Due to various distractions and conflicting obligations, I am just now responding to this very well-written and helpful post. And I know you need to move on, but if I come up with additional questions or insights related to this thread will you still respond? By way of interlibrary loan, I’ve been able to get my hands on Professor Wood’s book and will most likely read more than the recommended pages. Also, the Bill Moyers page you cited is excellent. My interest has been whetted.
Speaking of the Bill Moyers Archives, did you happen to see the article on that same site: “We Need to Relearn That We’re a Part of Nature, Not Separate From It?” As I see it, the thesis of the article is primary to all other considerations when discussing land use or environmental degradation. No significant and lasting changes are possible without first reforming our core relationship to nature (I’m on that). You will love it: https://billmoyers.com/2015/03/02/bigger-science-bigger-religion/
As for how to move forward, I simply don’t know. While trying not to be overly obnoxious, I talk about this issue every chance I get to family and friends. I guess that’s something. But as you’ve pointed out, the ultimate solution is a systemic realignment of our fundamental orientation to the natural world. Changing laws, though necessary, is akin to moving the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Land ownership, and the “God-given” right to exploit that land for all the gain one can squeeze out of it, is so deeply engrained in the American psyche that it seems that only a cataclysmic event of unthinkable proportions would shake us up enough to be willing to change how we exist in the world. And I’m not even sure that would do the trick. So far, and not unlike the all-American burger and fries, greed and hubris have proven to be an unbeatable combo.
While the philosophical roots of this predatory and murderous approach to our own Mother Earth certainly predate the early colonial period, one can find it in the writings of Captain John Smith as he describes the natural abundance and the riches to be found in the “new world.” In an address to the first Federal Congress on June 8, 1789, James Madison proposed adding to the existing Preamble of the newly ratified Constitution: “That Government is instituted and ought to be exercised for the benefit of the people; which consists in the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right of acquiring and using property, and generally of pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” We have become path-dependent upon such notions. Our identity depends upon it. And throughout history millions of people have killed and died for the cause of defending their sacred identities.
Consider this quotation from the book, Black Elk Speaks:
"I could see that the Wasichus (white people) did not care for each other the way our people did before the nation's hoop was broken. They would take everything from each other if they could, and so there were some who had more of everything than they could use, while crowds of people had nothing at all and maybe were starving. They had forgotten that the earth was their mother. "
My point is that our attachment to absolute ownership of property, and the right (by God or otherwise) to profit from that property above all other considerations, is an inextricable part of the American origin story. This does not bode well for our continued existence on Planet Earth.
And I believe that we need more than a few new laws or even a change in attitude. We need nothing less than a new language with which to frame the world—not the language of technology, or of economics, or even the language of law, with its artificial boundaries—we need a language that privileges love, gratefulness, contentment, connectedness, cooperation, and reciprocity. We need a language that allows us to quiet our eros and our egos and simply be still. A language that allows us to simply be.
I’ve got an entire marketing team working on this. The plan is to roll it out at halftime during the next Superbowl. Lord willing and the river don’t rise, everyone in attendance will receive a free plastic water bottle emblazoned with the key words I’ve mentioned above, along with a certificate good for ten percent off their next purchase on Amazon. It’s gonna be awesome!
I will always try to respond as long as Substack doesn't mess up its notification system! And honestly, I don't ever move on from these subjects, at least not as long as I'm writing and thinking about ownership and private property in general. It's never a subject that's "done," if you know what I mean.
I'm glad you found the book! Curious to know what you'll think of it as you read through. I learned a tremendous amount when I read it, though honestly I didn't find much of it heartening. But the idea of the public trust is an intriguing one.
I hadn't read that article on the Bill Moyers site -- thank you for sharing it. It was interesting to read the bit at the end about the Pope's encyclical, which I have on my shelf. I thought that would have more of an effect than it has when he issued it, and now wonder if the church has taken any practical measures to live up to its promised values?
I agree, unfortunately, about moving chairs on the Titanic. I think it's important, because when systems change hugely, a lot of people can be harmed, so trying to mitigate harm as much as possible isn't a useless endeavor (maybe referring less to the chairs here than the lifeboats). But we need everything -- most of all, as you write so eloquently here (truly!), a different language for talking about our relationship with the world.
