and stay and share skills and learn more and expand their solidarities. And so, this, you know, this, I mean, this book, i I've been writing this book since 2015, and I've been like studying these questions since I was a kid because of just like my own need to like heal and deal with my own suffering and show up in my relationships in ways that align better with what I want.
Interpersonal Relationship Patterns
00:25:45
Speaker
But like this question, like, i i mean, I think we all, anybody who's long-term in movements, we all spend so much time just supporting ourselves and each other through these things, through conflict and This book was originally like a much longer like kind of self-help book for radicals, and it got so long that I had to cut it into multiple books. So this first one is just like the sex, love, friendship one, and like the next one is the like working in groups, procrastination, overwork, perfectionism, work avoidance, conflict in groups, you know like that kind of set of tools.
00:26:17
Speaker
But my hope with them you know is that... like you know I put out the sex one first because I'm hoping that people will be like more bought in because it's about about sex. um They're resistant to actually doing relational work less and less. So, which is wonderful, but mostly people get really outcome oriented, but, but, i you know, i think people do act our worst in sexual and romantic relationships. And we do a lot of our worst damage when those, when those feelings get stirred up. And so I'm hoping that like, just by like having some of these tools and being like, maybe recognizing that these are patterns that like are happening to everyone. It doesn't mean we're bad or that someone else is bad. And like,
00:26:54
Speaker
Could we have like some shared language to talk about the patterns and ways to support each other and ourselves? Like, I'm just like, even if most people don't read the book, even if some people just like screenshot some of the charts or bullet lists and like send it to a friend when they're and struggling and like, can any of this be become an area where it's more popular to talk about it openly and where we,
00:27:15
Speaker
like do so in like a caring and loving way towards ourselves and others instead of like pathologizing each other and like jumping to like apply a lot of like harsh labels. Like that is my hope with this particular thing.
00:27:28
Speaker
Yeah, I think you you've sort of already answered my my next question, but I'm just hearing you sort of to reflect back. I think a big question that's been circling around radical spaces for a few years now is is around how to make them more welcoming and sustainable rather than these sites of like deep and often community and project shattering conflict like you just named.
Critique of Self-Help Genre
00:27:52
Speaker
And I know that this book is as an attempt to answer that question, right? Like, how do we fix this internal culture and create more spaces for people to grow and live within instead of burning out and moving on?
00:28:04
Speaker
And i think that's, you know, what we're going to talk about for the next half of this interview. But I noticed at the beginning of your book that you're sort of and inoculating people against the fact that it's a self-help book.
00:28:16
Speaker
And i think a lot of people in movement spaces are generally very suspicious of self-help as a genre. And you talk about this a little bit in your book, but could you could you speak to that now? Like how, why do you think that is?
00:28:32
Speaker
What are the reasons people are suspicious? And how do you sort of push back against that or try to try to address that in this book? Yeah, I mean, self-help is a a terrible genre. The wellness industry is terrible. It's like, yeah, it's like so ableist, it's racist and sexist. And, you know, it's it' just like,
00:28:51
Speaker
centered around upper-class white people. It's very individualizing. It's like, you know, your, all of your agony is happening to you individually. And if you just like take the right supplements and do the right exercises and, you know, do the right meditation and the right other regimes and have the right therapists, then like you can solve your suffering. And it takes all that out of context. It's like, as if we could talk about, you know, sex and romance and not mention patriarchy, you know, or like, as if we could talk about our dissatisfaction at work and not have a concern about capitalism and racism. Like, it's just like,
00:29:21
Speaker
it's bananas and really bad and, and very like victim blaming often. i think people feel that and it's, and it's like, yeah, it's, it's often very tied to like, the medical and psychiatric systems that like label people as dysfunctional when actually it's like there are like societal conditions that are that you know that enforce certain kinds of norms about how our bodies and minds should be that you know make some people criminalizable or disposable.
Self-Awareness and Emotional Reactivity
00:29:46
Speaker
So it's rough. And there's also like the kind of critique that I think is very meaningful about like sort of neoliberal self-care narratives like, you know, that are, that are like displacing the harms of an increasingly terrible set of conditions to live under onto like your individual, like you should make it your individual health regime that should take care of it. And you're, it's kind of that personal responsibility narrative, that classic kind of term that was used by Obama so much and Clinton and everybody, ah you know, as as part of like blaming poor people for being poor.
00:30:17
Speaker
So yeah, it's a terrible genre and i have like relentlessly read it my entire life because ah really needing to find relief from the conditions produced by trauma and living in you know a horrible culture. And what I hope this book does is take some of the ideas that i have found useful from that genre and put them in their proper context.
00:30:40
Speaker
Like put them in the context of an anti-racist, feminist, anti-colonial, you know, disability justice orientation. And I'm sure there's ways that I failed at that. Like even as it was just so important for me to like take the word healthy out of like the things I was talking about. Like they're like healthy and unhealthy relationships, these kinds of terms that are just have inherent in them. So much psychiatrization, that's the word. and yeah and and to be like is there and i mean i really tried to write it also to be like there isn't a normal or correct relationship and there are patterns of reactivity that we share culturally and so how do we and like some people may be like i can't relate to any of these patterns of reactivity but they're still happening to people they know right you know what i mean so like even if you don't ever get attracted people or date people or have romance
00:31:30
Speaker
there's still probably drama happening, right? In your own social circle or activist group because others are doing it. So I wrote it to be like things to avoid when you're going through a breakup and things to avoid when you're helping a friend through a breakup. you know, just like, like just people could have lots of different orientations to these things. And we all, patterns of reactivity are there, but they're not like,
00:31:49
Speaker
cookie cutter. It's not like, because sometimes I think people use sort of a reductive identity politics in our movements. It's not like all women feel this during conflict or all black people feel that. Like that's too simplistic, right? In reality, these patterns are mapped in a very complex ways onto like what our coping mechanisms are.
Voluntary Association and Self-Care
00:32:07
Speaker
One thing I'll say that I think is related to this is like, there's like just a little bit of, you know, self-help lingo in our communities in ways that i think are actually really harmful where like people are like, I found out that I'm triggered when people are late.
