Post by Valerie on Nov 26, 2014 1:20:03 GMT -8
Floating Lantern
Seattle's Anarch Free Press since 1986 • floatinglantern.bloodspot
Seattle's Anarch Free Press since 1986 • floatinglantern.bloodspot
Crisis of Faith
11.26.2014
I’ve had a crisis of faith.
Perhaps I should call it a rebirth, instead - one in a long list of many crucibles I’ve poured from - but either way, there’s more to the story. As usual.
There’s no secret that I’ve been the focus of some increased attention from those seeking to “educate” me into a new way of thinking. Many of these, of course, are the local pillars of Seattle’s Camarilla society. I like to keep myself busy, but with a potentially limitless timespan for one’s tasks it’s very easy to still find downtime and get caught up in the chatter of a gathering. (Easier still, I suppose, if you’re old, pissed off or resting on your laurels.)
There are a couple of things you need to keep in mind with regards to why these sorts of individuals would reach out to me and what benefits they’d perceive might come from doing so. First off, Stephen Biko had the right of it: "The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed." It’s a far better use of resources to get a resistance leader to lay down their guns and watch their comrades follow suit that it is to try to shoot them all and take the weapons that way.
Secondly, one of the best ways to interrogate someone is to just ask them the same questions over and over again, especially really simple ones they don’t have to think about the answers to. After a while, they’ll begin to wonder if they really did spill the beans to the Soviets, even though their only experience with Russians was buying a sack of piroshky six months ago. Tell someone that their lived experience bucking the party line doesn’t actually go down the way they say it does and see their own perceptions begin to bend. Gaslighting is some potent stuff, especially against those that are willing to re-evaluate their own judgements when presented with new information.
So: after some months of being on the receiving end of everything from patronizing corrections to concern trolling to outright dismissal, my gears finally seized up. I began to think to myself… well, what if they’re right? Am I using my energy in the most efficient way I possibly can? Are my cautions against the use of violence by Anarchs as a first resort just applying my own bias to an inherently violent society? Does whatever arcane power stirs the blood within me to move possess some sort of birthright which I will never be able to leverage unless I pull people up from the top instead of climbing with them? Does that matter? Who am I actually helping? Are we capable of helping anybody but ourselves?
Self-doubt is a very human experience, and making room for our human experiences is what elevates us above parasites. Well-to-do Kindred siphoning off their cultural inheritance instead of finding ways to innovate in a changing world lose a lot of that perspective. The Movement thrives on it. We learn from it. It hones us. Too many give up early and squander their promise, becoming toadies to the same “wise” kindred that promised them the moon but only eclipse them with it. Even more decide to try on tyranny for themselves - it’ll always fit, but it’s never well-made, and afterwards they’ve not only lost tangible benefits but the trust and respect of their peers.
I’m not a fighter, at least in the physical sense, but that earlier allegory of laying down that sword still holds. I do my work with words and the reputation that follows me is one of someone who’s asked, for the sake of peace and education, to be in a whole lot of rooms that I wasn’t expected to walk out of. You’ll get no false modesty from me, here: nobody’s perfect, but I’m very good at what I do, and part of why I am good at is because I own up to my own shifts in ethics and failures of perception. Every night is is a mockup of that same deadly room, but perhaps not in such an acute sense.
My perceptions failed me here, but my ethics have not shifted, and, in the end - as I always have - I find buried within the doubts a new resolve for doing the right thing, spurred not only by barbarism this city is capable of enough on its own but by the confidences placed in me by those residents who remain afraid themselves. I do not doubt the value my skills would have in a society apart from the Movement, but the fortune I’d receive pales in comparison to helping other Kindred make their own… and that, despite so many commonalities, is one driving goal that we Anarchs alone walk the talk on.
Valerie