[p2p-research] Bruce E. Levine: Are Americans Too Broken for the Truth to Set Us Free?

[Ryan Lanham]

My own experience on this topic (mostly with governments and with broken
businesses) is that each case is highly specialized...and rules aren't
of much use.  In general, self-esteem is essential to both individuals and
organizations to achieve productivity.  P2P assumes self-esteem to some
extent...like any individualist philosophy.  In reality, we need slow
careful processes to build and maintain self esteem.  In much of Europe and
Asia, strong cultural norms set these tones.  In more diverse places,
cultural norms do not work as well.  People need civil society organs to
help them survive the normal everyday crises that strike us all, but that
only the stonger ones survive and flourish through.

State socialism excludes the prospect of self-esteem.  The self's identity
is melded into the state...or society...as with China under Mao.  A
professor-friend of mind was recently in China and asked numerous people
what the greatest change has been in 20 years...almost all said the rise of
individualism.  This was ironic, my friend felt, because it was obvious
there was virtually no individualism by Western standards.  But by Chinese
standards, individualism has exploded.  People literally have an individual
identity.  That is new there.

I think it is fair to say that individualism is strongest globally in the
US...and most prominent amongst the economically strong.  It is also fair to
say that in some ways the US is broken.  To return self-esteem and capacity
to the bottom, some socialization process (as happened with the New Deal and
with Civil Rights) will become necessary to maintain social stability;
therefore, it will happen.  It may be that P2P systems could fulfull that
role, but only if they organize as a true net of civil society entities
rather than as fragmented little causes.

The trouble is that we are moving toward highly complex intervention
scenarios that require lengthy individualized treatments.  It may be the
case that P2P thus becomes an enabling method to help the weaker persons
gain some strength through participation in non-economic non-threatening
systems that are not handled as government hand-outs...which I generally see
as dependency-sponsoring...essentially like an addictive drug.  There is
nothing morally wrong with social programmes...what is morally wrong is
social programmes that create addicts.   Hence the TANF reforms in the US
with strict time limits, etc.  These often fail at the margins because
individual cases are too difficult to manage.  I can imagine small P2P
social organizations helping people get situated and then building their
self-esteem and capacity...from the bottom.  In essence, this is like
Alcoholics Anonymous, etc. as P2P entities.

The sorts of entities described in another list email on traits of a P2P
community need to rope together to create the sort of safety net referral
infrastructure to support the weaker persons of society who are getting
crushed by capitalism's melting and iceberg fragments.  The trouble with
spontaneous organization is that it seems to defy the usual paths of
leadership-driven formation.  Do we simply sit by and hope P2P happens and
evolves?

Ryan


On 12/7/09, Paul D. Fernhout <pdfernhout at kurtz-fernhout.com> wrote:
>
> Just to suggest I'm stupid: :-) (Marco should like this. :-)
>  "Bruce E. Levine: Are Americans Too Broken for the Truth to Set Us Free?"
>  http://www.counterpunch.org/levine12042009.html
> """
> When people get caught up in humiliating abuse syndromes, more truths about
> their oppressive humiliations don’t set them free. What sets them free is
> morale.
>  What gives people morale? Encouragement. Small victories. Models of
> courageous behaviors. And anything that helps them break out of the vicious
> cycle of pain, shut down, immobilization, shame over immobilization, more
> pain, and more shut down.
> ...
>  An elitist assumption is that people don’t change because they are either
> ignorant of their problems or ignorant of solutions. Elitist “helpers” think
> they have done something useful by informing overweight people that they are
> obese and that they must reduce their caloric intake and increase exercise.
> An elitist who has never been broken by his or her circumstances does not
> know that people who have become demoralized do not need analyses and
> pontifications.  Rather the immobilized need a shot of morale.
> """
>
> --Paul Fernhout
> http://www.pdfernhout.net/
> http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/
>
> _______________________________________________
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>



-- 
Ryan Lanham
rlanham1963 at gmail.com
Facebook: Ryan_Lanham
P.O. Box 633
Grand Cayman, KY1-1303
Cayman Islands
(345) 916-1712
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