Vast majority of left politics see themselves as driven by recruitment: you need a politics that is convincing, bcuz politics means convincing other people, uninvolved people, with your words and/or your actions. There is a subtle but unmistakable intellectual hierarchy here

I know better than the other. I am correct, the other just needs to hear me, to come to the light. It's a christian conversion, it's a colonialist epistemological imposition, it's a form of domination through morality and righteousness.

The subtle but all important difference: "I want to find out if other people like me know I'm out here too". No more conversions! Only joyous meetings.

This is based on my experiences over the last decade. Our numbers have grown when we show people they're not alone, not when we convince people we're right. Of course, many people are deeply unsatisfied with the rhythm of movement building that this relies on. It's not reliable!

And once you meet people you do have to be able to communicate to them, and often you will think they're wrong. That's hard! After mvmts fall apart we doubt the shared desire we once assumed. That can break your heart, and you can respond in a lot of ways:

I've had friends overcorrect and go fully anti-discursive (no talking, just do!) and that's a terrible fashy trap frankly, very dangerous

Some ppl assume others just "didnt take it serious enough", so they activism really really hard and usually burn out, resentful and hateful

Some look for a reason why we left the streets, find it in a (necessary but insufficient) critique of their friends/scene, and then try to blow it up in a sort of social kamikaze. A lot of people do this one! It's really painful cuz it's always built on real harm and despair

Whatever the response, the blame seems to fall on "not enough people agreed for long enough. I still want this, and I remember how good it felt when we were all together, why doesn't everyone else?" It's hard to do but trust each other, everyone is going through that because

movement waves in this form are weird and unpredictable and uncontrollable and susceptible to feeling like we've gone back to square one but we haven't. Instead of lashing out in blame, ppl who pause to grieve the loss together, then critique and analyze make it through best

what does my standard rant about post-movement despair have to do with recruitment dynamics? Maybe its just growing up Jewish but conversion to me has always seemed suspect as hell, like "as long as I'm convincing others then I'm 100% right, but if I can't doubt creeps in"

Embrace uncertainty in all things while also being absolutely intolerant of a baseline kind of oppressive politics. I know a hell of a lot, also I don't know shit, my efforts are vital to the process of liberation, if I were to die tomorrow the revolution would continue w/o me,

I'm convinced that I'm right, I'm always ready to hear that I'm wrong, I trust my friends and comrades to tell me that, but they have blindspots too, I'm indelibly a subject formed by this horrifying society, I'm a beautiful animal being of pleasure and desire yearning to be free

it is horrible that contradictory things are true at once, it is beautiful that contradictory things are true at once, it is beautiful to be alive in a world where the only certainty is death.

*animal collective voice*

You don't have to Jooooin an ooooooorg