The meaning of ownership or possession in modern society.
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My hovercraft is full of eels
An unusual event occurs, involving a cat and a pencil sharpener. The event is witnessed by two people who report it differently. One says, "The cat swallowed my pencil sharpener", while the other says, "My cat swallowed a pencil sharpener". It would appear, then, that one guy owned the pencil sharpener while the other owned the cat. Or is that too simplistic?
The fact is, there are many shades of meaning to the little word 'my'. It may technically be a possessive pronoun, but it doesn't always imply possession. Or perhaps possession itself has many shades of meaning.
I can take my cat and my pencil sharpener to the top of a tower, but I can only throw one of them over the parapet, with impunity. Wasting a perfectly good pencil sharpener is reprehensible, but wasting a healthy cat is both cruel and criminal. Cat ownership does not confer absolute rights over the cat. Rather it is akin to cat stewardship. Though I can certainly buy a cat, what I am buying is the privilege of enjoying the cat's company, while accepting responsibility for its wellbeing.
And what about my friend? Though we use the possessive pronoun, a proper friendship is a mutual respect and affection in which ownership plays no part at all. In this case 'my' implies not ownership but a voluntary association.
One of the recurring tragedies in society is seen when individuals fail to understand the shades of meaning of 'my', making no distinction in their minds between my coat, my cat, my servant, my daughter, and my wife. Nowhere is this attitude more institutionalised than in Saudi Arabia (where I have worked and seen it at first hand). But it is not unique to Saudi and is probably alive and well in a small town near you...
What's mine is mine, sometimes
But not always. My passport, for example, clearly states "This passport remains the property of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and may be withdrawn at any time". And with it would go 'my' freedom to conduct business in a foreign country.
My wallet is more straightforward. It is clearly mine as it was a Christmas present from my daughter. But what about the cash inside, in this case 302 Qatari Riyals? In an abstract sense, the money is mine as I can exchange it at any time for goods or services, but the banknotes themselves most probably belong to the Bank of Qatar. In the UK, it is a criminal offence to deface or destroy currency and while I haven't checked, the same is probably true for Qatar.
The more you look at it, the more obvious it becomes that possession or ownership is rarely a clear cut issue. In particular, ownership doesn't confer absolute rights in terms of use. Take something as simple as my guitar. It is definitely mine, but other people can have a legitimate interest in where, when and how loudly I play it. Again, my guitar is quite old and was never a valuable instrument. Guitars like mine get thrown in the skip every day of the week and no-one bats an eyelid. But supposing it was a rare Stradivarius violin, irreplaceable and worth several hundred thousand pounds? Even if I had purchased it outright (as if!) do I have the right to destroy it? Isn't such an instrument part of our common heritage, every bit as much as an original Renoir or Picasso? Are we back to the cat here - isn't ownership of such a treasure actually stewardship, for future generations?
This Land is 'my' Land
If we can agree that there can be no absolute ownership of something as insignificant (in the grand scheme of things) as a Stradivarius violin or a Rembrandt, how much more should this be true of the very planet we live on? In fact, land ownership is a highly dubious concept. If I buy an acre of land, to what depth below the surface is it 'mine'? Maybe to 4000 miles where it comes to a point at the center of the Earth? Do I own the wildlife and plant life? Am I allowed to breed hornets and scorpions? Am I allowed to erect a hideous structure so that all the neighbours complain that I've ruined 'their' view? Can someone own a view? Do I own the air above my land? To what height? Is that passing seagull temporarily 'mine' too? There are just too many nonsensical implications to absolute land ownership.
In practice, land ownership can be nothing more than the privilege to exclusive use and occupancy of a piece of land for a period of time. It is a social contract with the rest of society who have legitimate interest (again) in how I conduct myself on 'my' land. The idea of ownership 'in perpetuity', which implies the absolute right to bequeath the land to my heirs is highly suspect at best.
Well, we've come a long way since the episode of the cat and the pencil sharpener. I'll leave you in the company of that most generous spirit among The Beatles, George Harrison.
Thank you for reading.
