When I was in a conservative religious cult, two of the women in my congregation hated each other. It was so bad leaders of our congregation would conspire to try to have them sit as far away from each other as possible, not be in the same room as much as possible, etc. It was some serious drama.
But when one of the women needed help packing a large house worth of boxes into a big moving truck, the other was there with the rest of us, moving boxes. Because that's what you did. Personal dislike and rivalry were trumped by the social obligations of being part of the community. Mutual aid trumped mutual hatred.
Now, I have no desire to go back to the cult, but I do think they were on to something here. Community can't be about who we are friends with or get along with easily. If you won't go to bat for people you hate then this is not a community, it's a popularity contest.
I mean, come on. We can at least be as good as the Mormons. That won't be the end of it, it isn't anywhere near good enough, but we currently fail to meet even that benchmark. And until we do the very idea of leftist and progressive mutual aid is dead in the water.
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