Politics and The Crazy Junkyard Man

[lb_lee]

Rogan: I have never been an activist, even when the cause is great. Partly because I am disabled and just can’t make my natural ebb and flows work with the schedule, and partly because my brain can’t handle the opacity of most political process.

(I self-publish because I get to see and learn the whole process of making a thing, to selling a thing, and I get to watch how my work influences financial success or failure. If I submit to a traditional publisher, I may or may not eventually get even a rejection letter. Opaque. My brain can’t get it together enough to push through that. I need to see cause and effect in a reasonable timeframe.)

I used to feel really bad about this, like I was a waste of space achieving nothing, because I got poisoned by the idea where if you weren’t protesting, revolting, or working on an organized group campaign, it was useless. Even though it kinda bothered me, that instead of directly helping my own people, a process I understood, I was supposed to focus my energies on persuading/forcing singlets in power. Even though I saw and remembered how ineffective Pavilion Hall was at anything besides MAYBE book reviews (and that’s not even getting into how mean the group was to some of its members). But because I was just working on my own, teaming up periodically with friends to do/make specific little things (a meetup, a website, digitizing out of print multi books), it didn’t “look” like what I heard True Progress looked like, so I dismissed it. For a while, I even thought that my DOING this work was a moral failing—everyone else had moved on to proper causes, disability policy, queer liberation, and here my sad stick-in-the-mud ass was, like a crazy old man who lives in a junkyard and won’t leave because “I live here, dammit! I LIVE HERE!”

Then I found myself with a little zine called WHY I LEFT THE PSL... or the DSA or Socialist Alternative or whatever. It’s a clumsily designed little thing, just a brief discussion of an anonymous person burning out on The Leftist Cause and choosing to do it my way, and how much better it’s been for them. I was already kinda coming out of my little tin leftist meltdown, but that little zine helped, so now I am spreading it.

I am not an activist. I am an amateur semi-librarian, a cartoonist, and a writer. That’s what I do, what I’m good at, finding or making useful things and sharing them. That’s what I like doing, and that’s what I can keep doing without burning out permanently. And I would argue I am a useful weirdo to have around. We can’t all be activists; someone has to wash the dishes, cook the food, and do all the other things a group of people need! (And I would argue those folks are just as, if not MORE necessary. Remember all the attempts at utopian micronations that didn’t bother to figure out the sewage system? You don’t? That’s why.) I have been living on multi trash mountain for seventeen years and I have already seen how short memory can be. Someone needs to stick around and go, “hey, remember this thing from the nineties that’s really good?” or, “no that wasn’t always true,” or hell, just make people laugh after a long day. I am not an activist. I am a storyteller, a collector of old knowledge of varying worth, and I might be a crazy junkyard man, but by god, this is my junkyard and I know how it works and what I want to do and I intend to do it till I stop or drop.

Because I live here. This is my home. I love it and want to tend to it.

Comments

[wolfy_writing]

We can’t all be activists; someone has to wash the dishes, cook the food, and do all the other things a group of people need!

Yeah, I was thinking that the idea that everyone should be activists is flipping the point of activism. Activism is in order to make a better world so people can collect archives, write stories, draw cartoons, and do other things they like that enrich people's lives. If it's about building something better, rather than displaying personal purity through performative politics, the idea that everyone should do it makes no sense.

[lb_lee]

People look down on cleaners and maids, but it’s one of the forms of labor that shows concrete and immediate progress and positive results. Washing ONE dish means you can now eat another meal or two on it. A group of activists would be in sad shape if none of them did the dishes... or appreciated them that did!

[talewisefellowship]

[Janusz]

One thing I've been telling people is "you are not a load-bearing pillar". If you can't attend a 30,000+ protest, that's still a protest with a 30,000+ turnout. The movement will not collapse if you can't make it for whatever reason.

And of course like you said there are other things you can do that are just as useful, which may be more healthy and sustainable for you. You can't have a movement without cooks, cleaners, historians, artists, etc

[lb_lee]

I meet a lot of fiery young folk who blaze into multi work. I have also seen a lot of them burn out, sometimes catastrophically, and I find myself wanting to go, buddy, buddy, it’s okay, you don’t need to save the world singlehanded, you in fact cannot, please chill and work out a better balance for yourself, you smell like a breakdown in progress and YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE ON TWITTER FOR THIS.

[monsterqueers]

Sorry if this isnt super coherent, brainfog creeping in lol;

Yeah, we are about at this point too- sure we can read theory sometimes when we have time, we can be a decent person to other oppressed folks- heck, we can even dispense some theory and minor interpersonal advocacy help in our niche. But everyone has to pick their battles and we are too disabled, poor, and tired to be picking too many. We can't *get* to the protests, much less be in them and risk jail time or serious injury.
Honestly, most of our 'activist' work is just existing as plural or queer or nonhuman in a space and explaining what that means gently to people so they are not afraid of people like us. Which... Only counts as activism because being a marginalized person in a public space is politicized.