I Me Mine - The Beatles - George Harrison
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Hi parrster - I particularly appreciate favourable comments from the other end of the plank. And it is a sign of fair-mindedness in you. Thanks for the read :)
I love this brother man Paraglider. I'm with you. People fighting over land is like fleas fighting over a dog.
Fleas fighting over a dog - nice one Micky! Thanks for the visit, always welcome :)
It's all on paper which ironically is what everything these days is based on and even more ironically, paper comes from the land.
Austinstar - everything comes from the land, even ourselves. That's why traditional land ownership is suspect. Thanks for the visit.
Interesting hub. I liked it. The way your brain functions is refreshing!
Thanks Sylvia - sometimes I sits here and thinks; sometimes I just sits :)
In my opinion this is a fine hub with many wonderful tools for us to use. You wrote this in a fun to read presentation. However, how do you refer to the wife you cohabitate with? Thanks for sharing this Dave.
Thanks, Para, for another marvelous hub. Once again, you made my day. I mean, you made the day. Q.
Hi Jason - if I'd pitched in strongly against land ownership and inheritance, I'd just have driven people into their corners, hence the lightweight approach. I have no problems with the phrase 'my wife', because I understand the shades of meaning of the word. Thanks for the read :)
Hi Q - I think you're entitled to a day of your own every once in a while! Thanks for commenting :)
When I have seen photos of how an astronaut sees the planet from their spaceship, I often have thought, "humans fight over possesion of land, even kill." The planet is not ours, we are simply guests. Enjoyed this hub with your unique style. :)
Voted up!
VioletSun - Yes, and it doesn't have to be that way. There have been plenty of human societies that have a far more symbiotic relationship with the natural world than what we in the 'developed' West consider normal. Thanks for the read :)
Very interesting post. Such a simple word connoting so many emotions. Many lives have been taken in protection of what is considered personal possessions. I've often heard it said "You can't take it with you when you die..." meaning we are only stewards of whatever it is.
Thanks for the reminder; it is timely as your post synchronizes with 'If you Believe it you'll See It' by Wayne Dyer, a book that I'm in the process of reading. Rated Up!
It's "my" opinion that humans, especially the "western" variety, have grown abysmally short sighted. Perhaps grown is the wrong word, maybe I should say we have been conditioned to see things in very stark contrast; black and white as it were.
Over the centuries we have acquired a vast amount of knowledge. Unfortunately, with some notable exceptions, among which I think you should be included, we have gained no new wisdom in the process and have actually lost what little we once possessed.
You touched upon the root of it in your response to VioletSun when you mentioned symbiosis.
I think you'd have gotten along well with the likes of Socrates and Aristotle.
Then again, you'd probably enjoy a conversation with Stephen Hawking as well.
DynamicS - I've not come across the Wayne Dyer book. Sounds interesting. Thanks for the visit :)
Richard - short-term thinking is certainly a big problem as we've recently seen in the miserable attempt by the US government to address the debt crisis. Politicians are only interested in re-election or, when that seems unlikely, in kicking the biggest problems into their successors' watch. In Albania, someone can plant olives on a hillside and own the trees and their produce while someone else can graze sheep on the same hillside. No-one owns the hillside.
I liked the style, in which you enveloped your innermost ideas. I concur with you in your view on land ownership... For better or worse, but making most out of limitations (land limitations, chiefly) is what shaped the Western civilisation. Cheers.
Hi Moncrieff - there used to be far fewer people and more or less enough land to go round. This is no longer the case, and the time to revisit the issue of ownership is long overdue. Thanks for commenting.
I have to chuckle on how when it comes to how in a dither people get about the debt ceiling, and such. Money is the man made invention, and creative types such as myself flourish without letting it rule our lives. No wonder I smile and find more creativity than some. Also, you sort of have to be in the US to understand the debt ceiling issue fully. There has been a debt for years that remained unaddressed, but only now is it becoming a prominent issue with the Tea Party influence on the Republican Party. It Obama had never been elected, then the Tea Party never would have blown this problem out of proportion.
Good morning, Dave...Interesting analogies, falling well within the confines of collectivism...
In America, 67% of the people own their own homes and /or property...That is not going to change anytime soon for any number of reasons, primary of which are the benefits of private property ownership..
