Several posts ago, I said I'd write a little more about ownership. Obviously, this is a huge topic, so for today, I'll just do my best with a little slice of it.
And the caveat, for anyone who might stumble upon this essay without having read previous ones, is that, for all intents and purposes, I own nothing apart for some well-used clothes, books, and, in boxes back east, some smallish family memorabilia. No house or property, no car, no furnishings, nothing of size or value. Essentially, I own myself. That's it. That fact can't help but skew my perspective on a key element of Western culture.
I remember having an "aha" moment back when I was teaching community college; something I read in preparation for a class spoke of the longings of ordinary Europeans (in the times of kings being landowners and serfs owning nothing) to own their own property. Part of the impetus driving people to the "New World" was the promise of a place of one's own. I guess I had never thought of it like that, and it made perfect sense. Families guaranteed a tract of land, or told "if you make your way to such-and-such a territory, farmland will be yours", must have been willing to undergo almost any upheaval and risk to uproot themselves. Of course, the notion that this land was "free" or "empty" or "didn't belong to anyone yet" was a complete fallacy. What the original peoples lost in this land grab is incalculable.
But my perspective recently is far more informed by trying to get into the head of Mother Nature. Gaia. The Soul of the Earth. Words cannot express my dismay at this larger theft, this grab of land, water, air, "natural resources", and even outer space for power, ownership and profit purposes. It is completely unthinkable that we have given virtually no thought to Her rights, Her sovereignty, Her health. A century or two from now, I am convinced that the relatively few humans still on the planet will look back at our time in complete incredulity, stunned that we factored the health of the earth into our plans in such a limited way.
Ultimately, I don't think it matters whether I believe private ownership (let's just say of property) is -- or isn't -- a good thing. (I haven't tipped over and become a Communist, for instance. That, too, seems to be a top-down system with little genuine regard for the earth.) It's just that I don't believe it is possible. Humans cannot genuinely "own" the land in any real sense. People whose homes and properties have disappeared under water or the rubble of earthquakes, or have been wiped out by fires, volcanos, or tornados, have at least some experience of the reality, which is that Earth (and its natural processes) owns itself. She owns "Herself". Any system that doesn't respect that larger "ownership" is, at best, based on a tragic misunderstanding, and cannot be sustained.
Yeah, easy enough for me to say. Would I give almost anything right now to learn that some long lost uncle has willed me a small property and the money to maintain it for the rest of my life? You bet. Would I give anything not to be looking forward to a homeless, wandering old age, or the other hard option for me, public low income senior housing? You bet. But could I have lived any differently, given how uncomfortable I am with "ownership"? Probably not.
