jordan on participatory universalism ness
jordan (green)hall on participatory universalism
via tweet [https://x.com/jgreenhall/status/2107533027245011001?s=20]:
Participatory Universalism
I’ve been doing some theology recently. I’m making a distinction between what I am calling “formal universalism” and “participatory universalism.” I feel like the west has become caught in a false dichotomy between relativism and formal universalism and that perhaps this concept of participatory universalism can help resolve some gordian knots.
The distinction concerns the ontological status of the universal and, consequently, the relation between universality and particularity. Both claim that reality contains truths, goods, or forms that exceed any merely local or subjective perspective. They differ over what it means for such a universal to be present in the world.
Formal universalism apprehends the universal principally as an abstract form capable of specification independently of any particular embodiment. It begins with multiplicity: many persons, communities, practices, judgments, or instances are compared; their contingent differences are progressively removed; and what remains is identified as the universal. The movement is therefore approximately: particulars → abstraction → universal form → application to particulars.
Once abstracted, the universal returns to the world as criterion. Particulars are judged according to their conformity with it. Equality before law is a paradigmatic example: the law becomes universal precisely insofar as it disregards differences among the persons to whom it applies. The universal is strongest where the particular matters least. Particularity consequently appears primarily as contingency, variation, or circumstance—something that must either be ignored or accommodated without compromising the uniformity of the governing form.
This structure naturally produces institutions organized around rules, rights, procedures, taxonomies, standards, and specifications. Its characteristic question is: Does this particular instance satisfy the universal form? The universal stands above particulars as an intelligible pattern, and justice consists substantially in applying that pattern impartially.
that describes everything to date.. ie: any form of m\a\p
Participatory universalism begins elsewhere. Here the universal is not primarily an abstraction derived from a collection of particulars. It is a real and inexhaustible source in which particulars may participate and which they may genuinely manifest. The movement is therefore approximately: universal reality → participation → particular manifestation.
The universal, on this account, can become more rather than less visible through particularity. Particular differences need not represent deviations from universality, because *participation does not require replication. A universal good may take different **concrete forms according to the nature, history, vocation, and relations of that which receives it. ***What matters is fidelity to the reality participated in rather than conformity to a standardized representation of it. This structure naturally produces institutions organized around relationships, ****covenants, practices, traditions, vocations, and forms of discernment. Its characteristic question is: Does this particular reality *****faithfully participate in and disclose the universal good? The ******universal is present through particulars without being exhausted by any of them, and justice consists substantially in ordering relations so that each particular may participate in that good according to its nature, place, and vocation.
*but it requires ‘participation’.. which to me is a derivative of ‘replication’
**aka: replication ness.. via the death of us ness
***fidelity and conformity.. same song
****aka: cancerous distractions to the dance
*****aka: voluntary compliance.. which is aka: cancerous distractions to the dance
******faithfully participate just a nicer way to say ie: spiritual violence via still ‘structured/controlled/managed structural violence..
The Theotokos provides an unusually precise theological image of this structure. Mary does not become universal by becoming more abstract. Her significance is inseparable from the extremity of her particularity: this woman, with this body, this history, this assent, this relation to Christ. Yet precisely through this irreducibly particular person something whose significance is universal becomes present. Her particularity is neither an obstacle to universality nor an accidental container for it. It is the *concrete site of participation through which the universal reality is manifested.
*once ‘concrete/manifested’.. you just killed mary
every since that day
This suggests a *radically different relation between universal and particular. Under formal universalism, the particular achieves universality by being subsumed under a category whose validity is independent of it. Mary, considered formally, would be an instance of some more general class: woman, mother, disciple, saint. Under participatory universalism, however, the movement runs in the opposite direction. Her particularity becomes capable of bearing a reality **whose significance exceeds her without dissolving her. She is not interchangeable with any other instance satisfying “the same description.”
*not rad.. not diff.. rather.. same song
**if still talking ‘significance and description’.. still ‘dissolving’ people.. whether or not you think you are ‘interchanging’ them or not
Participatory universality certainly does not mean that every particular expression is equally true. Participation can be fuller or poorer, faithful or distorted. *The universal remains transcendent to every manifestation and therefore capable of judging it. This is what distinguishes participatory universalism from relativism. Yet its criterion is not merely compliance with an abstract rule. The question becomes: To what degree does this particular reality actually participate in, disclose, and make present the universal good?
*so still capable of killing it/us.. this is why we need tech w/o judgment
findings (aka: the things i can’t unsee) from on the ground ness deep dive and why we need tech w/o judgment
ie: the dance won’t dance unless/until it’s 1\ all of us 2\ legit free
nothing to date (ever since that day) has gotten to that root of problem
legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do
The deepest contrast is therefore between *conformity and participation. Formal universalism achieves universality by ascending from particulars into abstraction and then governing particulars through the resulting form. Participatory universalism understands the universal as ontologically prior and inexhaustible, becoming concretely present through differentiated participation. In the former, universality tends toward sameness and particularity requires justification. In the latter, genuine universality generates meaningful difference: the universal is one precisely because innumerable particulars can participate in it without either exhausting it or becoming interchangeable with one another. As a concrete example of the distinction, I’d like to look at the question of “rights” (e.g., the right to free speech or the right to free markets) as they would be embodied under formal and participatory universalism. In the formal-universalist frame, a “right” is naturally conceived as a generalizable entitlement attaching to persons by virtue of their membership in a universal class: citizen, person, rights-bearing individual. Its force derives from abstraction. The right must be stated in a form that can be applied impartially across cases, precisely because the legitimacy of the institution depends upon treating relevantly similar persons according to the same rule. Free speech therefore appears as something like: every person possesses an equal presumptive liberty to express propositions without coercive interference. Free markets appear as: every person possesses equal standing to own, exchange, contract, enter, exit, and compete according to publicly specifiable rules. The institutional problem is principally one of boundary definition: what counts as speech, what counts as coercion, what kinds of contract are admissible, what exceptions can be justified, and whether those exceptions themselves can be universalized.
