Dealing With Things That Challenge Us #5: social contract vs. guiding principles
(Note: Oops, at first I posted my draft last night. So now I have to fix it. This is an edited post!)
danah boyd has a post from January that gets to one of the roads we wander down in quest of finding ways to coexist with each other online. We may lump them under such labels as agreements, rules, contracts, guidance, etc. Here are some snippets from her post that comes in the context of Movable Type (Six Apart) buying Live Journal apophenia: social contract vs. guiding principles
Why is social contract changing to guiding principles?
I am fascinated by the distinction between a guiding principle and a social contract in this context. It seems to me that the distinction is not between the two, but the attachment of the "who" to each one. Members can have guiding principles. And "owners" (in this case) can have social contracts. Or am I missing the point all together?
Lawyers didn't like 'contract' in the name 'social contract' because it does not have the structure of a contract. The principles are the same, though. Six Apart doesn't want to kill LiveJournal. Don't worry --- I thoroughly screened them to make sure they weren't evil.
- from Brad's announcement
The term 'social contract' does not come from legalese - it's an ancient political theory with a rich history. In short, a social contract is a set of culturally agreed upon norms that help maintain social solidarity. In most cases, the elements of the social contract are never explicated or concretely agreed upon - they just become norms. In almost all cases, people give up freedoms because it is good for the society as a whole. Thus, elements of the social contract are usually articulated as 'that's just wrong' or 'you just don't do that.' Lying, stealing, cheating, killing... these are all things that fit into the social contract. Of course, many elements of a society's social contract are written into stone through law but the social contract came first.
Guiding principles are not the same as a social contract. A guiding principle is what those in power, those building the system, those who are actually doing the structural guiding are seeking to achieve. A social contract is something that is culturally accepted by all parties. For example, as a guiding principle, spam avoidance means that the creators will do everything in their power to make LJ a spam-free service. As a social contract, everyone involved will do their damnedest to rid the service of spam.
I know that the intentions are the same and that the goal is to just be careful of legalese, but one of the things that makes LJ so special is that there is a social contract between the participants. This needs to be maintained for LJ's culture to survive, even if the term is being removed from its legal cannon."
Technorati Tags: guidelines, social_contracts, contracts, MT, LiveJournal, danah_boyd
posted by Nancy White at 8:55 AM
1 Comments:
Social contract vs guiding principles. Of course these could be identical, and one could accuse people of being picky to distinguish between them. But I interpret the social contract as being more organic, rising out of some natural human collaborative sensibility like the Golden Rule. Guiding principles, to me, signify a more intellectual approach to reach the same ends.
The purpose of both is to provide a foundation for social interaction and relationship going forward. Until they are acknowledged and made conscious in the community, there is the unappetizing prospect that the embryonic community will waste years quibbling over the protocol of every social configuration and situation.
It took the WELL over 5 years before I believe a social contract settled into acceptance by most of its members. Experience proved the limitations of banging the collective head against walls, and though the WELL is considered by many to be a closed and exclusivist community, that may be how a social contract arrived at organically tends to work.
As WELL management, we could have insisted at any point that Guiding Principles be accepted, based on our wise observations backed up by the support of members who shared our point of view. But the WELL was meant to be an experiment with little precedent to learn from. Times have changed.
These days online social networking communities formed around matrixes intentionally designed (like wooden bee hives) to encourage "settlement" - cannot afford to allow years of social turmoil to take place as members struggle to discover their own guiding principles.
These days you'll find imposed guiding principles embedded in the initial User Agreement boilerplate that you agree to when you register. No one reads it, of course. And to be fair, most of those I read tend to make sense in their definition of unacceptable behaviors. Be Considerate, for cryin' out loud! Mutual respect is a good thing.
As a communard, I lived for 12 years following a set of "agreements" (tell the truth, don't use anger as a weapon) accepted by hundreds of us because we believed they were necessary to preserve the integrity of our intention to foster a long-lasting community. If you didn't accept our agreements, Goodbye. Nobody was forcing you to move in.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home