Me In The Spring Sun

was trying to source this image and found a beautiful word

When people talk about 'building community', usually the peak they aspire to is some form of mutual aid group. There are two main problems with this.

Firstly, mutual aid is a defensive tool, not an offensive one. It can only soften the blows of capitalism - it is the naive, bourgeois view of communism that our goal is the redistribution of wealth, when it is in fact the reorganisation of production. A network of mutual aid will level out the harshness of deprivation between those more and less vulnerable within the network. But it cannot actually lessen deprivation, and it cannot actually produce any food or blankets or medicine outside of its members earning a wage and buying them on the market. Under a system of mutual aid, everyone's life will slowly sink further and further into immiseration at the whims of capital, but it will do so at a (somewhat) consistent rate between them.

Secondly, most 'mutual aid' is not, actually, mutual aid. It is charity. Ask yourself: is there an intended recipient and an intended provider of this aid? Is it carried out by one group in order to help another? This is charity, a system of donation between a designated needy and general better-off. It is not that other thing: mutual aid. Mutual aid is characterised by its mutual character - that is, it is a community effort in which all members engage with it as both providers and recipients. There is nobody involved for who the supplies 'are not for you', because there is no separation between them. Like the 'community gardens' whose owners suddenly become upset at the food being taken, people are wearing the names of (honestly very minimally) more radical formations than the ones they are actually carrying out. They think that when they have changed the name of things, they have changed the things themselves!

Again, mutual aid is a fundamentally flawed, fundamentally defensive tactic - but people aren't even actually doing mutual aid. An offensive tactic, one that can actually improve people's quality of life and weaken capitalism, inherently means taking command of production, not merely adjusting consumption.

Ive been saying this for years. You need to understand blue eyeshadow to understand anything at all. Today, blue eyeshadow is regarded as a "choice." Its either trendy or tacky or outdated, depending on the shade and style of application. But for about 30 years in the late 20th century, maybe the 50s through the 80s, blue eyeshadow was regarded as subtle, conservative, middle-of-the-road. Feminine. A "correct" shade to use. Brown or beige eyeshadow was the new thing, too subtle and casual to look like a "full face" of makeup. My grandmother (an enthusiastically conventional woman) has only ever worn blue eyeshadow.

The last 10 or 15 years have seen a real takeover of neutrals, beiges and grays and whites, in consumer goods and interior design. We've all seen the car color chart. Other people smarter than me have discussed the reasons for this, the caution brought on by economic instability. Nobody wants to paint their walls green because their home isnt a place to get comfortable, its an investment that will need to be made palatable for a new buyer (and why give yourself the extra task of repainting when youll have so much else to do when you move).

Neutral overload (and "clean design," with its lack of ornamentation) is aimed at creating a consistent, timeless, elegant look. Its adherents dont understand that this is also a trend. This subtle, conservative, middle-of-the-road design choice will look tacky and ostentatious someday. And necause you value timelessness, this will embarrass you.

Otoky N8