Librarianon

Librarianon

@Librarianon

Your local Librarianon

  • He/Him

Writer, TF Finatic, Recohoster, and Game dev. Wasnt able to post here as much as I liked, but I'll miss it and all of yall. Till we meet again, friends!

log in
Librarianon
@Librarianon
JackDotJS
@JackDotJS
YuushaRuby
@YuushaRuby

I’m still confused why people keep asking for “mutual aid” when they mean “direct aid”

Edit: https://cohost.org/RubyMayValentine/post/4072693-from-sacramento-radi

YuushaRuby
@YuushaRuby

From Sacramento radical education

“Direct aid is a tactic; you making lunch for a friend.
Mutual aid is a strategy; the relationship that contextualizes that "free lunch" within a framework of solidarity & mutually-assured survival.
Food security is a goal; that we all have lunch.

In any radical work it is integral to not conflate strategy for goals, tactics for strategy, tactics for goals, et cetera.
Each is a tool for accomplishing the broader objective, i.e. a tactic serves a strategy which serves a goal.

When we disregard these conceptual delineations & operational protocols we are often left treading water, or worse, moving backwards.
Whether building the new world or tearing down the old one

without using these tools effectively, we do a disservice to our loved ones.“

You must log in to comment.

in reply to @YuushaRuby's post:

joXn
@joXn

Intellectually I know that it’s because there isn’t any other positively-coded terminology for “I need help and my only hope is to get it from random strangers because society in general refuses to help and my social support network is stretched to the snapping point.”

Emotionally I always get a spike of “in what sense is this mutual? what network are you and I part of where I know you and your contributions?” (The answer is that we’re ultimately all part of the interconnected web of humanity. But my primate brain substrate needs a minute to catch up to that.)

login to reply
YuushaRuby
@YuushaRuby

to be fair I put "direct aid" in my post which is a well established concept, the problem with how people have been using "mutual aid" lately i.e. asking for direct aid is that it's incorrect usage, and takes away from the actual meaning of mutual aid, which is of course, mutual and about networks. There's nothing wrong with direct aid, I just wish people would understand that asking for direct aid is not mutual aid. I often have to ask for direct aid myself, which I'm thankful for the help I get, I wouldn't call it mutual aid though, I'm not often of the ability to give back to the strangers helping me.

login to reply
joXn
@joXn

I took your post as pointing out that “direct aid” is a term that nobody uses even though that’s the term they should be using. I don’t have the same kind of an emotional response to “direct aid”. Heck, I don’t have the same kind of emotional response to “have you got some spare change, I need a pack of cigarettes”. (Gladly buddy, nicotine withdrawal is a real nightmare.)

login to reply

in reply to @YuushaRuby's post: