Oct 22, 2022·edited Oct 22, 2022Liked by Antonia Malchik
So, one initial response to your first prompt from the Linklater chapter:
[“The way you own the earth requires the agreement of your neighbors, the society you live in, and the government of your country. In a very fundamental way, it is the glue that holds a community together. **And every society agrees that it cannot in fact be owned.”**]
I found this particular passage a bit confusing and even counterintuitive when I first read, so I'm glad you included it. The chapter seems to be foreshadowing how land's unique status as a set of collective obligations, "the glue that holds a community together, will be eroded or perverted by the new ideology of private ownership. But then he throws this rhetorical curveball that in fact, owning the *earth* is not a coherent or recognized concept; only owning whatever relates to use of that earth. So he's making two simultaneous distinctions: an exclusive (individual) vs. shared (communal) form of ownership, and owning rights (legitimate) vs. owning land (not legitimate).
I didn't quite understand why he needed to suddenly emphasize this subtle difference, which qualifies or even walks back what was implied earlier, when it doesn't come up in the rest of the chapter anyway. Is his point simply that people began to treat individual property rights *as if* that equaled individual "earth" ownership, so the legal distinction would eventually collapse? Or, that it wasn't necessary to own the actual ground for the ideology to have its pernicious effects? Maybe I'm overanalyzing this, but it just felt discontinuous with the rest.
So, it's been a few years since I first read the book, but that is one of the two quotes I go back to repeatedly (the other's in the introduction). And I *think*, considering all of this, that it sets up the rest of the book, which, yes, lays out all these different ways of managing land in common and what private property did to those systems, BUT also leads to why I suspect he wrote the book, which is the final chapters focusing on what kinds of ownership we need to change or look at differently to face the myriad ecological crises of the planet.
That line has stuck with me ever since reading it, but I think it has different import for me now. It feels like he's setting up the argument about ownership of land in order to face what kinds of different management will be needed to deal with climate change, etc. I wish I could ask him! Or anyone could. He died not long after this book was published.
What's it called when you set up an argument to knock it down? Strawman. It's almost like the inverse of a straw man. Setting up an argument to give it weight and importance and evidence later. Private property says land can be owned. But the reality of how we live in and on the world together says it can't? And in reality it can't because absolute private ownership dooms humanity, or at least most of us.
I will check it out! So much of the contention about private gain and property is bumping up against problems that are planetary and not just about putting up a neighborhood fence. I did a very early post that wrestled with the litmus test of "the Public Good" especially as it relates to Big Tech. I think it is stylish to put them all together in a box when in fact it is quite easy to assess whether something is a public good like "providing universal access to books to promote knowledge and discovery". Because I dislike when people on Substack threads self-promote, send me a message and I can pass you the link about public goods if you are interested. It was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek at times play on the genuine dangers of social media. If you like it you can pass it on :)
Antonia -- I finally found a viable source for the book. By great irony it is part of the Google public project to provide broad access to the books of history! The preview includes the pages of interest at https://www.google.com/books/edition/Owning_the_Earth/AdduAAAAQBAJ This was an interesting read and provides interesting context to the concept of owning the land. In some peripheral way, it is similar to the erosion of the concept of corporation. In the beginning, the fundamental of a corporation was it MUST PROVIDE A PUBLIC GOOD. Broadly publishing books for assessment and no fee strikes me as such an example. I hope that the future reading is similarly available. We now have many corporations who privatize their worlds and the only public good is their shareholders. This is not unlike the trends in land ownership and the privatization of the public space.
Enclosure affects and erodes everything, doesn't it?
You might be interested in the work of Community Rights U.S., which is very focused on the original terms of corporation grants and the public good, and how we can reinstate that: https://communityrights.us
After five years on the road, the concept of "home" is no longer what it was. What is it now? It might be simplistic to say that it's wherever my husband and I happen to be, but it's the closest to the truth. I'm sitting at on outdoor cafe here in Levanto, Italy, and while I'm a stranger in a stranger-ish land, I somehow still feel very much at home.
Pico Iyer has made a great case for stillness, but the reality is he is still very much the global citizens--traveling constantly until Covid hit. He doesn't seem to be lacking for it!
You might find this interesting, Michael, if you haven't read it before - https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/07/31/on-being-an-illegible-person/ It's making a case for nomadism finding stability in movement, not in stopping in one place. It changed some of my ideas about what I wanted from my writing (now, I see it as an opportunity for me to live half-"illegibly" and feel some of what you're feeling about your place in the world right now)...
Thanks for sharing and very interesting. I noticed that was published more than ten years ago and a LOT has changed since then. I confess I also found it a bit hard to take ... seriously someone who has been nomadic for three months. That simply doesn't seem like long enough to understand how a person can feel about such a drastic change in lifestyle.
