Commoning is at the heart of the pattern language which is needed. But it’s not only ‘on the curriculum’ . . something to be grasped and communicated and mobilised in well-founded pattern descriptions, across diverse sectors of economic life.
Pattern language as *a field of practice itself* - a field of cultural production - needs to be cultivated **in commons**, in the college.
- Pattern descriptions will need to be framed in (digital) **media**; the media must be held in commons.
- The literacy and practical skill of curating and mobilising patterns, in an intimate relationship with practice in the living economy, is a crucial kind of **labour power** and collective capability; to be held and curated and stewarded in commons.
The (distributed, collaborating, autonomous, federating) organisations that contribute to these commons constitute federations of common culture and cultural production.
But they also constitute a federation of **dual power**; to be elaborated in new forms of direct assembly, and regional-local institutions of cultural and economic *facilitation* of everyday life and work in localities.
In all these distinct but mutually contributing ways, commoning is at the heart of the doing of pattern language, as well as being something the language speaks of.
The practices through which pattern language comes to be done, and done skilfully, and done in close conjunction with economic life, are an essential part of a political movement for a ‘new economy’ of direct production and deepened, vernacular capability.
The practice of pattern language is not just a technics (semantic web, wikimedians moderating in wiki, editorialising and semantic exploration, digital media distribution, media placement and clicks, whatever) . . it’s a politics.
>This is a proposal for a practice of making a deeply altered, evolutionary mode of **power-to** (as distinct from power-over): a way of cultivating hands-on capability in society, of new, skilful kinds, in new mutual relationships.
# See also - Commoning - Curating, stewarding and enjoying commons - Commoning as dual power