Re-Imagining Coherence (Claiming Anti- Capitalist Communication)

"Am I making any sense?"

"I'm rambling"

"Sorry about the tangents"

This you, babes?

Lola Olufemi, one of my faves, writes: "If feminism means freedom, it means the right to self-determination and the right to be multi-dimensional, disorganised and even incoherent".

We are working with this quote in Composting at the moment.

What does 'good' communication look and sound like? (Or what are we told about this inside systems of oppression?)

Coherent. Articulate. Concise. Succinct. Intelligible. Logical. Linear.

Composed --> Rehearsed --> Performed?

What is the cost of this version of coherence? What's lost along the way? What's missing from our communication, and therefore our relationships?

Someone in Composting named that very real sense of pressure and urgency that we feel in this shared moment: "I *must* be coherent, people's lives depend on it!" Whether it's Palestine or the Climate Crisis or any other facet of modernity we are desperately tending to.

One thing I firmly believe- people rarely change their position because of well presented facts and information. They are much more likely to change their position on account of developing relationships, increased relational safety and intimacy- sites where it becomes safe enough to loosen their grip on being right all along, and how they imagine that keeps them psychologically safe.

So in a sense, the pursuit of the kind of coherence we are told to aspire to is a trap. It maintains distance and division. It limits what it's possible to say.

How could we describe an alternative version of coherence, one that we might like to practice and to claim?

What's coherence in the compost heap?

What's coherence in a shared joke?

What's coherence when the tree warns her comrades about an incoming disease?

What's coherence on the forest floor? Or the dancefloor?

The coherence we are trained for means stripping away context for the sake of efficiency, when truly, coherence emerges from context.

If you've ever listened to and loved the The Blindboy podcast, I imagine that part of your experience is related to the soothing effect of an ecological approach to storytelling and communication- something shared by many of my autistic friends- he is autistic himself. I cannot recommend this podcast highly enough if you're interested in liveable futures, mythology, culture making, history, mental health, being human and having a few lolz.

There is a depth, a richness to the coherence, it's like a well held sound bath, or an actual warm bath that you can sink into and relax.

How might you refuse the tyranny of Patriarchal, White Supremacist, Capitalist ideas of coherence?

What might you play with in shaking this off?

What support might you need to do so?

What richness might you hope to encounter?

That's all from me today pals.

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