A Critical Teacher Education Experience

P2P and Commons form of Human Social Organization

Michel Bauwens ^{^[1]}

P2P Foundation

michel@p2pfoundation.net

______________________________

Abstract

The text makes some reflections on the social role in society and the quest to expand knowledge and understand citizenship as social and political participation, as well as the exercise of political, civil and social rights and duties, adopting, on a daily basis, attitudes of solidarity, cooperation and repudiation of injustices, respecting the other and demanding the same respect for themselves. It considers the need to build other references and create conditions, having access to the set of knowledge socially elaborated and recognized as necessary for the exercise of citizenship.

Palavras-chave: Teacher Education Experience. P2P. Commons. Human Social Organization.

UMA EXPERIÊNCIA CRÍTICA DE FORMAÇÃO DE PROFESSORES

P2P e forma comum de organização social humana

Resumo

O texto faz algumas reflexões sobre o papel social na sociedade e a busca de ampliar o conhecimento e compreender a cidadania como participação social e política, assim como exercício de direitos e deveres políticos, civis e sociais, adotando, no dia-a-dia, atitudes de solidariedade, cooperação e repúdio às injustiças, respeitando o outro e exigindo para si o mesmo respeito. Considera a necessidade de construir outras referências e criar condições, ter acesso ao conjunto de conhecimentos socialmente elaborados e reconhecidos como necessários ao exercício da cidadania.

Keywords: Educação crítica. Formação de professores. P2P.

1 INTRODUCTION

My intellectual interests for the moment.

I thought it might be useful to share what I am working on and interested in, including, but also beyond the p2p/commons focus which remains central.

I remain of course interested and continue to curate developments that are exemplary of the ongoing transition towards p2p and commons[2] form of human social organization; but I have realized a number of issues, will complicate this transition.

First of all, deeper historical study into transitions has led to a serious loss of belief in the possibility of a smooth transition to a higher level of complexity. After reading Pogany and historical material, by exploring a wide range of discursive possibilities, I am now more of the opinion that disintegration precedes re-organization, and that such a transition period takes many decades, even centuries in the past. Of course, it is possible that enlightened systems of leadership can redress the societal ship, and create temporary reprieve, and even periods of growth and expansion. But they do not last and cannot avoid a disintegration later on.

Second, as I do not believe that the commons and p2p are fully autonomous but thrive or fail in a context of societal pressure, in which the state and (fractions) of the ruling class play significant roles, the disaster that is playing out on the left field of politics has important implications for the future of the commons. While red-green coalitions remain a golden road for the partner state adaptations, this path has been significantly weakened, so rethinking transition strategies and seeking wider support coalitions are definitely on the agenda.

Trans-partisan coalitions should be considered, including dialogue with populist and conservative forces. That this is actually possible is not obvious at all, and I see for the moment very little sign that this is an actual possibility for the moment, but this does not mean it could not emerge later on. I am talking here of the solidaristic and communal aspects across the political spectrum. I have been exploring intellectual traditions that I have ignored until today, and listening to their inquiries rather than reading them for the moment. It’s impossible to be integral in one’s understanding without also reading the other side’s of one’s own inclinations, and most of integral forums are doing just that, at best integrating the left-liberal parts of the spectrum, ignoring what challenges it. At some point, I will hope to read people like Ernst Junger, Leo Strauss, Carl Schmitt, in the text.

My second intellectual project is a very ambitious undertaking to go through the insights of the macro-historians, especially the integralist ones, which at the same time also means an interest in the factual historical basis, filling out many gaps in my understanding. I have called this Civilizational Analysis, and I have been mapping out these traditions via (https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Category:Civilizational_Analysis)[3]

Category:Civilizational Analysis

About this section covers 'macro history' and the dynamics of civilizational change, and an introduction to who is who in this domain. Reading these books would take a lifetime, if not more. And yet, engaging with these authors is engaging with their own sometimes lifelong attempt to make sense of world history. Reading even one of these books, may in fact change your life. If reading seems irrealistic for the moment, note that I am listing introductory videos as well; they are excellent introductions for beginners on this journey. My own personal motivation as a p2p/commons theorist is to ground the ebb and flow of commons practices and institutions (e.g. The Pulsation of the Commons) in a broader understanding of human and ecological history.

The aim is to use this better understanding of history, to insert and document the hypothesis of the Pulsation of the Commons, a world history according to the commons if you like. I may never succeed, I don’t have infinite years to live as I’m 63, but it is a great source of insights and joy and it illuminates the rest of my work on a ongoing basis. (https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Category:Civilizational_Analysis#The_specific_P2P.2FCommons_oriented_view_behind_this_project)[4]

The specific P2P/Commons oriented view behind this Project

This project aims to have a holistic vision of the evolution of humanity and human societies, but also to identity specifically the role of the commons in world history.

Our own recommendations are the following:

1. The Structure of World History: From Modes of Production to Modes of Exchange. by Kojin Karatani. Duke University Press, 2014, for a generic summary of how societies have evolved from the point of view of modes of exchange (not production!)

2. Ecological Revolution: The Political Origins of Environmental Degradation and the Environmental Origins of Axial Religions; China, Japan, Europe. by Mark D. Whitaker. This book, one of my all time favourites, shows a pulsation between extractive civilizations and regenerative moments, and their use of the commons to re-establish the commons to rebalance their civilizational models.

3. A proposed synthesis between the overall evolution of society and the specific role of the commons can be found in this draft essay on The Pulsation of the Commons:

· Placing the Commons in a Temporal Framework: The Commons as a Planetary Regeneration Mechanism. By Michel Bauwens and Jose Ramos.

