Infighting Is Not In-Disagreeing

Infighting is not the same as in-disagreeing. Disagreements about various issues, from philosophy to strategy to values, are essential for creating a diverse, thoughtful, robust, and impactful group or movement.

Some of these disagreements are particularly important—such as when women, BIPOC, or LGBTQ+ people challenge imbalances of power.

We need to be careful not to refer to healthy challenges that are helping a movement evolve as “infighting,” or we could be weaponizing the concept of infighting and silencing critical voices.

A healthy movement is, in many ways, like a healthy individual: it is constantly growing and evolving. A healthy person regularly self-reflects and critically examines their assumptions, updating these assumptions over time.

Likewise, a healthy movement is made up of advocates who question the movement’s assumptions and behaviors and who challenge it to grow and progress.

So we need to be careful not to allow our fear of contributing to infighting to cause us to avoid raising important topics.