00:32:21
Speaker
So now no one can be late to see me. Like people use their, their, little bit of emotional awareness about their reactivity to try to control others instead of like, wow, I've had, I have a really hard time when people are late.
00:32:33
Speaker
I want to both let people I love know that and take care, figure out how I'm going to take care of myself because people are just sometimes late. Like that is just part of, you know what i mean? Or could be something else. People sometimes use this or that word or people sometimes, you know, have this or that conflicting need with my need. But there's a kind of way in which, like, I see this a lot with the people's discussions of like um personality types. Like if people take the test and they're like, I'm anxious or I'm avoidant or I'm an ENFJ or whatever, people will use their personality type to be like, I'm like this, so everyone else has to do this.
00:33:05
Speaker
and it's like, actually, That should be um ah place where we get to have insight and be like, oh, that reaction belongs to me. I'm carrying that. I may ask for support about it if I want to, but I can't like demand that everyone like become different because I have this wounding and this reaction. Instead, my job is to care for myself and my reactivity throughout my life, including by stating my needs, which nobody has to then agree to.
00:33:34
Speaker
like that For me, this is like a really anarchist ethic, like to be like, this is voluntary association. This is consent is to be like, I want to learn about how I am and learn about how coping mechanisms that I got from our culture or from surviving difficult things are operating in my life. And I want to find out if I can have any more choice than that. Like if something's, if I'm like, I keep reacting in a certain way and it keeps being really hard or creating the same relationships.
00:34:00
Speaker
with fractures that I would like to have a different experience next time. Like, it's not about what we can get other people to do. I can't guarantee anything about other people. And actually, i want to become somebody who can tolerate a lot of different ways that other people might be around me. Like, I want somebody who can welcome new people to the group who don't actually know about pronouns yet and are like, maybe fucking up my pronouns. And I can be like, you know what?
00:34:23
Speaker
i'm and I'm actually okay correcting them and teaching them or letting other people do that because I have so much support in my life and know who I am that like I'm allowed to let people learn in front of me and with me.
Against Carceral Thinking
00:34:34
Speaker
And like, no one has to do this. I'm not saying, also I can be like, I'm someone who cannot be in a group of people act like that or whatever. Knowing my um level of reactivity what I can tolerate, but not just being like, I'm having a reaction and therefore other people are bad and that's the end of the story.
00:34:48
Speaker
That's not working out for us. Like, and I think for me, a lot of that comes from living in a culture that tells you that being a victim and seeking support from an authority figure is the most legitimate position. And so then,
00:35:01
Speaker
really attached to like, like find like, and I see this happen a lot with how we use the internet. It's like the most powerful position I can have is like you wronged me in the meeting and then I go and post about you on the internet and I'm trying to get the world of the internet to be the authority and say, that's right, you're wrong, I'm right.
00:35:18
Speaker
And actually it's very unsatisfying and doesn't work out for me because that's, that, that, you know, it's not just like, it's not, it's actually not satisfying to stigmatize others and get others excluded. And also it's like, there's kind of never enough, you know, approval in that kind of situation.
00:35:32
Speaker
But that mode of thinking that's going to make me feel better, that's from living in a carceral society. And like, I really want us all to instead have a little bit like, wow, I'm having a reaction. I'm having pain.
00:35:43
Speaker
I can seek my own support from loved ones. I know how to support myself. i I can think about how to get myself out of situations that don't work for me. instead of thinking all the safety is going to come from outside that to me feels like police society and is really bad for us and is is and relates to people in groups having conflicts and being like we have to get the facilitator to come declare that i'm right and you're wrong we get very like litigious even if we're using non-state solutions we can we still expectations of them that i think are like status yeah yeah that that brings me to i wanted to share a quote from your
00:36:17
Speaker
from your book that I think speaks to the relationship between like addressing these interpersonal conflicts and abolitionism.
Scarcity Mentality and Disposability Culture
00:36:25
Speaker
Right. And like because I think, I guess I'm trying to like help connect the dots for people who are like, why are we talking about breakups? Like this is like a movement podcast, like, and so on, on page two 80, you're right. If you don't mind me reading it, and then maybe we could talk a little bit more about it. You're like,
00:36:46
Speaker
A military and police centered ideology teaches us to look for safety outside of ourselves. If something is wrong, we call a cop, a parent, a teacher, or some other authority figure, rather than trying to sort it out ourselves and with peers.
00:36:58
Speaker
Using hierarchies to find safety, especially hierarchies that create and maintain illegitimate authority, is futile. Hierarchies based in illegitimate authority are the cause of all the most dangerous things.
00:37:10
Speaker
Pollution, poverty, sexual violence, war, et cetera. Everywhere I see this pattern of authority seeking, even among people who want to get rid of police and militaries. When we are emotionally stirred and in conflict, we often want others to see that we are right.
00:37:23
Speaker
Even if we don't turn to official authority figures, many of us gossip or cancel or drag people on social media because we feel like we'll be safe if and when other people take our side, or we want an outside facilitator or mediator to become a judge.
00:37:36
Speaker
and declare us in the right. And we are unsatisfied if they won't take on that role. We've been conditioned to look for safety outside. And then ah just a few sentences later, you write, in our intimate lives, we play out the quest for external safety by expecting other people to make us feel safe and blaming them when we feel afraid or insecure.
00:37:56
Speaker
So I thought that was really, really helpful for just pointing out how these same sort of status dynamics play out in our interpersonal relationships. And I think some of the key concepts in your book that I think help people understand how this culture develops and and how we dismantle it are related to developing a greater sense of self-awareness.
00:38:18
Speaker
So I'm wondering if you and there's a lot of different concepts, but I'm wondering if you can talk about some of them for listeners and outline the ways that they show up and cause harm specifically in movement work.
Critique of Romance Myths
00:38:30
Speaker
And, you know, just to throw a few of these important concepts out there, right, there's you've written about scarcity mentality, disposability culture, and what I'm going to call the accountability pendulum of reactions to harm. But you might have a different term for that.
00:38:46
Speaker
But I think like an overview of all of these different concepts would be super helpful for people listening. Yeah. And tell me if I, if I forgot things, but I mean, thing I just want to go back to what you said, like but if we're listening to a political podcast, why are we talking about breakups?
