The term “militant” has a rather negative connotation in our society. Militant generally refers to someone who is combative, aggressive and even violent in the name of a specific cause. “Militant” people are seen as radical and extreme – with the implication that such a person would be less likely to be kind, open-minded or conciliatory.
But when Rain Phoenix uses the term “militant” love, she seemingly creates a paradox bordering on an oxymoron. Phoenix is the founder of LaunchLeft – a creative space for artists which includes among other things a record label and podcast. The goal of LaunchLeft is to empower creative artists by providing them a platform and opportunity to shine. Phoenix is also a musician and her 2019 album River was inspired by the tragic death of her brother River Phoenix in 1993. But when she says militant love, it seems to make sense, because perhaps in the face of people’s loss, trauma and suffering, we need to be extreme and radical in how we love ourselves and others in order to truly heal and grow.
Phoenix’s path to militant love starts with her belief in what she refers to as the universality of loss. Specifically, we all have or will experience significant and in many cases traumatic loss in our lives. This sense of loss often makes us feel isolated and alone. When I spoke with Phoenix on the Hardcore Humanism Podcast, she shared that discovering how common loss was made her feel more connected to rather than distant from others. And this realization allowed her to explore her own experience of loss in a deeper way.
“The more that I include others in the process of grief and loss, the more that I actually didn’t feel alone. And the more that I realized that, wow, we’re all connected through this thing that we don’t really talk about very much in Western culture and that we’re all afraid to even say out loud,” Phoenix told me. “We all either have or will experience loss in our lifetime. And that was really important for me to make that connection, because my heart immediately felt softer and more inclusive toward others. And I didn’t feel so siloed and alone with my own grieving.”
To be sure, simply recognizing the universality of loss does not necessarily make grieving easier right away. Drawing from personal experience, Phoenix described how her own experience of the loss of her brother took much longer than she’d expected. “For me, it was a 25-year experience … Previously, I was unable to articulate those feelings,” Phoenix recalled. “I was grieving, but I didn’t have this sort of breadth of maturity and age to look at it and experience it from the depth of like, an adult brain. And so that was really important that I let myself find that place over time.”
The experience of her prolonged grieving process made Phoenix question how she approached other aspects of her life. Specifically, she began to recognize that having a rigid belief on how a given process should play out was unhelpful to her. In contrast, being more open-minded allowed for a more flexible and ultimately more effective approach to her life. “Everything is still a mystery,” she said. “And it’s about coming open hearted to everything that we face, with curiosity and with concern for others, and how their lives might be affected by the things that we do.”
One metaphor that Phoenix uses to understand this open-minded approach to her life is through the lens of being an artist. She feels that all of us have the ability to be open-minded and creative in our lives, and should embrace that creativity in how we move ahead and address difficult issues. “Artists tend to do that – deviate from what’s prescribed and find their way in a much more authentic … courageous way,” Phoenix described. “I do think we’re all creatives too, because I do think that we, every day, we’re creating our own reality. So, I count every single person as an artist, when I speak like that, as we all have that capacity … I think we all have that ability to sort of decide how we’re going to greet each day, how our reality is going to be created.”
On a societal level, this more open-minded and creative “artist” mindset necessitates that we let go of more standard and traditional expectations of each other and embrace an approach that favors non-judgment and kindness. This would allow for people to explore their unique journey when facing struggles such as loss rather than expecting people to conform to a prescribed plan. Phoenix describes this societal shift as making kindness “cool.” “I was really blessed to be raised with principles based on harmlessness, and kindness towards others and all animals,” she said. “I’ve struggled with that as a musician and artist in that there is seemingly a delineation between cool and kind, like they are not equal and the same. And often, you know, being kind… it’s not as cool … I’ve always been like, how do we rebrand kindness…kind as cool.”
Phoenix feels that perhaps part of the reason that kindness has not been seen as “cool” is that kindness is seen as inherently soft and weak. But she sees the opposite as true. Kindness is perhaps the most potent form of strength. “Perhaps a misunderstanding we’ve all been fed or had is that kindness and compassion … are somehow weak, and they are somehow our worst, our most wimpish qualities…,” she explained. “There are historical accounts of how, through the process of love, compassion, and fierce kind of loving, non violent action, all of these things we’ve seen through Gandhi and MLK and Mother Teresa, just iconic people that we have witnessed change laws, change countries – and have all done it by way of love, right? The ferociousness of love — loving to the point where they were willing to die, to do what is right. That kind of courage is at the heart of what love is.”
Further, Phoenix sees the term “militant love” as more appropriate to capture the power of kindness. She feels that as we as a society associate the military with power, combining the concepts of “militant” and “love” will help people move away from feeling that love and kindness are weaker emotions. “And so I always call it more like a militant love or a militant kindness. It’s like, against all odds, I will be kind and tough about this,” Phoenix described. “And that’s why when I add militant to it, people understand it more, because we’re so oriented to war, right in our country, and might as being the strongest thing.”
On a practical level, Phoenix encourages people to translate militant love into a daily routine or practice. “The true ferocity of what it means to have, and exercise or express militant love? It is a practice. So, it requires a constant contemplation and unraveling of one’s learned self loathing, learned judgment on others …,” Phoenix explained. “Without those things, reality is a beautiful experience. We just don’t know that because we’re so busy heaping our opinions and our self-loathing on to ourselves and others.”
She feels that the militant love approach opens up the pathway to our embracing our inner artist and creating a more authentic connection with ourselves and with others. “It’s a contemplative practice, that you’re constantly like, ‘I have to be using my mind to combat what I have learned through societal constraints and cultural mores’ and all of that,” she said. “And really remember like, I decide what today is and I decide what tomorrow is. I’m creating my reality in the way that I see others and myself. So how can I be gentle with myself? How can I be gentle with others? Having to really stay focused on maintaining an authentic self is a constant practice and it requires militant love for oneself and others.”
Photo credit: Luz Gallardo
