This is such good and thoughtful advice! (Especially the part about non-radical spaces that are often doing the work that needs to be done -- spaces that don’t know they’re radical.)
I have a theory that the alienating nature of radical spaces is often about ninety percent the *product* of really individually anxious, alienated, and awkward people coming together. What looks like a bunch of snobs and gatekeepers trying to frighten away new people may just be a bunch of individually easily-flummoxed weirdos who are bad at talking to others. I know that there have been lots of periods in my life when just plain awkwardness, the fear that I wouldn’t really know how to talk to people who differed from me in worldview by more than about 2%, came off as me trying to be intimidating, when that was the last thing I wanted. The feeling “I’m scared that I can’t make myself understood to someone who hasn’t read ____” looks like “You haven’t read ____?! You idiot” to an external observer. And think about the kind of person who spends a lot of time reading and theorizing about why the world is as fucked up as it is: there’s gonna be a bias toward folks who are not great at figuring out the basics of social interaction.
Obviously, that doesn’t explain the whole problem. We also have a lot of petty dictators on the left (the same types who make churches and neighborhoods miserable, but they’ve read different books), and also just garden-variety thoughtlessness. I can’t imagine someone wanting to be rude to an antiwar 17 year old. But I guess I think it’s important to remember what W. H. Auden once said to a young poet at a gathering of famous writers: “Everybody here is as scared as you are.”
Oh Phil this is SUCH A GOOD POINT. It's something I know and have evidence of, but even with that, it's hard for me to remember because of how it ends up coming off. I should have a had a paragraph with this caveat too. Thank you for highlighting this reality in the comments! (Also, I'm sure that's true about church dictators, obviously, but also I really envy church communities for methods of welcoming & care that we often lack!!!) I love the W.H. Auden reminder too. Thank you!!!
Thank you so much for sharing this gentle reminder that there are many ways to create radical community and do radical work, and that feeling like an outsider is a group dynamics problem, not a me problem. This has been a struggle for me, especially as in addition to social anxiety I also have chronic fatigue so I have limited time and energy to put towards anything except personal survival. So, thanks again. <3
This is such good and thoughtful advice! (Especially the part about non-radical spaces that are often doing the work that needs to be done -- spaces that don’t know they’re radical.)
I have a theory that the alienating nature of radical spaces is often about ninety percent the *product* of really individually anxious, alienated, and awkward people coming together. What looks like a bunch of snobs and gatekeepers trying to frighten away new people may just be a bunch of individually easily-flummoxed weirdos who are bad at talking to others. I know that there have been lots of periods in my life when just plain awkwardness, the fear that I wouldn’t really know how to talk to people who differed from me in worldview by more than about 2%, came off as me trying to be intimidating, when that was the last thing I wanted. The feeling “I’m scared that I can’t make myself understood to someone who hasn’t read ____” looks like “You haven’t read ____?! You idiot” to an external observer. And think about the kind of person who spends a lot of time reading and theorizing about why the world is as fucked up as it is: there’s gonna be a bias toward folks who are not great at figuring out the basics of social interaction.
Obviously, that doesn’t explain the whole problem. We also have a lot of petty dictators on the left (the same types who make churches and neighborhoods miserable, but they’ve read different books), and also just garden-variety thoughtlessness. I can’t imagine someone wanting to be rude to an antiwar 17 year old. But I guess I think it’s important to remember what W. H. Auden once said to a young poet at a gathering of famous writers: “Everybody here is as scared as you are.”
Oh Phil this is SUCH A GOOD POINT. It's something I know and have evidence of, but even with that, it's hard for me to remember because of how it ends up coming off. I should have a had a paragraph with this caveat too. Thank you for highlighting this reality in the comments! (Also, I'm sure that's true about church dictators, obviously, but also I really envy church communities for methods of welcoming & care that we often lack!!!) I love the W.H. Auden reminder too. Thank you!!!
Thank you so much for sharing this gentle reminder that there are many ways to create radical community and do radical work, and that feeling like an outsider is a group dynamics problem, not a me problem. This has been a struggle for me, especially as in addition to social anxiety I also have chronic fatigue so I have limited time and energy to put towards anything except personal survival. So, thanks again. <3
This is so great. I just read RBF last month, and I laughed out loud when you asked why the cat was named Emma 😂
(...is this my humiliation kink root?? lol) thanks for reading the book and the newsletter, comrade! :)
lol if it is i hope you've found easier ways to indulge it than a menagerie of increasingly obscure lefty pet names 😂
and you're welcome! both are excellent. i want to read a memoir of your life since the end of the book!
Wow wow wow, thank you! Such wonderful, concrete ideas in here!!!!!