proposing politics based on practice in our daily lives
7 May 2025
About a month ago, a professor of mine asked how I came upon my politics, and I wasn’t really sure what to say. What she was asking was what was my political journey, what did I used to believe, and how did I come to my current beliefs? I answered by explaining my vague political influences: first my dad, then social media, then a radical teacher, now my own lived experience.
But at the end of the day, I don’t think this explanation really satisfied me. It reminds me of Butler’s book Giving An Account of Oneself, where they argue that because our account of ourself exists inside of a specific social language, it is molded by that―our own personal account is constructed by our culture. I responded to her question regarding my political genealogy by giving an account of my intellectual influences. But in reality, I feel like that’s not where my politics originate, even if that is our standard definition of how our politics come to be.
Now, lived experience is its own monster that deserves a blogpost of its own, someday, I think. The idea of “lived experience” is a powerful brand of epistemology that is heavily influential in my academic field, Anthropology, and I think allows us to truly grapple with the complex plurality that is reality.
I do think it’s fair to say that my own lived experience has dramatically influenced my politics. Being a former transgender youth, I personally felt the state’s authority undermine my bodily autonomy, invalidate my lived experience, and deny my personal knowledge. I don’t get to think about “Youth Liberation” or “Trans Rights” as intellectual questions. My lived experience was simply one that demands both of those.
But I also think there’s more to my politics than my oppression. There’s that dimension of state and structural violence, absolutely. But it’s not enough to know what to oppose, you equally need to know what to propose. And what we deem valid to propose is itself a whole ‘nother question. Maybe I think that we need a strong state to protect trans rights from bigotry, to eliminate patriarchy, or to protect kids from the tyranny of their parents.
And so, when I think of how I construct the realm of what we can propose, I think we need to go beyond the oppression I’ve lived, and look towards the liberation we’ve all lived.
I think friendship is one of the most beloved, fascinating, liberatory prospects. It is joyful, it is loving, it is giving, it is receiving, it is caring, it is compassionate, it is mutual. We choose another to love based on nothing more than the sheer admiration and affection for them. It is selfless and generous, but is also not expecting or obligatory. You love your friend because of who they are, and your friends love you for who you are.
I don’t think that’s a particularly controversial opinion. But what I find really interesting is that we reserve this special place in our society for friendships, carve out a piece of our heart for them, and then we compartmentalize that. We view friendships as these distinct categories of social relation which cannot crossover into other aspects of life. We recognize the power and importance of friendship, and yet don’t even consider the prospect of a society structured around them.
For example, most people would likely agree that the foundation of any healthy friendship is that they are mutual, equal, with no hierarchy. One friend does not have power over the other, and if one did, that friendship probably would be labeled “toxic.” And yet, every other component of society is founded on social hierarchy. My boss has power over me, I have power over my “subordinates,” who are at “the bottom.” Even those of the same rank are placed on some hierarchy. Students are ranked and numerated by grades. Teachers control students. Parents control children. Older children control younger children. If these were friendships, this would be considered toxic, unhealthy, and unethical. But we accept it and consider it natural and/or necessary.
Many of us today recognize that community is a vital part of life that has been stripped from us. There is a widespread “loneliness epidemic,” and “Third Places” have gained remarkable prominence in popular discourse as of late. But has anyone outside of anarchist circles realized that communities are inherently anarchic? A community, as a group or network of friends, is anarchic. My friends and I don’t have some legal contract or leader or “formal democratic process” through which we decide which movie to see. We talk about it, and if we disagree, we decide how to decide (usually through compromise, rarely through a vote). But there’s no power over. It’s not like we designate someone to have the final say (except for special circumstances, such as birthdays, where that is consensually agreed upon). We discuss and decide like friends. Like.. anarchists? If we have a disagreement so great, we may choose to part ways. If we grow and change, we leave and make new friends.
Davids Graeber and Wengrow, in The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (an Anthropology book, by the way), argued that the three elementary freedoms of humanity are: 1) The freedom to leave; 2) The freedom to disobey; and 3) The freedom to transform social relations. Today, none of these exist within the broader political context. Yet, all three are essential to our ethical friendships.
I have often heard the saying “reality has a liberal bias,” which I think definitely has its roots in confirmation bias, to some extent. But it’s strange to think about how, for me, that “complex plurality” of reality that I described earlier seems not quite to have an “anarchic bias,” but rather, that it often just is anarchic. Learning about the fluidity and negotiation of culture, the process of evolution and mutualism’s place within that, the webs and meshes of gender, sex, and sexuality, and the histories of cultures, communities, and groups, its hard not to see the anarchic order of these. Humans seem to be inherently fluid and variable. And, to me, it is because of that that we tend to simply trend towards anarchic social relations.
So, when I think about what we can or should propose, I can’t help but think about all of this. I just can’t help but think that humans are already quite anarchic, even within the systems of oppression that exist today. And it’s from there that I begin to consider what to propose in conjunction with our many oppositions.