[p2p-research] fakeness of recovery

Mon Dec 28 14:59:49 CET 2009

Historical consciousness is inevitable--and you are correct that it is
overdone....Europe to me, seems fixated on the past either out of guilt or
the need for identity as their societies shatter and transform over
demographic issues (which you note).  The US markets to each other...Europe
sells the past (and some utopian non-future) to itself.  We are green...we
are young...we are peaceful...we have matured to be the way the world should
be!   In reality, we created a huge colonial mess because (after all) our
culture is superior, we did nothing about it, we've exhausted ourselves on
petty and egotistical wars and now we are fixated on meaningless cultural
fineries that will die with us because our young people realize spending
huge amounts of time refining a chocolate or a glass of wine, or spending
millions to recover some old sunken wooden boat that is 3/4 rotted, is just
a tad self-involved. In turn, our young have become hopeless idealists who
have no workable theory of the world other than I want to do what I think is
useful and cool and the government should pay for it while I throw rocks at
Group of 8 events and "hang out".

More seriously, I do admire the Nordic nation shaping and idealist turned
action plan, but the core of Europe is a basket case that makes America look
hopeful.  Hardly an American in the political or business elite isn't aware
that Germany will likely be a Muslim majority nation by 2030.  Europe seems,
once again, to be in a blissful state of ennui concerning its own very real
issues.  Ignore the demographic calamity...recycle our bottles!   Don't
engage in the messes we've made and get dirty, instead focus on the 19th
century or talk about the Nazis...all over a nice glass of wine and a pretty
confection...if only Americans were so refined they wouldn't be so obese!
Surely the tourists will still come...we've got ALL the art...all the pretty
little buildings with rococo carvings so carefully guarded from acid rain!
You'll never see a strip mall here!

The US is not so much fixated on a real past as it is sentimental about a
past that never existed.   Which is worse, I cannot say.  But both are
diseases of decline.  At least the US is aware it is ill and trying to do
something about it...though rather pitifully.

Moreover, we dwell on the past continuously in any sort of educated
circles.  There are few lessons there and almost no good ideas--god help us
from the political and economic writers of the last 500 years who meant well
but simply don't apply to the modern human condition.  Contexts vary too
much.  In that sense, social constructivists were right.  They were also
right about sensemaking and the failure to create enduring facts about
non-tautological data.  They were also right about category errors--though
that criticism is now overdone. Where they have been tragically
wrong--criminally wrong--is in stoking equivalency in moral reasoning and in
suggesting that point of view carried as a much weight as more objective
measures of "truthiness."  That has caused almost endless mischief from the
evil folks of the world (Imams, deniers, terrorists, etc.)...and it was the
social constructivists who largely enabled them and gave them legitimacy
beyond their own power structures.

I agree that what you call neoliberalism attempts self-revival.  I see it
every day.  I also believe that, from my perspective (and this is a highly
subjective opinion) that their heart is no longer in it.  They no longer
believe their own tropes, they are only rationalizing their plunder.

Dark times.  And yet the brightest of times.  The revolution of the iPhone,
the blackberry, the Nokia phone, the Internet, Facebook, etc. marches
on...shattering worlds while being happily ignored lest we forget the very
real insights of the Icarian Movement or Fourier.  Doctors hide information
and act more like business players than healers...and yet people communicate
on the Internet about their conditions and try to build relevant portraits
of the truth...no relativism there.  Some take a vaccine, some don't.  But
at least decisions are made.

On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 10:55 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:

> I think we do need historical consciousness, and not tabula rasa, at the
> same time, we need to see things fresh and with a new language ... that's
> one of the reasons I do not use any language from a historical tradition ...
>
> It's true that for the moment, Europe does not seem to be a locus of much
> innovation, at least to my experience, it's locked in stagnation and
> powerful neo-racist forces are rearing their head and gaining influence ...
>
> I heard recently that both the UK and the Netherlands have net emigration
> .. both young and retired people are leaving their country in droves, barely
> replaced by immigration, that doesn't bode well,
>
> but the U.S. mainstream is similarly past oriented, desperately trying to
> revive the neoliberal compact even when it's conditions have disappeared,
>
> but the U.S. underground seems to be more dynamic and innovative than the
> European one, at least it would seem so on the surface,
>
> Latin America is greatly innovative for the moment, perhaps the spearhead
> for the moment,
>
> I'm less sure about East Asia, it certainly appears to me that they are
> most interested in copying the fifties model for the moment
>
> but in Japan, despite the official stagnation, lots and lots of social
> innovation is happening under the radar,
>
> Michel
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 8:54 AM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Dec 26, 2009 at 8:41 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> I put my hope in social construction, community solidarity, in which
>>> technology is embedded
>>
>>
>> Yes, I agree.  But only if there is technology embedded and the
>> construction is progressive...not backward looking and sentimental.  The
>> past cannot help us.
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Think
> thank: http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>
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>
>
>

-- 
Ryan Lanham
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