Articles from Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed; Choosing Relations

Author: Liana Doctrine

Choosing Relations

If there is one place that anarchists have the power to shape our lives to our desires, it is in our personal relationships. So why don’t we have all the community, solidarity, and lifelong affinity that we articulate so beseechingly? We can start with our ambiguous verbiage. There are certain words which, nowadays, offer more questions than answers. When someone uses the word solidarity, do they mean they’re opposed to snitching? They want more prison support? Safe housing networks? A political platform complete with vanguard? Or maybe, please come to my rally? When someone uses the word community, do they imagine something like an extended family? What kind of family? Maybe a support network for crisis? What kind of support; what kind of crisis? Or are they just short on resources? When someone says they feel affinity with someone else, do they mean they think that person is sexy? That they agree with their political or philosophical views? Or maybe that they share a lifestyle or political tactics? Our radical lexicon doesn’t seem to have words specific enough, or well-defined enough to clearly articulate the different kinds of associations that we have, or wish we had; we must rely on context or examples to give us clues to what these words mean. Simply explaining what I mean when I use these words, or what other people have meant, would not help clarify much. People will continue to use them to refer to any of their current definitions, and will make up more meanings because they are terms that can be molded to any situation. One might argue that we need to create new, more precise or distinct words to describe different kinds of affinity, community, solidarity, or other kinds of relations. I will leave that task for more dedicated word lovers.

Simply understanding what we mean when we use certain words to describe what kinds of associations we desire isn’t enough to create those relationships.

Trained in our nuclear families, fed on television, seduced by clever lyrics, and promised everlasting happiness by countless ads, we are pressured to form lasting bonds, and simultaneously deprived of the ability to maintain them past the initial thrills of getting to know someone. We are told and re-told myths: that relationships can be everything we ever wanted, that we deserve the best, that we should always be comfortable, that our loved ones will never stray more than an arms length before returning more fulfilled, and when the relationship is Right both parties will feel an altruistic enlightenment which will cause them to make the most thoughtful and loving choices all the time. In practice relationships are a bit messier and a lot more work. We need motivation and skill that we may not have been taught, or may have had deliberately trained out of us by our families or our society. Our relationships start with the people with whom we choose to associate. We don’t get to pick all the people around us, (or even if there are radicals around us to select from), but we do get to pick from this motley assortment of beings who we try to be most intimate with...those people who might have the most affinity with us, who might challenge us in the ways we like, who might bring out the qualities in us that we are trying to cultivate, or who might work on the projects we find most interesting or rewarding. However, we’re not always skilled at assessing other people, and sometimes we’re worse at gauging our own needs. On top of that, people change — our opinions change, our goals and desires change, even what we want from relationships can change. Remaining even flexibly attached to the people we choose becomes all the more challenging.

If we happen to pick someone who picks us back, and we then decide to stick with our relationships through the waning and waxing of affinity, our bonds can deepen. Unfortunately, we may form unhealthy, dependent, or isolating bonds, which weaken us as individuals and draw us further away from the lives we desire. We may form long term relationships which, for all they offer us, should have remained cool acquaintanceships. Short term alliances can offer us more immediate gratification, which may be more appealing than a durable but thorny involvement. Certainly not everyone wants lifelong or even long-term relationships. Lifelong can feel like another way of saying life-sentence, and sometimes the difference between them is a fine line. Then again, maybe all we can manage to create is a series of short-term snuggle fests, when what we want is more like a resilient intergenerational kinship. In affinity groups of old, some compañeras knew each other for many years, having oftentimes grown up together. Because they knew each other intimately, their relationships and groups were steadfast and impenetrable when it came to attempted infiltrations. In the light of recent repressive judicial tactics, this should sound attractive to some of us. But our current society encourages us to move around, traveling from one place to another looking for better paying jobs, cheaper homes, or more fulfilling social lives. This mobility allows us not to be as concerned if we burn bridges in one town; if we run out of allies, friends, or resources in one state we can just pick another with fresh opportunities. No roots needed. Regrettably, this transience also impedes our opportunities to create and sustain lasting associations.

Even so, simply staying in one place long enough to go beyond an initial bond with someone isn’t a guarantee of maintaining relationships either; once on the inside, it isn’t always so charming. We allow ourselves to perceive more flaws, shortcomings, and less attractive idiosyncrasies. We find that knowing someone deeply means not liking all of their personality, and realizing that we, in turn, are not liked in many ways. It can mean uncomfortable shifts in how we feel about each other, like finding new acquaintances more immediately interesting or becoming more sensitive to rejection from that person who knows us so well.

This is where all the early claims of abiding alliance start to haunt us. Armed with fresh insights and criticisms and thanks to ambiguous definitions, social anxieties, and straight-out changes of mind or heart, this is a ripe moment for opting out of the relationship with a feeling of superiority. Let’s just say we stick around through the initial disappointments, though. We choose to stay in relationship even though sometimes we dislike each other and keep changing our rules, needs, and desires. Now what? Are we in the relational clear? No. We can’t leave out that we coerce, we manipulate, we push boundaries, we forget (conveniently). We hurt each other, regardless of what precautions we take, what limits we impose, how often we talk it out, or how much we say we are sorry afterwards. Maybe it isn’t the same injury every time, but we continue to trespass upon each other, because it is impossible to be close and not misuse each other periodically. We schedule time together, time apart, maybe even time to talk with trusted peers, a mediator, or just time to yell at each other. In the end, we accept the pain as inevitable, we forgive, we remind ourselves our companions are accepting and forgiving, too, and that this is the work needed to stay in relationship with someone. We continue to appreciate our cohorts, remind ourselves what we cherish about them and why we remain in relationships, and how the characteristics we love are frequently the same ones we hate. Perhaps in all this we learn more about ourselves, and that helps us in all of our relationships. But there’s still more to it.

After all this time of choosing, forgiveness, and clarification, we may find that at times what we desire is in direct opposition to the wishes of our close companion. Our requirements change, and we can’t even depend on getting our basic relational needs met by one other. We have to negotiate things we never imagined we would compromise, and the last shreds of our myths about soul mates and best friends forever must finally be laid to rest. There is no denying that it is difficult managing even one of these close relationships, and our radical theories encourage us to negotiate between the needs, desires, and intensities of several of them, and then balance all of those with our own needs and desires. It can be down right daunting. There are many challenges to long term relationships: from finding people you have affinity with to staying connected through shifting desires, errors of judgment, negotiations, arguments, or splits. Basing relationships on having affinity with someone is key to the beginning of anti-authoritarian relationships; knowing that affinity fluctuates so we can skillfully negotiate any schisms between our immediate desires and our long term goals is only one of the difficulties in managing them. There is no point where we can stop working to meet our relational needs and continue to have them satisfied. Holding on to the myths that relationships will be perfectly fulfilling can lead to apathy, sadness, fewer creative thoughts about our lives, and inflexibility when the changes do come. Radicals have invented and tried many different strategies to deal with the difficulties of long term relationships. We have used polyamory, peer counseling, mediation, affinity groups, co-housing, co-parenting, training camps, worker cooperatives, skill shares, crit-selfcrit, soma therapy, study groups, internet blogs, radical mental health groups, etc, with varying degrees of success. We have learned a lot about how to create and maintain radical kinship, and continue to explore new relational directions. There are no quick answers or short cuts to having lasting camaraderie, but we have come up with some very interesting possibilities to address certain inadequacies in our society. I, for one, am enjoying the continuing challenge.