TOTW: Minding manners, yours and mine

I happened upon a discussion on a message board recently soliciting horror stories about peoples’ experiences at local game shops. Highlights included people flipping tables (literally) when they were losing, domineering game masters, and overpowering body odor. It got me thinking about how many of these things can also be found in anarchist spaces.

Anarchist space isn’t far removed from gamer space - both attract people who carry themselves in ways that fall outside social norms. Some of that may be intentional, pushing against social etiquette whether it’s about how we have conflict with each other or whether we bathe regularly, and some of it might be that anarchist space, like gamer space, attracts a lot of weirdos, both benign and not. Different expectations about how other people should act and an inability or unwillingness to reconcile them can cause friction, hurt feelings, and drive people away from social spaces.

How do anarchists do etiquette? How do you "mind your manners," and how do you get other people to mind theirs? What are better and worse ways you’ve done this and seen this happen? Any horror stories (or the opposite) you'd like to share?

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My second generation anarchist Midi-chlorians end where your far fewer diluted Midi-chlorians begin. Everybody knows this.

The least confrontational way is to avoid, if that's not possible, a private conversation (no dog piling, at least at first). I had to ask a Marxist to leave a group, which was tough since he and I had started it together. I told him it wasn't personal, which was true since we continued working together on a different project, and he was confident and mature enough to take what I said as it was meant and he bowed out. The key there was his overriding principle of wanting to play well with others.

The example from the other end of the spectrum was having to confront a self-proclaimed anarchist on his excessive alcohol consumption at events. I took him aside and tried to explain that his behavior was considerably modified after he'd imbibed a certain amount, and would he consider lessening his intake during events. He basically told me to fuck off. Then we had to have a modified "intervention" where we let him know that he was welcome if he were more or less sober, but that he'd be physically expelled if he became drunk. Things didn't end well

I would say I'm rather against etiquette. When it comes to hygiene specifically I assume most would not like me, I call myself stinky for a reason as I hardly ever shower. And similarly I don't hold much regard for other social conventions or values either and have no interest in policing others behavior.

People that smell when they have all means of staying fresh are a pain in the ass for people around them. Do you really want to be a pain in the asses of your comrades?

I don't really care if Im a pain in the ass for other people, I don't care about abstract people. No one is my comrade. As well I'm homeless so I don't have "all the means of staying fresh" but even if I did I would still be stinky.

K bye!

Bruh...

I agree Our distro brings beers and zines to AA meetings and we get into fights once a month. A few times we partied with AA people. Usually they just call the pigs and we're asked to leave. Got stabbed once. Hopefully BEER BLOCK FUCK AA spreads to more anarchists. AA are authoritarians brainwashing people from living free.

I live in a barrel and masturbate in public. Kewl anarchist men should model themselves after me, the basedfather.

Certain intoxicated situations aside, I’m habitually passive because I struggle to find points if engagement in many conversations and this leads to putting myself in the passenger seat while someone else more engaged carries the event forward. Sometimes I will become irritated by something or other and that engages me in a less than convivial manner. So following from all that, I learned ways of making myself a topic in my passivity: through fashion, mostly. In other words I try to be attractive, genetically blessed or not. So I am courteous. I open doors for people. I try to be an absent host. I like the idea of kabuki restaurants. I like objects I create to speak for themselves, should anyone listen to them.

On the flip side, I try to tolerate big, dominant personalities. They take the weight off of me by sucking up air I don’t want to breathe. And usually they’re funny or otherwise entertaining.

So I am polite because I basically want to be present without getting involved in conversations that don’t interest me. I objectify myself in ways that will hopefully inspire conversations that do interest me. But otherwise I am mostly in a lifelong conversation with myself and people I won’t meet via their works.

For me, the party happens at the edges of the venue and not in the center. I like the small side conversations and hate when I don’t find any. I can play center stage, and have many times, but that is impersonal. It is disengaged. Often scripted.

So that’s that!

If we make explicit the different things we take for granted and don’t say out loud, there’s a long list of preferences by which we attract and repulse each other.

Some repulsive traits are ok to say out loud according to anarchist etiquette, but not others.

What’s important with respect the ideal of anarchy is that differences are respected and tolerated, not that they must be involuntarily painfully endured.

If you hate someone’s taste in music, their manners (or any other cultural bias) their tone of voice, their smell (ass, armpit, breath, choice of cologne, cigarette they smoke, booze, pet skunk spray etc.), you don’t have to endure it if you don’t want to, as long as you leave em be.

