<nettime> Comrades, Join the "Peer Progressive" Movement!

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http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2012/10/08/comrades-join-the-peer-progressive-movement/
Comrades, Join the “Peer Progressive” Movement!

By John Horgan | October 8, 2012

Fed up with Obomney? Sick of both Democrats and Republicans? Do you see 
the parties’ similarities—their cowardly hawkishness and craven 
obeisance to deep-pocketed donors–as more significant than their 
differences? Looking for a fresh new approach to governance and social 
problem-solving? Then you might consider becoming a “peer progressive.”
Peer progressives believe that “peer networks,” consisting of many 
people of roughly equal status freely swapping ideas and information, 
can accomplish things that top-down, centralized, hierarchical 
organizations can’t. Peer progressives “believe in social progress, and 
we believe the most powerful tool to advance the cause of progress is 
the peer network.”
That quote comes from the new book by science writer Steven Johnson: 
Future Perfect: The Case for Progress in a Networked Age (Riverhead 
Books), which I just reviewed for The Wall Street Journal. Future 
Perfect is a manifesto both for optimism—which has become my favorite 
ism—and for the peer progressive movement. Peer progressives resist left 
wing faith in Big Government and right wing faith in Big Business. They 
believe in the wisdom of crowds, especially crowds exchanging diverse 
viewpoints.
Johnson cites research suggesting that a large, diverse group often 
comes up with better solutions to problems than a smaller, homogeneous 
group with a higher average IQ, a phenomenon summarized as “diversity 
trumps ability.” Johnson elaborates: “When groups are exposed to a more 
diverse range of perspectives, when their values are forced to confront 
different viewpoints, they are more likely to approach the world in a 
more nuanced way, and avoid falling prey to crude extremism.”
Diversity, Johnson elaborates, “does not just expand the common ground 
of consensus. It also increases the larger group’s ability to solve 
problems.” Peer progressives favor diversity not just for traditional 
liberal reasons, to counter sexism, racism and other prejudices, but 
because “we are smarter as a society—more innovative and flexible in our 
thinking—when diverse perspectives collaborate.”
Peer networks predate the Internet; Johnson sees them at work in the 
Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution and other periods of 
extraordinary creativity. But the Internet and other digital 
technologies–which reduce the costs, time and effort of 
communication–have turned out to be astonishingly effective enablers of 
peer networks. Hence we get Internet-catalyzed marvels ranging from 
Wikipedia and Kick Starter to the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street 
movements.
Johnson is especially hopeful that peer networks can revitalize—even 
revolutionize—politics. He suggests how peer networks might thwart 
attempts by the rich and powerful to hijack U.S. democracy. We might 
move closer to “direct democracy,” in which we vote for laws and 
policies rather than for politicians who are supposed to represent our 
interests but too often don’t.
Political peer networks are springing up all over the world. Take for 
example the Israeli-Palestinian Confederation, which calls for 
incorporating Israel and Palestine into a Swiss-style confederation. The 
Confederation plans to hold an online election in December to form a 
virtual parliament. Saleem Ali, a professor of environmental studies at 
the University of Vermont, notes in National Geographic that the 
Confederation represents an attempt to “move beyond the stagnation of 
one-state/two-state fixes.”
The underlying principles of peer networks have been explored by other 
writers. Johnson’s evangelical anti-authoritarianism reminds me a bit of 
the journalist Kevin Kelly, whose 1994 book Out of Control insisted that 
because nature organizes itself without any centralized control, we 
should too. But whereas Kelly came off as a bit of a crank, Johnson has 
a knack for sounding reasonable.
Couple of caveats: One, Johnson neglects to address the potential of 
peer networks for solving two of our biggest problems: militarism and 
climate change. In my Wall Street Journal review, I urged Johnson and 
other peer progressives to start thinking of ways to tackle the problems 
of warfare and excessive fossil-fuel consumption.
Caveat two comes from my friend and colleague–my peer!–Andy Russell, a 
historian of technology at Stevens Institute of Technology. Andy objects 
to Johnson’s claim that the Internet is itself the product of a peer 
network. Johnson calls Arpanet, the Pentagon-funded network that gave 
rise to the Internet, a “radically decentralized system” and a “network 
of peers, not a hierarchy.”
Wrong, says Andy, who has done lots of research on the development of 
standards for the Internet. “The evidence is pretty clear that the 
Arpanet and Internet were designed and built through a hierarchical 
process,” Andy writes. “In fact its hierarchy (and well-heeled sponsor, 
the Department of Defense) was the single factor most responsible for 
the Internet’s success: it kept at bay the factions unleashed by 
democracy in international standards committees.”
Steven Johnson no doubt welcomes this sort of criticism. This is exactly 
how peer networks are supposed to work. Johnson presents his vision of 
the future, Andy and I respond with our quibbles, others respond to us, 
we bicker, resolve our differences, agree to disagree, reach 
compromises, come up with new ideas and march bravely toward a more 
prosperous, peaceful future.

About the Author: Every week, John Horgan takes a puckish, provocative 
look at breaking science. A former staff writer at Scientific American, 
he is the author of four books, including The End of Science (Addison 
Wesley, 1996) and The End of War (McSweeney's Books, January 2012). 
Follow on Twitter @Horganism.

© 2012 Scientific American, a Division of Nature America, Inc. All 
Rights Reserved.


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