speculative fish-ctions (Dr. Zoe Todd)

Every conversation I’ve had lately comes back to love. (Which is a topic my friend Jenny is really great at articulating, by the way). How do we make a better world? Be gentle with ourselves and with others. Find it in your heart to be empathetic, patient. Oh yeah, and love. Love fiercely. Love unrepentantly. Ferociously and without remorse.

When the stakes are high, when people’s lives and livelihoods depend on fighting for justice, and when those maintaining the status quo are trying to drown out your story and your voice, it’s important to take stock. And it’s crucial to keep an unremitting and unshakeable knowledge that you are worthy of love, that your experiences, your poetry have resonance and meaning: this will keep social justice movements strong and healthy.

What I’ve come to realize over the last few years is that it is easy for anger, violence and pain to infiltrate every aspect of our communities, however you choose to define community for yourself, and our lives. I burned out after working in the non-profit/advocacy world for most of my twenties, and it was mostly because, ironically, despite our fervent desire to do good, we were rubbish of treating one another with tenderness, kindness, and understanding. It was after these experiences that I started to research lateral violence and its impact on social justice movements. And it started to dawn on me that within the context of the so-called ‘struggle’, most of us are entirely guilty of reflecting our pain and suffering — in the many forms we experience it as Indigenous people, as women, as people who are marginalized or ridiculed or ignored in some form in the world — back onto one another. And this doesn’t allow us to actually transform our experiences in the ways we want to. Rather, we wind up dismissing and taunting one another, and wonder why we aren’t actually finding the peace, hope and resurgence we dream of.

The environmental world is guilty of this. The Indigenous world. Feminists. Academics, politicians, friends, acquaintances, boards, societies, and almost every other context where people gather with the intent to make change in the world. And it destroys people.

I’m not entirely sure why we are prone to this kind of blatant, destructive, ferocious behaviour, and why it seems to be so endemic in spaces where people are trying to make positive change. I suspect that it has to do with diminishing resources, power, and a belief that if you don’t look out for Number One nobody else will. We’re all capable of treating one another terribly. And we’re also all capable of mobilizing love in our journey through this lifetime. It’s a matter of finding ways to stand up for ourselves while also treating one another with dignity.

An article appeared on The Thesis Whisperer recently about ‘Academic Assholes‘. This article details how many of the current norms and infrastructures in academia favour sociopathic behaviour, and what that means for everyone within the academic world. Similarly, many of our community organizations (boards, societies) and political circles favour individualism and ego. And this can lead, in the worst cases, to staggering lateral violence — the kind that can destroy people’s careers, reputations, lives.

I guess what I’m trying to say is the most radical thing we can do is to love. When we’re faced with overwhelming odds, with a sense of futility and loss, we have to find a way to treat ourselves and our peers with generosity and kindness. This is incredibly challenging, particularly within circles where people have experienced trauma and violence, and where people are justifiably angry about things that have happened to them (or are happening around them). It can take a lifetime to grapple with those kinds of experiences, and we can’t expect everyone to heal instantly. Working from a place of love also doesn’t mean we allow ourselves to be walked all over, or put up with disrespectful behaviour. When we love ourselves we understand our boundaries, and our dreams and goals, more clearly. We know when to stand our ground. And we know how to direct our energy in the most constructive, transformative way.

So love. With abandon. Sing it at the top of your lungs. Laugh and dance. And cry. And allow yourself to believe that you matter. Your story matters. You have something incredible to contribute. And I’ll do my very best to support, listen and love you in return. Maybe sometimes I will stumble, but I will do my best to keep focusing my energy on positive, constructive strategies to build good things, and I fervently hope the same for everyone else. This is where we’ll find our strength and hope.