At the top of the year I finally finished Joyful Militancy: Building Resistance in Toxic Times by Nick Montgomery and carla bergman and felt utterly inspired, heartened, motivated. The book vivifies the absurdity and cruelty of how hard on each other we can be in leftist organizing formations AND poses refreshing alternatives.
I was especially struck by their piece about the emotional tone of the adults surrounding a toddler learning to walk. When the kid gets up and goes a few more steps it’s a cause for celebration. No one asks, why don’t you already know how to walk? or you’re an idiot for not having balance yet, or you’re a monster because you’ve fallen down, you can’t come back anymore. In organizing we seem to forget that we are inviting people into unfamiliar, unknown skills and capacities that our society does not value or teach us, and it shows.
They include their interview with Silvia Federici, who describes the possibility of humility and celebration in our engagement with each other (aka joy…) very compellingly:
We are enlivened when we are learning, we are enlivened by our own growth and witnessing others’ growth. There’s a satisfaction that comes with being able to do something you couldn’t before, a glee in watching someone else’s hard work pay off. Demonization and judgment don’t lend themselves to organizing or learning (or living), they lead to isolation and paranoia.
This is not to say anything goes, it’s to insist on humility, because it feels better, lasts longer, and is just more true. Each person is only who they are, can only do what they do, because of countless other people.
Joyful Militancy: Building Resistance in Toxic Times by Nick Montgomery and carla bergman Appendix 1: Feeling Powers Growing—An Interview with Silvia Federici ↩