Feeling the Fear

OK, you know how I mentioned that I used to hang out with Tories when I was university? I've just done something a little rash, and invited two of them to come and stay with me in Sheffield for a few days next month. On Tuesday I got a message from the more - erm, committed - of them on facebook. I reproduce in full:

Alright, a quick survey of friends attached to your recent photo albums reveals that most if not all have 'Nobody Likes A Tory' badge attached to their respective Fbook pages, as though this were something every thoughtful, halfway decent human being ought to brandish before breakfast. I beg (emphatically) to differ, and am much looking foward to an encounter with this gaggle of collectivists of yours come the early part of next month.
Can't wait to see you again, I hasten to add, and advise that I am practicing a special pie in honour of the occasion.
PS: no need to worry about protection rackets. Frankly, not sure Armstrong's whiff of gentrified Buttskillism is going to be much of a softener. More like blood in the shark's tank. But what the hey: it will, at the very least, be an enlivening culture clash.
Love

So, I'm mainly writing about this because the point of this blog is exploration. And for this to have any meaning, this has to be real exploration, not just the kind where you spend half an hour every day on the internet reading the Daily Mash and a bunch of blogs about how it's probably ok to watch pornography because, actually, like, everything's sexist really, yeah?* Which means proper conflict, which means putting people whose opinions I respect in the same room for a little while and seeing who comes off with fewer chunks missing. I just wish that it was possible for this to happen without feeling as if I genuinely might be risking a few relationships that I value hugely and possibly alienating people who I not only respect but love. And the love that I feel for people that I don't agree with - Anarchists, Trots, Neo-Liberals, Catholics** - has always been a reason not to involve myself in politics. And I suppose that this post is actually asking: is it right to love somebody whose political commitments you feel range from misguided to actively insidious?*** Because even if you believe that this commitment stems from their own good faith, and even if you know for certain that such people are vastly more inteligent - and vastly better read - than you are on almost any topic you care to mention, isn't it the case that your relationship with them is predicated on the unspoken agreement that for much of the time you are covering your metaphorical eyes with your metaphorical hands and singing 'LALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALA' at the top of your metaphorical voice?


But then you have to ask yourself at what point you think that this stops. Isn't any political organisation essentially a group of people who have decided together what is an acceptable level of LALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALA? It strikes me that the Left in particular would benefit from a bit more of this, and a bit less in the way of in-fighting and bitchery. But that's always been a problem for idealists - by definition, they don't like compromise. Which is one of the very things that makes them attractive. But essentially, the thing that makes me *want* to commit to some form of leftist politics - the point at which it diverges from policymaking and electioneering - is that in almost all its forms it is based on trying to make the world an easier place to love other people in. You can call yourself a Marxist, and claim that you seek a world in which the worker owns the means of production, or you can call yourself an Anarchist and say that you want to live in a world free from the oppressive power of a faceless governmental beaurocracy - and also that you want to Smash Shit Up - but essentially, what you mean is that you want to live in a world where the relationships that you form on a daily basis aren't tainted - or, god, at least - are less tainted - by the everpresent facts of competition, cruelty, jealousy and exploitation. That holds not just for broad, overarching structural analyses - you know, the kind that deserve capital letters, like Anarchism and Communism - but also movements that allow a large number of less radical participants, like the Woman's Lib or the Civil Rights Movement. What I find unattractive about the Left is that in practice this does not happen - vitriol is as much an ingredient of early 21st century politcal practice as cloak-and-dagger terrorism and propaganda by the deed was in the late C19th. And Ben, I think, is quite right to criticise the impulse to join the 'No One Likes A Tory' club on Facebook. I don't think that in all good conscience I can truly belong to any movement that mainly likes to combat its opponents through the medium of facebook and name-calling. And I know that this isn't solely a problem of the left - I've seen the EDL graffiti off London Road in Sheffield - but this is kind of the point. We're meant to be better that. Or at least, anything that I want to belong to has to be better than that.


* I will probably have to make up my mind about this at some point. Patience, patience!

**I'm a slut like that.

***Have just re-read the sentence, and should probably note that I am aware of the fact that 'misguided' and 'actively insidious' aren't ever more than a succesful election campaign apart from one another.****

**** Ooops, sorry, said 'election'. Must try harder.