• Can you think of a time when you feared you would be thrown out of a group if you were seen as “the bad guy”?

• Have you ever experienced hurt or harm and other people have minimized it? [why? what did it look/feel like?]

• Have you participated in stigmatizing and excluding someone? [why? what did it look/feel like?]

• How does being afraid of being “canceled” impact your behavior?

• Can you think of a time when a conflict taught people how to treat each other better and led to stronger bonds?

• What is scary about committing not to throw people away?

• How do you think people should sort out what a right-sized response is to hurt or harm?

Points/ideas that stood out to me:

• the idea that there are only good people or bad people; “it sets us up for a lifetime of fearing being labelled ‘bad’ and striving to be considered ‘good’” (p. 41)

• “Disposability culture instills in each of us the fear that if we do one thing wrong, we will be cast out . . . We fear giving and receiving feedback. We become defensive. We learn to look for ways to criticize others that emphasize the ways we are superior” (p. 42)

• “Living in the high-stakes environment that disposability culture creates can cause us to hide our loved ones’ harmful behaviors, fearing they will be judged harshly.” (p. 43) - and how this leads to isolation and can put people in dangerous positionts.

• “We know from lived experience that people are complex, and that harmful behavior often comes from trauma, but living in a culture of disposability makes this hard to remember” (p. 43)

• “The world we live in was build by making some people less than human . . . to convince everyone that it makes sense to put millions of people, mostly indigenous, Black, and brown people, in cages and keep them there, requires an ideology of disposability” (p. 43)

• The binary of fearing being a bad person versus the righteousness of being a good person - “rarely do we spend sufficient time in the nuanced middle, in the reality that everyone is learning, making mistakes, taking risks, and trying things” (p. 44)

• The extremes or either minimizing harm and blaming the victim, or punishment, retaliation, revenge, and exile - “when we default to these two extremes, we miss what is in the middle - accountability.” (p. 45)

• Accountability being when “we look at and address all the conditions that made the harm possible in the first place, rather than denying it even happened or finding a scapegoat for it” (p. 46)

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Some points that stood out to me in this section:

“Scarcity mentality doesn’t seem like an illusion when we are under its influence. It seems like it’s real - that there really isn’t enough for everyone, that we have to compete. Cultural norms are like that; they masquerade as truths” (p. 37-38)

Intrinsic versus extrinsic motives; “that the more extrinsically motivated we are, the more depressed and anxious we become” (p. 38)

“People who spend a lot of time think about what they want to buy have reduced empathy and generosity, and end up seeing others as objects” (p. 39)

“we need skills for being with each other in distress, just as much as we need skills for being with each other in delight” (p. 41)

Reflection Questions from the book:

1. How do you experience scarcity mentality?

2. Are there ways in which materialism prevents your happiness?

3. Are there ways you have already recovered from scarcity thinking?

4. When do you take pleasure in intrinsic value?

As always, any thoughts or reflections from this section are welcome in the comments/discussion below!

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Discussion points from this section:

• being on autopilot with cultural scripts that aren’t really ours (p. 20) - Asha-Kaye touched on this in the comments last week around the idea Spade brings up of getting “critical distance” from our knee-jerk reactions that arise from these cultural scripts when we’re on autopilot

• the reactive polarity of “I’m the worst” to “I’m the best” and how both extremes result in rigid thinking (p. 20-22)

• The idea that we need to work “simultaneously both inside ourselves and against our oppressors” and that “self help” work cannot solely take place in our internal world/mindset (p. 23)

• The idea of romance as socially constructed and unfixed, especially when we look historically at human ways of relating (p. 24)

• The romance myth & its central lies of (p. 25):

  • a committed romantic/sexual relationship is the most important kind of relationship

  • there is something wrong with you if you aren’t in one and you have less value

  • real love lasts forever

  • the right relationship will make you happy

• How the romance myth leads to “dehumanization, in which we evaluate each other like commodities, and some people are marked as undesirable” (p. 26)

• The difficult work of differentiating conflict from abuse (p. 30)

• The truth about love (p. 31-33):

  • no one person can meet our every emotional need

  • we are safer with more kinds of connection

  • “change is inevitable, change is not betrayal” (p. 31)

  • heirarchical views of relationships “obstruct people’s self-determination and perpetuate patterns of shame, betrayal, dishonesty, disconnection, and discontent” (p. 32)

  • feelings of new connection come from our own capacities for “connection, joy, pleasure, creativity, and excitement” as well as connection to the other person (p. 32)

  • length of relationship does not determine its validity or ability to transform us

• Marriage isn’t love or liberation (p. 33)

Reflection Questions from the book:

1. What parts of the romance myth feel familiar to you? Are there parts that have a hold on you? Can you think of any times when the romance myth has gotten in the way of your relationships? How?

2. Are there points in the section on the Truth About Love that are jarring to read? Are there any that are a relief?

3. Have you ever seen yourself act out of character or out of line with your values when under the influence of the romance myth? What do you do differently now?

As always, any questions or points of discussion are welcome in the comments!

Welcome to our first discussion “chapter”! Feel free to reflect on the following, or drop something that landed with you at the beginning of the book in the comments to start another discussion.

Some topics Spade speaks on:

• Systems of dominance and control, the ways that they effect our relationships, and the tendency to see conflict as a personal failure despite this (p. 12)

• “We’re taught to find a partner to fill the chasm created by [the] impossible conditions” of isolation from “long work hours, commuting, moving away from home”, which has only worsened since Covid-19 with “rising costs of food and rent, deepening debt, and growing inequality” (p. 12)

• The concept that we can intellectually understand that our beliefs are shaped by systems of domination, and still have them effect our feelings and behaviour (p. 13-14)

• “We may not even realize we are under the control of myths about sex and romance, because they feel so personal” (p. 14)

• Being “built to connect and relate” in a world that increasingly encourages us to numb out and “to consume things that help us feel good(ish) in the short term but often lead to long-term imbalances in our bodies and minds” (p. 17)

Reflection Questions:

• What have you seen cause conflict and disconnection in your friend circles or communities?

• Can you imagine, or have you experienced, difference and conflict in relationships generating more connection, belonging, autonomy, and creativity rather than less? What supports that?

• How can we hold on to each other in these hard times, take the brave and bold actions required of us, and become better able to love each other through it all?

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I’ve been thinking about what’s drawn so many of us to want to explore this book together (aside from knowing that Trey Washington always provides incredible book recommendations!). For me, I feel drawn to bring theory into practice more and more these days. I can read book after book about new or different ways of thinking and being, but it’s in community and conversation that I feel like I learn the most.

I’m curious what brought you all here? And what intentions you have around reading this book in community? That conversation seems like a good place for us to start before we dive into Spade’s work together.