Finding Your People: How to Get Involved in Radical Change (Intro to Radicalism)
Dip discusses how to get started in social justice work if you're new.
A core motivation for this site is to equip folks with knowledge and awareness. Another way to think about it is the reverse; sharing knowledge so that folks feel empowered to act.
This is critical for many reasons, but the big one is this: the folks behind C&C believe that empowering everyday people, particularly those who have been rejected by mainstream society–the Black, homeless, Indigenous, racialized, Queer, Disabled, Mad, Young, poor, precarious, and/or marginalized gender (maGe) folks–can bring about the most convivial lifeways we’ve seen. We see this happening through libertarian socialist theories of practice: ways of doing and thinking that work to make power as personal as possible.
For this to happen, the short answer is that those marginalized folks need the non-marginalized to join their efforts or get out of the way. The longer answer is that many more non-elites need to start working towards making power less commanding and domineering.
This happens through a four-part process of building, fighting, inspiring, and empowering. This framework, in part inspired by Cooperation Jackson and Srsly Wrong, works like this:
Photo by MacDonald Almeida on Unsplash
- Build: This is about making the things we need and want to get more of the things we need and want. Concretely, this would be a three-part cycle of 1) taking control of the tools to make things, 2) retrofitting them so as to be ecologically and “democratically” harmonious, and 3) developing/implementing “new” productive capacities.
- Fight: This is about resisting the forces that prevent us from doing the other parts of the process. Think of protests, civil disobedience, work stoppages, strikes, and other efforts.
- Empower: This is about the methods or practices used to do all of the other parts of the process. Specifically, it should be meant to expand “democracy” to every facet of life and living, where folks would directly make decisions about the things that affect them. The goal is to give folks control over their lives, rather than having their lives controlled.
- Inspire: This is about education and cultural production. The goal in this part is to encourage contribution and participation to all of the previously mentioned things, through promotion, art, cultural practices, social media, and whatever other ways things are made to seem interesting to the people one would hope they’d be interesting to.
These all work together, and act, in a sense, as the boundaries of a radar chart. So, me writing this piece may be high in “inspire,” decently lower in “empower,” and basically zero in “build” and “fight.” At risk of getting ahead of myself, I imagine ideal strategic conditions being ones that allow multiple tactics happening simultaneously, where the chart is filled up by overlapping actions that reach the four corners. All of them are needed and feed off of each other.
To actually do these things, there is a core process of 0) reading, 1) charting out one’s interests, 2) figure out who’s doing those things and where they’re doing them, 3) join them, 4) start to think strategically, and 5) dive deeply into one’s context. I’ll expand on each below, so how this knowledge is applied becomes clear.
Read!
I’m definitely biased as a writer, but reading is critical. It doesn’t replace doing, but reading is a reliably clear way to see what has been done before, build understanding and inspiration, and to learn from previous mistakes. Rather than relying solely on one’s own knowledge, one can tap into a wider base of understanding through the written word.
To start, I recommend balanced pieces that are short and practical, while giving a good theoretical foundation. Why We Should Democratize Everything, Radical Municipalism, and Hamburgers vs Value are particularly good for this.
What are you interested in?
Next, one can figure out what they’re interested in organizing around. Rather than focusing/centering what is “needed”–as that is difficult to do well–it works out more if one orients more around their affinities, and the places those affinities overlap with what others need and are doing things around. For example, I am, among other things, a graphic designer. I’ve gotten a lot of mileage at helping content look less shitty. This is a small way I can help people do their thing better. That orientation is a good way to start.
What are other folks with the same interests doing?
A way to make this more concrete is to see what’s already happening in your area. Mutual aid lends itself to looking into Food Not Bombs. Food delivery lends itself to groups like Market Box. The core is to figure out what groups already exist and see what they do. Social media is great for this as a starting point, especially because you can often find what groups are prominent and go through their followings and interactions to find other organizations. This will build awareness of what events are happening, be they protests, screenings, etc that can be attended.
Start working with them (if they don’t suck)!
Once some good groups make themselves known to you, do a little tour! See what their work is, how they align, and what they believe. See how they onboard newbies, with an eye on the red flags. Alternatively, having an idea of the movement terrain and becoming more involved will allow you to start a group, if you live in a small or more spread-out area.
Start analyzing your conditions
With a group in tow, it becomes easier to get a better understanding of local conditions. Broadly, this looks like understanding what challenges (e.g. minimal organizers in a rural place) and opportunities (e.g. local networks of mutual aid) a place provides, framed within a “(g)local” perspective.
Dive deep into your context
This allows for–if there is consistency–actions to build into bigger actions. Whether it’s plugging into campaigns and trying to encourage more effectiveness, or it’s stewarding a campaign as a group, bigger and bigger goals can be reached.
Think of this like a list of milestones, rather than a step by step. The vibe of each is the most important thing. Listen well: some warnings are in order, as we reach the end. Avoid nonprofits, political parties, and organizations overrun with privileged people, if you can help it. If not, engage with them critically, as you would an enemy.
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An earlier version of this essay appeared on Dip’s personal blog.
