(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . RE: Kos V. Guild: We're A Tribe: Let's Act Like It [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-03-04 The Tribe Even Has Its Own Logo/Flag First, a confession: I’m a Kossack. I’ve been here since the beginning in 2002 (the first several years under a different moniker.) For those too young to remember, 2002 was a very dark time for the American experiment. Rather than use the tragedy of 9/11 to bring the country together, Rove/Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld chose to tear the country apart, cynically ginning up a ‘war of choice’ so they could cast anyone who opposed it as an America-hating traitor in order to win the 2002 mid-terms (It worked). Markos did something extraordinary: rather than just start a blog, he created a tribal gathering place: a site that invited people who were outraged and disheartened by these events to find each other, befriend each other, organize, and fight. What a gift! In short, he created a tribal meeting place. I use “Tribe” as Sebastian Junger used it in his indispensable book of the same name. What is a tribe? In an interview, Junger described it as “the community that you live in that you share resources with that you would risk your life to defend.” In his book Junger describes the work of a tribe: If you want to make a society work, then you don’t keep underscoring the places where you’re different—you underscore your shared humanity. All I know about the rift between Daily Kos and the Daily Kos Guild is what I read in the diaries. Here’s why I'm writing this: something is happening here that could tear apart our tribe. Here are some words used by the Guild: “catastrophic financial situation,” “anti-worker choices,” “total lack of transparency,” “willful disregard with the obligation to act fairly,” unconscionable circumstances,” and “unnecessarily cruel.” Why am I flagging that language? Here’s a passage from Junger’s “Tribe” that’s seared in my memory: Unlike criticism, contempt is particularly toxic because it assumes a moral superiority in the speaker. Contempt is often directed at people who have been excluded from a group or declared unworthy of its benefits. Contempt is often used by governments to provide rhetorical cover for torture or abuse. Contempt is one of four behaviors that, statistically, can predict divorce in married couples. People who speak with contempt for one another will probably not remain united for long. The far-right’s fiercest weapon, one they use incessantly, one that oozes from Fox News, is CONTEMPT. The message they pound into the brains of their acolytes is that liberals and progressives are pure evil who must be purged from the righteous tribe of True (white, Christian, Republican) Americans. I believe that Guild members are good, well-meaning Kossacks, but they’re using language that vilifies Markos and Daily Kos. This fight has become a morality tale in which members of management are malevolent villains acting with malice. This tale is, of course, familiar to lefties like me: fat cats blow it, and workers get screwed. I don’t believe it. I’ve been reading Markos’s missives. I believe Daily Kos has been negotiating in good faith. Bad shit happens. Nobody likes to lose their job. I’ve been fired once and laid off twice, each time because of decisions made by folks far up the management chain who survived. I know what it feels like to be kicked to the street. But using this kind of language to ascribe bad faith to management can produce nothing but bad consequences. Junger again: The ultimate betrayal of tribe isn’t acting competitively—that should be encouraged—but predicating your power on the excommunication of others from the group. That is exactly what politicians of both parties try to do when they spew venomous rhetoric about their rivals. That is exactly what media figures do when they go beyond criticism of their fellow citizens and openly revile them. Reviling people you share a combat outpost with is an incredibly stupid thing to do, and public figures who imagine their nation isn’t, potentially, one huge combat outpost are deluding themselves. Friends, we’ve got something rare and precious here. We’ve got a place where we can disagree and fight and wrangle within a context of ideological alignment: we’re here because we’re willing to fight for what Dr. King called “The Beloved Community.” The terrifying revelation of the Trump years is that when a charismatic leader invites people to be their worst selves, forces like racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, and Fascism are unleashed that can easily lead to the end of the American experiment. Let me end this with the words of Abraham Lincoln. I spent six years working on the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum, in Springfield, Illinois. Lincoln’s greatest magic trick and most enduring legacy was his refusal to vilify a South that had begun a catastrophic Civil War so that slavery could continue to thrive. Lincoln never acknowledged secession. He always considered the Southern states as part of the Union: they had just been hypnotized and deceived by a small group of fanatical plantation owners who had created this calamity. As you think about the way forward to Daily Kos, consider what a resource we’ve got here. This is the campfire where our tribe can come together and do the necessary work of fighting for equality and social justice. And let these words resonate in your heart: [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/4/2156190/-RE-Kos-V-Guild-We-re-A-Tribe-Let-s-Act-Like-It Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/