00:39:00
Speaker
I think it's really useful for us to remember that all of our, all the social movements that we all admire, they all had proposals for every dimension of society, right? Like this is what it should be like to eat. This is what it should be like to parent.
00:39:13
Speaker
This is what sex should be like. This is what that we're get weirded to rejecting the mainstream beauty norms. Like all of our social movements are like, very intimate. They're very intimately about changing our expectations, desires, interrogating our desires, like having new aesthetics. Like they're, it doesn't just operate on a level of like the kind of like macro scale. And especially for us who are anarchists, we're like, it matters how we treat everybody right now because we're making the new world. So I hope people can follow that. I think there's a very like sexist masculinist, like kind of like
00:39:46
Speaker
relationship stuff, that's for girls. Like, let's get back to the real work. Let's work, let's, you know, plan the our banner drop or whatever. It's like, actually, we can, we're not, we're not going to get this, you know, are blocking the pipeline or dropping the banner or whatever is we're doing done if we're like, not able to have a meeting because everybody hates each other. And you know, like, it's just, it's it's really like,
00:40:07
Speaker
Getting the toxic nonsense out of our heads from this culture is vital. And in the passage you read, what I think I'm talking about there is we live in this culture of enormous disempowerment.
00:40:18
Speaker
I see this in groups a lot where people join groups and then are mad that the group didn't take care of their every need. And I'm like, it's like, we're so institutionalized that we, we think of every group as like a university or giant nonprofit or something when they're all, you know, where they're scrappy, we're all unpaid in here. We're doing scrappy shit.
00:40:33
Speaker
Like we didn't think of everything, you know, or we didn't do it all well. And people are like, I'm out. Like this place is fucked up and they've got, you know, political analysis and it's true. Their needs were not all met because like everyone in here doesn't know how, like we we're just like guessing and trying and like trying to meet like a level of, needed needs in our community that are unmet that are so terrifying. many people in our communities are dying of having their needs not met and of,
00:40:57
Speaker
being you know harmed and so like just like the for me the the thing i love the most about like an anarchist ethic is like if you know if you and i and have bunch of people a group together and you guys want to do something i don't want to do it i'm like i'm not going to stop you but i'm not doing that with you or whatever you know what i mean like it's like letting it like it's like or if you guys don't want to do something i think it needs to get done i initiate it like or i at least like ask others to do it with me like there's a kind of there's an empowerment in Anarchist practice that to me is really different from the cultural norm.
00:41:25
Speaker
And that's the same thing with this is just like, where are we, where have we imbibed different levels of disempowerment that then really harm our relationships and our ability to just like move towards what we want in life. You know, like what we want things to feel like in a group or with a lover with our roommates or whatever.
Friendships and Societal Isolation
00:41:44
Speaker
Yeah. Some of the concepts in the book that I think are, you know, stand out, like one is the discussion of the romance myth, right? That like there is a set of ideas, a set of expectations about sexual and romantic relationships that are just so toxic. And they are a lot of people in radical movements are holding them just as tightly. And even people who are poly, any of us can hold them just as tightly like as mainstream. We have been fed them all of our lives and all these nonsense movies and songs and books and whatever.
00:42:13
Speaker
And they, make people competitive about their, you know, about ah partners. They make people, treat people like they're very disposable, like like we're shopping. i think the apps also kind of give us this feeling internally, like we're shopping for people and we're like, I'm going to trade up to a better one.
00:42:28
Speaker
They, which usually means enforcing norms that are about like, you know, body norms and class and race and gender norms that are, you know, harmful and that ostensibly we don't believe in.
00:42:39
Speaker
And they make us think that our partners will like naturally like be able to read our minds. And so we have conflict with people because we think like sex and relationships to just like flow naturally if you're in love and that if it's not going well, it's like my fault or your fault. And we have to like fight about it instead of being like, oh, right, of course we don't, we can't read each other's minds and we don't exactly know what each other, we don't, we might not want the same things. And that doesn't mean anybody's bad or that one person is normal and the other person's off. or you know, we do a lot of like pathologizing people if they don't want what we want.
00:43:07
Speaker
And, Socially, people you know people ditch a lot. like there People fall in love and it's like, because we're told that's the most important relationship, people ditch all their friends, their projects, their politics, they move far away, they or they just go to Love Island and you're like, why won't you call me back? like There's a kind of like prioritizing those relationships over all else that makes them the most dangerous relationships. they We're more likely to be killed by those people and hurt by those people. And they also make them often an isolated relationships.
00:43:35
Speaker
where we like don't tell us others what's happening or we like start our life gets really small and focuses just on that one person. I mean, this is a huge cultural pattern leading to enormous isolation. It's part of why so many old people are so isolated is because like, as you age, life becomes more and more oriented towards the couple or family form. And then if you either didn didn't do that or if your partner is dead or if they're like unsupportive and not a good, you know, a good support system, nobody, you know, nobody should have a support system of zero or one, but a lot of people in our culture do.
00:44:04
Speaker
And the romance myth has a lot of responsibility for that. It's kind of like patriarchy tries to control us by first having us be in like our natal family and then like move to a new family that'll be just the same control mechanism through marriage and reproduction or whatever.
00:44:18
Speaker
And there's just like this brief period where you're supposedly allowed to have like friendships. That's like comes from an adolescent thing that like the culture says isn't important. And I think queers know this, that it's actually like one of the most potentially liberated relationships because it doesn't have,
00:44:32
Speaker
the baggage of family and romance
Disposability Culture in Conflict Resolution
00:44:34
Speaker
on it. And so it's a place where a lot of people can get a kind of support where like someone really wants the best for you rather than wanting to control you. And where we might give each other more real direct feedback. And, you know, obviously this isn't always true. People can treat their friends terribly, but the book has a really strong value to like counter the romance myth by like treating our friends more like lovers and our lovers more like friends, like trying to bring some of the devotion that people give to lovers and the loyalty to friendship and trying to bring some of the,
00:45:00
Speaker
um like autonomy and, um you know, care for others' wellbeing and movement away from sort of competition and scarcity into the lover dynamic. Yeah. i also talk a lot in the book about, the book is very much, you know, stemming from my work in prison abolition and transformative justice. And there is this pendulum image that I use again and again in the book. And one, one of the pendulums I include, which think you're referring to, talks about how our society kind of has two strong reactions to harm.
