[p2p-research] [Commoning] Non digital commons a lot more complicated than Free Software

Thu Dec 23 06:18:04 CET 2010

thanks Neal,

you are undboutedly right about the stress on benefits, but this can be
taken to far, and often there is a price to pay, if you start using the same
tactics as the advertising industry, or mass marketing  industry, how far
does that affect the original ideas and practice...

there are also many orgs which may not have the ambition to reach the masses
... I think most of the important people in history, say marx, freud, gandhi
did not write for the masses ... yet they had a major cultural influence ...
the key is as you say, to find 'translators' ..

On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 12:12 PM, Neal Gorenflo <neal at shareable.net> wrote:

> Yes, I agree Michel, it's about a mix of self and common interest.  It
> is more accurate to say that you have to shift rhetoric to highlight
> benefits when you want to move your cause beyond early adopters to the
> early majority.  At least that's one theory.
>
> It's nothing new to adjust your messaging in this way to grow a party,
> a movement, or sales of a product.  The book Crossing the Chasm
> explains this in the context of marketing technology products.  It
> steals from decades of diffusion of innovation research (without
> attribution I might add).  And so what I'm sharing is a perspective
> rather than an opinion.  I'm relaying casually and imprecisely
> findings from this field.
>
> Another way I learned of this perspective if from working for
> consultancy FAS.research.  FAS helped the Green Party of Vienna expand
> it's base of support by using such a strategy in 2005 (combined with
> social network analysis).
>
> From a communications strategy standpoint, the challenge to grow a
> movement from a small core to a mass movement is this that you have to
> find messages that expand your base of support (new adherents) without
> splintering or alienating the base (the true believers).  This is what
> the Green Party in Vienna was struggling with five years ago.  As it
> was told to me, the factions within the core group had problems
> developing effective messaging around the platform.  Thus, they stayed
> with the most internally consistent language and stagnated for several
> years.  They hired FAS to help them break out of this rut.
>
> Here's a 9 slide summary of the strategy:
> http://www.slideshare.net/FAS.research/the-swingfluentials
>
> Also, if you want to dig in a little bit, take a look at the two
> articles I co-authored in the attached anthology.  The main point of
> one of the articles is that the party ideologues play a central role
> in solidifying the base, but because they surround themselves with
> people that mostly agree with them, they can only play a limited role
> in expanding the base.  To grow, you have to influence / recruit
> moderates that are actually in contact with members of the opposition
> so there's a chance at influencing people on the other side.  Note
> that team-writing these articles did not produce a particularly good
> result, but the ideas are worthwhile.
>
> Have a great holiday.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 7:25 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Hi Neal, you write:
> >
> > <In order for an innovation to move from early adopters to the early
> > majority, the language around the innovation has to change from "true
> > believer" language of those at the margin to "what's in it for me"
> > language of the masses.  The language of science is a possible source
> > of inspiration since they do not focus on the moral dimension but
> > rather focus on practices that actually work.  That's why I'm an
> > admirer of the Resilience Alliance and Ostrom's work.  This is not to
> > say that the moral dimension is unimportant, what I'm addressing here
> > is the need to use inclusive, benefits-driven language to create a
> > broad-based movement.>
> >
> >
> > Do you really think the 'masses' are only moved by selfish interest, and
> are
> > not, like everyone else, moved by a contradictory mix of  selfish,
> > relational/reciprocal, and altruist/idealist motivations?
> >
> > I know of few social movements that would have been successfull with an
> > appeal to pure self-interest,
> >
> > advertising is a counter-example, but that does by promoting isolation
> and
> > envy,
> >
> > Michel
> >
> > On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 1:48 AM, j.martin.pedersen
> > <m.pedersen at lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:
> >>
> >> .......
> >>
> >> On 19/12/10 17:23, Neal Gorenflo wrote:
> >> >
> >> > This was supposed to be funny.  Comedic FAIL.  I added this only
> >> > because I honestly couldn't think of a specific example.
> >>
> >> This is an important point - and it would be great to hear Michel, who
> >> has been using this term throughout this exchange, to actually exemplify
> >> it. Otherwise, one could easily be misled to suspect that it is a demon
> >> in an imaginary closet.
> >>
> >> >
> >> > However, you don't need virulent anti-capitalist rhetoric to
> >> > marginalize this movement or create divides.  You can use ordinary
> >> > leftist phrases like social justice, which I heard aplenty at the ICC.
> >>
> >>
> >> "Social justice", in Western thought, is a 2000+ year old greek
