Howdy.
So this week my girlfriend, who I had been getting very close with and we were beginning to long term plan together, had a moment of deep realization about the kind of blowback possible being openly communist, in favor of direct action, and pro-palestine can be. I've not hid any of this over the last several years of dating, but there's a difference between understanding and understanding, you know? She's thinking about calling it quits because she doesn't want to risk her own career which she has worked very hard to develop in a very competitive and innately unstable industry (performance art). She's dealing with some self admitted cognitive dissonance over the matter because she agrees with me politically, but can't bring herself to committing to resistance and solidarity in the face of blowback.
In a certain sense I understand. It's the same discomfort I first felt when I realized how fucked we were with climate change and rising fascism to begin with. How was I supposed to live a normal happy life with that? Well, obviously I wasn't, not unless I wanted to be complicit--by inaction if nothing else--in the self-annihilation of the biosphere and the genocide of people in the global South that would be necessary to enforce borders in the face of climate catastrophe and migration. It seems like she's choosing to try and live out her fantasy over solidarity or just confronting the material reality that is worsening conditions for all of us, even in the imperial core, so in another sense I just want to shrug at this and call it the same moral cowardice that most labor aristocrats have chosen in the core.
My family is not taking the news well, and thinks I'm throwing away my one shot at love because I can't compromise on my extreme politics. This is an absurd framing of events to me. I've been nothing but forthright about my commitments and beliefs this entire time. My parents clam up and get resistant with even milk toast hypotheticals like, "would you personally kill Hitler if given the chance?" So it feels impossible to have a sensible political discussion with them. They're that squeamish and averse to any and all violence that they can't imagine resisting genocide or fascism. So to a certain extent it feels impossible to make headway on any kind of informative discussion. But they continuously weaponize pity as shame it feels like, and say things about how sad and lonely life is going to be if I don't compromise on politics for relationships. It almost reads as a veiled threat at cutting me off too, sadly enough.
I guess I'm just looking for feedback and an opportunity to externalize my thoughts. I am a fairly gregarious and well liked person. I have a good social life, I've dated successfully before this and I'm sure I will again, but dang. It sucks having my parents harangue me for genocide being a hard line in the sand. I'm the beneficiary of a great many privileges that make it seem all the more imperative that I take a stand on these kinds of issues. I find myself feeling closer to people than ever when I'm involved in organizing work or political work, so their doom and gloom about how lonely my life will be I'm tempted to read as ignorance only a liberal mind is capable of. But like, am I actually the asshole? Do I need to check my power level? I guess I'm just baffled at how anyone thinks they're going to live a "normal" life, much less WANT to, when the West's rapid decline into the third reich is in full swing. Do they all imagine themselves as good little Germans, showing up to work and paying taxes, while tut tutting at the news? As far as I'm concerned the only good Germans under Nazi Germany were partisans.
I don't want to get too ranty here. I'll likely delete this post after a few days. Just wanted to hear some other perspective, maybe from people who have been through similar, or maybe just some commiseration. Whether I'm right or not it still sucks, you know?
I went through the same with my own parents. They are well aware of all the systemic consequences of capitalism and the looming collapse of the biosphere, but as soon as I start sounding even remotely like
they shut down. It's ideology at work. Liberals are only superficially different from chuds and will remain so until their ass is in a bread line surrounded by people they used to ignore. I try not to let it drive me nuts anymore, it's just dialectics at work.
Definitely an unforced error on your parents' part regardless of their own beliefs and insecurities. I'm sorry comrade
Thank you so much for the love and solidarity. I'm thinking about how, if possible, to have a conversation about it all that's more productive. Maybe it just isn't. They spent my whole life harping on cOmMuNiCaTiOn, and then they can't remove their own feelings from the situation for half an hour to just let me cope with the pain and loss. They cant even hear me when I say their reasons for finding my politics distasteful weren't hers, they just immediately project that onto her and say they're not surprised, they'd do the same in her shoes. I'm not even mad so much as baffled at how selfish and egotistical that response is of them. These people were social workers all their lives, they're supposed to be emotionally attuned and empathetic lmao. Even if they do think that, who the fuck starts a conversation like that I just ~~sat down~~ got broken up with.
I think I'm going to have to separate it as much from the politics as possible for now because that's feeling like a dead end. I guess I'm just amazed at how much acid got thrown in my face when I was already down. I don't want to totally write them off as a source of emotional support but yeesh. Once bitten twice shy that's for sure.