Sense

I have been absorbed lately with the study of networks, nations, society and communities, their mechanisms and structure, their essence and their conceptual relationships. This interest has been with me for the last seven years and it has always been able to amaze me and help me understand the different roles one takes in as an individual and as a member in a society and communities, which in themselves are networks.

In the middle of my studies in law school I encountered Alfredo Cruz Prado’s book “Ethos y Polis” Basis for the reconstruction of a political philosophy. This work affected me deeply, it struck an essential chord of my being, it helped me realize that there is something fundamentally wrong in society and that illness had affected my way of interacting with society since I was a child.

Ethos y Polis is a philosophical treatise that embarks on the gigantic task of revisiting modern socio-political structures from their foundations. It starts of by stating proof of the insufficiency of the current political categories (liberalism, socialism, communitarian’s doctrines, etc.) and it then goes to establish that political rationale must be a practical rationale.

Dr. Prados’ thesis states that in order to revive politics and shift it’s instrumental nature towards a true “common good” one must start by dissolving modern political knowledge, a solution must not come from a vision of State as the primary source of politics, it must come from the recognition that politics flourishes from active agents (purposefully avoiding the term “individuals” that helped establish the liberal state), and their practical rationality. Hoping that a well informed and well connected individual will always find virtue and consequently act “ethically”.

So in layman’s terms, the future of politics must be ethics. Dr. Cruz Prado is not wrong in this, as a matter of fact there is a strong tendency to dismantle the “State” and with that the means for traditional politics and now, in the face of inter-connected non-territorial communities, authority (as in recognized knowledge) is starting to regain ground over power (as in bestowed faculties by nature or legal statutes).

I believe that this is one of the critical debates in our society and it must not evolve around mere concepts we need to gather knowledge from all fields of human activity and design systems that allow humans to be active with a deep notion and understanding that even though we may present certain differences, we are all part of an intricate inter related system, we are above all human.

So this is the first post of what I wish to be a series of digressions and analysis of human systems (call them networks, nations, societies or communities), their nature, origins and potential, originally inspired by Dr. Alfredo Cruz Prados and now reignited by Dr. Lawrence Lessig and his work on corruption.

It will be a wonderfully bumpy ride.