00:45:28
Speaker
One is to minimize it. That didn't happen to you. It's not a thing. Shut up, you know, like blame the victim. It's not happening. And most of us have tons of experience with that our whole lives. And then the other end of the spectrum is like, that's the worst thing that ever happened. We have to like, you know, imprison or kill the person who did it, exclude them forever.
00:45:45
Speaker
and And very little in the middle and really like actual accountability is somewhere in the middle, right? It's like, what happened and what would help this not happen again? And how can the person who, or people who did it, like figure out why they did it and stop doing it? And how can the person or people that had happened to figure out like the best possible way to move forward and still be able to participate in their life, even though we can't undo that this happened?
00:46:07
Speaker
Like, you know, what what support do they need to really be heard about? Like what would help them, you know, come back into community if if they feel like excluded come back into practices that they need, you know?
00:46:19
Speaker
And, And that that pendulum really relates to this kind of disposability culture I'm describing in the book, which I think has gotten a lot worse with social media. But it's it's based in living in a police and prison-centered culture where where we don't give each other direct feedback.
00:46:34
Speaker
We you know are really afraid to get feedback. We're very defensive. We're very afraid to tell people if they're bothering us or hurting us. And so then we like you know either ghost when it gets too bad or full of resentment or we blow up. There's huge conflict.
00:46:46
Speaker
So many people i meet are like afraid to have roommates because they're like afraid of having a fight about the dishes. Like we are so afraid of other people and what it really is, is afraid of conflict. And like people just want to like, you know, to my students, they'd rather do a project alone. They don't want to do a group project. Like everyone's so afraid of other people and conflict and just managing basic differences.
00:47:06
Speaker
And it means that more people live alone in our culture than have ever in the history of any place, which is terrible for
Authentic Consent and Communication
00:47:12
Speaker
our finances. It means that we have to work so much more and we're not collectivizing food and childcare and elder care and housework.
00:47:19
Speaker
and rent and so then like people are like I don't have any time to be part of social movements you know so i feel like there's a lot of around like how disposability and like fear of being disposed of and then like fear of people thinking we're disposing of them if we give any feedback all of this like hurts us all the way down to like the most basic things about the dishes or telling somebody hey when you didn't do your task in the group it was hard for me or hey, I really, i don't like being touched that way. Or like all, like we don't, like we're so afraid to to even know what we want, much less tell other people what we want and don't want, or like hear that they can't that they can't accommodate us. Like a lot of people I know, we don't ever ask unless we know we're going to get a yes.
00:47:58
Speaker
Like we avoid real conversations about consent, which I think is really harmful. you You mentioned something in the in the book actually about that, like the the microscopic ways in which that shows up in speech with people where you'll say like, do you want to do this instead of would you be willing to do this? Or if you'd be interested in doing this, I would appreciate it if you did it.
00:48:22
Speaker
And I think that's really, ah it's so subtle, but it's actually really helpful to understand that. Yeah, or like i I want to go out for pizza and and instead of,
00:48:33
Speaker
would you like to go for pizza or would you, would you go, you know, like kind of like a, like, and just like, we're afraid to like, just really want something or need something and, and be open to know. i mean, that's the thing. It's like, we, I think also a lot of people I know when they first start doing personal work, they're like, I'm, I'm going start, I'm going to start asking for what I want. But then they're actually like terrified of anyone saying it's only okay if other people say yes. And it's like, we have to be, we all have to learn how to be, to hear no. And we live in a culture where we all say we want there to be less sexual violence.
00:49:01
Speaker
But if I can't even hear no from you about going for pizza or cleaning the kitchen while I'm gone or, you know what how like Why do I think we're gonna be able to have a negotiation about sex where we can really know if we want to do things or not and say it? like I just think we're not there because we aren't saying yes and no authentically or even knowing if we want to most of the time about anything.
Capitalism's Emotional Impact
00:49:24
Speaker
its To me, that's very terrifying. Yeah, yeah. The Beautiful Idea is a proud member of the Channel Zero Anarchist Podcast Network. Here's a taste of another project on CZN.
00:49:41
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to We Will Remember Freedom, a monthly podcast of anarchist fiction. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy. Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy.
00:49:55
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to the jingle for both of my podcasts. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy. You can find my podcast wherever you get your podcasts or get them from the Channel Zero network.
00:50:18
Speaker
You also talk about the cost of of having a limited emotional range and sort of numbing out. um I'm wondering if you could if you could talk a little bit about that. And like, i think at the beginning, you you also discussed like the importance of doing emotional work.
00:50:35
Speaker
Why is that important to people? Like, what are the costs of sort of not being in touch with your emotional experience? And how does that, why is that relevant to movements? Yeah, a lot of people I know in our movements have learned the same thing that, you know, I i i can recognize this myself, like learn things like, you know, basically to suppress emotions because they're a liability and to try to feel good all the time.
00:50:58
Speaker
You know, that's very capitalist, very, you know, like that's very, our culture is like, try to feel good all the time. Don't feel negative feelings. Those are bad feelings. You know, don't feel grief. Don't feel anger. They'll make, you know, our parents, our parents taught us this. Don't, don't have a full emotional range. That's not acceptable here. You got like a lot of unconscious nonverbal messages your whole life to not feel certain things. And then, and then some verbal and conscious messages, right? Like good girls don't feel this. People like you shouldn't express anger. People like you shouldn't, don't be sad, be cheerful, make your mom happy, make your dad happy, whatever, all these, you know whatever your, your deck of cards is that you were dealt. We're all, we've all got different combos, but,
00:51:33
Speaker
But all of us have limited emotional ranges from the cultural norms and then also from our experiences in early life, learning what was acceptable to to survive and to get the emotional needs met that we had to be lovable.
00:51:45
Speaker
And as a result, like, you know, we're missing parts of our emotional range. And and and then and then we live in a culture that's so relentlessly upsetting and terrible that we numb out.
