Stolidarity n. Boring and at-best-useless forms of non-engagement, where potential allies and participants are unable to do more than show stolid solidarity because the organisers of the meeting/event have not bothered to undercut the “sage on the stage” dynamic.
I didn’t have a name for this when I encountered it twice in Australia, during the run up to the Voice Referendum. This was an attempt by Indigenous Australians to get two incredibly minor things
a) recognition of First People’s in the Constitution
b) a consultative panel that couldn’t be easily binned by a hostile government, as had happened previously.
The asks were, compared to the suffering of Indigenous Peoples in Australia, heart-breakingly minor. And initially it looked like it would get up (most referendums fail in Australia, because the population is, well…) But then the Atlas Network folks, the Murdoch press etc got into their groove, and the numbers changed. In the end, it was a crushing defeat, and but for Events Elsewhere Australia would have been in the spotlight as a small-minded and [insert what you think I am going to say here and you will probably be right].
The fault for the stirring up of baseless fears, resentments and ugliness belongs to the aforementioned goons. This is not to say the “Vote Yes” campaign did everything right.
I went to two in-person events where the potential was there for people attending to make connections, share ideas, gain motivation etc etc.
Instead we were sat in rows listening to people tell us things a) we already knew or b) did not actually need to know. And the speakers all over-ran their time as well. The comperes (white) did not want to come across as silencing Indigenous folks. It IS very very awkward, I get that. But if you’re not going to address the broader point of what a meeting is FOR, what success looks like IN THE CONTEXT OF THE CAMPAIGN, then you end up with these dispiriting events which at absolute best are missed opportunities, but may also serve to demotivate and demoralise people (who presumably have come with the question “what can I do/how can I help?” in their heads.
A similar vibe a few nights ago, on a Zoom call (admittedly doing the kinds of share-experiences/mingle thing is harder, but still not impossible). This was an environmental event, but the same dynamic – of speakers with capital-A authenticity speaking not to the actual advertised theme of the meeting but instead to, well, whatever was in their comfort zone.
Again they ran overtime, and again there was no time or space for any meaningful engagement from the ego-foddered people in attendance. At best the audience got to feel that they were in the Presence of The Ones We Have Been Waiting For (1).
This. Isn’t. Solidarity. This is instead “stolidarity.”
And it – along with neoliberalism, anti-reflexivity, rational despair etc – one of the things making it impossible to believe that the future is anything other than an unimaginable shithole of a place, which will make the Earth-bits of Elysium look like the Garden of Eden.
I haven’t really thought this through, but maybe there is also an equivalent in academia – people going to seminars/conferences knowing that they won’t learn anything useful, leave with new concepts or capacities (relational, cognitive, whatever) but it is nonetheless good to be seen, you can add various academics to your spotter’s card or something? IDK.
Footnote
() I had to google it, being a too-lazy-to-be-militant atheist, and relying on AI (!) – Matthew 9:20-22, Mark 5:25-34, and Luke 8:43-48 have a story of a desperate woman thinking she can be cured of her nasty bleeding disorder if she touches the hem of Jesus’ robe. That’s what it feels like sometimes – people go to these events to get some reflected/vicarious authenticity. Easy activist credibility tokens. Too cynical?
marchudson.net 
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