droqen's forum-shaped notebook

On art => Close reading => Topic started by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 03:02:28 PM

Title: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 03:02:28 PM
Regarding Dean Spade's
"Mutual Aid"

I'm like five pages in and I can already tell what a wild ride this is going to be. Great reading alongside The Dispossessed (https://newforum.droqen.com/index.php?topic=299.0).
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 03:15:56 PM
Quote from: p7Mutual aid is collective coordination to meet each other's needs, usually from an awareness that the systems we have in place are not going to meet them. Those systems, in fact, have often created the crisis, or are making things worse.

I need some specific examples of what systems created crises and I'm about to get them, but not to my satisfaction.

Quote[..]setting up a ride-sharing system during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, putting drinking water in the desert for migrants crossing the border, training each other in emergency medicine because ambulance response time in poor neighbourhoods is too slow,

These examples back up my suspicions, or I could say my biases, that so many of the problems are not systems which "created the crisis, or are making things worse", but which are solving a problem in an incomplete and unjust way. That is, the bus -- a transit system created to help people get around -- is being boycotted, so the people boycotting the transit system need a way to get around. The system of ambulances is insufficient for poor neighbourhoods, but the ambulances do exist. The systems are doing what they were designed to do, but not well enough, so through mutual aid people can find better solutions for their local communities and for people they care about.

Quote from: p7,p8There is nothing new about mutual aid--people have worked together to survive for all of human history. But capitalism and colonialism created structures that have disrupted how people have historically connected with each other and shared everything they needed to survive.

I've had a problem with this centrally anti-capitalist viewpoint for quite some time now and I've heard it from many mouths; capitalism feels to me like a symptom of something deeper, not the enemy itself. But aside from laying the blame at the feet of a specific sort of human system, which I suppose arose to deal with some larger unidentifiable beast that would eventually be attended to in some other likely equally harmful way, I am here for the topic of discussion.
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 03:23:25 PM
Right now, I should record that my thinking is along these lines: the systems which Spade claims mutual aid combats, the systems which create the need for mutual aid began, themselves, as mutual aid of a sort: social systems get put into place to meet people's needs, from an awareness that existing systems are not meeting them and are not going to meet them. But to place the blame for these problems on those faulty systems is folly. The problems arise from our basic existence, from humanity, from the consequence of chaos, from our need to do better. Every system is flawed, and mutual aid's only advantage is that it exists at a small scale.

Nothing scales up without failing, and nothing huge fails without someone supposing that it is fundamentally flawed and that their small solution is better because it succeeds at a scale many magnitudes smaller.

The question I have is can we avoid ever scaling up? Will this be addressed?

Anyway, time to read.
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 03:28:31 PM
Quote from: p13Under capitalism, social problems resulting from exploitation and the maldistribution of resources are understood as individual moral failings, not systemic problems.

What does "under capitalism" mean? Capitalism exists, yet... People undertake projects of mutual aid. Individuals are capable of perceiving social problems. Why do these things not fall "under capitalism"?
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 03:36:26 PM
Quote from: p12-15Solidarity

I love the way solidarity is described - but as it goes further I realize where it has failed me, or where I have failed it.

Quote from: p15Solidarity and an ever-expanding commitment to justice emerge from contact with the complex realities of injustice. This is exactly how movements are built, as people become connected to each other and as one urgent issue unspools into a broader vision of social transformation.

I've experienced this unspooling and it's terrifying and uncomfortable. I don't think that I ever want to face the entirety of 'the complex realities of injustice' because there is no end. Social transformation will always lead to new injustices. I suppose that as a person I don't get significant satisfaction out of seeing justice done. It's not something I can put energy into sustainably. I'm not passionate enough about it.
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 03:46:22 PM
Frustrated. I love the do-ocratic (https://communitywiki.org/wiki/DoOcracy) energy that suffuses mutual aid. 'If you discover that people need something, help them with it.' But I'm not a fan of the wrapper in which it comes: 'We are only doing this because the systems are bad.' No! No!!! To me that suggests the underlying ideal is to use mutual aid to arrive at a new state of complacency.