Reclaiming Emotional Awareness
00:51:54
Speaker
Cause like, what would it be like if I could feel all the feelings of like walking down the street and seeing people living outside with open wounds and, you know,
00:52:02
Speaker
seeing the extreme racism and who's working everywhere all around me in the businesses and knowing the the ice caps are melting. And, know, like if i if I could, you know, knowing that i like I'm paying taxes on this bottle of water and it's going to like bomb people in Gaza, like, know, like, wow, like, yeah like if if we felt it all, we,
00:52:23
Speaker
it would, it feels almost impossible. Right. and And also then I have to go to a job where I have to probably enforce something on someone or I have to put my head down and have something enforced on me. And I've spent my entire life in school and in jobs like taking it, you know?
00:52:35
Speaker
And i think that it's just really deep. And so like denumbing, like trying to come back to life is one of our questions, like being, so we can be more in touch with our grief and rage and our like profound appreciation of life and an animal body and one another and the earth. Like,
00:52:52
Speaker
the more alive we can be, I think the more we can be in this resistance together and and make choices that are based in what's really happening now that are responsive to what's happening now instead of kind of like things I was programmed to believe or do or feel or how to be with others or how to disconnect from others to get by. And so, yeah, the emotional range question is a huge one and it's scary. and you know I think some people are like, I'm afraid to feel more. What if I if i feel more than all of the the stuff I never felt about these bad things that happened past will come up.
00:53:20
Speaker
Mostly, actually, those of us who've who've contained a lot of feelings, they're not going to like explode out that that fear. I've had that fear when I was in my 20s and started going to therapy. like I was like, oh my God, am I going to become dysfunctional if I feel any of this? Mm-hmm.
00:53:32
Speaker
and that's actually not, you know, mostly our our bodies and minds are pretty habituated. So we'll we'll we'll close it down pretty fast. Like, you know, I still like really struggle to cry. And if I do cry, it's like for like less than a second, you know, like 25 years of really working on it, you know, so like, and and and and definitely having more feeling of way more feeling available than I used to. But I noticed that when I'm able to access more grief, rage, all of these, you know taboo emotions, I'm able to also feel at the other end of the spectrum, right? Like, Capitalism wants us to be in a very small spectrum where we go to work all day and kind of numb out and get by and enforce the rules or get them enforced on us.
00:54:08
Speaker
And then we come home and check out with entertainment and, you know, substances and stuff. And like that and then the fantasy of the perfect body or the perfect relationship or the perfect home, like whatever, like all the the kind of like fantasy world. If I had this, I would finally feel good. but mostly I just feel nothing. Or like, I feel ah a little high for a moment that when I buy something or when I go on this vacation for a moment of it, but mostly everything's kind of disappointing and numb.
00:54:32
Speaker
Like that's how they want to keep us. And we are like these wild animals who know how to like feel enormous pleasure and like perceive through these gorgeous senses
Tools for Emotional Awareness
00:54:40
Speaker
we have. And like our job is to like reclaim that so that we can get out of their little cage, you know, like, and stop stop having our desires run by them so that we end up thinking we want like SUVs and blood diamonds when really we want like, you know, to feel connected to other people and like, you know, have beautiful moments of solitude and big ideas and have gorgeous moments of connection and sex and affection and, you know, like feel our griefs together and like all of it, have all of it more collectively, right? Like that, that feels essential to me. And like, once we commit to that and just kind of get curious about the edges, I think a lot
00:55:17
Speaker
can happen. Just even being like, wow, where do I tamp down my feelings? Do I do it by like breathing a certain way when they start to come up? Do i you know, what happens for me when I'm, when I'm looking at social media and I see like a horrible piece of news about the genocide or the ecological crisis. And then right away I see an ad and then I see a funny meme.
00:55:35
Speaker
And then I see my friend's breakfast, like what's going on for me when I'm tamping, you know, like like missing chances to feel and being trained to like cut off those experiences. And what would it be like if I gave myself any more space around the intensity that is available? That's the the grief and the rage and the pleasure, you know, like what's what habits would I need to change to to feel more?
00:56:01
Speaker
hey And speaking of that, there's a number of different tools in the book that are sort of around relationships. Self-awareness and emotional awareness. I'm wondering if if there's any that you'd want to highlight that you think would be really useful for people to think about. Particularly, i think, like, this question of, like, what is the relationship between having more emotional awareness and self-awareness and having more capacity to understand
Exercises for Self-Soothing
00:56:27
Speaker
the nuances and the differences in levels of harm, I think, is is what I'm getting at. And also, what tools do you recommend for understanding that?
00:56:37
Speaker
Yeah, you really believe that phrase, hurt people hurt people. Like when i am in a story that I am the victim is the time I'm most likely to harm others.
00:56:49
Speaker
That is like, we think that people are out there like being like, ha ha, I'm going to get them. But most of us actually do the worst things to others when we are feeling like we're the victim and we have to protect ourselves or stop this person from being like this.
00:57:03
Speaker
And so I really recommend that tool, which a lot of people have said stands out to them in the book. What else is true? and And what this tool is, is you identify, like you use it when you're feeling some strong thing. Like I'm telling a story, like this group I'm in is so messed up. They did this, or this person is so terrible. She did this to me whenever I, or they think this about me. Like whenever I'm, i I use this tool when, when the world becomes like narrowly focused on one story, maybe it's keeping me up at night. I'm thinking about it a lot. I'm talking about it a lot. Like when that When we get kind of tunnel vision, like I'm not feeling safe and I feel like someone's like my enemy or like I'm so devastated by them or like they're out to get me or this really bad thing's going to happen or whatever. Like that kind of narrow focus.
00:57:45
Speaker
And what you do, that the the way the tool looks in the book is there's a small circle inside a larger circle. And so a small circle, you put what you're feeling like. you know I'm so mad at Sally and she's talking shit about me and she's ruining the group and whatever.
00:57:57
Speaker
And then in a larger circle around that, the first thing you do is you write, what else is true about Sally or the group or whatever? Like, you know, okay. I i do remember that like, she's really committed to abolition too.
00:58:07
Speaker
She's been this group with me for a while. Or i remember there was a time she brought me food when was in the hospital. Like anything you can remember about her, anything else, right? Or the group, you know, there's other people in this group who also, who who don't, you know, who can support me, whatever.