If you are forced by circumstance to share space in close proximity, then how polite, how reserved or how rude you want to be about expressing your discomfort or distaste is up to you. Conflict of this kind is inevitable.

I think I will want to challenge the importance of “space” vs the freedom of people to act how they want, body autonomy, freedom to join others (choosing with whom) and freedom to leave, stay apart, choose who to avoid.

People packed like sardines in enclosed spaces like small rooms or vehicles will always imply increased friction and irritation by sounds, smells, personalities, attitudes, tics and pet peeves. A fart is tougher to endure inside a car with the windows rolled up. A cow is less stinky in an open field than knee deep in shit in a farm. A loud cricket inside a your room is more annoying than various crickets and frogs making noise outside.

Voluntary relationships on the basis of mutually beneficial and pleasurable interaction takes care of sorting some things, but no amount of anarchy will ever come near to eliminating any of the annoyances inherent with dealing with others. Even (or specially) in a world free of authority and authoritarians we may still hate each other’s guts for petty and not so petty things.

"A loud cricket inside a your room is more annoying than various crickets and frogs making noise outside."
You've obviously never had an infestation of thirsty pubic lice going about their business, even with crickets, rats and drunkards inside your room?

Overcrowding, cramped living conditions makes for easier spread of contagion. In any case, in line with the point I was making via metaphor. The lack of rats and drunkards in my room is besides etiquette. Having the comment section infested by the likes of you is a fate worse than pubic lice, so get off my dick.

I feel that like many aspects of life, this doesn't have to be difficult and it's not that deep. Express yourself, be open to other people expressing themselves. When there's friction, give and receive feedback graciously. If you don't vibe with someone, don't fuck with them or find an amount of interaction that's tolerable. I don't hold standards of etiquette for anarchists in general, but I do notice people who are reflective and value feedback, and tend to get closer with those people.

Also I fuck with smelly people.

i will not tolerate prejudice towards the smelly, although I might offer them the use of my shower before we make out or have to go on a roadtrip together or something else relevant, cuz i'm dainty like that. i blame myself tho, not the smellier-than-thou.

anyway, isn't this the kind of shit where the unlikely-but-high-stakes scenarios make the discussion much more interesting?

what about when someone mad dogs you? gets all up in your business for no reason besides they think they can?

what about social norms where everyone is heavily armed? a very different set of reasons for "etiquette" than under the liberal social peace, no? "don't fuck with them" is always good advice until it's not.

"what about when someone mad dogs you? gets all up in your business for no reason besides they think they can?"

Acceptable anarchist etiquette suggests that in situations like these the best course of action is to introduce their head to the pavement.

"what about social norms where everyone is heavily armed?"

Distract them with your smelly body odor, disarm them while they are vomiting, and then introduce their head to the pavement.

You can, of course, avoid these types of altercations by washing your swamp ass regularly and being desirable even if you aren't physically gifted. Just ask CyberDandy.

i tend to be respectful toward others unless or until they demonstrate that they deserve otherwise. i generally say "please" and "thank you" when i find it appropriate. i also fart and belch as desired. i don't have running water, so "showers" consist of a good old wipe down. i don't mind smelly folks, until it gets to the point where it makes me gag. i've only known one person that bad.

none of that is at all specifically anarchist. i interact with individuals, not groups and labels, and they all start at the same place.

I used to think that etiquette and manners were ways that social conflict and varying interests are paved over for the sake of an inequal and inhuman system running with normality.

Maybe because we're all just awkward, or think we're really different from everyone else, but I've noticed that, the deeper you get into the anarchist milieu, the less manners people have. Nobody acknowledges each other in public spaces, nobody ask probing questions (hey, how is your day? how are you? what have you been up to?). I find it really frustrating.

Now the way I think about manners and etiquette is that they exist to make social situations comfortable. People tend to feel more welcome and open if their social needs are acknowledged, in my opinion. I'm officially pro-etiquette, and I think anarchists in general would benefit to taking etiquette and manners much more seriously. Plus, once you know them and operate within them, you can then transgress them from within. In my experience, this is actually the way most people I know operate. You say hello, make small talk, and then you maybe once there's a small rapport, you can make a slightly crass quip or honest observation. They've been welcomed into a positive, recognizable social space, and then from there we can deviate.

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