I do agree with the part about that my nomadic life is actually restful and stable, even if it's in a way other folks don't understand. But I disagree about the loneliness and lack of community. Perhaps the intervening time since the author wrote this has changed things but there is a wonderful nomad community both online and IRL. Basically, we never feel alone at all.
Whatever you feel like engaging in will definitely be a plus for the conversation! Your thoughts always create so much space for me to think more and differently.
Oct 17, 2022·edited Oct 17, 2022Liked by Antonia Malchik
Thank you again for doing this with the regular subscribers. I still have to read the rest of the chapter, but a couple quick pieces of feedback:
- Personally, I'm fine with you putting as many passages and prompts and screenshots in the posts here; I like the idea that we're more or less tracking what you're posting over at Threadable (though of course if that creates more work and it's not just simple cutting and pasting, please don't feel obliged!). I can always ignore what I don't have time for and some weeks I may not even chime in.
-What would be helpful, though, is to separate out more cleanly your own (non-question) running commentary and observations, and Threadable screenshots, from the specific prompts and questions we would be responding to. Right now it all seems mixed together randomly - bullet-point commentary interpersed with prompts that don't follow obviously from the previous bullet - so it's potentially a little disorienting. I think it might be easier if you just did all your own commentary first, and then had the shorter prompts+questions at the end for us to sift through. Just my own feeling but maybe others differ.
-As for timeline, I assume a week is the longest we should take to respond since you will be moving onto a new reading anyway, and we certainly don't want to create additional work for you keeping up with back posts on older readings. Unless you really don't care. I have no sense of what volume of people is following either here or on Threadable.
- Threadable makes it easy to share comments (they want us to), so that's not a problem. They do all that formatting around it so I can just share it.
- That's a GREAT point. It is mixed randomly. I wasn't sure what would be best -- prompts, responses other people have had, my own questions? What I will try next week is giving the "here's why I chose this book" explainer that I did on the app itself, and some of my own thoughts about it. Still possibly include Threadable responses after that so there's some connection, but then just have questions that came up, or that I have, in relation to the text.
- Also, I should say that I have read most of these books, so if anyone has questions about the larger text, I can usually answer it.
- I really do not mind how long people take. Substack always notifies me when people respond to a post, no matter how old it is, and I don't feel like these conversations expire. I was just reading a philosophy paper this morning about Thomas Paine's thoughts on private property in his 1797 pamphlet "Agrarian Justice" and a lot of it will sound familiar. We've got lifetimes to talk about this!
I can't tell you how much it means that you still take the time to read and comment on late responses; it's one of the great things about your blog (among others). Of course as someone's readership increases they, and even you, may no longer have that luxury. But it would be nice if there was more of a norm on Substack among *readers* for posting or engaging later, or continuing an older thread, without automatically being that loser stuck back in the olden days of the previous week when we still got around by horse and carriage. Twitter's sort of set up not to be that way but blogging is different.
If there's some intuitive logic behind how you're interspersing your own reflections and highlights with the prompts and questions, and it's all intended to flow, then don't let us stop you. My impression is that it was random, which it why I thought it might be easiest just to put your own running commentary first (and other highlights from Threadable if you're inspired) and then all the prompts and questions after.
I agree -- I'd like it if it were more the norm. I suppose that's more of a format for a forum like Discord or Reddit. There are some ways that it can work like that on Substack. Anne Helen Petersen manages it on her Culture Study newsletter, with Tuesdays and Fridays given over to subscriber-only forums. That might be something to think about for the future, but I'm not sure it would work for everyone the way that it does for her (and it really does!).
I'll try another structure next week for Freyfogle's "The Land We Share" and see how we go!
> something we’re doing collectively, rather than something I’m leading.
I think if it as something you're leading and I'm so happy to follow
> Do you want more time to read and think?
The reading was great, not sure the best way to get me to fit "thinking about the reading" into my schedule.
> More quotes? Fewer quotes? Just one prompt to get started?
Fewer. And one prompt would make me more likely to respond to that prompt.
I liked all your prompts and quotes here, and I would love to discuss all of it with voices, but discussing it in a comment section feels sprawling and messy to me personally.
These are awesome, thank you! It probably is sprawly and messy in a comment section. There just isn't really a good framework for opening the reading/conversation to people who can't access the app.
I've appreciated your comments on the app! I could see myself getting really hooked on it. The circle hosted by 5-4 is a fun break, very snarky and insights by knowledgeable people on issues I have no experience with.
