Essay of the Day: The Convivialist Manifesto

Via:

“This manifesto aims at naming the common point shared by the countless initiatives seeking for an alternative to the current organisation of the world. Their common point is the search for what its authors call a Convivialism, i.e. for an art of living together (con-vivere) that would allow humans to take care of each other and of Nature, without denying the legitimacy of conflict, yet by using it as a dynamizing and creativity-sparking force, a means to ward off violence and killing. The list of its supporters is already quite impressive: Axel Honneth, Alexander Jeffrey, Alain Caillé, Susan George, Edgar Morin, Chantal Mouffe. The text below is a summary of the manifesto, which is available in full on their website.”

Here is the beginning of the Manifesto:

DECLARATION OF INTERDEPENDENCE

Humanity has never had so many material resources as well as scientific and technical expertise at its disposal. Taken as a whole, its wealth and power have grown to an extent unimaginable in previous centuries. There is no evidence that this has made us any happier, but there is little desire for a reversal of the trend, given the prevalent view that new opportunities for personal development and collective achievement continue to unravel every day.

Yet, conversely, there are plenty of reasons to believe that this accumulation of power cannot continue endlessly, in its present technological logic, without becoming self-destructive and threatening to the moral and physical survival of humanity. The first threats that we are required to address are material, technical, ecological and economical. In a word: Entropical threats. We are, however, much less able to even begin to imagine answers to the second type of threats, that is moral and political threats. In a word: Anthropogenic threats.

THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM

The evidence lies before our eyes: humanity has managed to achieve stunning scientific and technological progress, but it has so far remained powerless at solving its most essential problem: How to deal with rivalry and violence between human beings? How to encourage cooperation while allowing for confrontation that does not lead to deadly violence? How to resist the unlimited and potentially self-destructive accumulation of power over humanity and nature? If it fails to answer this issue promptly, humanity could disappear, even while the necessary material resources are in place for us to prosper, if we fail to recognise the finiteness of these very resources.
Many elements of a response are already at our disposal, such as those that have been offered by religions, moralities, philosophy and political doctrines over the centuries, as well as by humanities and social sciences. Moreover, the initiatives which point towards an alternative to the current organisation of the world are also countless, and carried out by tens of thousands of organisations and associations, and by tens or hundreds of millions of people. They appear under a wide variety of names, forms and scales: the defence of human rights in general as well as those for citizens, workers, the unemployed, women, and children; solidarity economy and all its components: consumer’ and producer’ cooperatives, mutualism, fair trade, alternative and complementary currencies, local exchange systems, mutual aid associations; open-access and sharing based ITs (eg. Linux, Wikipedia, etc.); de-growth and post-development; slow food, slow town, slow science; the claim for the buen vivir, the assertion of the rights of nature and the praise of the Pachamama; anti-globalisation, political ecology and radical democracy, the Indignados,Occupy; the search for alternative wealth indicators, movements promoting personal transformation, voluntary simplicity, frugal abundance, dialog initiatives between civilisations, care theories, emerging debates around the notion of commons, etc.

In order for such rich initiatives to successfully overcome the deadly dynamics of our times, and so that they are not limited to a mere protest and palliative role, it is essential to bring together their strengths and energies. Hence the importance to name what they have in common and draw attention to this rather than to what opposes them.

ON Convivialism

Their common point is the search for what we call a Convivialism, i.e. for an art of living together (con-vivere) that would allow humans to take care of each other and of Nature, without denying the legitimacy of conflict, yet by using it as a dynamising and creativity-sparking force, a means to ward off violence and killing. To achieve this, we now need to prioritise the definition of a shared “doctrinal” minimum that can fuel, sustain and legitimise an array of simultaneous answers applicable across the globe.

This basis should address at least four (plus one) basic questions:

* The moral question: what can individual hope for and what should they forbid themselves from doing?

* The political question: what are the legitimate political communities?

* The ecological question: what can we take from nature and what should we give back?

* The economic question: how much material wealth are we allowed to produce, while remaining within the boundaries framed by the answers provided on the moral, political and ecological planes?

Anyone is then welcome to add, or not, to these four questions, ones related to the relationship to the supranatural or the invisible. In other words: the question of meaning.”

Read the rest of the document here.

1 Comment Essay of the Day: The Convivialist Manifesto

  1. AvatarPatrick S

    Interesting.

    I’ve previously seen the concept of the ‘Convivial Society’ explored and advocated by Ivan Illich in his book Tools for Conviviality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich#Tools_for_Conviviality).

    As a software engineer I found Illich’s overall philosophy a bit austere and overly anti-technological. Just from this article it sounds like this new initiative does draw from Illich’s line of thought but is also a broader church.

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