And well, its really not activism if you ignore that. We really wouldn't call ourselves activists. We just exist in our community and try to help those inside it within our means. Thats just being a good neighbor, really.

We cant be exposing ourselves to every documentation of every humanitarian crisis in the world and donating at every turn. We dont have the fortitude or the money, and secondhand traumatizing ourselves looking at the horrors of war every minute of every day isnt going to get the people in those situations out of them. Its just punishing oneself for not being able to directly help. Its the idea that to be morally pure you have to take punishment for your sins- and not being able or willing to drop everything to help every tragedy across the world counts to that. That sort of thinking isnt healthy- its not even materially useful!

"We can't all be activists" is what so many folks need to learn. And "If you still want to be an activist, choose ONE thing (maybe two or three) and stick to it to be most effective" is another.

[lb_lee]

Yeah, while I have never had much head for theory at all! So you’re one up on me!

I would be so useless in... I dunno, the Sudanese genocide crisis going on right now. And sure, I could throw myself in and learn some shit... but I have found a use in devoting myself to my junkyard for a long time, enough to learn the details of its terrain. (Also, Americans kinda have a reputation of barging in and acting like authorities on matters they know nothing about. Do I really want to be that kind of American? How much could I even truly DO of worth in a struggle like that? I am still learning about the local politics in my own CITY!)

[monsterqueers]

Yeah exactly! Like its such a better use of our time and money to do things locally where we can than spending all our energy on something so far away there isnt much to do about it. We used to stress ourselves out all the time trying to keep up on every world event and for what? Theres nothing us Knowing About Every Horrible Atrocity In Excruciating Detail helped! We do better with spending our learning about Events time with positive things and things that effect us locally. Gotta put your own oxygen mask on first and all that.

[minoanmiss]

Well and truly said.

[sorcyress]

I sorta think this also ties into a post you made recently¹ about how like, the way you change minds and hearts about Multis is by just existing as a Multi and doing your own thing and being cool and chill and having other stuff go on and having the Singlets be all "oh hey, now I know some people in this space and I get it and can't demonize it in the same way".

(replace Multi with any manner of other marginalized identities as suits)

Which is to say, when other people insist on making your identity political, then existing as that identity --not even doing any activism around it, but just being and living the rest of your life-- is a form of political work. Some days, the extent of my trans activism is "hey students at the high school I teach at, you can grow up and be a nonbinary adult, that is something that exists and can work out for you."

And that work is _important_. It's not necessarily "active" or "activism" but damn, when I think about the adults who shaped me and how starry eyed some of them (still!) make me just by existing, I know that being a part of the community is the best thing I can do for that community.

Which is all to say, I really like this post and the points you draw in it, and I really like knowing people who are just living their varied lives and doing cool things with them and sharing out sometimes about the cool things they are making and doing.

~Sor

1: My brain has been scattered and my dreamwidth reading has been inconsistent-at-best, so "recent" means "probably in the last six months, definitely in the last year"

[lb_lee]

Rogan: yeah, Bob and Grey really opened my mind to possibilities because they were a middle-aged queer couple who treated each other and me nicely! There is power in those little things; we are MADE of little things, accumulated like grains of sand on a beach.

[lb_lee]

Btw Sor, did you ever get a chance to read When A Fan Hits the Shit? Do you still have it?

[talewisefellowship]

[Hikaru]

O how did u do the footnote. cus we make those in our posts as well and we could use a neater way of doing it

[sorcyress]

Oo! I love me a footnote!

The HTML I use is ^{^{to superscript my text and get it up here}}

~Sor

<small>and then this is how I get my text small down here</small>

[talewisefellowship]

[Hikaru]

Thanks!!!!

[numinousdread]

I appreciate the role you play.

[lb_lee]

Every junkyard needs a weirdo!

[numinousdread]

And I relate sometimes because I've been following trans/nonbinary/genderweird conversations online for over a decade and even picked up a habit of reading old LJ community archives, and sometimes I'm like... This is just odds and ends, subcultural bric-a-brac! But another part of me is like, this is a legitimate archive; there were HUGE cultural shifts happening around how people thought and talked about gender precipitated in part by online conversations like these, even if most people aren't as entranced by LJ spelunking.

[lb_lee]

No no, I totally get it, having watched the LJ soulbonding comm get purged, losing so much community info to the ether! Words and ideas got coined somewhere, usually in humble little places!

[numinousdread]

Ooh, yeah, that kind of linkrot is such a bummer.
Nonbinary Wiki seems to do a decent job of basic documentation but isn't as broad as I'd like and I suspect mostly edited by Gen Z people. It also doesn't seem to spend much time on how specific terms travel outside their community of origin, if at all, after getting coined-- which I am interested in.
And there is almost no focus on like, websites themselves as platforms for community or discussion-- it feels like a glossary with some cultural context/etymology involved. I just want, like, a Fanlore.org for nonbinary gender stuff, lol, in terms of breadth and sort of... frameworks for understanding the topic, because I see this as partly and importantly a subcultural history.

