Friction and Reactionary Politics
On the uses of "friction"
I saw this post on Substack, from Harjas Sandhu, which touches on a question I and many other urbanists have thought about: the extent to which “friction,” or discomfort, is a good thing, a kind of social glue that gets us out of our individual bubbles, and the extent to which urban life is in some ways both about conveniences (proximity to the coffee shop, to your friend’s place, etc.) but also about good, worthy inconveniences (having the be around people all the time).
Sandhu writes:
One of my minor pet peeves is when people talk about wanting friction or inconvenience.
I get what they’re saying—our attempts to make everything perfectly frictionless and convenient have eroded a lot of hidden avenues that kept us connected to other people, particularly in our immediate vicinity—and I agree in spirit. But these kinds of people often advocate for strange policy choices like “get rid out self-checkout lines” or “dating apps should be banned” instead of focusing on big-picture solutions like better urbanism and community-style housing and friendlier public spaces and whatnot. It’s not even that those things are wrong per se, it’s just that the framing is utterly unpersuasive because it’s so confused.
Focusing on friction instead of connection leads people to weird “retvrn”-type places in which they complain about the present and long for the nostalgic past. I would be much more amenable to these kinds of conversations if they were more focused on what we really want and how we can move towards those things.
This comment, I think, displays one of the meta-problems that plagues discussing anything these days: once an idea or a term of art becomes associated with one side politically, or one ideology, it becomes difficult for folks on the other side to use it without appearing to legitimize the other side’s entire worldview which is, or is thought to be, implied in that term of art.
It reminds me of this post I saw on Bluesky the other day, the short of it being that this nobody thinks disliking any kind of art opens you up to being a Nazi, I guess:. It’s basically “Hitler was a vegetarian” from the left.
I guess I’m saying two things: one, friction and connection are in some ways the same thing, or at least overlapping things. And two, the fact that some of the very-online weirdos who talk about friction turn out to be reactionaries doesn’t mean that the narrow point is wrong. It feels like a great deal of the work we do is not discussing the actual ideas at play, but instead trying to even figure out what we’re saying, or policing the way people whose broad politics we disagree with talk about these things, etc.
Now, I do know what Sandhu means. He means that “friction” is too vague, and is stated in the negative, and so that formulation of the idea can become a conduit to reactionary ideas. People don’t get married anymore because it’s too easy to have casual sex. People don’t have kids anymore because it’s too easy to be childless. People are too consumeristic because it’s too easy to buy stuff.
You can end up at homesteading and “tradwives” and all this weird stuff, because instead of saying, how can we feel more fulfilled and more together and less reliant on screens or stuff?, you’re focusing on the adversity, the idea that if something is difficult it must be worth doing. And that can take you in the wrong direction.
This whole thing caught my eye because I wrote about this back in 2022, and that piece seemed to resonate with people. The genesis for that piece was an informal talk I attended with some Catholic urbanists—reactionaries, to some people—and one woman, an interior designer, made a fascinating point.
From that piece, summarizing her point:
She mentioned fireplaces.
A gas or electric fireplace is trendy, easy, and marketable. A real wood-burning fireplace is messy and requires more work (though I guess it’s also pretty salable.) But the thing about a real fireplace is that once you start the fire burning, you don’t know exactly when it will end, and you can’t turn it off. It creates a kind of pleasant, productive friction. “Let’s put on one more log.” “Oh, let’s just stay till the fire goes out.” That uncertainty is binding. It creates a setting for socializing that the gas fireplace doesn’t. “Alright, guess it’s time to wrap up,” you might say, as you flick the switch off.
There’s something subtly alienating, isolating, and anti-social about the smooth, frictionless operation of the thing. The good friction of the real fire draws people together in a way that is awkward to do entirely on your own, when circumstances are working against it.
The idea that circumstances affect our behavior so deeply strikes a lot of conservatives as a denial of agency and personal responsibility. Yet conservatives get that incentives shape behavior, which is almost the same thing. I like the idea of thinking about these things in terms of friction.
It seems like a lot of America’s problems come down to taking away friction where we should have it, and artificially adding it where we shouldn’t. The good friction that helps us socialize and linger is removed. Social media makes it easier to act on impulses that would otherwise dissipate. Being awash in guns makes it easier to act on rage or depravity. Yet the bad friction that makes it a nightmare to start a business or go to the doctor and pay the bill is multiplied.
You could do a lot with this insight, but the bit about the fireplace was really striking to me. There really is something isolating and alienating about everything just working smoothly, at your command. And yet, it’s very, very difficult to disavow that kind of convenience once you’ve tasted it.
Personally, I do feel that a lot of things are too easy; that the number of ways to waste your time has increased as technology has improved. There are only so many ultimately useful ways to spend your time, but it feels like the number of useless uses of time is always increasing. I think the “friction” talking point is kind of that: the desire for there to be fewer ways to waste your time, and also for there to be more reasons to do the things worth doing. That it would just be a little harder to wriggle out of a mature, adult life.
I suppose there is something “reactionary” about imagining certain things as worthwhile and other things as not worthwhile. So I see how you can subtly go from “I wish I could be more productive” to “Society needs to crack the whip on all these other lazy people.”
What do you think? Does it make sense to think of worthwhile things as inherently involving some kind of good friction/meritorious unpleasantness/etc., or is that itself a kind of conservative editorializing or judgmentalism? I lean towards the former, but am curious to hear all your thoughts.
Related Reading: