Greetings, dear friends, comrades, relatives, and neighbors,
My trusty coterie1 of buddies and I are on a quest to explore activist culture. We’re chatting together as we toddle along…
Why activist culture? Why not Disneyland?*
[*If I had a choice, I’d have the characters at the left and dialog alongside, which I feel would be clearer. But Substack doesn’t allow this. Sorry!
Because we can benefit from better understanding how being activists affects our daily lives, relationships, and emotional landscape as we work for justice, peace, and planetary survival.
Much better (for me) if you go to Disneyland!!
Quiet, Beast! Introspection and reflection are vital to effective action.
Did you say collective action?
Understanding activist culture can help lead us to effective, collective action.
Who exactly is “us”?
Yes, who are activists and how do we get to have our own culture?
We are part of the wildly diverse world-wide grab-bag of boat-rockers, city-hall-fighters, rabble-rousers, troublemakers, revolutionaries, liberators, and creative gadflies who talk, think, plan, talk, sing, leaflet, talk, yell, cry, meditate, talk, risk jobs, freedom, and lives, and much more, together, in every arena from neighborhood to entire planet, doing what’s needed to achieve peace, justice, equality, and planetary survival. And more.
Our culture is all the ways we develop to stay connected, work together, support each other, understand what’s happening, communicate, build relationships, talk to each other, comfort each other. And more.
And it’s the ways we get stuck in isolation, dissension, division, miscommunication. And the ways we end up reproducing the very oppressions we’re struggling to overcome.
I adore tripping you activists up with all that! And watching you squabble about it is a double treat!! Mwahahaharrr!
The more clarity we have about our culture, the better we can protect ourselves from the beast and create a safer, more welcoming environment for ourselves and our work.
We differ among ourselves in all kinds of ways, but we share the basic huge, immensely urgent goal of securing a fair, kind, peaceful, and livable planet.
Isn’t that everyone’s goal?
Yes, for most of us. Anyone can be an activist. All it takes is to go out (or stay home) and work together with others for some aspect of that goal.
You humans are bad at so many things, but when you get your act together you’re pretty good at organizing to fight for change.
Which is why I spend so much energy and resources stopping you from doing it! I like to keep you floating happily (or unhappily) in my belly while I digest you.
Eww. But yeah, unfortunately that’s where we are, floating in the digestive juices of the beast. It’s gonna take us all to get us out of here.
II.
How exactly does understanding activist culture help?
It’s helpful for us to be aware of how swimming in all that beastly ick affects us.
Activists don’t know that already?
Somewhat, but it’s like being aware (or not) of the air around us and inside us.
And if we notice and understand the beastly dominant culture enveloping us, and our own culture also, more faintly, we can better resist the former and cultivate the latter.
Rather than just saying to each other, “Ugh, why are you covered in beast juice?”
Um, yes.
Gross. You humans should groom that stuff off.
Hm. I may have to send that metaphor back to the drawing board.
Gross it may be, but it does capture a fundamental reality for all activists: we are working to change consciousness and organize for social transformation while in the clutches of the very system we’re working to transform.
III.
Do all the activists sit down together to gaze at their navels comparing notes on activist culture?
Well, in our big, diverse, planet-wide community there are probably groups of activists doing just that. But to my knowledge, activist culture is not an established topic, like math or motorcycle racing.
Not yet! We have to get it going.
Not if I can help it!!! The only navel you guys are allowed to gaze at is MINE—from the inside!
My goal is to explore activist culture together with other activists and develop a collective picture of it.
With help from your trusty coterie of comrades. And others!
But I have to start building a picture of activist culture from my own experience.
What about everyone else’s?
I only have access to what’s in my own head, so that’s where I need to start.
And I make sure to stuff your head with nonsense. Mwhahaharrr!!
Your saying activists don’t have an actual real true picture of the world? We’re stuck with what the Beast stuffs in our heads?
We have no single true picture of the world. Each of us has our own picture—generally a hodgepodge of the good, the bad and the ugly.
And this is where the collective part comes in! Through the alchemy of mingling our ideas and experiences, we can form a more complete, complex, accurate picture of the world, analyze it, and understand what we need to do to change it.
Forget that!! Human nature keeps you each isolated in your little brain boxes, which I can fill with whatever I like to keep you distracted, depressed, divided, despairing, and dull-witted.
Ouch! good thing I’m immune.
Isolated, each of us has limitations, but together, sharing our experiences and perspectives, we can understand whatever we need! We just have to get along well enough to forge our collective view of our culture.
Coming up: dangers and opportunities of being stuck in our own viewpoints
So long til next time! Watch out for the Beast!
Activist Moments
This new section shows some of the public activist events I and my activist friends are participating in.
March 2 - Poor People’s Campaign State House Assemblies Nationally Coordinated Day of Action to mobilize for a living wage, affordable housing, environmental justice, healthcare for all, worker’s rights, voting rights, fully funded education, a just immigration policy and more measures designed to abolish poverty, a leading cause of death in the US. I will be attending the one in Washington DC.
March 4 - Testifying in favor of the HJ0002 Ceasefire Resolution in the MD House of Delegates supporting an immediate, long-term ceasefire in Israel and occupied Palestine, the return of all hostages, and delivery of adequate humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people.
March 16, NYC. Radical Elders Day of Action. My Activist Fiction Writing Circle sisters and myself will present an exciting interactive writing workshop as part of this day of action.
“Coterie” is a circle of friends or comrades. It can have a connotation of exclusivity but doesn’t have to. It was first used in 18th century Europe to refer to associations of tenant farmers, working class folk of that time getting together for strength in numbers. It makes me think of a dove cote, perfect for activist peaceniks—the dove of peace being one of our most recognizable cultural symbols. And I just read about a coterie of prairie dogs! Cute, lively, social critters who run around in the grassroots, popping up everywhere and making noise. Very much like activists!
Love the innovative, light-hearted creativity of this post, Julianna!
Juliana this is wonderful! I love your light-hearted exploration of a serious subject! I’ve definitely felt like Sour Puss (“And it’s the ways we get stuck in isolation, dissension, division, miscommunication. And the ways we end up reproducing the very oppressions we’re struggling to overcome.”) I look forward to more musings with your coterie of buddies!