Why do I feel this way? Am I wrong to feel this way?

Quote from: p8In this context of social isolation and forced dependency on hostile systems, mutual aid--where we choose to help each other out, share things, and put time and resources into caring for the most vulnerable--is a radical act.

I'm pissed off that it has to be "radical." I can't put my finger on it. Someone tell me what I'm doing wrong.
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 03:48:25 PM
Quote from: p16Mutual aid is inherently antiauthoritarian, demonstrating how we can do things together in ways we were told not to imagine, and that we can organize human activity without coercion.

Quote from: droqen on July 27, 2022, 04:41:30 PM
Quote from: p76, The Dispossessed"But we haven't been sure whether or not you came with the approval of--" [Oiie] hesitated.

Shevek grinned. "Of my government?"

"We know that nominally there's no government on Anarres. However, obviously there's administration. And we gather the group that sent you, your Syndicate, is a kind of faction; perhaps a revolutionary faction."

"Everybody on Anarres is a revolutionary, Oiie. . . . The network of administration [does] not govern persons; they administer production. They have no authority either to support me or to prevent me. [..] Most people on Anarres don't want to learn about Urras. They fear it and want nothing to do with the propertarians. [..] I came to begin to change that."

"Entirely on your own initiative," said Oiie.

"It is the only initiative I acknowledge," Shevek said, smiling, in dead earnest.

In dead earnest: People can just do things. Does it really have to be antiauthoritarian to say "Just do things that you want to see done"?

Quote from: droqen on August 04, 2022, 09:10:40 AM
Quote from: p128, The DispossessedTo his surprise a good many students came to him to complain. They wanted him to set the problems, to ask the right questions; they did not want to think about questions, but to write down the answers they had learned. And some of them objected strongly to his giving everyone the same mark. [..] If no competitive distinction were to be made, one might as well do nothing.

"Well, of course," Shevek said, troubled. "If you do not want to do the work, you should not do it."

Are so many people really so stripped of their basic desire to do things for their own sake? I am as troubled by Shevek is here, that it seems Mutual Aid must be framed as an anti- something, must be given a name, to seem worth doing.
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 04:01:33 PM
Quote from: p18MADR asserts that "saving lives, homes, and communities in the event and aftermath of a disaster may require taking bold action without waiting for permission from authorities. [..]"

Quote from: p18-19Mutual aid projects [..] developed to support people living through the crises caused by poverty, racism, criminalization, gender violence, and other "ordinary" conditions[..]

What constitutes a disaster, for me especially? I don't know how to draw that line, myself... What would I do for what I believe in? What do I believe in? See 'unspooling' above. Is everything a disaster? Is nothing? Am I a cold and uncaring being because I'd rather care about nothing than everything? I have no particular passion here, no focus. It seems unjust and basically impossible to focus on any particular injustice.
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 04:02:01 PM
Last messagethought reminds me of Everything Everywhere All At Once
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 04:06:47 PM
Quote from: p19[The devastating 2018 California fires] were caused by Pacific Gas and Electric Company's mismanagement, and then [..] California's government immediately offered the company a bailout, meanwhile failing to support people displaced by the disaster.

Big yikes. Why do things like this happen?
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 04:16:55 PM
Quote from: p19[Naomi Klein] argues that in energy, as in other areas of survival, we should be working toward locally controlled, participatory, transparent structures to replace our crumbling and harmful infrastructure.

Quote from: WikipediaA participatory organization is an organization which is built based on public participation rather than their contract obligations.

I don't quite follow, but sure. But the question still stands -- why do things like this happen? how do we get from where we are now to "getting rid of the undemocratic infrastructure of our lives"? Individuals need to get interested in mutual aid. participate in mutual aid.

Is there a way to take the infrastructure we have now and make it porous to participation? Open to gradual transformation?
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 04:18:45 PM
Quote from: p20For social movements working to imagine and build [..] sustainable, regenerative ways of living, mutual aid offers a way forward.
Okay!
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 04:21:55 PM
Quote from: p21mutual aid is not charity.

