Have you ever relied on the kindness of strangers? What brings
people together to find hope and solidarity? What do we owe each
other as citizens and comrades?
Questions of care,
intimacy, education, meaningful work, and social engagement lie at
the core of our ability to understand the world and its possibilities
for human flourishing. In Lean On Me feminist thinker Lynne
Segal goes in search of hope in her own life and in the world around
her. She finds it entwined in our intimate commitments to each other
and our shared collective endeavours.
Segal calls this
shared dependence ‘radical care’. In recounting from her own life
the moments of motherhood, and of being on the front line of
second-wave feminism, she draws upon lessons from more than half a
century of engagement in left feminist politics, with its underlying
commitment to building a more egalitarian and nurturing world. The
personal and the political combine in this rallying cry to transform
radically how we approach education, motherhood, and our everyday
vulnerabilities of disability, ageing, and enhanced needs.
Only by confronting
head-on these different forms of interdependence and care can we
change the way we think about the environment and learn to struggle —
together —against impending climate catastrophe.