> >> philosophical concept attributed to Aristotle, which runs through most
> >> of liberal thought since and today. _Liberal_ here doesn't mean what it
> >> does in common US parlance, where anything left of Kissinger is liberal,
> >> but is used in the sense of the "Political Philosophy of Liberalism".
> >> Social justice also appeared in the thought of Confucius a few hundred
> >> years earlier during the Spring and Autumn Period.
> >>
> >> To say that social justice is a leftist thing is entirely misleading and
> >> quite simply false. Even a neoliberal philosopher would suggest that the
> >> free market delivers social justice. Capitalism, according to its
> >> proponents and advocates, is a system that is intended to deliver social
> >> justice. In fact, I don't think there is much leftist-ism about it,
> >> really, since leftist thought is extra-ordinarily preoccupied with
> >> critiques of the liberal concept of justice, which is an abstract,
> >> community-detached concept where all are equal before the law,
> >> notwithstanding particular contexts.
> >>
> >> Indeed, you are quite right, you don't need anti-capitalist rhetoric to
> >> divide or marginalise a movement - but you will probably need a sound
> >> analysis of capital and power if you want to avoid the processes of
> >> recuperation and enclosure that most other social change movements have
> >> suffered in the past. Learning lessons from history can be a good thing.
> >>
> >> The history of the labour movement - which in itself signals a defeat of
> >> the commoning peasantry - is a prime example: managers and negotiators -
> >> self-styled leaders and representative spokesmen - undermined the
> >> interests of the working class while smoking cigars and drinking cognac
> >> with capital interests. Very similar dynamics can be observed in almost
> >> all social movements to varying degrees and the same thing goes for the
> >> commons: influence seeking individuals water down the principle waves
> >> upon which they surf and emerge as leaders of a new market expansion
> >> niche.
> >>
> >>
> >> >  I love the intention behind such phrases, but also think that these
> >> > phrases are of varied effectiveness in moving new practices for
> >> > managing society into the mainstream.  They're loaded with moral
> >> > obligation.
> >>
> >> What is moral obligation? That one or a community is obligated to show
> >> consideration to others?
> >>
> >> The GPL is an articulation of social and moral obligations, for
> instance.
> >>
> >>
> >> > In order for an innovation to move from early adopters to the early
> >> > majority, the language around the innovation has to change from "true
> >> > believer" language of those at the margin to "what's in it for me"
> >> > language of the masses.  The language of science is a possible source
> >> > of inspiration since they do not focus on the moral dimension but
> >> > rather focus on practices that actually work.  That's why I'm an
> >> > admirer of the Resilience Alliance and Ostrom's work.  This is not to
> >> > say that the moral dimension is unimportant, what I'm addressing here
> >> > is the need to use inclusive, benefits-driven language to create a
> >> > broad-based movement.
> >>
> >> The language of "what is in it for me" - also known as self-interest -
> >> is central to liberal thought (againt this is not US liberalism, but
> >> political philosophy liberalism) and at the heart of the capitalist
> >> ecnonomy --- and that is the very system of thought and frame of mind
> >> that Stallman reacted to when he conceived of the GPL as a social
> >> justice good.
> >>
> >> When Ostrom set out in the 1960s on her life's mission she also began in
> >> reaction to the all-pervasive myth (or, rather, the by now
> >> self-fulfilled prophecy) of self-interest. It is at best an incomplete,
> >> short term strategy to base a movement on self-interest, unless, of
> >> course, that is the kind of positive feedback loop that you do want to
> >> establish and institute. That is precisely what capitalist democracy is
> >> based on and perpetuates: exclusive, self-interest.
> >>
> >> Commons, on the other hand, are not based on (a narrow conception of)
> >> self-interest and both the challenge and the promise of commons as a
> >> concept of social organisation, as far as I am concerned, is precisely
> >> that it is not based on self-interest, but on notions of sociality and
> >> community.
> >>
> >> It seems to me to be rather bizarre to want to move commons into
> >> mainstream society by disregarding the manner in which commons differ
> >> from what philosophically, legally and economically underpins mainstream
> >> society, and replacing that underpinning with the very same idea that
> >> underpins the mainstream society which is sought changed. Very
> >> backwards/awkwards approach to social change.
> >>
> >> -m
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  -
> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
> >
> > Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
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> >
> > Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
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> >
> > Think tank: http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>

-- 
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