I've skimmed this chapter. I don't want to know in greater detail about this thing that mutual aid isn't, because I (personally) already understand that it isn't it.
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 04:22:46 PM
Quote from: p31
3

We Get More When
We Demand More

Solid title.
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 04:31:01 PM
Quote from: 40How do we imagine "scaling up" mutual aid to a point where everyone has what they need, and gets to meaningfully co-govern and co-steward the structures and conditions of their lives?

Hell yeah, this is the question I want answered!
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 04:32:53 PM
Quote from: p41Governance and innovation remain local, but knowledge, support, and solidarity are networked and shared.
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 04:45:04 PM
PART II

Working Together
on Purpose

Dangers and pitfalls:
Deservingness Hierarchies - "mutual aid groups .. sometimes set up their own problematic deservingness hierarchies" - exclude no-one.
Saviorism and Paternalism - "The idea that those giving aid need to "fix" people who are in need is based on the notion that people's [needs are] not a systemic problem but [are] caused by their own personal shortcomings."
Co-optation - paraphrasing: if "collective coordination to meet each other's needs" becomes non-primary* (e.g. displaced by financial concerns), it's not mutual aid

*p.s. there is no such thing as having two equal guiding principles. one will always win.
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 04:50:14 PM
Quote from: p60history is full of examples of mutual aid groups that, under pressure from law enforcement, funders, and culture, transformed into charity or social services groups and lost much of their transformative capacity.

What is the transformative capacity of mutual aid which is lost in this transition?

EDIT:: Oh, maybe it's on the previous page, which I skimmed

Quote from: p59Characteristics of Mutual Aid vs. Charity

[..]Mutual aid projects strive to include lots of people[..] If we want to provide survival support for as many people as possible, and mobilize as many people as possible for root-causes change, we need to let a lot of people do the work and make decisions together, rather than bottlenecking the process with hierarchies that let only a few people lead.

- provide [..] support for as many people as possible
- mobilize as many people as possible for root-causes change
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 05:00:35 PM
There is a huge chart from pages 61-64. It's a very interesting chart. I'm not going to copy the whole thing down here, because I'm lazy.

I'm majorly concerned about "Open meetings, with as many people making decisions .. as possible" and "Consensus decision-making", because I've seen those go bad, but to some degree I also believe in it. It's something that takes some experience and/or skill to manage though -- open meetings can suck A LOT.

I
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 05:05:17 PM
Quote from: p65
No Masters, No Flakes

Hey, looks like they're going to address that stuff in this chapter.

Quote from: p65[We can] dive right into the work, [..] but fail to create good internal practices for our group to be strong and sustainable. It makes sense that we are not good at creating [fair, participatory, transparent,] emancipatory group structures. [..] We do not have much practice imagining or being in groups where everyone can truly participate in decision-making.
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 05:09:02 PM
Wow, okay, I absolutely feel the opposite of all of this, and I guess if this is the norm then, I dunno, I'm sad about it? Where does this disinterest come from? Predictably, Spade places the blame at the feet of capitalism.

Quote from: p66Capitalism makes us think about short-term gains, not building the long-term capacity for all of our well-being. This can make it easy to go for the quick fix and ignore the damage we might be doing to each other along the way. Many of us think "process is boring."

Process is the best and anyone who thinks otherwise is mistaken and must learn otherwise.
I truly believe this.
Process is life.
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 05:10:33 PM
I place the blame at the feet of disconnection of process from result. But that's not capitalism's fault, is it? If anything, didn't it come first, wasn't capitalism built to serve its banishing? (I could be totally wrong.)
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 05:43:06 PM
Quote from: p67Hierarchy = Horizontal decision-making structure based on consensus that prevents decision-making from being concentrated in one person or a small group, and that can help tasks and roles get distributed to many people
 
Vague decision-making process = Clear decision-making process that everyone is trained in and that includes all members

Leadership held by people who have seniority or self-select = Training new people in how to participate fully in decisions and in new skills and roles; // Cultivating a culture of group participation, feminism, anti-racism
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 05:44:02 PM
Quote from: p67Clear structures help us stick to our values under pressure

