Friendship as Democracy / Sense and Madness

by Lucy S.

In the previous post, I wrote: "I know the problems with positive thinking because I find myself in the same patterns of depression and optimism at times. These emerge from certain barriers to autonomy and equality."

They can also arise from a lack of not only acceptance (important), but friendship. I don't need a multitude of close friends, and I'm fortunate to have "enough" people in my life (as if such a thing is measurable; don't we always need to leave space for another close friend?). At any rate, it's never that simple, especially if we venture into new life situations, and need or want to become part of a larger group. I can end up feeling like that kid I was who moved over and over again in the school years to face classrooms in which others knew each other, but did not know me, the outsider. (This is the skewed perception of the new kid in the class who has no way of knowing if others are also new and feel like outsiders, too.)  If this is a group that I can take or leave, as has been the case with some homeschool groups or even activist groups over the years, then I may feel down if I don't feel that I fit, but I can decide to move on. But if I'm immersed in an organization, institution, or group (simultaneously formal and informal) that is more fundamental to what I am working on and working for, then friendships or the lack thereof can have a huge effect on my mental outlook. And friendship is itself deep acceptance.

I'm still trying to understand how this fits into a material basis for understanding my situation. I think relationships are somehow material, even if they can't be eaten or literally keep us warm in cold weather.  Of course, it's easy enough to see that people who care about us often DO give us material care, and we do the same, whether because help is needed or for the joy of sharing.  But the emotional sustenance we offer one another -- the affirmation that, yes, you are worth being with, and, yes, you find me worth being with (in person, by phone, in print); the various forms of communion and support -- this can have such an effect on us that it blends into our physical experience of our lives.

Rightly or wrongly, my decision to continue in certain endeavors has been largely based upon whether I can develop meaningful, deepening relationships with people who are part of those endeavors.  If I can't, I'm not necessarily bitter or down on their goals, but I can't figure out how to "live in" those groups, how to really settle in as more than a "visitor." And at times, the difficulties in forging healthy relationships signify problems that go deeper than me. It is easy for people in groups to affirm for one another that the group is fine if they feel happy with it. If someone else has a problem with an aspect of it, that must be due to something wrong with that person, because "after all, all of US are fine with it, right?"  This may be true. And in an informal group of friends, it may not matter if some people are a good fit with each other and someone else isn't, in that particular group.  But for organizations doing social, political, and/or educational work, the mutual affirmations that all is well, and and the conclusion that any individual who doesn't sing along with this refrain must be wrong - this can be an obstacle to growth - not just organizational growth, but also the psychological and intellectual growth of people in the organization.


One of the poems I read with Sean and Ryan today was Emily Dickinson's 620, or as it's first line says, "Much Madness is divinest Sense."

Much Madness is divinest Sense -
To a discerning Eye -
Much Sense - the starkest Madness -
'Tis the Majority
In this, as all, prevail -
Assent - and you are sane -
Demur - you're straightaway Dangerous -
And handled with a Chain -

It seems like a dilemma.  If we have a discerning Eye, we will recognize what is considered Madness by the Majority to be the divinest Sense, and the Majority will see Sense as unarguably Mad.  This seems to be at odds with a faith in radical democracy -- the real kind of democracy, where we actively shape our lives and the places we live in and the relationships we have with others, individually and collectively (instead of voting for which candidates in two parties can join a small number of people who dominate us in pursuit of their own interests). But in a group or society committed to treating people with respect, recognizing their dignity, and wanting the well-being of everyone, maybe more Eyes would grow to be discerning, and maybe Chaining those who don't assent so easily would not happen. Maybe extended dialogue would become the norm.  Maybe top down, hierarchies produce this Mad conformity, so dangerous to those deemed Dangerous by it -- those who do not assent, but instead question and challenge.

Friendships themselves, if they're healthy, seem to me to model radical democracy on the intimate scale.

I'm still turning these things around in my mind.  I am not one of the "always already" converted when I decide to step further into an organization, institution, discipline, or group of any kind.  Nor do I put much faith in what we think of as "common sense" - whether our own or that of a Majority around us.  I know no other way to work toward greater insight and genuine commitment to convictions that will stick than to think hard, talk with others without being afraid of saying the wrong thing (within reason - treating people with respect), read, let some time go by, and keep doing these things, chipping away at what is Madness until what is Sense emerges more and more clearly.  And I can do that best of all in relationships of friendship.

***

On the other hand.... What I have been struggling with lately is the tension between valuing relationships of friendship and valuing broad scale alliances among people who do not share the same beliefs about everything, even about things that I or others see as important issues.

But maybe even here, the lessons of friendship can inform these broader alliances, especially if in the term "friendship" we include our adult relationships with extended family. I have a large extended family and group of (often interwoven) friends, and these for me have been my sustained "community," in that, as with communities in one geographical location, we are going to have different personalities, interests, beliefs, and even goals, but our strong ties of relationship teach us continually if we let them, and become their own kind of convictions. Our mutual well-being can become a common-cause.  Maybe this can also be the case in our alliances which seem grounded in other goals.  Our reasons for coming together may be to form or sustain unions, or educational experiences (institutional or grassroots), or to stand for tenants rights or prisoners' rights, but if we don't have some commitment to care for each other and to our sustained mutual well-being, those alliances cannot be broad enough OR deep enough to grow and to last.