So, one initial response to your first prompt from the Linklater chapter:
[“The way you own the earth requires the agreement of your neighbors, the society you live in, and the government of your country. In a very fundamental way, it is the glue that holds a community together. **And every society agrees that it cannot in fact be owned.”**]
I found this particular passage a bit confusing and even counterintuitive when I first read, so I'm glad you included it. The chapter seems to be foreshadowing how land's unique status as a set of collective obligations, "the glue that holds a community together, will be eroded or perverted by the new ideology of private ownership. But then he throws this rhetorical curveball that in fact, owning the *earth* is not a coherent or recognized concept; only owning whatever relates to use of that earth. So he's making two simultaneous distinctions: an exclusive (individual) vs. shared (communal) form of ownership, and owning rights (legitimate) vs. owning land (not legitimate).
I didn't quite understand why he needed to suddenly emphasize this subtle difference, which qualifies or even walks back what was implied earlier, when it doesn't come up in the rest of the chapter anyway. Is his point simply that people began to treat individual property rights *as if* that equaled individual "earth" ownership, so the legal distinction would eventually collapse? Or, that it wasn't necessary to own the actual ground for the ideology to have its pernicious effects? Maybe I'm overanalyzing this, but it just felt discontinuous with the rest.
So, it's been a few years since I first read the book, but that is one of the two quotes I go back to repeatedly (the other's in the introduction). And I *think*, considering all of this, that it sets up the rest of the book, which, yes, lays out all these different ways of managing land in common and what private property did to those systems, BUT also leads to why I suspect he wrote the book, which is the final chapters focusing on what kinds of ownership we need to change or look at differently to face the myriad ecological crises of the planet.
That line has stuck with me ever since reading it, but I think it has different import for me now. It feels like he's setting up the argument about ownership of land in order to face what kinds of different management will be needed to deal with climate change, etc. I wish I could ask him! Or anyone could. He died not long after this book was published.
What's it called when you set up an argument to knock it down? Strawman. It's almost like the inverse of a straw man. Setting up an argument to give it weight and importance and evidence later. Private property says land can be owned. But the reality of how we live in and on the world together says it can't? And in reality it can't because absolute private ownership dooms humanity, or at least most of us.
I will check it out! So much of the contention about private gain and property is bumping up against problems that are planetary and not just about putting up a neighborhood fence. I did a very early post that wrestled with the litmus test of "the Public Good" especially as it relates to Big Tech. I think it is stylish to put them all together in a box when in fact it is quite easy to assess whether something is a public good like "providing universal access to books to promote knowledge and discovery". Because I dislike when people on Substack threads self-promote, send me a message and I can pass you the link about public goods if you are interested. It was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek at times play on the genuine dangers of social media. If you like it you can pass it on :)
Go ahead and send it!
Reinvigorating the public good and the public trust are becoming, I hope, more robust movements and conversations.
I'll send it to you...i happen to think at times it is also kinda funny
Antonia -- I finally found a viable source for the book. By great irony it is part of the Google public project to provide broad access to the books of history! The preview includes the pages of interest at https://www.google.com/books/edition/Owning_the_Earth/AdduAAAAQBAJ This was an interesting read and provides interesting context to the concept of owning the land. In some peripheral way, it is similar to the erosion of the concept of corporation. In the beginning, the fundamental of a corporation was it MUST PROVIDE A PUBLIC GOOD. Broadly publishing books for assessment and no fee strikes me as such an example. I hope that the future reading is similarly available. We now have many corporations who privatize their worlds and the only public good is their shareholders. This is not unlike the trends in land ownership and the privatization of the public space.
Enclosure affects and erodes everything, doesn't it?
You might be interested in the work of Community Rights U.S., which is very focused on the original terms of corporation grants and the public good, and how we can reinstate that: https://communityrights.us
After five years on the road, the concept of "home" is no longer what it was. What is it now? It might be simplistic to say that it's wherever my husband and I happen to be, but it's the closest to the truth. I'm sitting at on outdoor cafe here in Levanto, Italy, and while I'm a stranger in a stranger-ish land, I somehow still feel very much at home.
Pico Iyer has made a great case for stillness, but the reality is he is still very much the global citizens--traveling constantly until Covid hit. He doesn't seem to be lacking for it!
You know, you have a good point there! WHAT'S WITH THAT, PICO.
Honestly, I think he just can't help himself!
You might find this interesting, Michael, if you haven't read it before - https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/07/31/on-being-an-illegible-person/ It's making a case for nomadism finding stability in movement, not in stopping in one place. It changed some of my ideas about what I wanted from my writing (now, I see it as an opportunity for me to live half-"illegibly" and feel some of what you're feeling about your place in the world right now)...
