What a fascinating article:
Full Essay Here.
It’s a long read, but well worth it. Michel Bauwens (the author) argues that with today’s peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplace, all of the individuals with an interest in spiritual development will mature as a collective.
… this turn to the collective that the emergence of peer to peer represent does not in any way present a loss of individuality, even of individualism. Rather it “transcends and includes” individualism and collectivism in a new unity, which I would like to call “cooperative individualism.” The cooperativity is not necessarily intentional (i.e. the result of conscious altruism), but constitutive of our being, and the best applications of P2P, are based on this idea. Similar to Adam Smith’s theory of the invisible hand, the best designed collaborative systems take advantage of the self-interest of the users, turning it into collective benefit.
…the balance is again moving towards the collective. But if the new forms of collective recognize individuality and even individualism, they are not merely individualist in nature, meaning: they are not collective individuals, rather, the new collective expresses itself in the creation of the common. The collective is no longer the local “wholistic” and “oppressive” community, and it is no longer the contractually based society with its institutions, now also seen as oppressive. The new commons is not a unified and transcendent collective individual, but a collection of large number of singular projects, constituting a multitude.
All in, a pretty cool article. Of course, I’m an a-religious person, but I can see how the discussion and structure as applied to religion has similarities with pretty much anything else, from soccer to music to economics to advertising.
