Who Owns Anything?
I awoke this morning and checking on the latest Twitter updates, I came across a story that outraged lots of people. Here’s the story in a nutshell. A popular blogger wrote an article and in the middle of it quoted someone who said the phrase ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’. He promptly received a threatening letter from the Author, Susan Jeffers’ Lawyer (who is also allegedly her Husband) demanding that the phrase reference Jeffer’s ownership of it. You can read the full story at the link above, which is well worth reading, but my interest is to comment on the wider meaning of what I think is a flawed concept.
I have long believed that the concept of ownership is an idea that is mistaken and outdated. It is at the root of all conflict and until we come up with a refined upgrade we will never live in peace.
What I find particularly exciting about the time in which we are living, is that so many of our long cherished and almost unquestioned precepts on which our civilisation has been built are reaching their breaking point.
Our financial system is crumbling, we have discovered that we can no longer declare war on someone when we don’t like what they are doing and succeed easily, our penal system is already oversubscribed and authority everywhere is losing control. All of these are glitches in our collective Operating System and all are due for a major upgrade.
Let’s just think about this for a moment.
photo credit: indichick7
The planet we live on is thought to be about 4 and a 1/2 billion years old.
Our species has existed for about 100,000 of those years, maybe 500,000 if you take a looser idea of what being human is.
The longest a single person has lived for is 130 years, give or take a few years.
Yet we have convinced ourselves that we have a God given dominion over our planet. What is it that makes us believe that we have any more right to breathe than any other creature or plant?
There are many species that have lived happily long before us and there are species that will live happily long after us. I wrote recently in the post on depression and compassion about how we slant our view of the world to put ourselves at the centre of it. Well, our cultural view of ourselves, works to put ourselves bang at the epicentre of the universe and anything else we can conceive of.
Older religions were based on an idea of Gods taking a very active concern over our activities. Maybe they wanted sacrifices, (note the sacrifice was always someone lesser than us that we owned, an animal, a virgin etc) or were squabbling amongst each other about our destiny.
Current religious views from the Judaic path, ie Judaism, Christianity and Islam, are all based on their followers being the Chosen Ones. And therefore at the centre of concern and importance.
As we have become more educated about the world around us and discovered that the sun does not revolve around our planet and that actually we are merely one, of literally billions of planets, we have clung for dear life onto the idea that our planet is special because it is the only one with sentient living beings on it.
Have you noticed how everything is based around the idea that we are at the centre of importance?
Life is all a story we tell ourselves. And we naturally choose the story that meets the needs of our ego.
Let us look at the history of our species with the facts as clearly as we can.
It looks like we evolved out of Africa. And so one day, in search of a more bountiful source of food, some walked and settled in different parts of the world. With climate and geological changes, the land mass became more fractured. As a result people became more separated and developed their own individual civilisations, religions and cultural myths.
After mastering the art of agriculture, people began to settle and so about 10,000 years ago the first societies started to take shape.
The Nomadic perspective of living off the land changed to a view of mastering the land. A significant shift in perspective. And so was born the myth of ‘Man’s dominion over the earth’. Instead of being seen as a bountiful provider, land was seen as property, an object that Man could manipulate. And so began the objectification of the world.
Over time, fear and insecurity led to the notion of formal ownership of property. As the idea of Nation States were born, borders were set. And so Man became foreign to his Brothers and Sisters. What was once free for all to roam became fenced off and separated from each other. Some are allowed in, if they are deemed useful, but others aren’t. The entire basis for this discrimination, segregation and infringed freedom is force.
The only thing that contradicts the power of these Laws is, if someone with a bigger stick is able to come in and claim ownership. Then they get to set their rules. Just like the law of the playground.
When new land was found, such as the United States and Australia, land became a free for all. Whoever can reach an unclaimed piece of land owns it. Sonds very like the rules of the games I played as an infant?
Who really owns the land to grant it to another anyway?
And today people are selling plots on the moon and ownership and naming rights to stars. On the Internet we are sold domain names. In our shops we are sold the flesh and skins of animals. Many pharmaceutical companies are alleged to have bought up certain healing plants so that they control and profit from their use. And as Susan Jeffers did, companies can buy the rights to certain words and images. But who really owns these?
If someone mugs and kills someone for their wallet and gets caught they go to prison. But if someone kills and conquers a country, she becomes Queen, or Emperor or whatever, becomes worshipped and can set the rules and tell the story that gets passed down and becomes the new cultural myth.
Isn’t there something a little flawed in this picture?
I understand the argument that you need order or chaos will reign. And that all of our lifestyle, which allows us the time and ability to progress, is built on these principles. Clearly communism and revolutionary alternative systems are not the answer. However we do and will need to consider the basis of our ideas of ownership in our own minds.
Why?
Because all conflict originates with a dispute of ownership. Ownership of property, of God, of sovereignty and of perception. Essentially the conflict boils down to who owns the correct version of reality. In other words wanting to be right.
Out of the belief we are right comes the idea that we are sovereign over. Not very long ago, Wives and Children, were (and in some cultures still are) considered the property of their Husband and Father. Wives pledged to Love, Honour and OBEY.
It is the idea of ownership that causes us to look at people and animals as objects, things that we can do with as we please. Because they are ours. This then leads us into a world where slavery and abuse can exist.
We are giving birth to a new idea of the world. Our growing sensitivity to the pain and suffering of others is pushing for these changes. The specific example I gave is one of many cases that demonstrate that our current view does not work. So too is the music industry’s losing battle with piracy. Ditto Hollywood. Ditto Prada and every other form of property.
Peace can only come when we stop trying to be God. We do not own anything, not even our body. We merely borrow for a relatively short period of time. Then it returns to the Universe’s recycling centre.
The world is not ours to change. It is ours to experience.
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