Comments put on the old site will come here. Comments put here will not appear there, only here. Soon - the new site will be the only site!!

Many thanks for taking the time to respond to my piece, mark. I appreciate it.

Why do I want to limit the role of the PPS organisation?

It's not so much that I want to limit it as that I don't see it as realistic for any 'plans' or 'steps-towards-the-desired-goal' that can be forecast or set out now, to have much hope of reflecting the route that the unforeseeable future will take. There are just too many variables. Trying to set out a plan of this scale is an exercise in futility.

Let us look at societies that do or have existed in the past. How many of those were consciously planned out? How many of the ones with a 'blue-print' for obtaining their ultimate goals, are still with us today in the form that they set out for themselves? Is it not the case that society is a fluid, evolutionary being that resembles a living ecosystem more than a patterned, machined product? It is said that our society is capitalist at the moment. Did anyone sit down and say "what we want is a society where a small minority of us garner the fruits of everyone else's labour, and we'll do it like this..."? Historically speaking, one social system develops from its forerunner in a slow and unpredictable manner. I am sceptical that anyone even as recently as 100 years ago actually sat down and sketched out how today's society should look and how to get here. Many have forecast what was likely to happen and questioned the desirability of it but (correct me if I'm wrong), none laid out a plan with the specific purpose of arriving at what we now know as society. I don't believe that any country, let alone the world, will ever unify to pursue a plan towards a specific definition of what society should look like in such a methodical way as you have proposed.

I suggest that the route to a desirable society is uncharted, and in fact un-chartable. Having said that, I think a future world will be more fragmented and less homogenous in its overarching direction than it is even now. I think that there will be countless 'clusterings', shall we say, of humanity each following their own paths, co-operating or not with others as they see fit. Some will be idyllic, some will be horrific.

I said above that I think the PPS can serve well as a kind of clarifier on questions of practice, a refiner and cataloguer of the wealth of ideas and debate that has already and will in the future attempt to put a more participatory bent on society. What I don't think it's able to do (nor any philosophy based organisation seeking so many sweeping changes, for that matter) is bring sufficient numbers of people around to its way of thinking to do more than link thinly spread groups of similarly inclined people with each-other. We're in a world with fast approaching 7 billion people on it. I think it's extremely unlikely that ParSoc, or any other socio-economic block will ever succeed in unifying a majority let alone all of them.

What I do think could happen, and might be more achievable, is that enough 'groups' (chapters, collectives, individuals, whatever we call them) could find that they share the ParSoc values and desires, and by their very number form a larger or smaller, 'parallel' society to the others that may exist. By its very nature, it would be open to all like-minded souls, but there would be plenty of others around who would want no part in it, and even those who would make it an aim to destroy it on principal alone.

In this case, it would be up to the practitioners of parsoc to come up with ways to provide for themselves without the assistance of a large chunk of humanity. Divorce, if you like. A PPS could assist with this.

I'm a great believer in pursuing ones own goals in one's own manner without proselytising. Sure, make oneself available for any who care to listen or follow a similar path, and offer any assistance that you can to those that want to set a similar one for themselves, but absolutely give up on the idea of bringing everyone around to your way of thinking. Formulating such an enormous goal is distracting and if not impossible then the sort of thing that would take centuries if not millennia to achieve.

Mark, you and I are both from England, and must know that there are those there and no doubt in other countries too, who would seek to impose their authoritarian world view on all. We probably both also recognise that there are many who would join a parsoc if only it were seen to exist in more than theoretical form.

If a set of ideas is seen to be desirable or workable through the observation of it in practice, I believe that it will have a gravitational effect. Look at Gandhi. His ideas and beliefs were in many ways admirable yet they only became seen as workable because he lived the life he preached. You could argue that his dream never came to fruition because he died before setting out a plan or strategy for others to follow or be guided by. I actually think that his vision failed to come about because it was one for all humanity. He bit off more than any man could chew. I say that those that want a participatory society must start living it now, and that the best way a PPS could help would be by assisting them to connect, interact and succeed in a world that will remain largely indifferent if not actually opposed to them for the foreseeable future.

A final point. I'm not against organisation. Far from it. What I am worried by and dubious of is people who think that it's possible to organise successfully towards an image of a complete society. We can set out ideals and best practices (not used in the business sense in which I have no idea of what it means), but to try and set out methods for or actions that aim to co-opt a society that already exists is doomed to failure. What we have to do, if anything, is create the society that we want to see, and if some people want nothing to do with it, well, sad for them, but so be it. Those that see it as worth belonging to will be welcomed like long lost brothers.

To close, I should add that though I recognise the good intentions of Mark's original piece, and also share his dream of realising a participatory society in my lifetime, I am sceptical as to whether such a plan has any hope of proceeding towards completion given the enormity of the task and our inability to accurately forecast what will happen in the future and therefore our ability to propose strategy that has any meaning other than as that of an exercise in theory. I don't see it as practical and therefore cannot see it as serving to fulfil any purpose.

Once again, I'd like to say that my take on the whole parsoc movement is purely my own and comes with all the baggage that I have accrued in my life so-far. As such, I may be totally wrong in my assertions and suppositions, and trust that if nothing else, the opportunity to respond to this post will prove to be a useful exercise in illustrating the errors in what I believe to be a common way of reasoning against trying to make such long term plans.

(This all reminds me of the 'Greater' / 'Lesser' vehicle debates in Buddhism)

Phew! Time for a beer.

Hi Mark,

I was wondering if you had any thoughts regarding my comments on your piece, including a discussion with Tom Wetzel that went with it, that looks at how the transition might be attempted in broad terms. It might add to the discussion here or on your article