So, the Vibewire e-Festival of Ideas is over. I really enjoyed the discussion over the past week, and I've just posted some final thoughts for what it's worth.
Our discussion of democracy and social dynamics reminds me of the work of French author Pierre Lévy. In his book Collective Intelligence, he suggests that
today, the most pressing political problem is not assuming power but increasing the strength of the people, or groups of people. Power results in loss. A shift has occurred, therefore, from democracy (from the Greek démos, people, and cratein, to command) to a state of demodynamics (Greek dunamis, force, strength). Demodynamics is based on molecular politics. It comes into being from the cycle of listening, expression, evaluation, organization, lateral connection, and emerging vision. It encourages real-time regulation, continuous cooperative apprenticeship, optimal enhancement of human qualities, and the exaltation of singularity. Demodynamics does not imply a sovereign people, one that is reified, fetishized, attached to a territory, identified by soil or blood, but a strong people, one perpetually engaged in the process of self-knowing and self-creation, a people in labor, a people yet to come. (87-88)
('Molecular politics' as he describes it is a kind of micro- or nanopolitics reaching deep into the grassroots, much like many of the projects we've talked about here.)
Sounds to me like a pretty good description of what we've discussed here! Anyway - this has been a really interesting discussion, and I've enjoyed taking part in it. Thanks, everyone, and see you around...
In fact, Collective Intelligence (which Henry Jenkins also uses quite substantially in his well-known book Convergence Culture) is very much worth reading in the context of produsage and post-national, post-party politics; it was an important input to my paper envisaging a produsage-based democratic model for the MiT5 conference last April.