One of the most significant, and not so clearly evident, is that it diffuses power. When the government owns all property, individuals have little protection from the whims of politicians.
The institution of private property gives many individuals a place to call their own, a place where they are safe from depredation by others and by the state. This aspect of private property is captured in the axiom, "A man's home is his castle." Private property is essential for privacy and for freedom of the press. Try to imagine "freedom of the press" in a country where the government owns all the presses and all the paper, like the BBC on steroids.
Advancing an ownership society can also improve environmental quality. People take care of things they own, and they’re more likely to waste or damage things that are owned by no one in particular. That’s why timber companies don’t cut all the trees on their land and instead plant new trees to replace the ones they do cut down. They may be moved by a concern for the environment, but the future income from the property is also a powerful incentive.
In the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, where the government controlled all property, there was no real owner to worry about the future value of property; consequently, pollution and environmental destruction were far worse than in the West. Vaclav Klaus, prime minister of the Czech Republic, said in 1995, “The worst environmental damage occurs in countries without private property, markets, or prices.”...Which I find ironic considering this from a kleptomaniac who couldn't keep his hands off other's personal property ( pens, gloves, etc )...
Going a little long here but I wanted to give the idea of individual ownership a fair airing, and as always you do provide for that with the expected rebuttal...
Incidently, cats do not have owners, they have staff...
Voted up and useful...Larry
Hi SweetiePie - I agree, a healthy relationship with money is vital to general wellbeing. It does no good to obsess about it. Thanks for commenting :)
Hi Larry - I think you'll find I'm not arguing against ownership. I'm arguing in favour of redefining ownership to recognise that it is a privilege conferred by social contract. Nor am I arguing for government owning all the land; I'm suggesting instead that nobody should own it, just as nobody owns the Pacific Ocean, the Moon or the Ionosphere.
You're correct about cats though!
On that hillside in Albania, they are evidently participating in a symbiotic relationship.
Can you imagine a world in which all relationships function in such fashion? I've been imagining it most of my Life.
It's not only Albania. I remember Sufi saying that more or less the same arrangement is quite common in Greece. In fact, land ownership is a relatively modern invention. In England, prior to the Act of Enclosure, there were vast tracts of common land, then this happened:
"Enclosure or inclosure is the process which ends traditional rights such as mowing meadows for hay, or grazing livestock on common land. Once enclosed, these uses of the land become restricted to the owner, and it ceases to be common land. In England and Wales the term is also used for the process that ended the ancient system of arable farming in open fields. Under enclosure, such land is fenced (enclosed) and deeded or entitled to one or more owners. By the 19th century, unenclosed commons had become largely restricted to rough pasture in mountainous areas and to relatively small parts of the lowlands." (source Wiki)
In other words, Government fenced off the land and sold it off to its cronies, for the profit of a few and the detriment of the many.
Your meditations on the concept of ownership are quite enlightened. You are quite right to point out the fallacy of absolute possession. I do like the idea of not owning the land, but being responsible for your actions upon it. Shouldn't we just be the custodians for future generations?
Raging Bile - custodianship, or stewardship, seems to me exactly the correct degree of 'ownership'. And I'd certainly like to see some kind of independent review process before anyone could bequeath land to his/her heirs. Thanks for commenting :)
We cat staff understand such niceties as the egalitarian concept of stewardship. Perhaps a crash course in servitude should be required before one is allowed to "own" any other "thing." Thanks for another challenging and thoughtful piece.
Yes, cats are great levellers - even better than pencil sharpeners ;)
I agree, we enter this world owning nothing, not even ourselves, and we leave the same way, owning nothing, especially not ourselves.
Along the way we get to have use of some stuff, just the use, we may think we own some of it, but in reality our possessions, or those things we think we own, actually possess us, until we let them go, or have them taken from us.
Now of course once you understand that fact, and stop trying to own anything, you realize that you actually have the ability to use everything you can lay your hands on!
That's neat!
aguasilver - that's right. Ownership becomes relative in all but the smallest, least consequential things. I like the idea of seeing it as privilege, with attached responsibilities.
