anarchy
So I've been working on Finding Our Roots: An Anarchist Conference on Theory and Action, and it is proving a most enlightening and exasperating experience.
What's cool is working with all of these Chicago anarchists I'd known vaguely or not at all. Many of them are my age or older, which is especially awesome. I really, really needed to be presented with some examples of surviving into later life as an anarchist, and reminded that not all anarchists are 20ish punks (not to disparage the 20ish punks, who know that I love them, and who generally have it much more together on things like theory and action than I did then).
What sucks is going to meetings. Why do I always find myself doing stuff that requires meetings and more meetings??! Everytime I'm sure that I've reached my lifetime quota of them in the manner of someone who develops an allergy through exposure to a pathogen over time, I turn around and I'm spending my Saturday afternoons in MEETINGS.
Nonetheless, I'm fascinated by the process and philosophy of consensus, which I think is little-understood and much-abused, and I had an insight about why anarchists tend to be such drama queens. Consensus is an amazingly intimate process. You can't deal in easy yes/no right/wrong questions that let you vote yay or nay and otherwise stay uninvolved. You have to try to know the people you're making decisions with at least well enough to "put yourself in their position" in a literal sense - get inside their point of view so that you understand and can accurately represent it even if you don't agree with it. You have to acknowledge and try to appreciate their standpoint (in the sense of "standpoint theory" - that someone's life experience including race class gender etc. forms and explains their stance). And likewise, you have to reveal these things about yourself so that people know "where you're coming from" - even as you also have to move beyond your ego and place the best interests of the group/project above your own in order for consensus to function. It takes tremendous amounts of mutual trust, respect, caring, and above all PATIENCE. I think the drama ensues when people lose patience, and get hung up on how much easier this would all be if we all liked each other and thought exactly the same way - or worse, how much easier it would be if we just had a leader to tell us all what to do. I know I get depressed when there's dissension - like most of us I was raised to fear conflict and passion. But I get more depressed when people's egos and unwillingness to be flexible get in the way of community. Consensus isn't just difficult - it's exhausting, annoying, and uncomfortable. You have to be committed enough to egalitarian process to sit through it, and to be willing to leave the group - not make the group conform to your ideas - if you find yourself absolutely opposed to the group's will or unable to work with individuals in the group.
What's cool is working with all of these Chicago anarchists I'd known vaguely or not at all. Many of them are my age or older, which is especially awesome. I really, really needed to be presented with some examples of surviving into later life as an anarchist, and reminded that not all anarchists are 20ish punks (not to disparage the 20ish punks, who know that I love them, and who generally have it much more together on things like theory and action than I did then).
What sucks is going to meetings. Why do I always find myself doing stuff that requires meetings and more meetings??! Everytime I'm sure that I've reached my lifetime quota of them in the manner of someone who develops an allergy through exposure to a pathogen over time, I turn around and I'm spending my Saturday afternoons in MEETINGS.
Nonetheless, I'm fascinated by the process and philosophy of consensus, which I think is little-understood and much-abused, and I had an insight about why anarchists tend to be such drama queens. Consensus is an amazingly intimate process. You can't deal in easy yes/no right/wrong questions that let you vote yay or nay and otherwise stay uninvolved. You have to try to know the people you're making decisions with at least well enough to "put yourself in their position" in a literal sense - get inside their point of view so that you understand and can accurately represent it even if you don't agree with it. You have to acknowledge and try to appreciate their standpoint (in the sense of "standpoint theory" - that someone's life experience including race class gender etc. forms and explains their stance). And likewise, you have to reveal these things about yourself so that people know "where you're coming from" - even as you also have to move beyond your ego and place the best interests of the group/project above your own in order for consensus to function. It takes tremendous amounts of mutual trust, respect, caring, and above all PATIENCE. I think the drama ensues when people lose patience, and get hung up on how much easier this would all be if we all liked each other and thought exactly the same way - or worse, how much easier it would be if we just had a leader to tell us all what to do. I know I get depressed when there's dissension - like most of us I was raised to fear conflict and passion. But I get more depressed when people's egos and unwillingness to be flexible get in the way of community. Consensus isn't just difficult - it's exhausting, annoying, and uncomfortable. You have to be committed enough to egalitarian process to sit through it, and to be willing to leave the group - not make the group conform to your ideas - if you find yourself absolutely opposed to the group's will or unable to work with individuals in the group.