[lb_lee]

It also doesn't seem to spend much time on how specific terms travel outside their community of origin, if at all, after getting coined-- which I am interested in.

Oh yeah, that's the meat of the thing, ain't it? I remember I felt like I'd tripped over a dinosaur fossil when those BBS .txt records fuckin' Astraea gave me just happened to say where "singlet" came from! And then I immediately understood how the term had spread and expanded, via them!

I just want, like, a Fanlore.org for nonbinary gender stuff

Immense sympathy. I too would love one for multi shit! (I attempted to make one, but turns out I am really bad at Wikis!)

[numinousdread]

And then I immediately understood how the term had spread and expanded, via them!

Hell yeah!

I've since started throwing random stuff on Nonbinary Wiki, and that's been super fun! One of the founders said they liked my taste in article topics, so I feel comfortable going a bit bananas.

I also stumbled upon multiplicity-centric wiki a few months ago, but it also seems to focus on terminology and not as much general community history.

[lb_lee]

Oh, was it pluralpedia? If so, man, they list shit loads of words I've never even HEARD of, it just makes me feel old! Hahaha

[numinousdread]

Yeah, it seems like there's a lot of coining going on.

Some of the stuff on Nonbinary Wiki makes me feel similarly out of the loop, as I simply haven't moved in circles where people were creating or using a lot of terminology coined past 2013 or so, and it's mostly unknown to me. (Despite not identifying much with these ongoing coining efforts, I don't like it when people act like there is a fixed and objective list of Legit LGBTQ Words, and in fact it feels kinda ethnocentric. But I digress.)

I also think the people whose blogging niche involves making a ton of flags seem to be having fun. Not sure if people are also doing that for plural terms but it seems likely.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for this and other past posts on this subject like the bibliography, sincerely and fully thank you. As someone with scrupulosity who has gone into some very bad spirals over this very thing and still struggles with it every day, your posts articulate so many things I have been unable to put to words. It's all brought me to tears in a good way. I wish I had more clever and thoughtful things to add to this but I don't know what else to express but...thank you.

[lb_lee]

No problem! Glad it's been helpful! That was our hope, that it'd maybe help other people figure out how to escape the brain-trap! (Also this reminded me to add another couple really useful things I discovered to that bibliography, thanks for the reminder.)

[pilotsofanewsky]

Man, we feel the same way. We do want to contribute something. But it's not gonna look the way that other people would expect. We don't do sustained commitments very well. We can't donate money that we don't have. And we have no attention span for theory or policy. And we also now prioritize our own mental health over the world at large. So this is super validating to read.

However! As people who have read your stuff since we were teenagers we want to add - what you do is extremely valuable! Just by existing and writing about it, you tell others that it's possible (to be multi/to ignore the stupid genic wars/to treat each other in the system well). And I think it's a strength that you've been doing things in the same junkyard for so long, and have so much knowledge in that area. Yay for weird niches!

[lb_lee]

Mori: we are totally the political equivalent of that weird snail that eats metal and bores through solid rock, haha!

[armaina]

A community cannot defend itself if there are no resources that permit the community to exist comfortably in the first place. The work of protest first requires the ability to comfortably leave or stop work in order to protest, which makes the effort of providing food, shelter, clothing, care, cleaning, even decompression, as much protest as being physically at the picket itself. I think so many protest and reform are failing because we've gained this all-or-nothing mentality to the concept of protest. Much of the newer generations are robbed of the ability to learn what it even means or is needed to build community and in doing so, we've been robbed of our ability to build the foundation of community, first.

this is the sad reason why conservative religious political fronts are able to gather so easily, they made community, first. (and man.. I've been mulling over the means of building a non-religious community for as long as I've been out of the LDS organization when I was 18....)

Even if one cannot provide any physical support, the skill of knowing even where to look for resources and parse information is so important. There have been many times I've seen people panic about what they're going to do about one stressors in their life and someone in the group hands them a resource that helps them with that specific problem that they didn't know existed. They didn't even know they could look for resources, they didn't have the prior knowledge to know it was even out there. To be able to off-board that mental task to someone else is as valuable as any other act of activism, and is IMO inherently activism. So, yes, we absolutely need more useful weirdos, being in touch with those useful weirdos.

[lb_lee]

I think so many protest and reform are failing because we've gained this all-or-nothing mentality to the concept of protest. Much of the newer generations are robbed of the ability to learn what it even means or is needed to build community and in doing so, we've been robbed of our ability to build the foundation of community, first.

Rogan: Very, very well said. To fight for something, there needs to actually BE something worth fighting for! Like, being multi for me isn't actually about fighting ableism so much. That's a PART of it, but oh my god I can't make my life Eternal Heroic Struggle. That's no way to live! Way more important to me is multi as this positive force that ISN'T just in opposition to something else: my inner family, my loves, my friends, my art, the little meet-ups and stuff I do! It's my LIFE, not the struggle!

this is the sad reason why conservative religious political fronts are able to gather so easily, they made community, first.

YUP! They're really good at that, and maybe we could learn a thing or two... you know. Without the gross parts.