[P2P-F] FLOK (the concept) and P2P: what's next?

Tue Jul 22 06:45:55 CEST 2014

Dear Fabio,

As I have written elsewhere, I agree with your assessment that the FLOK
project was a major advance for the p2p/commons/open movements globally by
moving it to the systemic and societal transition level.

At the same time, it has a number of lessons and issues we can learn from.
To summarize,

1) the very concept of hacking a country is dubious (societies are not
executable programs),

2) the original FLOK concept is to exclusively linked to immaterial
commons, and though as a research team and process we changed this to a
substantial extent, there was permanent resistance to move in that
direction (remember the defunding of the spanish translation of the
transition plan as one sign of this)

But as  you know, the most fundamental critique to my mind are that any
open/commons transition process must be prefigurative, i.e. the internal
practices must reflect, to a maximum extent, the world we want to
co-construct. Though the research team functioned this way, it was not the
case for the project in general.

 In this particular context, the flok management practices, extremely
personalistic and hierarchical, the inability for truthful internal and
external communication, the incapacity and unwillingness to keep
engagements, the defamation and demonization of perceived opponents,  are
features that we see as contrary to the spirit and practice of p2p culture.
It's a political culture that I see as deeply opposed to the kind of open
society we are fighting for.

The fact is that FLOK projects will most likely be managed in the same
spirit and practice in the future, and from the threats and intimidation I
and my associates have experienced after my departure, probably worse. (for
example, for the first time in 12 years of curation, I have been accused of
disseminating hate speech, i.e. critical and multi-perspectival approaches
are interpreted as a form of hate). At the P2P Foundation, we have been
seeking commonality with very diverse forces; the mentality that those who
are not fully with us, are necessarily enemies, is very alien to our
practice.

In these conditions, I am very sceptical that FLOK as a concept can be
divorced from FLOK as an authoritian mgt practice and from  the particular
political organization that is behind it.

So, when the p2p-foundation is engaged in transition projects, and we have
our first project for next spring, we will honour the FLOK as a pioneering
effort, but we will talk about Commons Transition, and make sure the
internal processes reflect the p2p values.

You cannot establish a new society with practices that are contrary to what
you claim to achieve, and second, to my mind, Commons Transition indicates
a deeper and more integrative transition than FLOK suggests (i.e. a focus
on socialized knowledge only). In our own practice, we will continue to
stress not just the material conditions for socialized knowledge, but the
direct creation of material commons and cooperative forms.

We will not oppose FLOK, as the people who want to know will engage in the
full knowledge of the pro's and con's of such an approach; and for the sake
of not permanently inflaming a conflict, we will not reiterate or push for
our interpretation, unless specifically asked for it, as you did here,

At the request of the p2p-collective, who has also been subjected to
intense pressure, I will not directly engage in controversies with flok mgt

but I am happy to engage with anyone else,

Fabio: my mea culpa will not be the one you expect. It is that I looked the
other way for too long out of loyalty, and should have reacted much more
earlier and stronger in defending due process for the people who were
forced to leave the project, and the expectation that perceived opponents
should not be systematically defamed. When it became clear in March that
engagements with third parties would not be honoured, that is the moment I
perhaps should have left. From then on, unacceptable incidents kept piling
up, but I stayed out of loyalty to the historical opportunity that the
project represented. I still think it was the right decision to stay and to
wrap up a finished (but still provisional) body of work, which can be used
by the global open/p2p/commons movements elsewhere, as the basis of new
participatory projects. Next time, we will compromise less and necessarily
work with prefigurative governance processes.

Michel

Message: 2
Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 11:27:53 -0500
From: Fabio Barone <holon.earth at gmail.com>
Subject: [P2P-F] FLOK (the concept) and P2P: what's next?
To: P2P Foundation mailing list <p2p-foundation at lists.ourproject.org>
Message-ID:
        <CAOL8i_=xbuiaYXO5_Oqg3pLFi_MZrD841ihThDCut9M5dbtD8w at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

I?d like to suggest to come to agreement on using a term for FLOK the
concept which goes beyond (or better said encompasses) FLOK the project.
This is unfortunate but may become inevitable as the P2P Foundation in this
list announced it would refrain to further use this "brand". However, I
believe the concept expressed through this acronym and the meaning it
conveys is compelling, clear, and it has also become widely known in the
last months.

One of the most important achievements of FLOK the project in my eyes is
that it contributed to quite an evolution of the P2P concept. It denotes a
new level of thinking: from looking at P2P projects, communities, commons,
to also include a "macro-level" of societal organization, being the state
its current most-known form (which of course had been addressed before, as
you can see in [1], but maybe from less pragmatic points of view?). In no
way I mean to lower the pioneering and outstanding work of the P2P
Foundation so far, rather the opposite.

I don't think it's in the heads of the FLOK project, nor would I see it as
in their values and interest, to hold on to the acronym FLOK to be only
used for the project. However, continuing to use the acronym might make
things less clear in conversations to understand if we are talking about
the project or the concept.

Thus, either we find a new identifier, or we come to peace with FLOK and
continue to use the acronym for weaving a Free and Libre Open Knowledge
society (I am assuming here that this could be a common banner for P2P
efforts to actually form viable societal models. I am happy to learn about
divergence on this one).

The main motivation for this is to hope for further conversation about FLOK
the concept and  possible forks and evolutions of FLOK the project, without
having to fear entrenched reactions due to the situation about FLOK the
project (which, in my humble opinion, can be soothed by professing a "Mea
Culpa" from ALL sides).

Comments?

P.S. This will be posted as a separate thread on the Spanish-language list
as well.

-- 
*Please note an intrusion wiped out my inbox on February 8; I have no
record of previous communication, proposals, etc ..*

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

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