A discipline of admiration.
Leading without contempt.
I attended a “No Kings” protest the other week. It had been a very long time since I’d participated in any street activism, having succumbed largely to cynicism and the realization that my focus was on other tasks in the work of cultivating light and freedom into my communities. The crowd was quite large and enthusiastic, heartfelt, and full of creative signage. I would say it was squarely a liberal Democratic turnout, which in my region is somewhat more left than in general, but there was not a black bloc anarchist in sight.
Returning to my Internet feeds, I saw the predictable stream of further left accounts posting critiques of “No Kings” with general dismissal. As one would expect if one has followed the hard left for several years, there was a general tone of frustration with the liberal crowd for not having a systemic enough critique, for not caring about the things these folks thought they should care about, and for being somewhat too playful in their eyes. One account shared a series of slides about the ineffectiveness of “No Kings,” with a series of arguments that I thought were largely correct and well-considered, but the initial foray frustrated me.
The creator pointed out that while these protests were well-attended, the president followed them with a promise to escalate his deportation scheme. And so, the damning slides stated, these protests were a failure.
This is to be expected from most left-wing influencers, typically far angrier at Democrats than Republicans, as is most of the United States. Somehow the Democrats are always to blame for our problems, even when Republicans are in charge. (Natalie Wynn of Contrapoints recently published a paywalled video essay called “Daddy Politics” discussing this dynamic with Democrats being the “Mommy,” and it is quite remarkable.)
Why aren’t other popular movements assessed with the same criteria? Causes beloved of the left—pro-Palestine, anti-policing—have not been popularly treated as failures when they haven’t achieved their aims. The left often speaks of its positions as though they are highly popular and it’s the Democrats—always the Democrats—who are the problem for not embracing these positions. I imagine activists and movement leaders privately reflect on their strategies and tactics and failures to gain ground, but that kind of reflection doesn’t show up in the cheerleaders of social media.
What stuck out to me the most, however, is the contempt held toward these folks who made it out to the streets under a banner that moved them. It’s a contempt I know, borne out of the experience of failures and disappointments. I’ve attended actions that seemed deeply close to my heart, urgent, and important that had not much of a turnout at all, and may well have been scorned by the folks who finally made it out to “No Kings.”
The contempt comes from people who have worked very hard to educate themselves, who sharpen their opinions and perspectives to a razor’s edge, who have come into a sense of righteousness and now find themself in a minority compared to the bulk of people who mostly want to enjoy their weekends because life is hard enough. Young idealism that thinks if we could only get these folks on board we would win a revolution that would make the whole world better sours into bitter disdain for the people who can’t be bothered to care.
And it’s sad, because these are moments of opportunity and energy. But what they tend to bring up most is resentment and contempt. How can you organize those for whom you have contempt?
Along with that is the chorus of doom and despair that swells every time the president does anything. Very important critiques of the dismantling of democratic norms get subsumed by these loud cries of hopelessness and insistence that he’s leading us into a destruction that doesn’t quite happen. In his last term, the current presidency took an action against Iran that was followed by hundreds of people certain he was starting World War Three. And now it’s happened again. If we go into World War Three this time, I will accept the embarrassment for my skepticism, but truly the doom prophecy begins to sound hollow each time it fails to come to pass.
While there is much of concern, there are also real signs of the power of the people to influence these folks if you care to see it. Moments in which the administration insisted it would never back down and then later did. Alliances that seemed perpetual that suddenly imploded.
In my therapy practice, having aligned myself with Internal Family Systems as my approach of focus, I have begun to think of its perspective as a discipline of admiration. With every behavior that comes up, the ones that we normally judge and hate, an IFS therapist is encouraged to let that judgment soften and instead invite out curiosity about the question: “How is this serving you?”
It’s not a trick question, either, though we can be sneaky and ask it in that tricky way where it’s clear we don’t believe it is serving the person. But in this approach we must consider the possibility that it does serve the person, that somehow in the course of living their psyche determined that it was better to do this thing than to experience something far scarier and more debilitating. It’s better to be an asshole and get into someone’s face than risk being dominated. It’s better to zone out and scroll on your phone than let your anger come out and risk being attacked. It’s better to control every muscle of your face than risk an expression coming out that could be humiliating.
When we come into appreciation of this service, when we truly understand and validate that it makes total sense, that is the moment when change becomes possible. It’s a paradox. The more you want a behavior to change, the more stuck you become. The more you affirm and accept the value of the behavior, the more change becomes possible. But it’s not change driven by an agenda of contempt and judgment. It’s a change that enrolls these protective behaviors as wise counselors and stakeholders who have a say.
This discipline is one that does not need to hide the harms these behaviors cause when they’re not held in connection. It makes sense to see the indifference of most people toward harm as something that cannot be admired, and it makes sense why that would harden into contempt. If your heart is too hurt and scared to try to be curious about the people you would judge, then it is wise to protect it for a time and focus on those who share your values. But the story told is incomplete and too rigid, and it draws thick lines separating you from those who might be your allies in certain matters. Not all matters. But no one is going to share all of your opinions all of the time, though they seem righteous to you, and at some point we will have to reckon with each other’s opinions, because no one is powerful enough to silence all dissent and disagreement.