Two Kinds of Frustrations with Progressive Spaces

By “progressive”, I mean what’s popularly referred to as “progressive”. The movements, the NGOs, the protest sites, and the like.

It is easy to find people frustrated with progressive spaces. But there are two kinds. One has the not doing the right way frustration. The other has the not doing the right thing frustration.

Not doing the right way

These are frustrations related to procedure and process. It is related to interpersonal interactions.

How do we organize? How do we make decisions?

Are we hypocrites? Do we speak one thing and do another thing? Do we talk about empathy and act mean? Do we talk about care and love and actively exclude people?

Are we going too fast? Too slow? Are there too many meetings? Too little?

Are we creating a safe space? Do we disagree productively? Are we on point? Do we have integrity? Do we care about the cause?

Not doing the right thing

This is a frustration with the whole space and the work itself. There is some fundamental disagreement with the cause or the proposed path.

Should we focus on action or discussion?

Should we focus on patriarchy? Caste? Class? Everything?

Should we have a narrower focus or a broader focus?

Should we focus on the problem? Or the cause of the problem? Or the cause of the cause? Or the cause of the cause of the cause?

Should we mobilize large political movements? Or should we strategically engage as a small group?

Should we be online? Or on the streets? Or both?

The overlap

There is some overlap at the edges. For example, questions of governance are tied both to what gets done and how it gets done.

There are also inter-dependency. How the work is done affects what gets done. And what needs to get done can create ripples in how it is done.

The implication for frustration

If you are frustrated about the way things are done, your frustration is about individuals and their ways of working. You might get insights from psychology (individual and organizational), culture, or just by peeking deep inside yourself. If you can’t find answers in one progressive space, you might be able to find/build a different space with the same goals. A different community that have figured out the how.

But if you are frustrated about what things are done, your frustration is about institutions and the paradigm of what counts as meaningful work. Your insights will come from fields like politics and social development. And your alternatives will be in a totally different paradigm of work.

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This post was written inspired by a discussion with Gayatri and Avani on a similar topic.