A bit of disclosure about me: I'm a Harvard master of laws student and this is my long paper project. I'm actually British, only here for a year, having studied Law and English at Cambridge. The most shocking revelation - I'm not an active Second Life user. I'll blog about why later, and feel free to try and persuade me otherwise!
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
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2 comments:
While I appreciate that it's fun for you to fool around with this project, please don't bring it near real people who are in the real world of Second Life.
I think you have an awful lot of reading to do about how constitutions get written in real life. They are not written by one person sitting in a law school, even a prestigious one, even a person with good intentions.
All sorts of things have to happen first -- committees of correspondence, constitutional assemblies, debates, articles in the media, popular referenda -- it's as if you are entirely tone deaf to this very important social process that has to start, and be the origin of a constitution -- and are just fastening on the artifact of that vital process, the Constitution itself.
First, you have to have some likeminded people, and they must hold some truths to be self-evident...
Like other tekkies or eggheads before you, you imagine that drafting it in a vacuum from the social process ("Gosh, I'm not even in SL, and I have good reason not to be, and that makes me cleaner!) will somehow give you authenticity. it doesn't. It merely makes you suspect as a tyrant.
Prokofy Neva
Hi Prokofy,
Thank you for your comments, constructive and thoughtful criticism is exactly what this project needs. I understand that the idea of drafting a constitution as a single person and imposing it upon a world would lack any sort of legitimacy and would not mimc how constitutions come about in the real world. I also understand your concerns that I am essentially an impostor in the virtual world space until I take part. But I am afraid I can't agree with your conclusions as to how this affects the project.
Historically constitutions are drafted by small committees, even one man. Looking at the history of the American constitution as a example it was drafted in secret at the Philadelphia Convention, a compromise between the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan, proposed by James Madison and William Patterson respectively. The validity of a constitution comes about through the process of negotiation around a draft and then the ratification by the people.
My vision for the drafting of the constitution is, I believe, much more open. I hope to draw people to this blog, for it to become part of the social process, to debate with them about the clauses I propose. I also hope to hold a convention in second life with interested parties in order to have a debate. Lastly I will post the draft constitution on a wiki and allow amendments to be made. In doing so I will view the project as a success if it spurs others to write alternatives rather than if the proposal this process creates gains traction. This may be a different vision of a social process to that of traditional constitutions but it is no less valid.
If to this you respond that second life does not want a constitution then you have nothing to fear, this project will fail just as it would in the real world. I would also say that you have nothing to fear as a Second Life user as the idea that Linden Labs would abide by or allow a constitution such as this in their world is absurd.
I would be very interested in how you respond to these comments, most particularly whether you think a constitution has any place in Second Life? If I was a very active Second Life user with people banded around this project would you be tempted to join it? Or is the nature of Second Life such that any attempt at a constitution will necessarily have its detractors and those who are marginalised by it and as such it should not have one? One last question, if you will indulge me, what do you think of the social process I propose in using to draft a constitution? Is there something else I should be doing to stoke a debate?
ps I don't think I qualify as a tekkie or an egghead, but who am I to judge!
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