[-empyre-] from the personal to the political, a p2p confession

[magnus at ditch.org.uk]

Hi Michel,

> hi magnus,
>
> this reminds me of a text by brian holmes I once read, where he wrote that
> today art/creation, public intellectuality,  and social engagement, are
> 'merging', not only in a new type of individual, but as a new type of
> 'collective intellectual'. I think this is what the p2p foundation
> purports
> to be, not just a vehicle for one person or 'group' with the answer, but
> as
> a platform for the collective intelligence of a moving social field ...
> I'm
> guessing that Anonymous, on a much bigger scale than us, is also a similar
> type of attempt, through their stress on anoninymity, makes it different,
>
> I also noticed in the recent 15m mobilisations, there is a tendency of at
> least part of the movement to choose the new collectivity against any
> individual manifestations of leadership ..

Perhaps also these approaches are what Paolo and Julian in particular have
written about in previous weeks?

>
> obviously in the p2p foundation, my own personality looms large
>
> I'm not sure what the good solution is, but I think that a 'transcend and
> include' approach, which allows individuality to persist and be part of  a
> new collective, is preferable ...

Is this the 'benevolent dictator' question which has been (certainly in
the past) a subject for Oekonux ( http://www.oekonux.org/ ) participants?

>
> I must admit i'm still struggling with radical non-representationality,
> also
> in terms of political effectiveness; it reminds me a bit of the issue of
> tribal structures .. as far as I know the 'flat structures' and governance
> by the elders, was put on hold in times of conflict, with temporary
> warchiefs directing the wars,but when they returned and the conflict was
> over, their power withered ...

Ultra-red ( http://www.ultrared.org ) work specifically to emphasize and
experiment with hierarchies and flat(tening) structures. Also, many events
convened by arika in the UK ( http://arika.org.uk/ ), which have included
Mattin. I think his work on 'going fragile' might be relevant:

http://www.mattin.org/essays/Going_Fragile_english_FINAL.html

> It is probably when this withering away stopped occuring, that chiefdoms
> and
> eventually class society emerged; but while it worked, and really this was
> the longest period of human history, against which class society is a mere
> blip, there was room for individual leadership
>
> my feeling is that 'consensus' governance, has actually very high
> transaction/coordination costs,
>
> compare anonymous to the personalized wikileaks, which outfit is the most
> politically productive?

Yes, I find that there is a lot more mess and uncertainty in the more
distributed ways of doing. Even, is it less conclusive and could such
openness be an acceptable end point?

