The "left" needs to build community and meet people where they are
2023 06 17
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I like direct action. I like when people actually DO things. I like mutual aid and community organisation. I'm not talking about photo op charity either. I mean people who walk the walk and talk the talk, advocate when they aren't able to do it themselves, and keep the pipeline to assistance flowing.
The left has no such cohesive force. It has various groups who generally choose to vote in the same specific way, but those groups are all concentrating on various issues - disability, poverty, stronger social safety nets, union support, long-term care, healthcare, education, rights of marginalised groups, homelessness, addiction, and so forth. All of those things do have commonalities, but no one's cohesed them, brought them together in a single force that could use that commonality, and community, as a force that really could make change.
But some folks on the left expect their elevated awareness or possession of facts to get people to rise up to them and see things on their level. That might happen in a few cases, but it won't happen across the board. A 70-year-old boomer is not going to come to you, to meet you on your level. You have to frame things in a way that makes sense to them and brings them out of their outmoded way of thinking. The left has the knowledge, the desire, and some will to fight, but it can be very condescending and nasty when people outside that grouping approach it.
If someone comes to you and sounds uninformed, rather than bludgeoning them with what you know or believe, you need to find out where they're coming from so you can explain things to them in a manner that will make sense to them. If you want people on your side, you aren't going to do it by making them feel excluded or marginalised.
If you don't understand how the issues of one group can impact the people in another, think about ramped sidewalks. Initially made for those in wheelchairs, and also initially fought against by many as useless since only a few needed them. Now they're useful to the elderly, people with baby carriages, anyone pushing a grocery cart. A simple change made life easier for many. Talking buses initially created for the vision impaired are useful to many. People too far in the back of the bus to see the digital street announcements on the sign, people unfamiliar with the areas they're in. Captioning, initially created for the hearing impaired, are now of use to people in a noisy room who can't hear the sound on a TV. A lot of things that the average, everyday person considers a convenience, are actually tools that were created for the disabled. Now they make everyone's life easier too. The same for all the groups and their considerations that I mentioned above. Addressing the roots of issues, rather than putting bandaids on them, means lower spending for the government in the long term, for example. Making life easier for some, can help make life easier for others - and I don't mean that in a transactional way. A happier society is a happier society. It lowers overall stress, makes people less angry, fearful, and combative.
Where was I? Oh yes. There are certainly multiple formats by which one can provide effective social welfare, but none of them are going to happen under neoliberal governments that like running austerity budgets, and certainly not without the left building a community that can take its individual issues and turn them into a force for much-needed overall change. None of the people that fight for the needs of any of the groups I mentioned above can do this on their own, can make the change on their own. But all those groups finding a way to come together and fight? That's a force to be reckoned with.
Addendum:
I put "left" in scare quotes because I really don't like to use the term. It is inaccurate, and does not reflect the true nature of what I'm trying to describe. It's an easy go-to to express what group of people might be included in the thinking, but it is divisive, non-inclusive, and puts a hard demarkation in a place where one should not be. These are not things or times where one having means another not. These are things that would heal and help everyone.