Yesterday, I made a reference to P2P Theory as an ‘integral and participatory theory’, and I referred to a text which explains that one of the key aspects of an integral methodology is the refusal of reductionism.

In clear: human are not just objective nodes in a network, they are subjective beings with intentionality, and such intentionality reflects on the type of network behaviour they engage in. This can be clearly seen in this graph by Chris Lucas, which matches the categories of Spiral Dynamics, with network formats. This means that the distributed network format which is the basis of peer to peer relationships, is foremost a potential, a virtuality needing to be actualized, not an objective fact. People’s intentionality will determine what scope of this potential will be actualized, though a also accept that despite this, the potentiality of distributed networks itself can pull the intentionality of the participants to a higher more integrative level.

This also means that though P2P Theory uses social network theory, we always keep in mind that it is inevitable reductionism, albeit a subtle reductionism which does not reduce humans to disconnected atoms, but rather to part of a dynamic system.

Amongst the consequences are that the laws that are often used to explain network behaviour and potentiality, such as Reed’s and Metcalfe’s Law, but also the Power Law, are not natural laws that are inevitable for networks, but rather partly human creations.

This same idea is expressed eloquently in a post that I really strongly recommend for reading, in the Ideant blog.

Here’s the relevant excerpt:

“We are told not to fuss about the space between nodes, because everything is a potential node and can be added to the network. Actor-network theory tells us to ‘follow the actors’ to uncover what kind of links they form with other nodes, thus giving us the framework to consider everything a node. But a network is the opposite of continuous space, so no matter how many nodes we add there will always be, necessarily, space between nodes. Without that space, there would simply be no network.

So what are the consequences of interpreting the social as a network? According to Vandenberghe (2002), scientific explanations of social realities as networks flatten the richness of symbolism and replace it with causality, reducing interaction to economic exchange governed purely by interest. In other words, social network theories fail to account for the ontological differences between humans and non humans, explaining human agency in dehumanized terms:
Being-in-the-world among humans and non humans is systematically displaced by a formal, atomistic, intellectualistic and pseudo-economic analysis of the vulgar interests of humans who link up with other humans and non humans, translating their interests in a reciprocal exploitation of each other’s activity for the satisfaction of the personal interests of each of the parties involved. Humans are thus no longer seen as co-operative ants, but as egoistic ‘r.a.t.s’ – i.e. as rational action theorists who behave like ‘centres of calculation’, strategically associating and dissociating humans and non humans alike, pursuing their own political ends by economic means. Conclusion: when science enters in action, meaningful action disappears and all we are left with is a pasteurized and desymbolized world of strategically acting dehumanized humans, or humants. (p. 55, my emphasis)
Not only are such explanations bound to yield limited understandings of the world, but when actualized as models for organizing the social, they institutionalize an individualistic form of interest as the only viable motive for cooperation. It might not seem like networked individualism is anti-social at first, because networks thrive on forming social links. But in the long term, the effect of reducing the social to transactions of capital (even if it is non-monetary ‘social’ capital) is detrimental, since it subordinates the social to the rules of exchange. At that point, as Vandenberghe argues, “the economy is no longer embedded in the society… society is embedded in the economy” (p. 58).

The tyranny imposed by social network theories is that a node acknowledges only other nodes, and can relate to those nodes only in terms of commodified exchange. If something is not a node, it cannot be engaged in exchange, and therefore it has no value.
We are told not to fuss about the space between nodes, because everything is a potential node and can be added to the network. Actor-network theory tells us to ‘follow the actors’ to uncover what kind of links they form with other nodes, thus giving us the framework to consider everything a node. But a network is the opposite of continuous space, so no matter how many nodes we add there will always be, necessarily, space between nodes. Without that space, there would simply be no network.

So what are the consequences of interpreting the social as a network? According to Vandenberghe (2002), scientific explanations of social realities as networks flatten the richness of symbolism and replace it with causality, reducing interaction to economic exchange governed purely by interest. In other words, social network theories fail to account for the ontological differences between humans and non humans, explaining human agency in dehumanized terms:
Being-in-the-world among humans and non humans is systematically displaced by a formal, atomistic, intellectualistic and pseudo-economic analysis of the vulgar interests of humans who link up with other humans and non humans, translating their interests in a reciprocal exploitation of each other’s activity for the satisfaction of the personal interests of each of the parties involved. Humans are thus no longer seen as co-operative ants, but as egoistic ‘r.a.t.s’ – i.e. as rational action theorists who behave like ‘centres of calculation’, strategically associating and dissociating humans and non humans alike, pursuing their own political ends by economic means. Conclusion: when science enters in action, meaningful action disappears and all we are left with is a pasteurized and desymbolized world of strategically acting dehumanized humans, or humants. (p. 55, my emphasis)
Not only are such explanations bound to yield limited understandings of the world, but when actualized as models for organizing the social, they institutionalize an individualistic form of interest as the only viable motive for cooperation. It might not seem like networked individualism is anti-social at first, because networks thrive on forming social links. But in the long term, the effect of reducing the social to transactions of capital (even if it is non-monetary ‘social’ capital) is detrimental, since it subordinates the social to the rules of exchange. At that point, as Vandenberghe argues, “the economy is no longer embedded in the society… society is embedded in the economy” (p. 58).

The tyranny imposed by social network theories is that a node acknowledges only other nodes, and can relate to those nodes only in terms of commodified exchange. If something is not a node, it cannot be engaged in exchange, and therefore it has no value.”