Best wishes,

Magnus

>
> Michel
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 4:13 AM, <magnus at ditch.org.uk> wrote:
>
>> Hi Michel,
>>
>> Thanks for sharing this personal background with us... the positive,
>> sweeping view, your sense of being a 'political artist' engaged in
>> creative and performative acts and the constructive, bringing together
>> of
>> varied individuals and paradigms.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Magnus
>>
>> > I'm not much of an art expert but rather the kind of person that gets
>> > excited about ideas and visions, but those ideas and visions are very
>> much
>> > alive and present in my mind .. So I thought that I'd focus my first
>> > contribution on political aspects of our work at the p2p foundation. I
>> > will
>> > comment later more specifically about piracy and its
>> political-cultural
>> > aspects. (well actually, after finishing this piece, it turns out I
>> went
>> > in
>> > personal confession mode, something I have actually never done outside
>> > this
>> > forum)
>> >
>> >
>> >  I hope people won't feel to uncomfortable with the personal
>> background,
>> > which is part of the story.
>> >
>> >
>> >  It all begin a first time about 14 years ago, when I had a 'annus
>> > horribilis' that really shook me to the core, I think we're talking
>> about
>> > the period 1996-97. It was a year where my father died, my mother got
>> > diagnosed with Alzheimer, the love of my life broke up, I discovered
>> some
>> > of
>> > my business associates had a criminal background and had gone off with
>> the
>> > business funds; a movie I had been working on for three years,
>> > TechnoCalyps,
>> > got stalled because of a fight between the producer and the director,
>> > cutting off my escape from the corporate world; and I had a major row
>> with
>> > my intellectual guru of the time, Ken Wilber (integral theory). Of
>> course,
>> > serious health consequences also ensued. It basically totally floored
>> me
>> > and
>> > constituted my mid-life crisis. For me this is the time when you
>> realize
>> > your life is half over, and you realize that if you don't realize the
>> > dreams
>> > and ideals of your youth, you will die cynical and disappointed. It
>> was
>> > now
>> > or never.
>> >
>> >
>> >  The way I saw it then, was that the major issue for me had been that
>> I
>> > had
>> > given up on my ideals for the creation of a better world, as corny as
>> this
>> > may sound. It seemed to me that the passionate energy involved in that
>> > desire, had been buried and was working against me, and that if I
>> wanted
>> > to
>> > discover from the combined crisis, I had to reconnect with this source
>> of
>> > energy. It was also the time when I became increasingly convinced that
>> all
>> > the objective indicators of human and social life, were turning
>> negative,
>> > and that our civilisational model was hitting a wall.
>> >
>> >
>> >  The first thing question then was really, but how do we change this
>> > overall
>> > situation as a single individual, how do we engage without actually
>> making
>> > the situation worse.
>> >
>> >
>> >  As a youth, I had been a radical leftist, active within the rather
>> > sectarian Militant tendency, then rather well-known in the UK. But
>> this
>> > engagement had led nowhere, was followed by the neoliberal
>> > counterrevolution
>> > of the 80s, and had personally exhausted me. Since I could not change
>> the
>> > world, I had concluded, by the time I was 23 and after seven years of
>> > intense engagement, the only option was to change my 'self'. The
>> problem
>> > though was that I had emotionally broken with that type of life, and
>> with
>> > Marxism, but had not really gone through a rational process of
>> thinking
>> > through what was wrong with it, I had rather rejected it as a whole,
>> even
>> > ritually burning a suitcase full of my books (yes, I know, a crying
>> > shame!).
>> > Instead, I began a personal exploration that brought me in touch with,
>> > more
>> > or less in sequence, the human potential techniques, eastern spiritual
>> > practices and theories, the western esoteric traditions (been a
>> > rosicrucian,
>> > a mason, a templar, had a alchemy teacher and drew Tarot cards),
>> ending
>> > with
>> > a 3 year period of self-study of western philosophy by the time I was
>> 30.
>> > This may seem pretty fast, but I think I have a capacity of absorption
>> of
>> > ideas and concepts that is probably beyond the average. My method was
>> > really
>> > participant observation, going into a movement fully and without
>> > reservation, practice the injunctions, see what it did with the
>> bodymind
>> > and
>> > my personality structure, and when I thought I had absorbed its most
>> > important core elements, move on. By my thirties then, feeling
>> > substantially
>> > transformed, I embarked on my business career, not because of a love
>> of
>> > the
>> > corporate world, but because I felt it was an area of cultural
>> dynamism,
>> > in
>> > which I could 'create' something and make something of my life. That
>> was
>> > the
>> > period then that ended with that big personal crisis.
>> >
>> >
>> >  In any case, as I decide to go back to my roots and my youthful
>> > engagement,
>> > I felt the need to study Marx again, but at the same time, I dreaded
>> the
>> > effort of going through not only the primary texts, but also the major
>> > interpretations of where it had gone wrong. Luckily then, I stumbled
>> upon
>> > Negri's Empire 
 It's not that I cannot find fault with the approach,
>> but
>> > here it seemed to me was at least a work with a sweeping vision, a
>> > positive
>> > view of the potential for change, and that had gone through a critique
>> of
>> > Marx 