Right now my wallpaper is a simple statement: "STRUCTURES ARE INHERENTLY AMORAL." If you need structures to stick to your values... I'm concerned.
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 05:52:56 PM
Quote from: p68-69This chapter will cover three organizational tendencies that often emerge in mutual aid groups that can cause problems, and provide ideas for how to avoid them:

One. Secrecy, hierarchy, and lack of clarity. [..]
- participants not knowing what is going on
- participants not knowing who is making decisions
- having all the decision-making concentrate in one person or clique (lack of delegation is a major cause of burnout)
- risk the group being torn apart by conflict because of these dynamics

combat by:
+ clear decision-making structures
+ caring, emancipatory cultures

Two. Over-promising and under-delivering, non-responsiveness, and elitism. [..]
- promising to help more people than they can help
- making it seem like they have a community need covered when they don't actually have the capacity to address it
- exacerbated when groups receive grants for specific projects, so there is money at stake in falsely claiming..
- when people are not making decisions together, someone may make a promise for the whole group without consulting others about whether it is a priority or a possibility

Three. Scarcity, urgency, competition. [..]
- culture of scarcity (money, time, attention, labour)
- closely related to previous point (over-promising)

may lead to...
- getting competitive with other groups or within
- not taking the necessary steps to do our task well, due to urgency/rush
- forgetting to be kind to each other
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 05, 2022, 06:31:42 PM
Okay, this entire section is about how to organize and how consensus decision-making works, and it fucking rules. 5th chapter "No Masters No Flakes," starting at p65.

[pingback: CONSENSUS games (https://newforum.droqen.com/index.php?topic=405)]
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 06, 2022, 10:00:39 AM
Quote from: p103Rather than a fantasy of being rich and famous[..] we cultivate a fantasy of everyone having what they need and being able to creatively express the beauty of their lives.

I wrote down this quote while walking past the police station, ignoring a man shouting about God and his penis and about how I'm laughing at him. He was calling me names for reading a book.

It's not healthy to have a society where I do things like ignore people... but I have adopted, become comfortable with, maintaining a Still Face attitude towards people in need for the sake of... my own comfort, I suppose.

Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 06, 2022, 10:28:02 AM
Quote from: p104-105Handling Money

[..] Because most people in our society have a tangled, painful relationship with money that includes feelings and behaviours of secrecy, shame, and desperation, a lot of otherwise awesome people will misbehave when money is around or get suspicious of others' behaviour.

Quote from: p106[A] pitfall of hiring paid staff is that when groups become staffed, unpaid volunteers in the group sometimes expect that staff person or few staff people to suddenly do all the work, and volunteers sometimes check out (especially if they felt overworked before the group started paying staff).
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 06, 2022, 11:26:50 AM
Quote from: p107-109Burnout

[..] Burnout [causes us to / is when we] lose connection to pleasure and passion in the work and instead encounter difficult feelings like avoidance, compulsion, control, and anxiety. [..] people who feel burnt out often feel that they cannot return to the work, or that the group or work they were part of is toxic.

[..] Burnout is created or worsened when we feel [
  • disconnected from others
  • mistreated
  • misunderstood
  • ashamed
  • overburdened
  • obsessed with outcomes
  • perfectionist
  • controlling
]. Burnout is prevented or lessened when [
  • we feel connected to others
  • there is transparency in how we work together
  • we can rest as needed
  • we feel appreciated by the group
  • we have skills for giving and receiving feedback
].
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 06, 2022, 01:42:18 PM
Quote from: p111-115, quotes snippedHow Mutual Aid Groups Can Prevent
and Address Overwork and Burnout


1. Make internal problems a top priority
"Training in meeting facilitation.."
"Collective planning of the group's work.. work plans.."
"..transparency in the group so that people know what each other are doing.."
"Regularly schedule conversations where people can hear from each other about what is going well and what needs work in the group's dynamics, or can discuss issues or concerns about their own role and ask for the group's assistance"

2. Make sure that new people are welcomed and trained to co-lead

3. Establish mechanisms to assess the workload and scale back
"How many hours is each member working?" "Did they.. track their hours for a week to make sure they are aware of how much they are working? Assess the workload and scale back projects until the workload is under control."
[ I know this might sound silly but this is radical to me -- that you would track hours in order to scale down the workload until it is under control. I love it. ]

4. Build a culture of connection

5. Make sure that the facilitation of meetings rotates, including agenda-making and other key leadership tasks.

6. As a group, recognize the conditions creating a culture of overwork.
"It is not one person's fault,.." "Create a shared language for the pressures.. so they are easier to identify and address.."

Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 06, 2022, 02:08:30 PM
Quote from: p115-116What Individuals Experiencing
Overwork and Burnout Need


[..] we must take a gentle approach to ourselves, avoid judgement[..] and patiently and humbly experiment with new ways of being.

The compulsive worker, over-worker, or control freak might come to understand their needs in the following ways:

  • I need trusted friends who I can talk to about what is going on, who I can ask for honest feedback about my behaviour, and who can help support me and soothe me when I feel afraid of doing something in a new way. [..] even though someone else [might] do this task differently, it is better to let them do it so they can build their own skills[..] These friends can help give me love to the wounds underneath my compulsive, competitive, or controlling behaviour, reminding me that my value does not hang on what the group does, how much work I do, or what other people think of me.
  • When I get feedback from friends or collaborators about concerns they have, I need to resist the impulse to defend myself or critique the way they delivered the message. [..] no matter how it is delivered, this feedback is an investment in me and in our work, and an act of love. [..]
  • If I hate everyone I'm working with or feel like I am going to die or like I have to stay up all night working, this is probably about something older and deeper in my life, not about the current work/workplace/group/coworker. If my heart is racing, if I feel threatened, if I feel like I can't get out of bed, if I feel like I can't speak to my coworker or I'll explode, I am probably experiencing pain deeply rooted in my life history. To get out of this reactive space, I need to devote resources to uncovering the roots of my painful reactions and building ways of being in those feelings that don't involve acting out harm to myself or others (including the harm of overworking). [..]

Okay there are more points than just these three but I think they just have to be read. These points in particular gave me some very strong feels.
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 06, 2022, 02:35:28 PM
Quote from: p118Conflict

There is so much in this book. I think I need to stop note-taking so that I can actually read it all with intentionality. This note-taking habit I have is useful when it supports my habit of skimming -- I love skimming books that are light on content, but these pages of Mutual Aid are dense with content that I am desperate to truly absorb.
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on August 08, 2022, 04:32:34 AM
Quote from: droqen on August 05, 2022, 03:23:25 PMRight now, I should record that my thinking is along these lines: the systems which Spade claims mutual aid combats, the systems which create the need for mutual aid began, themselves, as mutual aid of a sort: social systems get put into place to meet people's needs, from an awareness that existing systems are not meeting them and are not going to meet them. But to place the blame for these problems on those faulty systems is folly.

Looking back on my thought record from earlier I happened upon a good example in the book of a system that I agree is causing harm. It comes from a place of alienation:

Quote from: p58the systems that are supposed to guarantee safety--the cops, prosecutors, and courts--fail to do so and actually make things worse. These mutual aid projects work to build a new world, where people create safety through community building and support each other to stop harmful behaviour through connection rather than through caging.
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on November 13, 2022, 11:54:05 PM
pingback: i want art to be free (http://newforum.droqen.com/index.php?topic=291.msg1080#msg1080)
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on January 11, 2023, 03:20:26 PM
I'm reading Mutual Aid again for how to organize meetings at Messhof. Figure I might as well write my thoughts here.
Title: Re: Mutual Aid
Post by: droqen on January 11, 2023, 06:46:15 PM
Oh no I keep editing my thoughts. Well, just let it be known that I re-read all my notes here, and skimmed Chapter 5 a bunch. Good stuff!

~ The Nature of Order // Book Two // MASSIVE PROCESS DIFFICULTIES, on expertise (http://newforum.droqen.com/index.php?topic=391.msg2016#msg2016)