00:58:20
Speaker
And the next, the next page is like, again, the small circle you write, what what's what's keeping you up at night? In the bigger circle you write, like, what do i not know about the situation? Because usually we're making up a story, we're filling it in. Like, Sally didn't text back, and now I'm like, that's probably because she's mad, blah, blah, blah. you know, so-and-so didn't talk in the meeting when my proposal came up, that's because he thinks, you know, so so what what do I not know? I don't know. Sally could be going through something with, her partners, you know, that person could have had a migraine. These, you know, I don't know what's going to happen with this. So like whatever I don't know. So again, I'm trying to get some bigger perspective.
00:58:51
Speaker
The third set of circles, you're right again in the small circle, what your strong feeling is and the bigger circle, what else is true about me? I have a lot of support in this other group I'm in. I have been through conflicts in groups before.
00:59:02
Speaker
I am really excited about my new kitten. I have these friends who really love me. what ah You know, these two people in the group have stood by me on this and I can talk to them about it. Anything else that reminds me that there's more going on in my life than this tunnel vision.
00:59:17
Speaker
And so you do those kind of things to kind of give yourself some context, which I think can really bring down some of the activation and make the situation with Sally right-sized in your life and then also move from like,
00:59:29
Speaker
like thinking something so ill about this other person that you're willing to do something really sketchy. Like I'm trying, a lot of this book is about don't do things you're going to regret. And it's really easy in our groups to be like, oh God, sometimes there's an activated person. they do all this fucked up shit.
00:59:41
Speaker
This book is for when I'm the activated person or someone I'm really close to, I'm going to support. This book is not about trying to label other people. It's about like, Oh, wow. We are all doing, even also if we're in a group together and you're really activated, if I work on how that activates me, I'm already helping the situation, right? Instead of you got activated now, I'm activated back and we're, we're slinging arrows or whatever, or one of us is ghosting or we're, you know, we're playing out.
01:00:04
Speaker
our patterns. So after you do those three circles in this exercise, the next thing is the list. There's a list form. And on the left side, you write things that I can control. And on the right, write things you can't. So on the left side, it's like, I could take a walk right now.
01:00:16
Speaker
I can just do my tasks from the proposal and, you know, hand them over and we'll see what happens. Or, you know, I can take a bath or i can call it friend. on the right side, all things I can't control. I can't control what Sally thinks of me. I can't control what Sally's telling other people about me.
01:00:28
Speaker
I can't control whether or not this group does this proposal. I can't control what happens to this movement. And you just rip that in half and you like burn or throw away or flush the part that you can't control. And then the final step of of exercise is you just ask yourself, is there anything historical here?
Navigating Conflict
01:00:42
Speaker
Do I feel right now the way I felt when I had a fight with my sister when was kid or the I felt in my family or the way it felt in school to be the only one with my identity or like, is this bringing, or that workplace where I was treated badly, is this, am i bringing anything into this situation, but you know, short story, if you're having a strong feeling, you are, from time that I want to be sweet to that part of myself.
01:01:04
Speaker
And also just kind of for accountability of reasons, I want to know that's happening, right? Like it's not all about Sally, even though it feels like it's about Sally right now, it's also about my mom, or it's also about that time at school. And so just like knowing that maybe, you know, I'm going to eat my favorite food from that when I was that age, or I'm going to look at pictures of when I was that age, or I'm to tell somebody in my life about some of those hard things had happened back then.
01:01:26
Speaker
And just like how, and how it feels now kind of similar with Sally. Like just that, this is this whole thing you could see as like, it's both a self soothing process to bring myself out of activation. It's also a matter of accountability.
01:01:38
Speaker
I am out of my mind right now. I think the whole world is this one little thing. And if I act on that, it's unlikely to be aligned with my ultimate values of caring for this group, caring for Sally and myself.
01:01:50
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And so how do I get out of that tunnel vision and back to emotional awareness about what's happening for me and what and what my role might be in loving myself through that? Again, there's no blame or shame.
01:02:05
Speaker
There's action. like action for shifting my perspective just enough. We don't need to like get out of the feelings. It's like not about getting rid of them. It's just about knowing we're having them. Knowing we're activated is the difference between doing the thing and being like, wow, I kind of want to do that thing.
01:02:21
Speaker
I'm going to not press send right now because, you know, and so, and and I'm going to ask a friend for help. I was like, do you think this thing that Sally said is weird? Will you look at this email? seller I mean, confidentially, again, this is not about gossip, but confidentially, who can I turn to for support as I choose good action in a situation that is stirring me up and maybe stirring up other people in the group too. And all of that is normal.
01:02:42
Speaker
If we do anything that matters with others, we will experience conflict and that is okay. It's a chance to actually heal and do something different than it was done in our families or than it's done in typically in our workplaces or at schools or in our culture.
01:02:53
Speaker
Like it's okay to run into this stuff with people. It just means you matter to each other. And then it's a chance to be right on about it.
Patterns of Reactivity
01:03:02
Speaker
Yeah, and and I think you also talk about navigating the conflict phase and maintaining connection with people.
01:03:11
Speaker
And you also point out that the sort of typical cycle of of conflict that we see a lot in romantic relationships can also show up in non-romantic relationships.
01:03:23
Speaker
So wondering if you can speak to that a little bit and any other tools or reflections you have on staying in connection with people, like how How long do you stay in connection with people during a conflict? And when do you when do you decide to call it quits? And I think you talk about this specifically in the context of romantic relationships, but maybe there's also stuff to link with non-romantic relationships as well.
01:03:47
Speaker
Yeah, the romance cycle that I talk about in the book, I'm really hoping that people pick up for thinking about movement work, right? So the romance cycle is this idea that when we first encounter like a new person who's really exciting to us, a friend, a lover or a group, sometimes we have like these really positive projections. Like this is going to be the place where I finally, people finally get me. And you know, this is, this group works so much better the other groups I've been in, or I finally have some community around this thing that I've been so alone in or whatever. I'm lovely as people, or it's so fun, these meetings or whatever.
01:04:18
Speaker
Or this person is incredible. They're going to make me, I think I'm going to feel loved. Like I've never felt, or they really see me or whatever. And that's really wonderful. And it's also includes sort of like sometimes selectively not noticing things that don't drive with that new narrative.