You have presented your ideas about ownership in a very thought provoking manner. Thanks for sharing.
Reminds me of the expression "Possession is nine-tenths of the law." You've written an interesting discourse on that remaining 10%!
jean2011 - It's that kind of subject. You have to lead people gently before challenging such fundamental concepts as ownership. Thanks for the read.
livelonger - in practice, I think the nine-tenths bastion is being eroded gradually. Maybe we're approaching four-fifths ;)
"I like the idea of seeing it as privilege, with attached responsibilities."
Indeed, all things are privileges extended to us, by our fellow man and by society, we actually have no rights whatsoever.
All authority comes with responsibility.
It would be hard to win much support for the idea that we have no rights, but it's true that rights are social conventions and neither absolute nor eternal. When/if society breaks down, individual rights are among the earliest casualties.
I like the idea of stewardship but I guess in the world we live in today, it can only be a Utopian idea - I wish it were otherwise. Unfortunately, we've come to believe that possession means security and power.
I think we might be forced, kicking and screaming, to reassess some Utopian ideas soon enough, as more and more of our conventional 'wisdom' is found lacking or downright flawed. We could start by outlawing debt-interest based economics! Thanks for the visit :)
Thank you so much for that next-to-last-sentence!
Aye! There's the rub!
Hi Richard, when the house of cards comes down, a lot of people who have never questioned anything are going to be bewildered to the point of madness. In that, I agree with our friend Magdy.
Even those who have for years been questioning things may be surprised, because we seem to have persuaded ourselves that the veneer of society could survive a total collapse.
Personally I would see a rapid decrease in the worlds population as the gloves came off and folk started taking what they wanted as best they were able.
The world would be a bad place for a few months, until the new 'alphas'had taken control by killing all opposition to their control, or been killed by a 'stronger' alpha.
Darwins' survival of the fittest will reign for a while!
As for me, I will stay low until the killing stops and then see where we go from there.
'Fittest' means 'best adapted to the changed environment'. I'm reasonably confident that rationality, intelligence and social awareness will eventually win through. Time will tell!
'Fittest' means 'best adapted to the changed environment'.
Agreed, but I think those other qualities will take longer to be restored; rationality, intelligence and social awareness are luxury privileges extended only when brute force has been tamed by generational opulence, i.e. Grandad was the ruler, father was a hard man who kept order and I am civilised after never having to be challenged... at that point I agree, the graces will return.
My aim will be to stay alive and protect my family (close and extended)until the winners have established control.
Make no mistake (for it could be fatal) when the proverbial hits the fan it will be kill or be killed and any hesitation will be suicidal.
I do not wish to have to kill, (but I would in defence of others)hence I chose to withdraw to safer areas where I may be able to stay invisible until the winners are known, and accommodations can be made with them, for brute force, once established, needs 'facilitators' who can use brains to back up their brawn.
That is what 'best adapted to the changed environment' comes down to in the end result.
You may not like that summation, but ultimately I think you know it is how humanity functions in the absence of plenty.
We are a cold and dangerous species.
John
John, that's a pretty clear statement of your own low estimation of humanity, but please don't try to enlist me in that world view (your second last sentence).
The collapse of the global economy doesn't necessarily imply a collapse of civilisation. It might even be the release of true civilisation from economic slavery of the many to the few.
"It might even be the release of true civilisation from economic slavery of the many to the few."
Again agreed, and I hope for that, but expect the worse.
History shows us clearly that where society such as it is collapses, terror reigns before sanity prevails, and sanity normally only wins out by the use of 'authorised' force. (As in UN or equivalent)
I would cite Bosnia, Uganda, indeed virtually anywhere in Africa that has experienced turmoil, and Argentina during the collapse, and..... there are many instances I am afraid.
My world-view is based upon experience rather than conjecture.
Like I said, we can hope for the best, but should prepare for the worst.
"Like I said, we can hope for the best, but should prepare for the worst."
That's always sensible. We can agree on that!
Paraglider: Another owners site to enjoy..or is it mine now that I've taken a look.