4. To understand 'where we are coming from', we recommend the following booklists:

1. Sources of P2P Theory

2. What You Should Read To Understand the Commons

3. The Bauwens Reading Notes Project: I have been taken written booknotes since I started reading more intensively around my own p2p and commons engagement, and intend to digitize these notes. Thus far you will find 150+ booknotes, from the period 2003-2007. The transcripts are ongoing.

Reading all the works of Alexander Bard is a sideline of that project as well, and I’m finishing the 2nd of his 5 books (the last sixth being on the way). Lots of direct history is part of this, for example, I have been reading various books about the Persian sphere of influence, with books on Mithraism, the Syriac tradition, etc., and lots also about the end of the Roman empire and the growth of the christian religion in the preceding centuries. In the macro-category itself, I’m reading Spengler, 2 books by William Irwin Thompson, one by Braudel.

After the shock of discovering how quickly the new neo-racism and neo-segregationism was becoming hegemonic, fusing with big corporations, philanthrocapitalism and state forces at an unprecedented rate in the anglo-saxon world, I have also decided to keep an ongoing watch on this civilizational auto-immune disorder and ‘clear and present danger’ for a re-segregation of our social life, which I totally and radically oppose. I therefore also continue reading, everyday, part of the books dedicated to this topic. It is the fascism of our day and needs to be understood and opposed. It is the anti-thesis of what is required for a p2p and commons transition.

This means that on a daily basis, I will have at least 2 books in my reading pile, one of civilizational analysis and macro-history, and one outlining the various aspects of the Successor Ideology (as Wesley Yang calls it). It is of vital importance to retain the egalitarian traditions that were developed under European modernity, despite their flaws, as well as the personalistic traditions. The commons require the free association of persons that are recognized for their own complex subjectivity and retain full rights to express themselves. I keep track of this topic in a special wiki section that focuses on the progressive-egalitarian critiques. "Wokism" is not just a war machine against the working class and the progressive left, it aims at a total eradication of the egalitarian tradition, and will block the way to a post-civilization outcome.

The following are side projects that are on a wishlist; one is to read more original works of philosophy and political theory. I have started reading Eric Voegelin (who has a multi-volume history of political thinking), bought Nietzsche, Hegel and Whitehead. Another thread I am interested in is the orthodox ‘sophiological’ tradition with authors like Berdiaev, Bulgakov and others.

In terms of paid projects, I will undertake in the spring, a review of literature on precarity and commonfaire (a paid project), am working with a consortium on educational commons for sustainability, as well as helped in the creating a commons-centric strategy for a new US-based NGO linked to the meta-modern movement.

In conclusion, after the personal crisis and political impasse that I hit in the summer of 2018, and coping with the effects of blacklisting first and Covid isolation afterwards , I decided to turn the Covid period, spent in Chiang Mai with my close kin and my wife’s extended family network, as a semi-sabbatical, retreating from active writing and producing in order to renew my understanding of the world, just as I did 20 years ago at the dawn of my p2p work. I have not been actively writing, but have for example digitized about 120 booknotes, and slowly, my need and capacity for self-expression are returning.

Bear in mind though we did co-produce the Cosmo-Local Reader, which is a milestone and pivot in terms of a new socio-technical infrastructure for the world, and that I am still thinking through global infrastructures for the commons, such as the concept of Magisteria for the Commons. I finished an autobiography but it is only now that I have been contacted by publishers. We'll see where that goes.

In the back of my mind is the possibility of creating a school for transitioning, via tools like Patreon[5] and Substack[6], but I am waiting for a sign of the universe that this is the necessary next step. As long as I'm not going hungry, I prefer to focus my attention on the macrohistory project, while continuing my curation, with occasional consultancies to keep the ship afloat.

Given the 2018 crisis, I lost a great deal of self-confidence about the role I could play, but the feeling of confidence is slowly returning, and I am thinking that paradoxically, the obligation to look 'elsewhere' than my own tribe, has in fact creating a potential bridging role for trans-partisan initiatives with all those social forces that reject racism and segregationism (the majority in fact).

In other words, the creation of a truly integrative and transmodern movement that can recognize and integrate the best of the traditions of modernity (and pre- and post-), recognizing the relative truth of each.

The form of the vital planetarisation of ecological governance, and a new social compact that goes beyond humanity to include biotic communities, will have to take a cosmo-local form, if we want to avoid an oppressive world state. It requires a new regenerative bioregionalism that is not alienated from the rooted and territorial working classes, AND an embrace of the translocal and neonomadic cloud communities and institutions. This is the task I have set myself.

REFERENCEs

COMMONS TRANSITION. About commons transition. Available in: https://commonstransition.org/. Access in: 10 dec. 2021.

P2P FOUNDATION. Category: Civilizational Analysis. [This page was last edited on 16 December 2021, at 08:24]. Available in: https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Category:Civilizational_Analysis. Acesso em: 10 dec. 2021.

P2P FOUNDATION. The specific P2P/Commons oriented view behind this Project. [This page was last edited on 16 December 2021, at 08:24]. Available in: https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Category:Civilizational_Analysis#The_specific_P2P.2FCommons_oriented_view_behind_this_project. Access in: 10 dec. 2021.

[1] Bibliotecário. Diretor e fundador da Fundação P2P. Ativista e pesquisador do Peer-to-Peer e do Commons.

[3] Inspired by the work of John David Ebert, this new section (August 2021) will be dedicated to large scale and integrative human history, including the history of civilization(s).

[4] This project aims to have a holistic vision of the evolution of humanity and human societies, but also to identity specifically the role of the commons in world history.