[p2p-research] Kolakowski is dead...

[Ryan Lanham]

On Sun, Jul 19, 2009 at 4:21 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:

> > This is fairly classic gnostic position, that no progress at all is
> possible in this world.
>
> I think so many people who lived through WW2 and especially Stalinism ended
up with a great deal of cynicism about human organization.  That zeal led
the conservative movement to last as long as it did...it is now, I think it
is fair to say, dying or dead.

> I disagree, though we always pay a price and though there are always
unintented consequences and though achievements
> become a new baseline making us desire yet new advances ... progress in
some areas are possible and I think are not difficult > to see (abolition of
slavery comes to mind)

> I agree the world has progressed significantly.  We are far less violent,
far wealthier, far less Euro-centric, etc.

> I also think that the classic modernist opposition between freedom and
equality does not hold entirely. I think in fact that both > condition each
other, that both are prerequisites for each other. In peer production it is
the freedom to contribute,
> equipotentiality, which creates the equality of the right to contribute,
but of course, within the limits of the peer project itself.
> However, the principle of equipotentiality can be extended as a general
social principle.

> Classic conservatives do pit liberty against equality.  Classic socialists
tend to overemphasize equality versus other social goods...like fairness.

My own view is that post-modernism is far more libertarian than modernism.
Modernism enabled the left and Nehru jacket-styled socialism.  That sort of
systematic governmental socialism now seems absurd.  It is more dead than
classic conservatism.  Of course both still have vocal and committed
advocates.

I see a world driven by a polyarchy of governmental, for-profit, religious
and  civil society organizations trying to blunt power-based corruption and
to enable good actions like P2P voluntary models.  Most people approach this
polyarchy with frustration that their worldview is not dominant or
increasingly dominant.  The new "New" is functioning outside the mainstream,
or rather, in the polystream with a good cheer and a relaxed desire for
intellectual hegemony.  I think P2P's growth is easily associated with this
polystream.

Ryan
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