>> >
>> >
>> >  It is after this reading experience, which took me about three months
>> of
>> > internal struggles, that I decided to follow a basic intuition: that
>> the
>> > isomorphism of peer to peer, which I literarally saw emerging
>> everywhere,
>> > this great horizontalisation of human relationships through massive
>> > self-aggregation around common value and affinities, was te lever of
>> > change
>> > I had been looking for. That civil society had now become productive,
>> and
>> > was no longer a derivative of the value creation of the corporate
>> world,
>> > but
>> > rather the other way around, that social cooperation was becoming
>> > increasingly primary, and that the older vertical institution were
>> living
>> > increasingly 'off' this new productivity.
>> >
>> >
>> >  I decided by the end of 2002, that I had to finally quit the
>> corporate
>> > world, take a 90% pay cut (actually 100% at first), and try to develop
>> > this
>> > basic intuition in all its consequences. With hindsight, the great
>> crisis
>> > of
>> > 1996-97, when all had gone wrong that could go wrong, had been a true
>> > 'born
>> > again' moment in my life, which after a period of restoration and
>> > maturation, led to the decision to create an autonomous life around a
>> core
>> > belief and intuition. Lucky for me, I had by then met my new thai
>> wife, a
>> > continual source of domestic happiness, and when I asked her if she'd
>> > agree
>> > with moving back to her home country, answered: don't worry, we will
>> > always
>> > have food and shelter, what else do we need 
 This was the final go
>> ahead,
>> > I
>> > decided to quit my job by October 2002, taking my wife, new son, my
>> mother
>> > with Alzheimer, to Thailand.
>> >
>> >
>> >  I took a two year sabbatical, consisting of six months of travel
>> within
>> > Europe, six months of studying Thai history and culture at the local
>> > university and one year of full-time reading, focusing on the long
>> haul
>> of
>> > history and in particular the phase transition at the end of the Roman
>> > Empire .. (and finally getting to read the postmodern authors I had
>> always
>> > missed out on). In 2005, I wrote my first manuscript on peer to peer;
>> by
>> > 2006, I started the online ecology, gradually introducing the wiki,
>> the
>> > blog, the social bookmarking 
 Somehow, though it is not at all
>> > financially
>> > sustainable, it seems to have been the good decision, and as the world
>> > continued to evolve, p2p emerged as more than a marginal effect,
>> people
>> > were
>> > slowly attracted to the basic ideas of the p2p foundation, and I could
>> > build
>> > a community of some type, and this year, a cooperative to achieve some
>> > type
>> > of sustainable livelyhood for the precarious researchers which hover
>> > around
>> > us 
 At home, the experience of my thai extented family, the
>> > magical-mythical forms of consciousness overlayered with a whiff of
>> > postmodern capitalism, the 19 cats, 3 dogs, porcupine, birds and fish,
>> the
>> > occasional visting monkey ; together with the online network, the
>> > equipotential cooperation and the lecture tours, give me a quite
>> > extraordinary relational wealth, not bad for a single child of two
>> orphan
>> > parents 
 In some way, I feel like a 'political artist', not that I'm
>> > particularly creative culturally and artistically, but I have to live,
>> > from
>> > my 'creations', sell my performances, and go through the precarity
>> that
>> is
>> > the lot of most artists and creators ..
>> >
>> >
>> >  Anyway, what then, is the p2p foundation, it is really nothing else
>> than
>> > the ambitious attempt to create a new vehicle for the world
>> revolution,
>> > not
>> > the only one, but hopefully one that can be a positive factor; a
>> pluralist
>> > organisation, that does not know the 'answers' but facilitates the
>> ongoing
>> > dialogue around those answers, bringing very varied sorts of people
>> > together
>> > 
 Precisely because of my convoluted past, having touched many
>> different
>> > ideological and lifeworlds, I can bring together on the same table, a
>> > 'zionic' social economy mormon, a conservative catholic distributist,
>> a
>> > deep
>> > ecological permaculturist, a unrepentent marxist, a anti-capitalist
>> 'freed
>> > market' mutualist, and many other strange manifestations of the human
>> > desire
>> > for change. Rather than looking for universal answers, we are looking
>> for
>> > commonality of desire. But this ongoing effort is helped by the
>> > 'objective'
>> > changes in society, and by the new class realities of knowledge
>> workers.
>> >
>> >
>> >  I cannot help but be truly convinced that “p2p” is the chaotic
>> attractor
>> > that we need to reformulate the emancipatory vision that is
>> appropriate
>> > for
>> > the 21st century. Technology is NOT the change, but it enables
>> struggling
>> > creative minorities to find new ways to outsmart the forces that are
>> > against
>> > emancipation and that are presently literally and physically,
>> destroying
>> > our
>> > biosphere. As the system will increasingly go in crisis mode, these
>> > struggling minorities will be joined by the desperate majorities, who
>> turn
>> > to p2p solutions not out of any idealism, but as the necessary tool
>> for
>> > resilience and survival. The key question then becomes, how do create
>> a
>> > synergy between the new p2p thinking, the construction of new ways of
>> > life,
>> > and the mass mobilisations that are the inevitable result of the
>> breaking
>> > of
>> > the social contracts on which capitalist life was based until now?
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  -
>> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>> >
>> > Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
>> > http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
>> >
>> > Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
>> > http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > empyre forum
>> > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>
>
>
> --
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>
> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
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>
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