stop being alone

8/12/2019 Stop Being Alone

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Alone

Stop

Being

Afnity Committee


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Stop Being Alone

Afnity Committee

Summer 2012

Contents

A Politics of the Common 1

The Condition of Isolation 3

Being Together 6

Finding a Way 8

Modes of Afnity 8

Modes of Practice 9Modes of Coordination 9

The Potential of Belonging 10

NotesontheDesireforBei

ng

inCommon


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1

A Politics of the Common

Weall went down to the cen-

ters of our cities.In our outrage, inour frustration, we sought the company of the

like minded. We sought to make some direct ex-

pression of contempt for that which exploits us and thenwith impunity destroys life and demands that we redeem it.

There we saw each other side by side and we became some-

thing else, something bigger than our lonely selves: a we, a

collective, a force. As we gathered ourselves in one place, the

inhibitions that kept us from speaking to strangers fell away.

And as we spoke, our common circumstances became clearer.

Out of the sense of the common came a will to act. Being to-

gether was our strengthwhat overcame our timidity. For

as long as we gathered in the squares, we could feel that

power of collectivitythe same power we see over

and over again across the world, as the people rise

up and stand together to signal the com-

ing of a new community, and a new

way of living and acting.


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What are we to do then, when our ability to com-

mune in public has been forcefully interrupted? What are

we to do between the last mass gathering and the next?

We should learn from others across the world: we shouldgather when we can, and where we can, and where we are.

As the public sphere shrinks under the contemporary pres-

sures of privatization and policing, we must push back by re-

turning to the intimate forms which underlie publicness: the

small public of the group. We must regroup rather than retreat.

There is a continuity between the mass crowd and the small gather-ing. The one leads to the other and back again.

There is a politics of the common

that is shared. In the small

group, we can learn

the prac- tices of

communication,

sharing, listening,c o m - moning,

a c t i n g t o -

gether. In the

s m a l l g r o u p ,

we can d e s t ro y

one of the most per-

nicious as- pects of our

current social arrangements:

our separation from each other.

We can cultivate the desire for collectivity. We can imag-

ine and plan for the next coming of the multitude to the streets.

In the conditions of life where we ignore what we share, and we

pretend that our interests are individual and not collective, there

can be no meaningful politicsno meaningful change. When we

commit ourselves to nding the common, to making it, to being it,

to holding it in our hearts, then, and only then, do we awaken the

possibility of a politics that will move us through to a new world.


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3

The Condition of Isolation

Alienation is the isolation of people from that to which they should

be connected: people, thing, ideas, worlds, possibilities. To under-stand the power of being togetherof forming unmediated con-

nections to each other in a groupit is necessary to recognize

how much being apart is characteristic of our current experience.

Separation is perhaps the most pervasive structure and act of

our current society. We are separated from each other: by walls,

by screens, by gates, by locks, by borders, by institutions, by laws.What we create is taken

away from us and sold. Even the

very things which are supposed

to connect us ac- tually separate

us. Windows al- low us to see

while keeping other people

and the natural world at a dis-tance and discon- nected from us.

Communicat ion technologies

all work this way, from writing, to

telephones, to the internet: they

promise close- ness by putting

things in between people. The im-

ages of every part of the world are

constantly before our eyes until

we are convinced that we are there. But where is that? And what is

here? A friend is someone we trade messages with over the internet.

Our sense of being with someonehearing them, feeling them, un-

derstanding them, befriending themhas drifted away from the cir-

cumstance of being present together in space. Instead, a host of tech-

nologies have intervened so that the intimate distances are multiplied.

Cars isolate us in sealed mobile fortresses that make meaningful com-

munication with pedestrians or the drivers of other cars impossible.


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We are separated from our real circumstanc-

es and environment. Screens and mobile de-

vices distract us from our actual location

making us feel as if we were present else-

where, when we are really present nowhere.

The person on a walk should be the most

open to the random encounter with an-

other person or their surroundings; but

now they are outtted with gear that takes

their attention out of their place, and makes

conversation with a passerby seem like aninterruption. The urban environment

which had been a unique space of human

interaction, where strangers mixed, and

new politics emerged from the proximity

of the masseshas been transformed into

a bizarre circus of alienation, with every-

one wearing the latest in isolation devices.

The situation of separation is perfect for

imagining that everyone is on their own,

competing, not responsible to or for each

other. We are separate for that reason. In that

state, we can be objects in the marketplace.

We are passive. We are acted on like things.

Exchanged. Paid for. Transacted. Managed.

Marketed. Targeted. Quantied. Analyzed.

We become perfect widgets, perfect tools

in the mechanisms of capital exploitation.

We cannot make political acts in this state.

Political action requires real communica-

tion. Political action requires decision mak-

ing in the friction of human interaction. That

is why, when we occupied space together,

things started to happen. We noticed each


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other: our differences, our similarities, our

needs, and ultimately our common aspi-

rations. Being present together is always

potentially political. This potential is real-

ized when we discover the common andresolve to act in our collective interest.

By contrast, what passes for the political in

the alienated state of contemporary society

is merely the acceptance of some program

from outsideas if it were our own. What

is called politics is a choice between (two!)programs that are entirely outside of our real

common interests. Choice is notinherently

political. Choosing is what we do as consum-

ers, selecting between equivalent products

on the basis of irrelevant details of style

being told, ignoring the limits our economic

conditions, this constitutes our freedom.

Politics is a process of decisions and disagree-

ments which necessarily proceed any con-

sensus. Politics requires people to confront

one another in their differences. Politics is

where we hammer out the future together:

not something pre-existing that we choose

from like from a menu, but something

new that we create when we are together.

The future must be what we build ourselves

from the wreckage of the present. It will be

what we make of our situation, how we ad-

dress our needs, and why we go on. This

politics can happen when we are with each

other. It is the potential of belonging to cre-

ate a new common out of the dispersed and

disparate individuals of capitalist culture.


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Being Together

We are.

We exist.We live.

We suffer. We

struggle. We

strive. We love.

We care. We matter.

We are here. We are

everywhere.

We will not be ignored. We

will not be dened. We will not

be controlled. We will not be op-

pressed. We will not be exploited.

We have lived in the world we made.

We will live in the world we design.

We are the question. We are the answer.

And that remainderthose who cannot or

will not say we? They have rejected belonging.

To be the beneciaries of exploitation they deny

our fellowship and set themselves up as the ene-

mies of collectivity. The advocates of individualism are

those who are convinced individualism brings riches.

If it brings them, it brings them to individuals, and not to

that many of them. The arithmetic of equal opportunity

is contradictory. We prefer that everyones needs are met,

and invite all to join together, to belong to the part of no part.

That is why what is political is to pronounce this we. What

is political is to have the desire to be together. What is po-

litical is to engage our imagination with the other worlds that

could be. What is political is to demand to live, what today we


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can only imagine. It is the we, the collectivity, that makes it pos-

sible to imagine, and to demand. This is at the core of what we

must learn, and what we must do. This is what we must prac-

tice. This is why we must stick together, clump up, cling, adhere.

How different it is to say we are, than to say I am. We

are together. We are many: a multiplicity of differences. We

are complementary. We are in solidarity. We are mutu-

ally responsible for each other. We abandon the com-

petitiveness of the world of games, and races, and

marketplaces, in order to discover how the weak-

nesses of one are compensated by the strengthof the otherhow the machine goes when

we each play our unique part. We aspire to

coalition in our ordinary singularity, in-

stead of striving to approximate the same

hackneyed ideal better than all the rest.

When we group, we transform ourindividual weakness into collective

strength. We practice the forma-

tion of collectivities in antici-

pation of the transformation

of society that brings real

equality and the satisfac-

tion of the needs of all.

To collect in a group

can be a small step

that opens out into

the most pro-

found shift that

the world

can make.


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Finding a Way

Modes of Afnity

Groups come together and stay together because of some sense of

connection and shared purpose, trust, compatibility, respect, com-

passion, and enjoyment. That web of feelings is often something that

develops and strengthens over time and in the course of working

together. But there is usually a place where it starts, a shared entry

point to commonality that is the door through which members en-ter the group, and kernel from which the sense of belonging grows.

It might be interest that brings people together.A shared enthusiasm for

the causethe thing, the idea, the topic, the systemcan be enough to

form strong initial bonds between people who are otherwise strangers.

It might be place that is the container for the group. A shared lo-cationa neighborhood, an apartment building, whatever kind of

localityoften means shared problems, shared perspectives, and

shared culture that will serve as the basis for organizing together.

It might be shared circumstances that make people band

together: having a particular disease, e x p e r i e n c i n g

discrimination, having children, being the victim ofviolence, being evicted, being fore- closed on,

having dogs, being an immigrant, or whatever.

Or it might be familiarity. Friends transform casual social relations

into powerful alliances that work together for a cause. The trust and

communication that is at the core of friendships is a solid platform

for group formation. The ability of colleagues to work together andunderstand each other is also a natural basis for group formation.

Schoolmates, team mates, band matesall share the experience of

working together that can be the source of powerful bonds, and systems

of collaboration that can be transferred and applied to political ends.


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Modes of Practice

Whatever way a group chooses or contrives to work, it will have

to gure out how to come to agreement about purpose and man-

ner. It will have to gure out a way to communicate and a way todecide together. It will be concerned that its way matches its ideals.

There is no single way to organize together. Figuring out what

works for the participants, and what best accomplishes the

purpose of the group, is a big part of the work.

We think of the group as a microcosm of the

world we want to live in. Starting from scratch,how do we create a respectful, egalitarian alliances

with people who are as different from each other as they

are the same. How do we assure that everyone contrib-

utes as much as they can and everyone gets as much as they

need? The formation of a group is a utopian practice in and of itself.

Modes of Coordination

One important aspect of organizing in groups is that each group is

autonomousit is a separate entity with a will of its ownwith a

way of its own. So, just like its members, it is both free and alone.

The potential of the group, like the potential of a person, is realized

in its desire to be part of something bigger: a cluster of groups, a

confederation, a movement. The aggregation of groups constitutesa power of the multitude with the potential to change the world.

The need for communication, inspiration, connection, cir-

culation, and coalition among groups is another

opportunity for creative explo- rations of pos-

sible organizational structures and methods.

It is our task to invent the social configurationsof our future. We cannot ignore the precedents of

past movements which transmit valu- able knowledge of

workable systems, but neither can we abdi- cate the responsi-

bility for creating what is new, what is responsive to our circum-

stances, and what answers the call of our desire for a new world.


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