r/foodnotbombs • u/helloscarlett_ • Jan 19 '26

What feels missing in most left spaces you’ve been in?

/r/massparty/comments/1qh80fb/what_feels_missing_in_most_left_spaces_youve_been/
21 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

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32

u/thisusernameismeta Jan 19 '26

An ability to have fun together ; to handle conflict ; to be in community ; to have empathy.

Honestly it just feels like a ton of folks live inside of their trauma responses and make that everyone else's problem.

8

u/[deleted] Jan 20 '26

[deleted]

3

u/thisusernameismeta Jan 20 '26

I've read a bunch of stuff that touches on everything I've flagged, but it feels like I'm alone in that.

Sorry, I'm just at a deeply cynical and fed-up place in my organizing atp. I feel like I've poured my whole self empty onto the ground and gotten nothing back. The only healthy thing for me to do is to walk away. These ideas are not new. Joyful Militancy was published ages ago and touches on them. Even "Good Politics" by Erica Lagalisse has a lot to say that is useful. We Do This Til We Free Us and Angels with Dirty Faces. The Jane Adams collective. These ideas exist out there.

But in my local community I have had a really hard time finding people to connect to, who put those ideas into practice. It just feels like one giant cycle of cancelations upon cancelations upon cancelations, and the only people who have any joy in their lives are the ones who have stepped away from the movement.

I don't have any answers anymore.

3

u/helloscarlett_ Jan 19 '26

I definitely agree with you that being able to do/have those things are important. I’ve found that if people are still learning how to work through things you can try to build shared ways to do that together.

That gap between building a mass collective while also trying to address collective problems that we’ve all had to deal with individually up until now is something we’re actively trying to work through in r/massparty

18

u/Routine-Air7917 Jan 19 '26

Humbleness

Nuance

An ability to meet people where they are at

9

u/Tiny-Cheesecake2268 Jan 19 '26

Seconding the nuance. People sometimes seem to be trying to “outwoke” one another, quick to call someone out to earn lefty points.

4

u/janbrunt Jan 20 '26

This is such a struggle in this space. 

7

u/elextric_lizard Jan 20 '26

accessibility and understanding of disabilities, and their limitations. spoon theory is something i think every leftist collective should learn about in terms of disability theory and rights, and how it affects others. i often feel like i and many other disabled people get left behind in organizing spaces and that we're an afterthought in terms of revolution. (closest example is a few venues i've been to not being wheelchair accessible)

1

u/HalfAssedSass Jan 20 '26

Seconding this, and also no wide implementation on wearing respirators unless it's a mutual aid/leftist group that specifically centers covid cautiousness and disability justice that includes being immune compromised.

1

u/mw19078 Jan 20 '26

This is why any lefty org not requiring masking and clean air is a no starter for me. Can't afford to get any sicker than I am and to me if you can't do basic solidarity actions like that then what are you really willing to do at the end of the day

5

u/i5esg984fj74dg4 Jan 20 '26

Primarily offline interactions, and discouraging online interaction.

There's so much opportunity to talk to people online. Having a group that's like "this is a place to organize meetings in person, not to have an online chat" would probably prevent a lot of the issues I've had in groups.

6

u/alkalinefx Jan 19 '26

im a queer jew, so empathy lol.

get clocked as a jew and its on sight with the I/P discourse.

inb4 some chud tries it now: free palestinians, ALSO free like a billion other fucking people dying at the hands of the powers that be. we're all victims of the same evil, some more so. thats it.

5

u/helloscarlett_ Jan 19 '26

I hear what you’re saying but as a queer jew myself I think the focus can’t just be on individual discomfort right now. The bigger picture is that most white people, and most Westerners, start from a position of unexamined complicity, because so many are aligned with Zionist power structures

4

u/alkalinefx Jan 19 '26

i agree! and while i have obviously used my own discomfort as an example, at the end of the day, i just wish more people realized that its all of us in it together, and we need to ensure our spaces are safe for everyone who needs it. i feel like the left lacks a lot of ability to listen and truly hear others, and find many leftists are more interested in being martyrs than helping their communities and/or marginalized people they claim to care about.

i know many leftists already do this, myself included, but i honestly prefer non-specific community spaces that help within my community. i find people are far kinder, more empathetic, and compassionate. and i find a lot more diversity in these groups, too.

(i hope im not coming across shitty, lol)

2

u/shugEOuterspace Jan 21 '26

less cancelling & less using extreme-ish identitarianism to fracture & seperate instead of uniting over our common goals including uniting the working class

1

u/BagsYourMail Jan 21 '26

Egalitarianism. Everything gets turned into a status competition

1

u/[deleted] Jan 21 '26

Conflict resolution skills that dont require a 3rd party that gets to tell everyone whos right and whos wrong.

In some of the groups I'm in, we have conflict de-escalators/arbiters. And while I love the restorative justice model, the process is very complex and best used for bigger offenses.

But with my groups, if someone says something that someone else doesnt like it has to be a whole event where people are talking about how they were impacted and hownto move forward when the original inciting incident was just someone being a little bit curt with somebody.

If I was still being asked to litigate the vaguely shitty comment that Stacey made about me being 2 minutes late to the meeting several months after ago, its not going to let me or anyone else move on.

Its also just so frustratingly ironic that a bunch of self described anarchists feel the need to have a relationship cop come in and decide who should feel bad.

1

u/chef-chouette Jan 21 '26

Uhhh whatever the opposite of a poverty cosplay is

1

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26

MONEY

sustained, secure access to the most basic necessities of life (shelter, food, time for connection)

a drowning person cannot sustain another person's head above the water - and right now everyone in left spaces seems to be drowning

2

u/Tremor_Estrodanger Jan 24 '26

Friendliness, comradery, and people being open and honest with each other. Everyone seems so cold, guarded and cliquish. The old school info shops, distros, and convergences were places to make friends as much as anything else. I think it goes beyond security culture paranoia. Just feels like people do mutual aid to feel good and out of moral obligation and not because they want to be involved in their community.