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

[Simon Biggs]

Hi Michel

So, a kind of emergent community forged around particular intellectual
concerns. I would still describe this as a "culture" but accept 100% your
premise that it is far more specific than this term usually allows.

Best

Simon


On 28/07/2011 14:47, "Michel Bauwens" <michel at p2pfoundation.net> wrote:

> Dear Simon,
> 
> I would give a much more precise meaning to collective intellectual than
> just general culture, i .e. a more or less bounded group of individual
> engaged in the same collective process. Something in between the individual
> and society at large, but which has a definite identity and offers some kind
> of process for collective learning and engagement with each other. Perhaps
> the Republic of Letters of the 18th cy. was its most extensive
> materialisation?
> 
> Michel
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 5:25 PM, Simon Biggs <simon at littlepig.org.uk> wrote:
> 
>> Perhaps the term  'collective intellectual' can be considered a synonym for
>> "culture"?
>> 
>> Also, the observation about times of social stress throwing up temporary
>> but
>> potentially disruptive power relations is important. Both the great wars of
>> the 20th century engendered social change, in terms of class relations but
>> also in regard of gender, age groups and international relations. Periods
>> of
>> war, revolution, plague and radical technological change are often seen to
>> be associated with such social change. Generally, but not always, such
>> change has been beneficial. However, in every instance many are hurt or
>> disadvantaged. The question is surely how such situations are ethically
>> handled? Or is it a mistake to even ask that question? Is it ethically
>> unsound to ask how we ethically manage disruptive change as it implies
>> somebody is in the luxurious position to ask that question? The risk is
>> patronage and with that comes power and more of the same...
>> 
>> Best
>> 
>> Simon
>> 
>> 
>> On 28/07/2011 04:30, "Michel Bauwens" <michel at p2pfoundation.net> wrote:
>> 
>>> 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 ..
>>> 
>>> 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 ...
>>> 
>>> 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 ...
>>> 
>>> 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?
>>> 
>>> Michel
>>> 
>>> 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 Š 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 Š
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>  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 Š 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 Š 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 Š 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 Š 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
>>>>> Š 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 ³p2p² 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
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> empyre forum
>>>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Simon Biggs | simon at littlepig.org.uk | www.littlepig.org.uk
>> 
>> new work email address from August 1 is s.biggs at ed.ac.uk
>> 
>> s.biggs at eca.ac.uk | Edinburgh College of Art
>> www.eca.ac.uk/circle | www.elmcip.net | www.movingtargets.co.uk
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>> 
> 
> 


Simon Biggs | simon at littlepig.org.uk | www.littlepig.org.uk

new work email address from August 1 is s.biggs at ed.ac.uk

s.biggs at eca.ac.uk | Edinburgh College of Art
www.eca.ac.uk/circle | www.elmcip.net | www.movingtargets.co.uk



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