[iDC] What Does a Distributed Politics Look Like? Panarchy

[Paul B. Hartzog]

On 9/19/07, John Hopkins <jhopkins at neoscenes.net> wrote:
> In the extreme, maybe the social system labels this as anarchy,
> though I would not call it that.   I wouldn't call it anything.  It's
> best to simply circumscribe it with a vital praxis...

Panarchy. (have been working on a Ph.D. about it here at UMich since
my M.S. in World Politics ;-)

> I think a distributed politics looks like ... nothing in particular
> ... except a dynamic community that values difference, promotes
> idiosyncrasy, and allows an open flux of be-ing.

Just as Locke's language of "tolerance" is not adequate, the language
of "openness" is also insufficient to capture the necessary engagement
of difference that occurs after panarchy.  Beginning with an axiom
recognized from complex systems and networks -- diversity is essential
to robustness and conscious life processes of networks (the awakening
of the social?) -- network culture demands

1) the deliberate production of new axes of difference (pluralization)
as a reflective process of exploration.
2) the pursuit of "the different" (Other) as the primary
differentiator of our own being, i.e. recognizing and actively
embedding Otherness back into ourselves (individual and culture).

cf. Bill Connolly on The Ethos of Pluralization
cf. Umberto Eco:  Ethics is Only Possible in the Presence of the Other

-Paul

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http://www.PaulBHartzog.org
http://www.panarchy.com
PaulBHartzog at PaulBHartzog.org
PaulBHartzog at panarchy.com
PHartzog at umich.edu
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The Universe is made up of stories, not atoms.
                 --Muriel Rukeyser

See differently, then you will act differently.
                 --Paul B. Hartzog
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