I fear that infighting in progressive groups is never going to end, even while angry rants about the harm done by infighting get more and more common.

because

• people who have very important goals in common are going to disagree on other things, which may also be very important.
• and every time there is a disagreement, each side will view the other as responsible for the infighting.
• and whenever both sides refuse to give up their convictions on (important issue) in order to cooperate on (MORE important issue) …both sides will then accuse each other of “putting petty disagreements above necessities.”

nobody considers themselves the cause of infighting. it’s always someone else. general exhortations of “don’t start infighting!” are rarely taken by anyone as being aimed at them

this is partly because every conflict has at least two sides, and each side thinks the other started it, and neither side thinks they should have to be the one to step down for the sake of peace.

but it’s also partly because, when a conflict with someone else gets bad enough, you stop considering that person to be on your side in any way at all.

And then it’s not infighting, to you. It’s just Fighting The Enemy.

so, in order for people to even agree on what counts as “starting infighting,” there would have to be widespread agreement on the definition of “infighting” (what exactly counts as The Group who should cooperate? Who counts as the enemy they should join against?)

and there would also have to be widespread agreement on the definition of “starting” (i.e. how do we define who is responsible when a fight begins?)

and this all gets even worse when people get angry enough to say things like “Anyone who gets involved in infighting isn’t even part of the group, they’re on the side of the enemy!” …(good luck even continuing to have a group, after adopting that as your doctrine.)

…the best way of articulating it that I’ve seen is, “deescalate all conflicts except those with the oppressors.” But even that still requires defining who’s part of The Oppressors. And also the difference between “deescalation” and just silencing someone’s valid grievance (and believe me there is a lot of disagreement on that, too.)

I guess this once again comes down to my usual, not very helpful but unfortunately probably true conclusion about most problems: “There is no real fix for this, but trying to make a habit of looking at things from other people’s viewpoints would help some.”

…