Discharging on Sliding Scales
I was starting to organise a workshop in our Area1 and decided to read the RC Workshop Organising Manual (created by the Boston, Massachusetts, USA, RC Community).2 I became interested in one sentence under the section on sliding scales for workshop fees. It read, “To work as intended, sliding scales usually require that people discharge on an ongoing basis about money, integrity, and economic inequality.”
That sentence, or direction as I experienced it, reminded me that I always do better with money issues and decisions when I discharge with other people. So at a recent workshop, I proposed a table to discharge on the direction, keeping in mind the links to class oppression and racism.
There were seven of us at the table. I said a little about how discharging with the direction could move us away from acting on our own,3 which capitalism and racism condition us to do. Then we each had a short turn.
As I listened to other people at the table, I realized that few of us reach out and discharge before we decide what we pay for workshops. This reminded me how our feelings, including feelings of isolation, humiliation, and fear, often get connected to money. Money distress can be like early sexual distress: attached to many of our struggles and often making us secretive. So it has an impact on our relationships and ability to act powerfully as well as on paying for workshops.
I hope you will join me at mealtime at a future workshop for another slice of money-connected re-emergence.
Vicky Grosser
Geelong, Victoria, Australia
Reprinted from the newsletter of the Melbourne,
Victoria, Australia, RC Community
1 An Area is a local RC Community.
2 You can find this manual on the RC website www.rc.org by clicking on “Community” and then on “Workshops.”
3 “On our own” means alone.