01:04:32
Speaker
And depending on how big those positive projections get, like then that's how big the negative projections will be when we inevitably find out that this person is human or they disappoint us or this group doesn't provide our every need.
01:04:44
Speaker
And for a lot of people, that's a moment where it's like, I have to tear you down. i have to tear this group down or I have to have everybody have tell everybody how terrible you are. Like those disappointments, which are just normal in all relationships, like people and groups are full of just like imp imperfections, you know?
01:04:59
Speaker
but Everyone's trying out here and and everyone's like making mistakes and the kind of level of disappointment can lead people to really damaging each other in our communities and and actually destroying groups. I've seen this, know, so many times. And so the the hope is that by just being aware of the cycle, we might be like, oh, I'm in the cycle. Okay. And my friends might be like, yeah, Dean, you're in the cycle. You're like obsessed with that group.
01:05:24
Speaker
Inevitably, you' they're going to disappoint you. are Oh, Dean, you're at the beginning. You can't see no wrong in this thiss new lover or your new rate roommate or whatever. and And later, i'm going to support you to not try to destroy them when inevitably they disappoint you.
01:05:37
Speaker
And just like knowing this about ourselves, I think it's just vital. And I think this relates to your question about when to break up with with a person or a group. you know, roommate, anybody, right? Like one question we can always ask ourselves is like, am I beating my head against the wall? Like, have I tried a lot of ways to give this feedback and share my needs? And like, I'm just always not being heard or am I, am I ditching too soon? You know, are we just in the conflict phase? Right? Like, and and one thing to ask ourselves is, am I somebody who has a tendency
01:06:09
Speaker
to bail really fast or a tendency to like stay forever and like grind against this thing that's never going to change. And I don't think most people know the answer to that accurately. You've got to ask your friends. lot of us think that we stay too long, but we actually bail right away or we think we bail right away, but we actually stay too long. So ask your friends or like, you know, it's just like, we don't have a perfect self-awareness about this kind of thing. And your friends may differ, but even those conversations, it's, if they're nonjudgmental might be really juicy and useful for being like, what did it feel like last time I left a group or have I left 10 groups in a row and a huff, you know, or, and also written mean things about them on the internet or have i stayed in groups relentlessly, even when there was a dynamic that was like, you know, making my life harder or hurting other people in front of me or whatever. Do I speak up too little or do I take on the role of the truth teller in every group and find something to like make a scene about, you know what i mean? Like these,
01:07:01
Speaker
And like no harm, no foul. Like we are just all bundles of reactivity, replaying the dramas from our childhoods over and over again. And then we're doing it in groups. And so there's a lot of live wires in the same room.
01:07:14
Speaker
Everyone's trying to get their emotional and social needs met. Most of it's unconscious. So just kind of how can we just know that, just just come in knowing that and then try to like see when
Apologies and Forgiveness
01:07:26
Speaker
it's happening. Like, wow, I i think a lot about that person. I i really focus on whether or not they like me.
01:07:31
Speaker
is that balanced? Do I want to like try to draw some of my attention away from whether or not that one person likes me? Do I, you know, do can i move away from being constantly paranoid that person is criticizing me?
01:07:42
Speaker
Can I, you know, and like, maybe it would bit help to move towards more relationship with them. Maybe it would help to check something out. Like, Hey, I have this wonder. I'm wondering if you meant this when you texted it this way, you like, what do I need to do to try to bring myself into a slightly more sober reality when I'm, you know, lost in reactivity about the other people around me oh Well, i I think these are such important questions. And i think one other thing that I just wanted to to highlight that you talk about in your book is apologizing.
01:08:18
Speaker
And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about that and like how apology can play a role in moving forward through conflict and what people are not getting right about apology a lot of the time. And then if there's anything else that you want to point out or highlight that we haven't yet touched on in terms of major concepts, we'd love to hear those too.
01:08:40
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, i think most of us have not had any satisfying experiences of harm and then real repair through apology and forgiveness. I just think it's very rare in our culture.
01:08:51
Speaker
especially in the relationships that mean the most to us. Like your parents never apologize to you or like most people break up with lovers and there's never a process of apology and forgiveness. and It's just incredibly rare. Like we live in a society, I think in part because we live in settler colonial context where people had to break enormous ties to, you know, most people have a forced migration here, you know, on one level or other people, you know, migrate because of terrible conditions back home or whatever, or because they're forced to through enslavement.
01:09:20
Speaker
more indenture whatever. And then we have like, you know, it's a really huge, huge country and people move really far away for jobs or school. There's a kind of like I think people, what I noticed is people in the United States are more willing to like burn a bridge with a, with a family member than any, any other place I've ever been. Like there's a kind of like get really individual for the wage economy kind of vibe that plays out our emotional lives. I think in in ways I don't hear people talk about as much as I would like to, but Yeah. So we haven't had those experiences. And so it's really useful to just even be, and I think a lot of times when we're in conflict, people are just like, I need to be entirely right. I will only be satisfied if the other person is like, you were right about everything.
01:09:57
Speaker
And like, other than that, it's not, you know, it's very binary instead of like, wow, what was my part in this? What do I wish I'd done differently? Can i apologize for that? You know, can I have enough emotional awareness that I grow to learn? Wow.
01:10:11
Speaker
When I was in that relationship or last week when I was in that argument, I was, really reacting about X or Y. and And I said some things that were mischaracterizations of that other person or that group, or, you know i mean? Like actually, and then being willing to admit that, right? An apology requires this humility of being like, I'm i'm going to say it out loud that i I did something that was not the way that I think I should have done it. And in the book, I talk about bad apologies. A lot of us give apologies that are like, I'm sorry, but, or, you know, I guess you need to hear me say I'm sorry, or even very short or very like, you know, unwilling.
01:10:45
Speaker
A good apology is is really like, I hear the way that I you know hurt you and I can say that back. Like I hear that that made you feel left out or you know unappreciated or whatever that whatever the words the person said to you are.
01:10:59
Speaker
And I can see that that happened because i did this and this is how I'm going to not do that again. You know, like actually like this is, you know, like that's a real apology.