"My point is that our attachment to absolute ownership of property, and the right (by God or otherwise) to profit from that property above all other considerations, is an inextricable part of the American origin story." It's so true. Reading some of the early materials as they related to Johnson v. M'Intosh in particular made it very clear that property ownership by individual people (white men, that is) was a major goal in separating the U.S. from Britain. The more I've read about it, the more stunning it is to me how effective that story has been, and it was created to benefit people who were already wealthy to begin with. And people are still buying into it.
Let me know how that marketing endeavor goes! That's honestly hilarious and so very fitting for where we find ourselves when it comes to those with money and power trying to give answers. Plastic water bottle is particularly on the nose.
We do need a new language. Maybe one that doesn't know what "advertising" is.
Speaking of advertising: you write that "entities like the EPA are easy prey for industry regulatory capture." So too is the public consciousness an easy prey for capture. Politicians and advertisers have known this since the early 20th century when Edward Bernays (the nephew of Sigmund Freud) published his book on propaganda.
I read the indicated sections in Wood’s book. I also read a few pages at the beginning of Part 1. Much like the Freyfogle book, this is an extraordinary work. If I can find the time and energy, I hope to read a good deal more of it.
As with other readings, Wood has given me a richer language with which to think through, and to then articulate (hopefully), some thoughts and feelings that have been swimming around in my head for several years—oftentimes in the form of very colorful profanity, and every now and then in the form of fantasies about starting my own monkey wrench gang.
Wood’s breakdown of the main components of both the commonwealth and the commodity views of property is very helpful. The most notable of which were (in my opinion) that the commonwealth frame “protects generational interests,” and that it “recognizes emotional and spiritual attachment to land.” These are two very important topics with me. I have told classrooms of fresh-faced college freshmen that, to leave behind a polluted and decimated environment—whether that decimation takes the form of climate change, polluted waters (See: Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency), or any of the various other forms of rapacious destruction that our greed and obsession with mastery over nature (and ultimately replacement of nature) have wrought upon our irreplaceable Mother Earth—is the moral equivalent of genocide. Nothing less.
I also place a high value on the importance of place (land) to human wellbeing, and to the human experience in general. Consumerism and social media are poor counterfeits for the lost intimacy of place. They leave us unmoored, and slaves to whatever wind might be blowing on a particular day. It appears that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes may have agreed with me on this point.
And yet, even as noble as these viewpoints may at first appear, they are overly anthropocentric. They are rooted in human exceptionalism. What about those species we have forced into early retirement (so to speak)? What about the rivers, wetlands, and oceans? What about the atmosphere? What about that vast organism teaming with life that we call soil? What about the rights of non-human nature in general?
Except to say that we don’t, I have no answer to your big question, “How do we share a world, manage our lives and honor the needs of all other life in it, with two such completely opposing worldviews?” When pitted against a zeitgeist of human greed and entitlement, the planet doesn’t stand a chance. Only a radical transformation of public consciousness will render the necessary change in behavior. Only a radical transformation of how we humans see ourselves and our place in the cosmos.
This is a tall order, but perhaps not impossible. The only caveat being, once again, that it may take an environmental catastrophe of terrifying proportions, or perhaps a series of environmental catastrophes of terrifying proportion, in rapid succession, to awaken people from their stupor and shock them into a more humble and harmonious way of being in the world.
This is such a beautiful essay all on its own that I hope you consider copying it and sending it somewhere even more public, even an editorial somewhere. So many people out here in this world feel the same and think they're alone. Including with needing a radical transformation in how most humans see ourselves and our place in the cosmos. Not everyone needs this, but the dominant culture certainly does, even if just to make itself stop being dominant.
And I *entirely* agree with this: "So too is the public consciousness an easy prey for capture." The one thing that makes me more pessimistic than almost anything else is the mass lack of imagination for believing that the can do things differently. The way worldviews and perceptions have been, and continue to be, captured feels like a tsunami that makes it impossible to build and imagine pretty much anything else.
I'm glad both those books have had something for you! Actually, both of them were long-ago recommendations -- from a friend of mine who's an environmental lawyer -- when I first started writing about ownership. I miss having her in town to chew over ideas with (she worked for Montana's Department of Environmental Quality in Helena for a while and is in Hood River now). She actually just did a further law certification through Lewis & Clark College and I think said that Mary Wood was one of the teachers she worked with, though only briefly. And Freyfogle has a lot of presentations online. I have to stop myself going to browse for them because I lose a lot of time in that fascinating rabbit hole!
