<p><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Hi Brian,</span></b></p><p>Thanks for your piece on emulation. That point about Girard rejoins one of my own's basic conclusions about life's experience, after a lot of failed communal attempts in my youth, that there is an important need for a transcendent goal. I do not think that any human community, including and importantly 'marriage', can work without it, there is always that need for an extra something else that allows one to go beyond the purely personal interest.
</p><br>Not sure if it is related, or has been discussed before, but I often use the concept of equipotentiality in my p2p presentations, and I particularly like the expression of this value by Jorge Ferre.<br><br><p>"
<b>equals in the sense of their being both superior and
inferior to themselves in varying skills and areas of endeavor
(intellectually, emotionally, artistically, mechanically,
interpersonally, and so forth), but with none of those skills being
absolutely higher or better than others</b>. It is important to
experience human equality from this perspective to avoid trivializing
our encounter with others as being merely equal."
(<a href="http://www.estel.es/EmbodiedParticipationInTheMystery,%201espace.doc" class="external free" title="http://www.estel.es/EmbodiedParticipationInTheMystery,%201espace.doc" rel="nofollow">http://www.estel.es/EmbodiedParticipationInTheMystery,%201espace.doc
</a>)
</p><p>The full quote:
</p><p>"An integrative and embodied spirituality would effectively
undermine the current model of human relations based on comparison,
which easily leads to competition, rivalry, envy, jealousy, conflict,
and hatred. When individuals develop in harmony with their most genuine
vital potentials, human relationships characterized by mutual exchange
and enrichment would naturally emerge because people would not need to
project their own needs and lacks onto others. More specifically, the
turning off of the comparing mind would dismantle the prevalent
hierarchical mode of social interaction—paradoxically so extended in
spiritual circles—in which people automatically look upon others as
being either superior or inferior, as a whole or in some privileged
respect. This model—which ultimately leads to inauthentic and
unfulfilling relationships, not to mention hubris and spiritual
narcissism—would naturally pave the way for an I-Thou mode of encounter
in which people would experience others as <b>equals in the sense of
their being both superior and inferior to themselves in varying skills
and areas of endeavor (intellectually, emotionally, artistically,
mechanically, interpersonally, and so forth), but with none of those
skills being absolutely higher or better than others. It is important
to experience human equality from this perspective to avoid
trivializing our encounter with others as being merely equal.</b> It
also would bring a renewed sense of significance and excitement to our
interactions because we would be genuinely open to the fact that not
only can everybody learn something important from us, but we can learn
from them as well. In sum, an integral development of the person would
lead to a "horizontalization of love." We would see others not as
rivals or competitors but as unique embodiments of the Mystery, in both
its immanent and transcendent dimension, who could offer us something
that no one else could offer and to whom we could give something that
no one else could give."
(<a href="http://www.estel.es/EmbodiedParticipationInTheMystery,%201espace.doc" class="external free" title="http://www.estel.es/EmbodiedParticipationInTheMystery,%201espace.doc" rel="nofollow">http://www.estel.es/EmbodiedParticipationInTheMystery,%201espace.doc
</a>)
</p><br>I see dignitarianism as an expression of this new ethos (<a href="http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Rankism">http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Rankism</a>).<br><br>Once we accept equipotentiality as the new formulation of the ideal of equality (except that is now also already a really existing practice), we can reformulate our vision of leadership and hierarchy.
<br><br>John Heron expresses this very well:<br><br><p>The underlying logic of development in which the emergence of P2P is
best understood, may be by viewing 'participation' as the key variable,
seeing how it intensifies historically in various social formations. <br>
</p><p>"There seem to be at least four degrees of cultural
development, rooted in degrees of moral insight and not in an
evolutionary logic:
</p><p>(1) autocratic cultures which define rights in a limited and oppressive way and there are no rights of political participation;
</p><p>(2) narrow democratic cultures which practice political
participation through representation, but have no or very limited
participation of people in decision-making in all other realms, such as
research, religion, education, industry etc.;
</p><p><br>
(3) wider democratic cultures which practice both political participation and varying degree of wider kinds of participation;
</p><p>(4) commons p2p cultures in a libertarian and abundance-oriented
global network with equipotential rights of participation of everyone
in every field of human endeavour"</p><p><br></p><p>Heron adds that "These four degrees could be stated in terms of the relations between hierarchy, co-operation and autonomy.
</p><p>(1) Hierarchy defines, controls and constrains co-operation and autonomy;
</p><p>(2) Hierarchy empowers a measure of co-operation and autonomy in the political sphere only;
</p><p>(3) Hierarchy empowers a measure of co-operation and autonomy in the political sphere and in varying degrees in other spheres;
</p><p>(4) The sole role of hierarchy is in its spontaneous emergence
in the initiation and continuous flowering of autonomy-in-co-operation
in all spheres of human endeavor
</p><p>.
</p><br>