Cultivating Forgiveness
01:11:09
Speaker
and And then I talk in the book about forgiveness and how hard it is to to cultivate that, to want to forgive people in a culture that loves revenge and loves responsibility. Like there's just so many that feels people like, like it's a juicy, delicious feeling to feel like revenge and and hatred and all of these things. And so to just decide to actually,
01:11:27
Speaker
figure out what it takes to forgive someone to be like, they really heard me and they're not going to do it anymore. I'm actually going to let it go and move on. And I know that in the future it's possible that they may do it again or someone else might do that to me. And I'm going to like figure out what boundaries I have to have so that I can, you know, not have that happen or whatever, you know, like what I can notice if it's about to happen again or whatever, like what, like what kind of are some of the conditions that would help you not have that experience again, if that's important to me.
01:11:51
Speaker
And
Feedback in Friendships
01:11:52
Speaker
for me, like having real experiences of apology and forgiveness, like changed, fundamentally changed my feeling of safety in the world. self Self-generated safety, safety that comes from my belief in my own ability to hold my boundaries and to make it through conflict with people. Because part of it is like a lot of us feel during conflict like this is the end of the world, I'm gonna die if if these people reject me or if I don't get heard.
01:12:15
Speaker
Because when we were ah children we needed our parents or we would die or our caregivers or we would die. And so we get so activated that we're regressed. And in reality Learning that we can have conflict come through it and even be closer from it with some people is enormously healing to that kind of terror that we all are like background living it you know?
01:12:36
Speaker
And I think it's really worth practicing apology and forgiveness with our friends. That again is often the lightest relationship for this to be like, and we're going to practice direct feedback. I'm really going to tell you if I felt pressured to go to dinner at the place I didn't want to, or If I wish you hadn't left the club with your with your date when I thought we were there together or whatever it is, I'm really going to give you, when you cancel on me, it feels like this.
01:12:56
Speaker
I'm really going to give and receive feedback with my friends and practice that muscle on all the little things so that when the big thing happens, we know how to do it And we know that we, know, every time you give me feedback and I listen to you, you find out that I'm trustworthy, you know, be feedback. And I know it's not that you're throwing me away. I find out that you're trustworthy.
01:13:15
Speaker
And like, if we do that a lot of times, then when we have a bigger difference, like we're more prepared to, you know try all those skills. Mm hmm.
01:13:27
Speaker
Well, is there anything else that you want to highlight for listeners? Any other key key concepts from the book or sort of a final note that you want to share before we log off?
Cultivating Solidarity
01:13:39
Speaker
There is a tool I made with some people that I would love people your listeners to to know about. it's this it's It's online. It's called Five Questions for Cultivating Solidarity in Times of Political Repression. And it's just like made to be a very visual tool about some of the common things that happen when we hear these stories.
01:13:54
Speaker
you know, like when the Atlanta Rico case came out or these other moments of political repression, people often go to these kind of like very problematic liberal responses that undermine solidarity. And I'm just trying to get this one going around. I would love people to just like use it in their communities. You can print it. You can, you know, these these images you can put on social media, like just trying to help as as as prepping for some of the heightening political oppression that we we're experiencing will be experiencing. So I could send you a link that you can- Yeah, I love that. what do Are you able to list them off the top of your head, the five questions?
01:14:25
Speaker
Oh yeah, absolutely pull them up. So it's when worse when we're verbally responding, we're talking about repression publicly and or in the media or whatever, does this argument erase or ignore the ongoing violence of the US s colonial legal system or legitimize that system?
01:14:38
Speaker
So this is like when people say things like, this is not what our justice system looks like, or this is a threat to our democracy, or this is chilling repression that'll undermine our nation's values of free speech, like things that pretend that before this wasn't happening, you know, or that there's not a long long, long, long, long history of repression, and instead exceptionalize this.
01:14:57
Speaker
The second question is, does this argument contribute to a false narrative that universities and colleges are neutral spaces for the free exchange of ideas? So when people make a lot of academic freedom arguments, they often are like pretending that universities haven't always been settler institutions, places that are part of you know, building the military industrial complex and repressing resistance.
01:15:16
Speaker
The third question is, does this statement participate in dividing people engaged in resistance into good or bad, violent or nonviolent, thereby legitimizing criminalization of people using bolder tactics? So, yeah, that's obviously a common one. People using terms like peaceful protest or nonviolent protest or saying things like these people aren't criminals. They weren't damaging property. They were just speaking, you know, that that makes it seem like those who took on bolder tactics should be criminalized.
01:15:40
Speaker
You to be aware of that. question four does this statement reinforce boogeyman terms and tropes that our opposition is using to delegitimize our movements and justify repression so for example there was a common kind of statement like the indictment of The stop cop city defendants outrageously paints them as anarchists.
01:15:59
Speaker
They're not all anarchists. You know, it's like, actually, what if we said, like, we're all anarchists, we're all terrorists, we're all, you know, like, what if we stopped buying into the idea that you know, certain people are appropriately criminalizable or certain labels make people criminalizable? And then the five the fifth one is, does this argument focus too narrowly on procedure as if the repression would be acceptable if not for the procedural flaw?
01:16:22
Speaker
So this is really common. you know, people are like, most shockingly, the prosecution was brought outside of the statute of limitations. You know, like, it's like, when people get so narrow that they are missing that, you know, all criminalization of resistance and all criminalization are are bad. We made like you know cute little memes for each of those and just really hoping to help people, especially people are new to our movements, people who are like entering our movements through like pretty liberal frames to stop you know reinforcing these things that really undermine solidarity as people facing repression.
Conclusion and Appreciation
01:16:54
Speaker
Thank you so much for that. Yeah, we're going to be, we have been covering the RICO case a lot and we're going to be highlighting it again. There's an upcoming tour about that case actually. And so it's very, very relevant what you're saying. We're going tonna be seeing a lot more of, a lot more repression. I think we saw more under Biden and we're going to be seeing a lot more.
01:17:13
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I want to thank you so much for your time and for your insights and for your work. Really, really, really appreciate it. And I hope that folks will check out everything that you've done and keep tuning in.
01:17:28
Speaker
So thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for this conversation.
01:17:38
Speaker
Thanks for listening to today's episode of The Beautiful Idea, news and analysis from the front lines of anarchist and autonomous struggles everywhere. Catch you next time.