Yes, thank you for this writing, reading, researching and thinking. You’ve pulled threads of ideas that I’ve thought about but never understood before. I’ve donated to APR, used to work with the people who developed the concept, been there, and also still have mixed feelings about it. My former work was dedicated to prairie wilderness and wildlife - much of which has been destroyed by land ownership, the plow, and the decimation of native plants and wildlife.
There was an op-ed in NYT this week about zoning and the unintended consequences of zoning being used for segregation and purposes other than its intended first use. Driving by Helena and the Flathead Valley I used to think zoning was the issue. Why had people gone mad and developed every inch in a patchwork of businesses and trailers and mansions? I don’t know how to see it anymore. All I think is that we aren’t as a society asking the right questions. Fortunately you are helping ask them.
Thank you so much, Janelle! I donate to APR, too, and have one of their places reserved this summer for the third year in a row. I remain mixed about it and love it there at the same time. (Also heard from someone else a couple years ago who knew the founders and had a lot of reservations about their motivations, which makes a lot of sense.)
Zoning is such a big question. Another whole realm of this that seems wonky and often inaccessible to many, but it really is an iterations of commons management. How does a community want itself to look? But as you say, it's been used very, very often for ill purposes like segregation. It's a tricky issue. I'd like to see zoning in Whitefish loosened with regards to what can be built (more density, please!) and at the same time tightened with regards to use (less short-term rentals!). Which I think we need to work on despite the state legislature being intent on overturning any of those efforts.
The loss of farmland in the Flathead the past few years is truly head-turning. And so, so much of it, bizarrely, for storage units. It's weird.
Thanks for all your effort in putting this together. You have directed my attention to sources and ideas that I am happy to incorporate into my own ponderings.
I am incredibly grateful for all your insights and thoughts. And there is so much more out there! There's a whole pile of books I haven't even touched yet ...
Due to various distractions and conflicting obligations, I am just now responding to this very well-written and helpful post. And I know you need to move on, but if I come up with additional questions or insights related to this thread will you still respond? By way of interlibrary loan, I’ve been able to get my hands on Professor Wood’s book and will most likely read more than the recommended pages. Also, the Bill Moyers page you cited is excellent. My interest has been whetted.
Speaking of the Bill Moyers Archives, did you happen to see the article on that same site: “We Need to Relearn That We’re a Part of Nature, Not Separate From It?” As I see it, the thesis of the article is primary to all other considerations when discussing land use or environmental degradation. No significant and lasting changes are possible without first reforming our core relationship to nature (I’m on that). You will love it: https://billmoyers.com/2015/03/02/bigger-science-bigger-religion/
As for how to move forward, I simply don’t know. While trying not to be overly obnoxious, I talk about this issue every chance I get to family and friends. I guess that’s something. But as you’ve pointed out, the ultimate solution is a systemic realignment of our fundamental orientation to the natural world. Changing laws, though necessary, is akin to moving the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Land ownership, and the “God-given” right to exploit that land for all the gain one can squeeze out of it, is so deeply engrained in the American psyche that it seems that only a cataclysmic event of unthinkable proportions would shake us up enough to be willing to change how we exist in the world. And I’m not even sure that would do the trick. So far, and not unlike the all-American burger and fries, greed and hubris have proven to be an unbeatable combo.
While the philosophical roots of this predatory and murderous approach to our own Mother Earth certainly predate the early colonial period, one can find it in the writings of Captain John Smith as he describes the natural abundance and the riches to be found in the “new world.” In an address to the first Federal Congress on June 8, 1789, James Madison proposed adding to the existing Preamble of the newly ratified Constitution: “That Government is instituted and ought to be exercised for the benefit of the people; which consists in the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right of acquiring and using property, and generally of pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” We have become path-dependent upon such notions. Our identity depends upon it. And throughout history millions of people have killed and died for the cause of defending their sacred identities.
