Text Sushi by Alf Rehn

Reading Yochai Benkler going on and on and on about peer production and peer-to-peer systems, I start wondering what “peer” is actually supposed to mean in this day and age. Let’s start by looking at the definition.

peer (pîr)
n.
1. A person who has equal standing with another or others, as in rank, class, or age: children who are easily influenced by their peers.
2. A nobleman.
3. A man who holds a peerage by descent or appointment.
4. Archaic. A companion; a fellow: “To stray away into these forests drear,/Alone, without a peer” (John Keats).

[Middle English, from Old French per, equal, peer, from Latin pr. See per-2 in Indo-European Roots.]

In modern theoretical parlance, we seem to implicitly adhere to a definition of a peer as a kind of abstract equal. This, however, contains a problem. In order for us to see someone as an equal, we should (I think) recognize him or her as an individual, someone like us. But the abstract peer of P2P-networks is something else, an equal only insofar as s/he exists in the same network. I think this difference suggests an inquiry.

To be continued…