A lot of leftists spend a lot of time on pure critique of the system, especially early in their radicalisation, which can lead to a pessimistic outlook. It’s true that the system is unrelenting and the effects of capitalism and domination seep into every aspect of our lives, and that can feel overwhelming. I really hope I haven’t sabotaged myself by assuming that everything around me is cynical and only trying to exploit me at every turn, because that just isn’t true. The system works that way, but there are lots of people living under it who don’t collaborate with its goals.
Also, a message that doesn’t get emphasised enough is hope. That’s because algorithm-driven social media - even the fediverse is subject to this - tends to push ragebait and hit pieces over constructive narratives.
I’m really enjoying a lot of Anark’s stuff lately on youtube. I’d really recommend his work on Hope and Constructing the Revolution.
Also I would recommend thinking about how you can join the anarchist practice of prefiguration, or building the new in the shell of the old. A lot of revolution talk focusses on toppling the enemy system, but equally important is building our own alternatives that make people’s lives better now. That alleviates problems now, it wins people over and helps radicalise them, and it necessarily involves building community, which can hugely help with the feelings of isolation and depression.
I’ve often wondered if the horrific anxiety people experience in our society is our ancient monkey brains trying to figure out what we did wrong that isolated us from our tribe, when the thing that did it is communities being atomised by capitalist property markets. That observation on its own has helped me reach out more, and also to better accept when I don’t have people around me.
Edit: I read this as the OP’s question and I answered it as such. That’s okay though, if this question relates to you, then you already know who you are.
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I liked your paragraph on focusing on building something better that will draw people in.
When Occupy was huge, I had wished they had not focused so heavily on camping in parks and instead bought cheap land in the middle of nowhere and built “Occupy town”. Somewhere people can come and join the movement with their family and not worry about living in a tent.
Make our own jobs in federated worker co-ops like Mondragon, our own community defense organizations, our own public housing, our own city government. If we had picked a state like Wyoming, it would only take about 15k people from each state to move there to take over the entire state government.
I get people were trying to do that in every park and also stay visible in the media, but I felt like it was just to limiting to stay in such locations.
I think the point was to occupy places where powerful people were, to show them that they’re not untouchable. One thing I’ve heard Anark talk about is that communes that separate themselves from society don’t tend to have much revolutionary potential. They’re just kind of checking out.
Also, David Graeber said something very interesting about Occupy, that although the narrative was that they failed, the main thing they were trying to draw attention to was the IMF and the World Bank, and how their structural adjustment policies were laying waste to whole societies. He said that despite the fact that Occupy ended and was driven out by cops with bulldozers, the IMF and the World Bank don’t have anything like the power they used to, and that has a lot to do with the visibility that Occupy brought to them.
Who knows how much death and suffering was averted globally thanks to their actions? If they had focussed only on making a place to live within the US they wouldn’t have been able to achieve that. I think that’s a pretty good legacy.
Also with the coops, Anark has covered a different federation of coops in Venezuela called Cecosesola: https://youtu.be/xfE6Nsuaf50?si=MbXZ3kpTNI2-mTUm
It might be a better template than Mondragon, who seem to have reduced membership considerably, with non-member workers making up a huge percentage of their ranks.
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