Isn't it 1890's England where a famous politician said that all land owners were theives robbing the poor by making them pay rent....so yer ownership is a rich mans or womans game meant to keep you in the poorer classes...I think they call it Monopoly..we own you pay.
Cats like to reside with the ruling classes as they get a better deal when being thrown to the wolves,from a great hight it seems. So what are you doing with a pencile shapner up the Eifle Tower, writing you will???
However it does beg a question in Australia, land ownership is being claimed by our Aboriginal against us settlers and the courts of the land are see it their way. Yes they were the owners, yes we did take it off them and yes that doesn't matter because we are white anglo upper class owners. I wonder if they want to rent it? Isn't possession 99% of the law? We(the whites) used the bloody land, thats after we killed a few and made it productive so we could sell meat and wool back to the home country, the British!! So wasn't it all justified, we won, you lost?
I don't know what I am really saying. Ownership stinks but sometimes it has some claim of merrit in the battle where the strong just walk all over the weak.
You own whatever you can get into your shroud, everything else was borrowed for the period you could hold it.
If the Aborigines manage to get your land by legal challenge, they got it in the same way your ancestors did, by winning it in battle.
What you can hold, is yours for the time you can hold it.
Kind of dog eat dog, but that's how the world is in reality, in your case it took 400 years for the Aborigines to get their possession back, in Israel it took 1500 years for reclamation by force.
As NOBODY owns anything, all we are talking about is the temporary possession of objects or land.
Aguasilver: Gees mate were giving dogs a bad name here and they're meant to be our best friends. Temporary I appreciate but it still gives the rich a way to rob the poor ( ie rent, and yes because their is the potential for gain there will always be someone to inflict pain, dogs of war or something like that.
Interestingly Aborigines may have been the first settlers in Australia some 5000 years ago, so they took possession needing only to learn how to survive in this vast and strange land. Surviving in the desert takes some doing, and yes Aboriginals found Ding's helpful, dogs of peace it seems. Some historical facts suggest that Aboriginals were unique in recognising land ownership (temporary) as it appears that owners were paid if outsiders ( Aboriginals from a different tribe)used their land with shares in hunting bounty. Their spritual life seemed to give sigificant geographical sites (ie Ayres Rock) common property status and connected them similar to Songlines. Matbe they had a deeper understanding of the land we occupy than we did, or ever will.
It seems our war like culture (were dog are taught to kill) has a very possessive nature even if it is only Temporary....savage and brutal. So yes lets question ownership and remove just one more reason to be savage, spoiling for a fight.
House ownership and the ever increasing price of this dream for new starters is one of the main ways of gross robbery by the rich and unethical. The housing bust in ecconomies going West are just a symptom of over-priced assets that have no such real value. So the internal forces of ownership are just as brutal as the external one's, were dogs are also the victims!!!
Ausseye and Aquasilver - no matter how people come into possession of land, i.e. by purchase or by theft, they tend never to accept subsequent dispossession with a good grace! That's just another reason why I think it would be fairer if land could never be owned in perpetuity, but only ever rented from the community at large, reverting to common land at end of tenure or death of tenant. Of course that's not simple and has problems of its own, but so has the status quo.
Great idea, but as you say problematical, i.e. I get my share of communal land and live a healthy life during which that land feeds me and my family, then I die and it returns to communal ownership and my wife and six sons (hypothetical) are landless, so the community elders think this through and offer them (say)50% of 'our' land back and another 50% scattered among land that had no progeny to 'inherit' the right of occupation...
The real problem is that we just keep expanding our populations willy nilly and God only made the earth once.
It's the law of diminishing returns trying to feed increasingly large numbers of folk, in the end the guy with the biggest sword starts taking what he wants and look out all nice folk.
Obviously there's no new land being created. Also population density is very non-uniform, so there's no 'one size fits all' solution. But the old 'grab it and keep it' approach isn't helping the situation in the slightest. Something will have to give.
Wait...what happened to the cat?! Just teasing. If I want to swim naked in MY pool, the neighbors will have to get over it!
I've never been comfortable with the idea of owning property, although it is the measure of the "man" (or woman) where I come from. It's not something you would want to discuss at your sister's wedding though, would be leaving yourself open to insults and ridicule. Oops too late! Just another of your many admirers Paraglider. Thanks for the Beatles (George Harrison) concert!