Consider this quotation from the book, Black Elk Speaks:
"I could see that the Wasichus (white people) did not care for each other the way our people did before the nation's hoop was broken. They would take everything from each other if they could, and so there were some who had more of everything than they could use, while crowds of people had nothing at all and maybe were starving. They had forgotten that the earth was their mother. "
My point is that our attachment to absolute ownership of property, and the right (by God or otherwise) to profit from that property above all other considerations, is an inextricable part of the American origin story. This does not bode well for our continued existence on Planet Earth.
And I believe that we need more than a few new laws or even a change in attitude. We need nothing less than a new language with which to frame the world—not the language of technology, or of economics, or even the language of law, with its artificial boundaries—we need a language that privileges love, gratefulness, contentment, connectedness, cooperation, and reciprocity. We need a language that allows us to quiet our eros and our egos and simply be still. A language that allows us to simply be.
I’ve got an entire marketing team working on this. The plan is to roll it out at halftime during the next Superbowl. Lord willing and the river don’t rise, everyone in attendance will receive a free plastic water bottle emblazoned with the key words I’ve mentioned above, along with a certificate good for ten percent off their next purchase on Amazon. It’s gonna be awesome!
I will always try to respond as long as Substack doesn't mess up its notification system! And honestly, I don't ever move on from these subjects, at least not as long as I'm writing and thinking about ownership and private property in general. It's never a subject that's "done," if you know what I mean.
I'm glad you found the book! Curious to know what you'll think of it as you read through. I learned a tremendous amount when I read it, though honestly I didn't find much of it heartening. But the idea of the public trust is an intriguing one.
I hadn't read that article on the Bill Moyers site -- thank you for sharing it. It was interesting to read the bit at the end about the Pope's encyclical, which I have on my shelf. I thought that would have more of an effect than it has when he issued it, and now wonder if the church has taken any practical measures to live up to its promised values?
I agree, unfortunately, about moving chairs on the Titanic. I think it's important, because when systems change hugely, a lot of people can be harmed, so trying to mitigate harm as much as possible isn't a useless endeavor (maybe referring less to the chairs here than the lifeboats). But we need everything -- most of all, as you write so eloquently here (truly!), a different language for talking about our relationship with the world.
"My point is that our attachment to absolute ownership of property, and the right (by God or otherwise) to profit from that property above all other considerations, is an inextricable part of the American origin story." It's so true. Reading some of the early materials as they related to Johnson v. M'Intosh in particular made it very clear that property ownership by individual people (white men, that is) was a major goal in separating the U.S. from Britain. The more I've read about it, the more stunning it is to me how effective that story has been, and it was created to benefit people who were already wealthy to begin with. And people are still buying into it.
Let me know how that marketing endeavor goes! That's honestly hilarious and so very fitting for where we find ourselves when it comes to those with money and power trying to give answers. Plastic water bottle is particularly on the nose.
We do need a new language. Maybe one that doesn't know what "advertising" is.
Speaking of advertising: you write that "entities like the EPA are easy prey for industry regulatory capture." So too is the public consciousness an easy prey for capture. Politicians and advertisers have known this since the early 20th century when Edward Bernays (the nephew of Sigmund Freud) published his book on propaganda.
I read the indicated sections in Wood’s book. I also read a few pages at the beginning of Part 1. Much like the Freyfogle book, this is an extraordinary work. If I can find the time and energy, I hope to read a good deal more of it.
As with other readings, Wood has given me a richer language with which to think through, and to then articulate (hopefully), some thoughts and feelings that have been swimming around in my head for several years—oftentimes in the form of very colorful profanity, and every now and then in the form of fantasies about starting my own monkey wrench gang.
Wood’s breakdown of the main components of both the commonwealth and the commodity views of property is very helpful. The most notable of which were (in my opinion) that the commonwealth frame “protects generational interests,” and that it “recognizes emotional and spiritual attachment to land.” These are two very important topics with me. I have told classrooms of fresh-faced college freshmen that, to leave behind a polluted and decimated environment—whether that decimation takes the form of climate change, polluted waters (See: Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency), or any of the various other forms of rapacious destruction that our greed and obsession with mastery over nature (and ultimately replacement of nature) have wrought upon our irreplaceable Mother Earth—is the moral equivalent of genocide. Nothing less.
I also place a high value on the importance of place (land) to human wellbeing, and to the human experience in general. Consumerism and social media are poor counterfeits for the lost intimacy of place. They leave us unmoored, and slaves to whatever wind might be blowing on a particular day. It appears that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes may have agreed with me on this point.