Thanks for sharing and very interesting. I noticed that was published more than ten years ago and a LOT has changed since then. I confess I also found it a bit hard to take ... seriously someone who has been nomadic for three months. That simply doesn't seem like long enough to understand how a person can feel about such a drastic change in lifestyle.
I do agree with the part about that my nomadic life is actually restful and stable, even if it's in a way other folks don't understand. But I disagree about the loneliness and lack of community. Perhaps the intervening time since the author wrote this has changed things but there is a wonderful nomad community both online and IRL. Basically, we never feel alone at all.
I’m a tad overwhelmed, but I’m going to begin, I think?
Whatever you feel like engaging in will definitely be a plus for the conversation! Your thoughts always create so much space for me to think more and differently.
Thank you again for doing this with the regular subscribers. I still have to read the rest of the chapter, but a couple quick pieces of feedback:
- Personally, I'm fine with you putting as many passages and prompts and screenshots in the posts here; I like the idea that we're more or less tracking what you're posting over at Threadable (though of course if that creates more work and it's not just simple cutting and pasting, please don't feel obliged!). I can always ignore what I don't have time for and some weeks I may not even chime in.
-What would be helpful, though, is to separate out more cleanly your own (non-question) running commentary and observations, and Threadable screenshots, from the specific prompts and questions we would be responding to. Right now it all seems mixed together randomly - bullet-point commentary interpersed with prompts that don't follow obviously from the previous bullet - so it's potentially a little disorienting. I think it might be easier if you just did all your own commentary first, and then had the shorter prompts+questions at the end for us to sift through. Just my own feeling but maybe others differ.
-As for timeline, I assume a week is the longest we should take to respond since you will be moving onto a new reading anyway, and we certainly don't want to create additional work for you keeping up with back posts on older readings. Unless you really don't care. I have no sense of what volume of people is following either here or on Threadable.
Hope this helps.
Thank you, Chris! This is good feedback :)
- Threadable makes it easy to share comments (they want us to), so that's not a problem. They do all that formatting around it so I can just share it.
- That's a GREAT point. It is mixed randomly. I wasn't sure what would be best -- prompts, responses other people have had, my own questions? What I will try next week is giving the "here's why I chose this book" explainer that I did on the app itself, and some of my own thoughts about it. Still possibly include Threadable responses after that so there's some connection, but then just have questions that came up, or that I have, in relation to the text.
- Also, I should say that I have read most of these books, so if anyone has questions about the larger text, I can usually answer it.
- I really do not mind how long people take. Substack always notifies me when people respond to a post, no matter how old it is, and I don't feel like these conversations expire. I was just reading a philosophy paper this morning about Thomas Paine's thoughts on private property in his 1797 pamphlet "Agrarian Justice" and a lot of it will sound familiar. We've got lifetimes to talk about this!
I can't tell you how much it means that you still take the time to read and comment on late responses; it's one of the great things about your blog (among others). Of course as someone's readership increases they, and even you, may no longer have that luxury. But it would be nice if there was more of a norm on Substack among *readers* for posting or engaging later, or continuing an older thread, without automatically being that loser stuck back in the olden days of the previous week when we still got around by horse and carriage. Twitter's sort of set up not to be that way but blogging is different.
If there's some intuitive logic behind how you're interspersing your own reflections and highlights with the prompts and questions, and it's all intended to flow, then don't let us stop you. My impression is that it was random, which it why I thought it might be easiest just to put your own running commentary first (and other highlights from Threadable if you're inspired) and then all the prompts and questions after.
I agree -- I'd like it if it were more the norm. I suppose that's more of a format for a forum like Discord or Reddit. There are some ways that it can work like that on Substack. Anne Helen Petersen manages it on her Culture Study newsletter, with Tuesdays and Fridays given over to subscriber-only forums. That might be something to think about for the future, but I'm not sure it would work for everyone the way that it does for her (and it really does!).
I'll try another structure next week for Freyfogle's "The Land We Share" and see how we go!
> something we’re doing collectively, rather than something I’m leading.
I think if it as something you're leading and I'm so happy to follow
> Do you want more time to read and think?
The reading was great, not sure the best way to get me to fit "thinking about the reading" into my schedule.
> More quotes? Fewer quotes? Just one prompt to get started?
Fewer. And one prompt would make me more likely to respond to that prompt.
I liked all your prompts and quotes here, and I would love to discuss all of it with voices, but discussing it in a comment section feels sprawling and messy to me personally.
These are awesome, thank you! It probably is sprawly and messy in a comment section. There just isn't really a good framework for opening the reading/conversation to people who can't access the app.
I've appreciated your comments on the app! I could see myself getting really hooked on it. The circle hosted by 5-4 is a fun break, very snarky and insights by knowledgeable people on issues I have no experience with.