I really enjoyed your article, as usual. It was great until you got to the land part. While owning land can seem to an abstract theorist like a bad thing, is it not so that only in lands with private property rights has propserity ever grown to the point of lifting 90 percent of all the people out of a life of drudgery?
laureate78 - that's bet5ween you and your neighbours :)
snakeslane - you are right that many people don't want to discuss something they see as a fundamental right. You have to choose your moment, ant style!
James - a model that works well at a certain time and place, may not be applicable everywhere and for all time. I think the issue of land ownership is well worth close examination.
Another great hub Paraglider. Clearly "ownership" is a human cognitive invention that has no basis in reality other than cultural myth. Native Americans had nothing equivalent to the European concept of land ownership. If you think about it, the whole idea starts to seem pretty absurd (as do so many human concepts).
In my view ownership, as in property (and profit) relates to the human objectification of the world, something that Western culture has developed to an extreme. That is certainly not the only way to approach life. It is just as reasonable to view everything as having a subjective aspect (everything in the world--plants, animals, and even "inanimate objects"--is a subjective "self"). When you start to view things in that way then ownership seems not only absurd, but immoral, in the same way that ownership of human beings (i.e. slavery) is immoral.
Joyus - even the European concept of land ownership is far from universal. It really only took hold around the Industrial Revolution, before which common land was widespread.
Personally, I think the facet of ownership that is least sustainable is 'in perpetuity': the notion that one can buy (or more often commandeer) a tract of land for one's family, forever. That makes no sense at all.
I was born in England, my wife in Denmark, both my children were born in Spain, my son lives in New York and my daughter lives with us in Penang, Malaysia...... Guess you can see that we don't particularly hold title anywhere, YET both my children think of themselves as Spanish, I think of myself as English (never British) but hold my first allegiance to Spain having lived there for 25 years, and my wife is confused as to where she may belong!
Having said that we are probably in the small minority of the world who do not have defined roots nor feel any need to stay in one place forever, and that is in itself good, for if all the world were fiscal and physical nomads as we seem to be, then no country would flourish as there would be nobody to keep the infrastructure functioning.
Once we almost bought a farm to aim at self sufficiency during the coming chaos, but failed to acquire the title before someone else bought it, had we won that sale, then maybe we would be farming up in the inner mountains of Andalucia and rooted to the spot.
The family who sold it had died out, or decided that farming was less attractive than city dentistry, not sure which, but they no longer wanted that land.
I imagine that their ancestors would have been disgusted that they sol the farm, and that if we had bought it my grandchilden would have either wanted to hold it forever, or sold it to the next wannabe farmers.
I find it impossible to reconcile my opinions on this, and think this requires more thought to determine what could work on the issue.
Thanks for posting the hub Paraglider, you have opened the can!
I would tend to favour some form of renewable license for the use of land rather than outright purchase. Then on the death of the licensee, the next of kin could have first refusal to take over the license or not. Instead of inheriting the land and selling it, they just let the license expire and clear out. The land doesn't belong to the state or the individual, but the licensing authority is obviously under government control, whether direct, or as a 'qango' with appointed governors could be argued over. Something along these lines would seem fairer than the status quo.
good piece Dave my man - just gotta find out who owns invisibility then we can see the whole point of reality...
If Woody Guthrie was here now he'd change the entire lyrics to This land is your land...
Thanks Joe. I'd have used the Woody Guthrie song as the closure, except that i did that before on a similarly themed article..
Hello Paraglider, this is one of my favorite 'Hubs" of yours. Had to come back and listen to George.
Hi snakeslane - George's stuff has lasted well: this one, Something (in the way she moves), While my Guitar gently weeps, and more
Thanks..I just listened to both of those. My Guitar gently weeps onstage with Eric Clapton, nice...
parrster Level 3 Commenter 9 months ago
paraglider, albeit on different ends of the plank on some issues, I do so enjoy the way your mind works (if , that is, it can be said to be Your mind). Of course I will never again be able to speak MY mind without a somewhat nervous hesitancy.
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