Retreat and Mutual Aid in Times of Crisis: Falling Back into Community

Retreat is def­i­nite­ly not a word most would use to describe a “win­ning” sit­u­a­tion. Retreats, his­tor­i­cal­ly speak­ing, have been moments of loss—of bat­tles, of vic­to­ry, of peo­ple, of hope.

It cer­tain­ly feels like those loss­es are our whole world cur­rent­ly, and the temp­ta­tion to “retreat” into our­selves in self-pro­tec­tion mode is sig­nif­i­cant. We see it in the turn­ing of heads from one or anoth­er mar­gin­al­ized group being tar­get­ed because “at least it’s not us.” In the glo­ry some seem to feel see­ing oth­ers treat­ed as sub-human. In a cul­ture of rugged indi­vid­u­al­ism and per­ceived (or man­u­fac­tured) scarci­ty, when “pulling one­self up by their boot­straps” isn’t work­ing (but has it ever?), the temp­ta­tion to at least pro­tect own­er­ship of the boot­straps them­selves is a real one. Costs are ris­ing, health­care is decreas­ing, and prospects are nar­row­ing for the most vul­ner­a­ble of us, which can and is caus­ing a ten­den­cy toward defen­sive­ness, aggres­sion, and retreat from others.

Though the temp­ta­tion to be lost in the noise and the urgency and the crit­i­cal pain of our peo­ple and our coun­try is real, I try to find solace in two fea­tures of human response to this crisis.

First, that retreat isn’t hap­pen­ing in the tra­di­tion­al sense. People, states, we, aren’t just rolling over, but are stand­ing up, step­ping out, protest­ing, using our voic­es and our right to protest as a means of send­ing our peo­ple and folks around the world a sig­nal: this is not okay with all of us and it won’t go with­out resis­tance. This par­tic­u­lar fea­ture is gen­uine­ly what keeps me going some days, and this arti­cle is in no way intend­ed to gloss over its impor­tance or to dis­cour­age us from par­tic­i­pat­ing in this par­tic­u­lar form of response. Writers who are much more adept than I am have done a won­der­ful job of report­ing, record­ing, observ­ing, and broad­cast­ing it. I hope you are keep­ing up with it if it is in your capac­i­ty to do so.

The oth­er fea­ture is one that I have both seen in action and felt called toward the longer our cur­rent cri­sis con­tin­ues, and that’s where my focus lies today. This fea­ture is the act of retreating—not into one­self or even one’s fam­i­ly, for self-protection—but retreat­ing into our com­mu­ni­ties. The act of retreat­ing, which is oth­er­wise con­no­ta­tive of loss and pain and a lack of prospects, is in our cur­rent sit­u­a­tion a deep relief. It is find­ing out that right next door, right down the street, at work, at your local busi­ness­es, and in our com­mu­ni­ties, we can find the sup­port we need to con­tin­ue. Consequently, in my inter­est toward and obser­va­tion of a clois­ter­ing and togeth­er­ness of com­mu­ni­ties to care for one anoth­er, I have been doing a lot of read­ing and learn­ing about mutu­al aid.

Mutual aid is, in essence, the under­stand­ing that the gov­ern­ment, mas­sive orga­ni­za­tions or cor­po­ra­tions, or the ever vague “they” are not com­ing to save us. All we have is each oth­er. We see mutu­al aid occur­ring when the cri­sis is essen­tial­ly too big for such small prob­lems, i.e., dur­ing nat­ur­al dis­as­ters when your neigh­bors bring their boats to res­cue you from a roof when the (big) gov­ern­ment lit­er­al­ly can­not get to (small) you in time.

We also see mutu­al aid when the sys­tems cre­at­ed to “help” peo­ple come with either strings attached in the form of lim­i­ta­tions on where fund­ing can go, or strings attached in the form of who “deserves” to be helped. Programs and orga­ni­za­tions that mean well and do indeed help folks some­times leave out the most vul­ner­a­ble of us. Examples include food pro­grams that demand proof of sobri­ety, non­prof­its that con­sid­er income but not that most Americans are one or two pay­checks away from fore­clo­sure or that we all get in a pinch, and gov­ern­ment pro­grams that demand atten­dance and par­tic­i­pa­tion in pro­grams that are not read­i­ly acces­si­ble in the areas they operate.

Mutual aid says: com­mu­ni­ty over cor­po­ra­tions. It says: sol­i­dar­i­ty over char­i­ty.^[1] It says: if not us, who? It says: for time out of mind, humans have need­ed one anoth­er to sur­vive. No human is dif­fer­ent in what basic needs they deserve. We can’t let the lux­u­ries and the implied indi­vid­u­al­ism of our cul­ture make us for­get that, espe­cial­ly at the local level.

The Discomfort of Retreat into Community

To me in my dai­ly prac­tice, mutu­al aid is retreat­ing into my com­mu­ni­ty, falling back to a space I can help make safer and more secure and that can do the same for me, but it can be uncom­fort­able con­sid­er­ing what we are typ­i­cal­ly taught to do: retreat into self-pro­tec­tion ver­sus reach­ing out in retreat to pick oth­ers up on our way. Certainly, reach­ing out to your com­mu­ni­ty may seem the very oppo­site of a retreat, but remem­ber, retreats are meant to find safe­ty. To regroup.

To sur­vive.

So, the dis­com­fort comes. What do you mean I need to check on my neigh­bors in this heat wave? What do you mean I can offer local kids pop­si­cles, or donate to local aid efforts that are less for­mal and more based on trust of indi­vid­u­als, or share my skills in med­i­cine, gar­den­ing, sewing, repair­ing, tools, mechan­ic work, paint­ing, cook­ing, child­care, all in the name of com­mu­ni­ty? What do you mean I would have to dri­ve out of my way five or ten min­utes to deliv­er some­thing to some­one with­out trans­porta­tion, or pick up a friend’s med­ica­tions? What do you mean I can do these things with­out expec­ta­tion of pay­ment or even expec­ta­tion of a repaid favor? What do you mean I have to believe and trust this is a rec­i­p­ro­cal, cycli­cal, uncon­cen­trat­ed, good-faith way of living?

Or, even worse for any feel­ing human being in our cur­rent times, what do you mean mutu­al aid is seen to be a rev­o­lu­tion­ary act, this retreat into community?

^[1] This par­tic­u­lar phrase, “sol­i­dar­i­ty not char­i­ty,” I read first in Dean Spade’s “Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity in this Crisis (and the Next).”