Trauma + Cancel Culture with Clementine Morrigan
About the Episode
Do you ever feel like, these days, you have to be constantly online, and constantly reading everything you can in order to make sure you know all of the “right” or “wrong” things to say? Do you think that maybe a perpetual state of awareness causes a nervous system response in your body the same way it would if you were experiencing trauma—constantly on alert for any potential threats to your safety and belonging, in an ongoing state of stress and fear? And, do you think that maybe if we’re beginning to understand that constant hypervigilance during times of trauma taxes our bodies—everything from our nervous system regulation, to our gut health, to the strength of our immune systems, and a whole host of other issues—that always having to be on alert so you know whether or not you might say something that could get you kicked out of community is making us sick in similar ways?
Because I have really been thinking a lot about how our social justice cultures often really mirror the trauma so many of us still carry in our bodies. But, like so many of you, I also want to know how we can best show up in responsibility and solidarity with those who experience harm—including myself.
In today’s conversation, Clementine Morrigan joins me to wonder about similar things. Specifically, we talk about the intersections of Trauma + Cancel Culture.
Episode Details
About Clementine (they/them; she/her)
Clementine Morrigan is a writer. She’s the writer behind the zine series Fucking Magic, and the zines Love Without Emergency, Fuck the Police Means We Don't Act Like Cops to Each Other, Fucking Crazy, and Fucking Girls. They also wrote the books You Can't Own the Fucking Stars and The Size of a Bird. They’ll also be releasing three new books in 2021: Trauma Magic, Sexting, and Fucking Magic. She’s been writing and publishing for more than 20 years and has many more projects on the way. They’re also a podcaster, as one half of the podcast Fucking Cancelled, and is the creator of the popular Trauma-Informed Polyamory workshop. They teach other online workshops, too, like Bisexual Girls with Baggage and Disorganized Attachment Is a Fucking Trip. She’s an ecosocialist, an anarchist, an abolitionist, an opposer of cancel culture, a trauma educator, a sex educator, a person living with complex PTSD, a sober alcoholic, a polyamorous bisexual dyke, and a proud dog mom to Clover “The Dog” Morrigan.
What We Discuss
Cancel culture as another type of abuse, even if it often seems like the only tool available to survivors.
The way queer and organizing communities struggle to hold contradiction.
How cancel culture operates in leftist politics, including what Clementine and her partner, Jay, call “The Nexus,” which operates in a similar way to fundamentalist religions.
The similarities between making sure you’re always doing and saying the ”right” things and being constantly on alert for any potential threats when experiencing trauma—both a kind of hyper-vigilance—and how it’s affecting our physical health.
Why keeping up with all of the correct “rules” for behaving actually reflects and requires a certain class privilege.
How we might actually address harm if it’s not canceling everyone.
Where the sentiment, “Believe survivors” falls short.
Why it’s important for us to unlink our capacity to heal from whether or not those who cause us pain or harm ever take responsibility.
Why Clementine continues to do this work and what currently brings her joy.
And so much more.
Sources Mentioned
We Will Not Cancel Us by adrienne maree brown
The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible by Charles Eisenstein. Also available to read online for free (see available languages in the “Read Online” links on the left side of the page.
The previous episode I mention of the podcast, with Asia Dorsey, on “Microbes + Spirituality”, where she talks about the idea of “becoming that which we resist.”
Clementine’s Instagram post, where she mentions that it’s risky for people to collaborate with or associate with her because they will often experience harassment, too.
Clementine’s podcast, Fucking Cancelled, with her partner, Jay.
So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson.
Terror, Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems, by Alexandra Stein, which Clementine mentions in terms of understanding fundamentalism and other frameworks related to her and Jay’s “nexus” descriptions.
The quote I mention about doubt and questions is actually “Doubt and questions and curiosity aren’t leaving the tradition; they are the tradition,” and it’s from RobBell in the documentary, The Heretic.
Here’s a link to read “I Called My Ex Abusive When They Weren’t,” by Clementine.
Here’s the episode of Fucking Cancelled where Clementine and Jay talk about responsibility, boundaries, intervention, and punishment in great detail.
Here’s one interview Brené Brown does with Dr. Vivek Murthy, where they talk—in part—about the physical impacts of loneliness and connection. And, here’s a Fast Co. article by Brené about the many ways we’re in a “crisis of disconnection.” But I believe Braving the Wilderness is the first place I ever heard her reveal either her own research or the research of others that show how we are dying because of disconnection and loneliness.
I couldn’t find the original longitudinal study I know of where two researchers looked at data over massive amounts of time and across both wealthy and poor countries and found that mortality rates are higher between both rich AND poor individuals in countries (or during periods of time in those countries) when there is a larger wealth gap between people in those countries. BUT, here’s one article published in 2007 in the British Medical Journal, called “Wide Income Gap Linked To Deaths In Both Rich And Poor Nations.”
Here’s Clementine’s latest release of “Fuck the Police Means We Don’t Act Like Cops to Each Other,” and her new zine “Fucking Girls” about bisexual anxiety when dating women.
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Find Clementine Online
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Fucking Cancelled Podcast
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Credits
Audio engineering by the team at Upfire Digital.
All of my music is provided by the in-house musicians at Slip.stream.
Episode Transcript
Coming soon, hopefully! Would you be willing to help? Email me at brandi@thisplusthat.com!
