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

Tue Jul 22 11:11:56 CEST 2014

Dear Michel,

thank you for your detailed response.
My focus indeed is the societal transition, not the acronym or the project
or the concept.

In fact, absolutely looking ahead, I pose myself a few questions. Maybe I
am getting lost and got confused through the very idea of hacking a
country, or maybe I am loosing my mind altogether, hehe.

I agree that the concept of hacking a country is dubious. In my eyes, not
because they are not executable programs, but because there are established
power dynamics and encrusted processes and structures very difficult to
overcome, among other things. Also, "plugging in" to a current government
without changing the underlying logic exposes itself to the risk of loosing
everything again after the next elections. Doesn't look like a stable
transition to me, although such efforts could become valuable "prototypes".

So the questions:
- Could it be more productive and effective to concentrate on "our" ground:
P2P connections, direct connections between us, and focus on forming
virtual and physical communities, do business, learn and teach together,
produce and share our knowledge, holding up the "open" principle in
whatever we do, instead of tackling the state level?
- Is the "Commons Transition" limited in any way if it doesn't espouse the
"partner state" principle? Alternatives?
- On the other hand, we could think of a "Commons Utopia". How would it
operate, would there be a state? What about the law system for example? How
would a "Transitioned Commons" body be organized? Anarchy? Or is it beyond
the P2P idea to address the state level itself?

I think to have understood that societal transitions don't occur in
isolation, or in niches, or layers, but as holistic expressions of the
current world view. Please forgive the rhetoric, but collaboration,
sharing, community, connection, along sustainability and harmony with our
environment and fellow living beings are new values no doubt emerging more
and more (along with their dark sides though: totalitarianism, control,
centralization, domination), which are though still trapped in a corset of
the status quo. So maybe with time things may "just" emerge, and we should
just joyfully play along and try things out, create, throw away, fork and
share. Utopias don't seem to work well in reality.

Maybe these questions lead nowhere, divert attention and valuable time and
produce more confusion than ideas. And even if they are valuable, they
might not be answerable in an email, and not in a few minutes. I am curious
about reactions...

2014-07-21 23:45 GMT-05:00 Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>:

> 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:
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>
> 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
>
> <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates:
> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>
> #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/
>
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