The peasant common sense
Real-Wrold Case #2
France
This real-world case of consensus-based coordination concerns nation-states’ operational values. Specifically, it ensures that the managerial layer of a subsystem doesn’t exceed their source of legitimacy to run the code. I term agents concerned about operational values ‘sequencers’ because their prime focus is on the preservation of the subsystem’s temporal depth.
In this case, a consensus network was developed by agents who live in a geographical area that became a central route for migrants crossing from Italy to France. This example indicates that agents’ dependency on the source code’s temporal depth is a powerful motivation for them to ensure its continued evolution. The backbone of cohesion and sequencing in subsystems is the capacity of agents to harness their lived experience of the code in order to improve its validity.
Value:
Freedom
Value aligned goal:
To enable safe access to asylum procedure in France
Symmetric tie:
Cédric Herrou and asylum seekers crossing through La Roya Valley
Consensus network:
- Roy citoyenne
- The Emmaüs movement
- Villagers of the Roya valley and volunteers
External objective:
The Constitutional Council of France introduced a new legal “principle of fraternity” in July 2018, stipulating that helping a foreigner with a ‘humanitarian aim’ without asking for their papers is legal.
“Politics is made by citizens, not by politicians, as we are led to believe today. What is your role as a citizen?… When do you realize that politics no longer serves the common good?
When there is a problem downstairs, you solve it. Even if you don’t have the magic solution. You rule it with common sense. With intelligence. That’s what we do here, at La Roya.
There was a problem, which concerned us all because it was there, present, with us. It was long, difficult, but we found a solution, it was out of peasant common sense that we acted. What is happening here is telling, and a good sign for the future.”
Cédric Herrou, in conversation with Marion Gachet Dieuzeide, May 2017
