I protested the first Gulf War back in 1990-’91. It was hard, difficult work, at times fulfilling, and at times not. I came to activism through philosophy, perhaps the writings of Bertrand Russell as much as anything else. That made me different. And it seemed as though my fellow activists tended to shy away from different people. And that was disappointing. I later decided this was probably for two reasons: people have heard enough scare stories about surveillance, informers, agent provocateurs and the like to be cautious and standoffish, understandably so, for a fair amount of this is true, and secondly, many activists had gone through a recent growth period, which is the whole reason the person feels comfortable going to a protest, going to a meeting, asking people to sign a petition, confidently calling a radio show, etc., and then when I start talking about that if a war is wrong on utilitarian grounds, that’s almost a slam dunk, and that, no, utilitarianism does not excuse any old action that produces a positive balance of happiness over suffering but only the one action which produces the greatest positive balance . . . well, you can see how that’s off putting and just too much (esp if I go into my mode of all sending-no receiving, which I can still do from time to time, and back then, I was slower pulling out of it, slower at the skill of recovery)
Looking back, I probably did have some friendship possibilities. Yeah, I was too preachy, too into my own version of ideological purity, sure. And on some occasions, I think I just flat out did not follow up in a medium way. Well, I’m not even sure I had that skill back then. Well, now I do (largely, imperfectly, but that is plenty good enough!).
31 Aug 2010, 4:05 pm