And yet, even as noble as these viewpoints may at first appear, they are overly anthropocentric. They are rooted in human exceptionalism. What about those species we have forced into early retirement (so to speak)? What about the rivers, wetlands, and oceans? What about the atmosphere? What about that vast organism teaming with life that we call soil? What about the rights of non-human nature in general?
Except to say that we don’t, I have no answer to your big question, “How do we share a world, manage our lives and honor the needs of all other life in it, with two such completely opposing worldviews?” When pitted against a zeitgeist of human greed and entitlement, the planet doesn’t stand a chance. Only a radical transformation of public consciousness will render the necessary change in behavior. Only a radical transformation of how we humans see ourselves and our place in the cosmos.
This is a tall order, but perhaps not impossible. The only caveat being, once again, that it may take an environmental catastrophe of terrifying proportions, or perhaps a series of environmental catastrophes of terrifying proportion, in rapid succession, to awaken people from their stupor and shock them into a more humble and harmonious way of being in the world.
To that end, all I can say is…
Thoughts and prayers.
This is such a beautiful essay all on its own that I hope you consider copying it and sending it somewhere even more public, even an editorial somewhere. So many people out here in this world feel the same and think they're alone. Including with needing a radical transformation in how most humans see ourselves and our place in the cosmos. Not everyone needs this, but the dominant culture certainly does, even if just to make itself stop being dominant.
And I *entirely* agree with this: "So too is the public consciousness an easy prey for capture." The one thing that makes me more pessimistic than almost anything else is the mass lack of imagination for believing that the can do things differently. The way worldviews and perceptions have been, and continue to be, captured feels like a tsunami that makes it impossible to build and imagine pretty much anything else.
I'm glad both those books have had something for you! Actually, both of them were long-ago recommendations -- from a friend of mine who's an environmental lawyer -- when I first started writing about ownership. I miss having her in town to chew over ideas with (she worked for Montana's Department of Environmental Quality in Helena for a while and is in Hood River now). She actually just did a further law certification through Lewis & Clark College and I think said that Mary Wood was one of the teachers she worked with, though only briefly. And Freyfogle has a lot of presentations online. I have to stop myself going to browse for them because I lose a lot of time in that fascinating rabbit hole!
Thank you for this ongoing journey, Nia!
Thanks for hanging in there with me, Greg!
Yes, thank you for this writing, reading, researching and thinking. You’ve pulled threads of ideas that I’ve thought about but never understood before. I’ve donated to APR, used to work with the people who developed the concept, been there, and also still have mixed feelings about it. My former work was dedicated to prairie wilderness and wildlife - much of which has been destroyed by land ownership, the plow, and the decimation of native plants and wildlife.
There was an op-ed in NYT this week about zoning and the unintended consequences of zoning being used for segregation and purposes other than its intended first use. Driving by Helena and the Flathead Valley I used to think zoning was the issue. Why had people gone mad and developed every inch in a patchwork of businesses and trailers and mansions? I don’t know how to see it anymore. All I think is that we aren’t as a society asking the right questions. Fortunately you are helping ask them.
Thank you so much, Janelle! I donate to APR, too, and have one of their places reserved this summer for the third year in a row. I remain mixed about it and love it there at the same time. (Also heard from someone else a couple years ago who knew the founders and had a lot of reservations about their motivations, which makes a lot of sense.)
Zoning is such a big question. Another whole realm of this that seems wonky and often inaccessible to many, but it really is an iterations of commons management. How does a community want itself to look? But as you say, it's been used very, very often for ill purposes like segregation. It's a tricky issue. I'd like to see zoning in Whitefish loosened with regards to what can be built (more density, please!) and at the same time tightened with regards to use (less short-term rentals!). Which I think we need to work on despite the state legislature being intent on overturning any of those efforts.
The loss of farmland in the Flathead the past few years is truly head-turning. And so, so much of it, bizarrely, for storage units. It's weird.
Thanks for all your effort in putting this together. You have directed my attention to sources and ideas that I am happy to incorporate into my own ponderings.
I am incredibly grateful for all your insights and thoughts. And there is so much more out there! There's a whole pile of books I haven't even touched yet ...
Thanks for being here with me.