"What About My Friends Who Don't Care About Gaza?", And Other Questions

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

Slow Heat asks on Youtube, “Hi Caitlin — question — I have friends, some lifelong, who I don’t associate with anymore because, while maybe not supporting, are at the very least ambivalent towards the genocide. I just can’t be around people who are more concerned with what show or restaurant they’re trying next. Am I the asshole?”

I’ve been lucky enough not to have anyone significant in my life who doesn’t get it, so this isn’t an issue that I personally have had to navigate. But I have seen a lot of people struggle with the question of how their interpersonal relationships should be affected by the position that their friends and loved ones take on Gaza.

From where I’m sitting this doesn’t look like you’re an asshole, it just kind of looks like the natural effects playing out of learning that someone in your life is a shitty person. If you found out that one of your friends likes to torture small animals or drug women and rape them, or that someone in your family watched a child drown in a swimming pool without doing anything, that would naturally change your relationship with them in a permanent way. You would naturally find yourself distancing yourself from them, and things would never be the same.

This wouldn’t be your fault, and it also wouldn’t be the result of any rule or personal policy that you put in place. People don’t normally make a rule for themselves like “never be friends with someone who adores Adolf Hitler,” they’d just naturally feel themselves pulling away from anyone who does.

So I don’t think this is necessarily something you need to put any amount of thought into, really. This is just what happens when bad people in your life reveal an ugly truth about themselves. If you learn that someone in your life is cool with their government supporting a genocide, you can just sort of let your feelings and natural inclinations lead the way on that.

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Shiloh on Twitter asks, “Why does no one want to talk about the genocide in Sudan?”

Not that I believe this question is asked in good faith (Shiloh is an Israeli account), but let’s answer it anyway.

My government isn’t trying to make it illegal for me to criticize the RSF. Every major western institution isn’t dedicated to facilitating genocide in Sudan and stomping out all speech which opposes it. My rulers aren’t backing a genocide in Sudan and commanding me to support it.

I oppose the genocide that I personally am involved in. When my government and its allies are complicit that makes me complicit, unless I hold a strong and visible “No.” Israel apologists try to frame this as somehow freakish and suspicious when it’s obviously the most normal thing in the world.

It’s just one of the many, many bad faith ways in which hasbarists try to spin opposing an active genocide as a bad thing. People who ask “Why don’t you talk about the bad things those Africans and Asians are doing?” are really just saying “Stop criticizing the white people, criticize the brown people instead. Stop criticizing the worst abuses of the power structure you actually live under and focus on other things.”

It’s just manipulative concern trolling and genocide apologia.

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Will on Facebook asks, “Sincerely asking: How do you keep all your posts free? How do you support yourself while keeping your stuff free? I think it’s awesome that you do that! But I’ve found it incredibly difficult to support myself with my writing practice and have been thinking about selling subscriptions so I don’t have to take so much other work to survive.”

I’ve written about my funding plan before, but it’s been years since I’ve talked about it, which is weird because it’s really one of the most interesting things about this project.

Basically what I’ve learned is that people really will just support a writer whose work they value without expecting anything in return. It’s not a way to get rich, but it pays the rent and puts food on the table just fine.

It’s a pure gift economy system. I don’t demand anything from my readers, and those who support me don’t demand anything of me. I make everything free; I don’t do ads, I don’t paywall anything, I don’t do reward tiers on Patreon, and my free Substack subscription has identical content to the paid one. I just work hard and put everything out there for everyone to read, and invite anyone who feels called to to support what I do. I get to keep working, and they get to know they’re helping me do so. And it turns out that’s enough.

One thing that helps is that all my platforms and articles contain a notice that anyone who wishes to use or republish my work is free to do so in any way they like free of charge. This has helped grow my audience, because there are always platforms and publications looking for good content to publish. As people get added to my audience across various platforms, a few of them will feel called to help financially support what I do.

It’s a model that won’t necessarily work for everyone, but it has worked for me, so that’s all I can speak to with any authority. If you can only make paid subscriptions or advertising or whatever work for you, then there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that either.

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Kelly on Twitter asks, “Do you think unrelentingly and deeply searching for truth, both inward and outward simultaneously, willing to examine the terrifying things you find, can result in ‘enlightenment’ regardless of spiritual path, be it Christian, Tao, Jewish, atheist/academic, etc or whatever?”

This is in regard to a previous Q&A in which I discussed the distinction between spirituality and awakening, and the need to expand our awareness of both our own inner processes which give rise to our own individual suffering and of the abusive power dynamics which create so much suffering for humanity collectively.

I think courageously and deeply searching for truth absolutely can lead to enlightenment, so long as your investigation focuses on the nonconceptual aspects of your experience instead of searching for answers in mental stories. Rigorously peering into the nature of self, thought and perception can lead to a dramatic shift in consciousness after which nothing is ever seen the same way again, but trying to figure out your true nature by forming some kind of mental narrative about it will never work.

Awakening is definitely possible regardless of what your religion or non-religion happens to be when you start out, but no religion will ever take you there. That saying “All paths lead to the top of the mountain” or whatever is just nonsense; most paths lead far away from the mountain, or at best just circle the foothills. Religions have very little to do with enlightenment, even the ones that talk about it a lot like Buddhism and Hinduism. Clarity won’t come until you discard all belief systems and all your assumptions about what’s real and how things work, and start looking at what’s actually going on at the most fundamental levels of your own experience.

If you have a question or comment you’d like a response to, just write it in the replies section of whatever platform you’re reading this on and I’ll try to get to it.

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