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Title: Against Friendship - Part I
Author: Klas Batalo
Language: en
Topics: activism, organization
Source: Retrieved on 30th March 2022 from https://libcom.org/article/against-friendship-part-i

Klas Batalo

Against Friendship - Part I

A short piece from Aragorn! of Little Black Cart and assorted other

fame, about the development of an indistinction between the friendship

and comrade form in North America.

Herein we will begin to argue against the revolutionary importance of

friendship. Will not argue that friendship isn’t a fine and wonderful

thing for daily life, for the eating of brunch, or the consumption of

beverages. This is all well and good, do what one will, live your life.

What we will argue against is the way in which the affinity group model

that has been abandoned generally (although not universally) in

anarchist circles has instead migrated into an unconscious way of life.

This migration has caused the conflation of social circles (aka groups

of friends) with sharing political values (aka the party) with the

result that anarchists (and the ASC who predate on our energy) have

become countercultural against their better instincts.

To put this into different terms, the conflation of friendship with

politics, if it is caused by conscious agency, is done so either by

those who prefer to “just hang out” but also want to believe that they

and their friends are conscious social agents OR by those who have a

specific political project and want to keep it relevant by having it

also be a place where social needs can be met.

If the conflation is not conscious, as in, it merely reflects the

spectating nature that radicals have over their own lives, then it goes

a long way towards explaining the increasing isolation of radical

groupuscles. Our lifeways cannot be attractive outside our capacity to

grow our social cliques beyond themselves. It is not that we are not

desirable, it is that we are choosing the wrong way to communicate that

desirability. Being sexy rebels isn’t nearly enough to affect the kind

of attraction we would need to confound even the MSM view of us as

dangerous outsiders.

Of course this is not some backhanded way to form or reform some type of

anarchist political party. I am asking a question I don’t have the

answer to.

Indeed I am suspicious about the way in which this friend-comrade

indistinction has occurred. Sure, I can point to a reaction against the

new left or organizationalism or the desirability of true affinity or

the writing of Tiqqun, but the lack of experimentation after Occupy is

suspicious. This is the time to change up, not fall back to pattern.

Relying on the cool kids to decide what comes next has obviously had

limited returns (unless you’re a cool kid and your goals are limited to,

by definition, individual social rewards). Perhaps it is time to stop

being coy and declare a goal or two.