*again.. same song.. ie: who’s deciding what ‘participation’ means.. is the one invite-ing.. the one ‘nicely’ ‘encouraging’ voluntary compliance at the campfire
how we gather in a space is huge.. need to try spaces of permission where people have nothing to prove to facil curiosity over decision making.. because the finite set of choices of decision making is unmooring us.. keeping us from us..
ie: imagine if we listen to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & use that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness)
the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
[‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows]
there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance
ie: whatever for a year.. a legit sabbatical ish transition
otherwise we’ll keep perpetuating the same song.. the whac-a-mole-ing ness of sea world.. of not-us ness.. of part\ial ness.. perpetuating survival triage.. for (blank)’s sake..
*The great strength of this architecture is that it creates a barrier against arbitrary power. A magistrate cannot ordinarily say, “Your speech is forbidden because I dislike its purpose,” because the legitimacy of the prohibition must be cashed out in a rule applicable beyond this particular case. Likewise, a guild, ruler, or established merchant cannot simply deny another person access to economic exchange on grounds of personal status without confronting a general principle of equal standing. Rights convert claims against power into formal constraints on institutional discretion.
*again.. it doesn’t.. we keep perpetuating same song as long as we keep insisting on any form of m\a\p.. on any form of naming the colour.. et al
Its characteristic weakness follows from the same abstraction. Because the right is defined prior to the concrete ecology in which it is exercised, the formal institution tends to regard the substantive consequences of its exercise as conceptually secondary. The central question becomes: Was the rule violated? rather than: What kind of common life is this practice producing? A speech regime may therefore be formally free while the actual information environment becomes dominated by manipulation, pornography, propaganda, reputational warfare, or algorithmic amplification. A market may be formally free while its participants become dependent, its communities hollowed out, its commons depleted, and its informational asymmetries so extreme that “consent” becomes increasingly nominal. Formal universalism is good at detecting and policing unequal treatment; it is less naturally equipped to judge whether the formally equal activity itself is participating in a good form of life.
Participatory universalism begins from a different grammar. *A right is understood less as an autonomous possession of an abstract individual than as a protected condition of participation in a good that is both common and transcendent to the institution. Free speech matters because truthful speech, inquiry, dissent, testimony, persuasion, correction, and deliberation are constitutive of a community capable of apprehending reality together. The freedom is therefore intelligible in relation to the good in which it enables participation: truth, reason, communion, judgment, political agency.
*the rights ness itself is an institution.. ‘dominated by manipulation, pornography, propaganda, reputational warfare, or algorithmic amplification.. detecting and policing.. judging.. ‘
This changes the institutional question. Instead of asking only, Does everyone possess the same speech entitlement?, one also asks: What conditions permit persons and communities actually to participate in truthful discourse? Censorship remains dangerous because it can sever participation in truth. But manipulation, intimidation, fraud, concentrated control of attention, systematic deception, or architectures that reward informational pollution can also be seen as violations of the same underlying good, even where no formal speech right has been infringed.
to me (warning ness) everything to date (since that day) has been whalespeak.. this is why we need global detox – as an embed in any mech of change..
ie: need means (nonjudgmental expo labeling) to undo hierarchical listening – so we can hear what’s already on each heart as global detox in order to org around legit needs
The same transformation occurs with markets. Under participatory universalism, *economic freedom is valuable because exchange can instantiate reciprocity, stewardship, creativity, provisioning, mutual dependence, discovery, and distributed coordination. The market is therefore not treated as a morally self-sufficient domain whose justice is exhausted by voluntary contract. Its legitimacy depends upon the quality of participation it makes possible. A market institution might consequently ask whether property relations preserve stewardship, whether bargaining relations are genuinely reciprocal, whether communities remain capable of reproducing themselves, whether producers bear the costs they impose, and whether economic activity serves rather than dissolves the goods upon which it depends.
not econ.. not freedom.. if still reciprocity ing et al..
oikos (the economy our souls crave).. ‘i should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.’ – gaston bachelard, the poetics of space
The crucial difference is that formal universalism tends to formulate rights negatively and juridically: the universal appears as a boundary against interference. Participatory universalism tends to formulate them relationally and teleologically: the protected freedom exists for the sake of fuller participation in a common good. The first asks, “What may no one do to me?” The second asks, *“What forms of freedom are necessary for us to participate rightly in what is good?” **Often, participatory universalism will produce *responsibilites* rather than rights.
*’participate rightly’ ness already violates/kills any form of freedom
better question – what conditions do we need for us all to be legit free
again.. findings (aka: the things i can’t unsee) from on the ground ness deep dive and why we need tech w/o judgment
ie: the dance won’t dance unless/until it’s 1\ all of us 2\ legit free
nothing to date (ever since that day) has gotten to that root of problem
legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do
**rights and responsibilities are same song.. both cancerous distractions to the dance
This does not make participatory universalism intrinsically more restrictive. In some cases it may protect freedom more strongly than a formal-rights regime because it can recognize forms of domination that evade juridical categories. A formally free person whose attention is systematically manipulated, whose livelihood depends upon a monopolistic intermediary, or whose speech is technically permitted but functionally invisible may possess the right in form while lacking meaningful participation in the good the right was supposed to protect.
Formal universalism places justice principally in the impartial specification and enforcement of universal constraints; participatory universalism places justice principally in maintaining the relational conditions under which particular persons and communities can genuinely participate in universal goods. Rights, in the first frame, are foundational rules. In the second, they are derivative protections of participation.
again.. rather.. derivatives of same song
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