Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Roy Bhaskar’s ideas of Critical Realism and Michel Bauwens' P2P

Awe and Shock with Critical Realism: is it compatible with P2P? 22nd August 2006 Faithful readers of this blog will know that one of its main editors (Michel Bauwens) participated at the annual conference of the International Association of Critical Realism in Tromso, Norway.
The Awe
It was a rather small gathering of about 50 people, nearly all from the academic and research communities. The reason I attended was twofold. As I have become increasingly critical of the misrepresentations and intellectual dishonesty of the integral philosophy as represented by Ken Wilber, I had been wondering if other integrative approaches might be of interest. Perhaps I should also admit that a part of me was looking for a new ‘spiritual home’.
It is in this context that I recently discovered Roy Bhaskar’s ideas of Critical Realism. CR presents itself as an alternative to both ‘positivism’, which reigns (does it still?) in the hard sciences, and to social constructivism, which is a strong alternative in the social sciences. Unlike the latter, CR insists there is a reality outside of us, and that it has certain definite features (it is stratified, there is emergence, …), despite the fact that knowledge is socially mediated. For CR, saying that reality is socially constructed is therefore nonsense. I have been struggling with postmodern approaches for years, and to me, CR restores some basic common sense. Reading Bhaskar was for me a kind of ‘aha’ experience, someone that formulated so much better what I realized I had been thinking all along. But I must admit I don’t know nearly enough about it, having just read one book.
CR has this particularity that it still believes in human emancipation, and that makes it particularly valuable in this age of disenchantement. One of my aims was to see if there was any possible connection between the general emancipatory theory and practice of CR, which seems confined mostly to academia, and the pragmatic aims of peer to peer philosophy, which gives a concrete and contemporary aim to such general emancipatory practice. In any case, the conference confirmed a lot of positive opinions I had formulated. The community seems a space for open dialogue, open to criticism, including of Bhaskar himself, where researchers share their findings to their peers. Very much unlike the intellectually intolerant atmosphere around Wilberism.
The fact that this took place in the wonderful natural environment of Tromso, well within the Arctic circle, and with the company of the midnight sun, as well as the general friendliness of the Norwegian people of the area, all that was part of the awe that I felt. Now for the shock.
The Shock
The shock came with a last minute conversation I had with Margaret Archer, a well-regarded sociologist which is one of the top figures of CR. It is one of those conversations you wish you had never had. Fresh with my newfound enthusiasm, I approached her with the invitation to make the viewpoints of CR more visible to the community around the P2P Foundation. My practical question was: did CR have any insights on relationality which could be shared with our own community? The aim was to create entries about CR interpretations of relational concepts, alongside with others from other traditions.
She responded that she (they) were totally uninterested in presenting CR as ‘one of the options’. To clarify, the P2P Foundation is a pragmatic emancipatory project, which aims to universalize the subject to subject relationships which are exhibited in peer production and peer governance. As such, you can come to it from different metaphysical points of view. It is not possible for P2P to shed this pluralism, and to become the vehicle of one particular metaphysic, even though on a personal level, I may symphatise. P2P looks within each tradition, for elements that are congruent with the practical aim of emancipation. But it strkes me as particularly counterproductive for a movement, like CR, to demand a monopoly of representation. If a sympathizer asks for assistance in presenting CR insights to a new audience, what is the point of refusing?? Does that mean that CR only wants to communicate within its own circles of like-minded researchers. Surely that would condemn it remain a small academic grouping, and I don’t see how that can be squared with a general option for human emancipation? Of course, I’m not arguing that anything goes, that CR should be everywhere, but I think the context for presenting its ideas was particularly favorable in this instance.
Then came the second shocker. We came to a discussion of Wikipedia. Margaret said she was totally opposed to it and prohibited her students from quoting it, and that it represented a consensus theory of truth which CR opposed. Now, I write as one that is well aware of the flaws and imperfections of Wikipedia, but to refuse it as a source??? It is a source, like blogs and other social media, that has to be used critically, along other sources, using one’s critical judgment, and this is of course something we can be trained in. But other established sources are equally flawed, though for different reasons. The press for instance, is that a source that we should uncritically embrace and quote from? And scientific papers, especially in the social sciences? I can readily imagine what Margaret’s students must be doing, using the Wikipedia since it is now in many cases simply indispensable, but then hiding that fact in their papers, which is really a most unfortunate and hypocritical solution. What they are not learning is to be critical about the use of such sources.
At the P2P Foundation, we do not oppose social media such as the Wikipedia, we support them for their innovative practices, which extend participation in knowledge production, but within that emergence of new practices, we are critical of its flaws, and aim to study and constructively criticize such practices, so that through better peer governance, its flaws may be gradually overcome.
The Conclusion
The conclusion is that I personally remain sympathetic to the general position and insights of CR, and will continue to study it at my own pace. Unfortunately, if the position of Margaret Archer is one that is shared by others within the CR community, it means that the input of its insights into P2P resources will be underrepresented as it is unsupported. Though it was said, including by Margaret Archer itself, that the P2P lecture had a high impact, I’m not sure how to proceed with the CR-P2P interconnection, and will keep my own initial enthusiasm in check.

No comments:

Post a Comment