Okay so there’s some differences between what I’m talking about and what you are talking about. Everything you are saying is reflective of my experience as well, except I’d drill down more on your last paragraph or two.
Like you make good points that I agree with wrt dealing with people who you have nothing in common with concerning their individual political opinions. With this much difference, especially concerning what you said about dating someone with drastically different politics, the politics indicate deeper held values that made you romantically or socially incompatible. That is Fairly normal and unsurprising, and my experience is largely similar.
But what if you’re in an org that actually has somewhat strict rules about who can join: what political opinions they have, and what priorities they fight for? What if you agree with 95% of what an org participates in, but you see that they are wrong about 5%? And that is creating bad reads of current events, etc? Like for example, you join a group of explicitly Marxist communists, but they just aren’t that great about colonialism and decolonial struggles, despite being well read, well connected, relevant, and offer tons of amazing resources to its members. The people who have been dedicating their personal time and energy and money to educating you and trying to grow the org are now wrong about something crucial to the orgs ability to take on impactful work. A group within the org develops a critique that addresses the problems, and you find yourself aligning with them, but this puts you at odds with others who are struggling against those criticisms, people who you personally care about but seem to be somewhat hurt by your support of the critique?
Or you find yourself a leader of a few local working groups in a large national org, but other leaders, whose politics you find acceptable, due to their affiliation with factions that don’t like whatever faction you belong to, like not even actively vindictively opposing you, tend to go out of their way to distinguish themselves from you, at any conspicuous opportunity. They don’t like Marxism, or they think that “communism” is a synonym for “authoritarian”, or they are just kinda opportunist cuz they are young and not as well established. But yet they are in charge of work that you know is important and you need to participate in.
Even working in cadre is exhausting when I learn that someone I work with who I really admire and helped to get me established is like really into UFOs and alien conspiracy theories. Other than that you agree on everything else, but yet every once in a while discussions veer into this positively absurd territory.
And all of these are real examples from my perspective. If I imagine how I must seem to the other people referenced here, my actions become just as exhausting and frustrating.
In my experience a lot of leftists agree that everything is political, but then don’t really participate in politics outside of individual political opinions. There is a realm of the expressly political that exists not apart from but still distinguishable from the realm of the “everything is politics.” If you wanna say that is a bastardization that’s fine but what’s the alternative??
Right I get what you are saying I think and agree on the need to compromize and feel the same frustration even in my work. Few of the most lovely based leftists I have come across have for example turned out to hold weird crystal healing or antu-science views or whatever. But I also try to allow people some room to hold different views if the general core is ok, even when I don’t agree.
So I don’t personally talk about a 100% political fit between people, but mean that the basics have to at least be there. I work a lot with folks who are all anti-ML and anti-communist, but still leftist as this is all that exists here. It feels bad, but it is the reality. But I would not likely spend my life with them which is what my original answer is about relating to the OP. Or I might if their politics is open to discussion and at least aligned with mine as most left politics tends to be. But the politics still very much exists in the relatioship.
I meant that the profession of politics can be a bastardization of what politics is, to be clear.
I’m great at navigating all of these other inter personal/political dynamics except when we have to actually work together on the basis of politics. My experience of doing political work with other volunteers doing political work has been like working through the 5 stages of grief, where when I reach “acceptance,” I’m basically like “fuck this, it isn’t worth sacrificing my mental health” except this road of self improvement and political/historical education that I’ve been on for like 12 years leads to this. I feel very lost even though I’m exactly where I’ve intended to go
Okay so there’s some differences between what I’m talking about and what you are talking about. Everything you are saying is reflective of my experience as well, except I’d drill down more on your last paragraph or two.
Like you make good points that I agree with wrt dealing with people who you have nothing in common with concerning their individual political opinions. With this much difference, especially concerning what you said about dating someone with drastically different politics, the politics indicate deeper held values that made you romantically or socially incompatible. That is Fairly normal and unsurprising, and my experience is largely similar.
But what if you’re in an org that actually has somewhat strict rules about who can join: what political opinions they have, and what priorities they fight for? What if you agree with 95% of what an org participates in, but you see that they are wrong about 5%? And that is creating bad reads of current events, etc? Like for example, you join a group of explicitly Marxist communists, but they just aren’t that great about colonialism and decolonial struggles, despite being well read, well connected, relevant, and offer tons of amazing resources to its members. The people who have been dedicating their personal time and energy and money to educating you and trying to grow the org are now wrong about something crucial to the orgs ability to take on impactful work. A group within the org develops a critique that addresses the problems, and you find yourself aligning with them, but this puts you at odds with others who are struggling against those criticisms, people who you personally care about but seem to be somewhat hurt by your support of the critique?
Or you find yourself a leader of a few local working groups in a large national org, but other leaders, whose politics you find acceptable, due to their affiliation with factions that don’t like whatever faction you belong to, like not even actively vindictively opposing you, tend to go out of their way to distinguish themselves from you, at any conspicuous opportunity. They don’t like Marxism, or they think that “communism” is a synonym for “authoritarian”, or they are just kinda opportunist cuz they are young and not as well established. But yet they are in charge of work that you know is important and you need to participate in.
Even working in cadre is exhausting when I learn that someone I work with who I really admire and helped to get me established is like really into UFOs and alien conspiracy theories. Other than that you agree on everything else, but yet every once in a while discussions veer into this positively absurd territory.
And all of these are real examples from my perspective. If I imagine how I must seem to the other people referenced here, my actions become just as exhausting and frustrating.
In my experience a lot of leftists agree that everything is political, but then don’t really participate in politics outside of individual political opinions. There is a realm of the expressly political that exists not apart from but still distinguishable from the realm of the “everything is politics.” If you wanna say that is a bastardization that’s fine but what’s the alternative??
Right I get what you are saying I think and agree on the need to compromize and feel the same frustration even in my work. Few of the most lovely based leftists I have come across have for example turned out to hold weird crystal healing or antu-science views or whatever. But I also try to allow people some room to hold different views if the general core is ok, even when I don’t agree.
So I don’t personally talk about a 100% political fit between people, but mean that the basics have to at least be there. I work a lot with folks who are all anti-ML and anti-communist, but still leftist as this is all that exists here. It feels bad, but it is the reality. But I would not likely spend my life with them which is what my original answer is about relating to the OP. Or I might if their politics is open to discussion and at least aligned with mine as most left politics tends to be. But the politics still very much exists in the relatioship.
I meant that the profession of politics can be a bastardization of what politics is, to be clear.
I’m great at navigating all of these other inter personal/political dynamics except when we have to actually work together on the basis of politics. My experience of doing political work with other volunteers doing political work has been like working through the 5 stages of grief, where when I reach “acceptance,” I’m basically like “fuck this, it isn’t worth sacrificing my mental health” except this road of self improvement and political/historical education that I’ve been on for like 12 years leads to this. I feel very lost even though I’m exactly where I’ve intended to go