[p2p-research] a complement to the debate with brian davey

[Michel Bauwens]

see http://eric.harris-braun.com/blog/2009/05/11/id-74

*Eric Harris-Braun* wrote
this<http://eric.harris-braun.com/blog/2009/05/11/id-74>in May 2009,
but these are still very valid and stimulating observations:

*“A friend of mine recently asked me to read Carolyn Baker’s article When
facing reality is not ‘negative
thinking<http://carolynbaker.net/site/content/view/1085/1/>.
This article has finally helped me nail down some thought’s I’ve been having
about the way I’ve been often asked to look at the “collapse” of
civilization and the idea that we need to “face reality.”*

*To begin with, I’d like to affirm my agreement with Dr. Baker and others
that the ways our world is currently structured, from how we use people and
energy, to how we feed our selves, to our political and financial forms, are
completely unsustainable and are destined to be radically changed. That much
is certain to me.*

*But I’d like to suggest that the very act of framing of this process of
change in terms of “collapse” and of “facing reality,” is in itself part of
remaining within those same sets of unsustainable structures.*

*Some people have described the current era as on par with what happens in a
caterpillar before it turns into a butterfly. This process is not a simple
transformation where the caterpillar body shrinks and then sprouts wings and
legs. Instead the body of the caterpillar completely “collapses” into a a
blob of ooze, and is then re-grows itself into it’s new form starting from
what are called imaginal cells which are a kind of new butterfly stem cells
that are even attacked by the body of the caterpillar before it has
completely dissolved because they are at first not even recognized as
“self”. This process has been written about elsewhere, so I won’t belabor
it, but if you haven’t read about it before, it’s worth googling.*

*However, I actually don’t think think this caterpillar-butterfly process
really is on par with what’s happening now for one main reason: the outcome
of the metamorphosis of the caterpillar is pretty darn certain, but the
outcome of our future is not at all certain. But, this makes it more clear
to me that to describe the change we are facing now as “collapse” is even
more of a mistake than it was for me to use the word “collapse” in
describing what happens to the body of the caterpillar.*

*The word collapse comes from the roots “fall” and “together” and evokes the
idea of the falling down of a building, and its breaking apart, shattering
to pieces. The reason why that’s not an appropriate description in the case
of the caterpillar, is that its body’s dissolution is part of an active
living process that’s going somewhere, that though it is a destruction or
death of sorts, is fully energized and there are nodes of self-organization
that are part of the living process that will take it to the next step.
Collapse is a word for the falling apart of a mechanical system, not for the
transformation of a living one. And there’s the rub: at the heart of our
world’s current structures (the very ones that led to our current forms of
government, finance, politics, that are unsustainable), is the underlying
assumption that the universe is a mechanical system that we are separate
from rather than a living system of which ware intimately a part. So to call
what’s happening now a “collapse” I think keeps us from stepping into the
very “myriad opportunities it presents,” because it keeps us thinking in the
old way. If instead we conceive ourselves as part of a living system, then
how we conceive of what’s happening right now might be vastly different.*

*Here is what I see: for the last 5000 years (since the advent of the three
big inventions: agriculture, writing & money) we have been on a massive
journey of increasing consciousness and liberating potential that those
three inventions are the foundation of. I’m making no claim as to the
universality, value, goodness or evil of this journey, I’m just know that it
has happened. At the end of this 5000 year journey our consciousness of how
the natural world (including ourselves) works, and the pure liberation of
potential (both social, physical, and technological) is simply awesome. But
we are at a nexus. On one hand there are millions if not billions of fully
empowered humans on the planet; there is a vast quantity of energy that is
available to be put to use; there is an even greater quantity of information
and knowledge to organize that use; and there is an astounding set of
information processing tools coordinate that use. On the other, there are
millions, if not billions of disempowered and enslaved humans on the planet;
there is vast energy need as well as waste; and there is great
disinformation and lies spread and all kinds of machinations in place to
prevent the free spread and coordination of information. I see these two
“hands” as fully living and dynamic tensions in a vast living earth of which
humanity, with it’s budding consciousness, is now a significant part.”*


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