"one of my biggest struggles with the work I’m doing here is finding effective ways to explain, for people who don’t already get it, that wrongness—of ownership itself": YES! Sometimes the wrongness of it makes me gasp. Just 180 to what is life giving. Count me among the people struggling alongside you to find ways to communicate this. I take heart from poet Jackie Wang in Carceral Capitalism: "For some time I have been thinking about how to convey the message of police and prison abolition to you, but I know that as a poet, it is not my job to win you over with a persuasive argument, but to impart to you a vibrational experience that is capable of awakening your desire for another world.” Find me somewhere along the path of trying to "awaken desire for another world."
(I think this comment is to a different, more recent post, but interestingly this one was on my mind as I wrote the other one.) I LOVE that from Jackie Wang! Yes, exactly. Anywhere, any way, we can reach people where they are and help them see what's actually going on, helps. I see your light along the path! May we all be starlit sparks together.
Just a quick note to say thank you for suggesting the Freyfogle book. I thought I was only going to read the first chapter, but that is like trying to eat only one tiny morsel of dark chocolate with that cup of hot tea. It (the book) has given me new insights and a new vocabulary with which to think, talk, and write about land ownership and the rights of the commons.
I'm so glad! I wish more people knew about that book. It's very engaging, and when I talk with or interview people who work in some form of environmental law, it's always Freyfogle they refer to. He's given a lot of talks and such on this subject. It's that "new vocabulary" that I find so valuable -- it's easy to feel like something is wrong or not quite right, but to know why and how helps a lot.
Oh my gosh, Charlotte, reading this is giving me huge chills! That's incredible. Seriously, I've got all sorts of churning feelings thinking that your friend was thinking about the fox. I loved reading this. Thank you!
A friend and neighbor of ours sent us this gem of yours, it made me smile ... Sky islands are the back and front yards for us now, and a short walk into Mexico’s isles. Thanks Nia.
Harry, it's so good to see you here! Love thinking of you guys looking at the sky islands :). I bet the weather there is far nicer than it is here. And is that a baby I see in your profile photo?!
"The events that shake our world so brief, against the timespan of stone." Amazing line a read over and over. You put into words beautifully a hazy thought that has been rolling around in in my head. Such a thoughtful, wonderful read.
Because it relates to climate change and to environmental degradation more generally this is a supremely important issue. Humans must change their orientation towards non-human nature at the most fundamental level. But unfortunately, the dominant origin myth of our civilization entitles (in effect) humans to not only be masters of, but to exploit to the point of total depletion and extinction, and to even replace with technological gadgetry, that very nature of which we are intertwined at every level of our being. The objectification and commodification of all things non-human so that we might live "the good life" and satisfy our every ambition and amusement is so ingrained in our thinking, and so conveniently systematized into our way of being in the world (giving license to greed), that rooting it out will be no less difficult than changing the course of the stars. But we must try. We are fouling our own nest.
There is another Court case you may be interested in: Sierra Club v. Morton (1971). In his dissent Justice Douglas advocates (powerfully) for the personhood of objects in nature "for the purposes of adjudicatory processes." It is very much worth reading.
Also...there is an organization, the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), that advocates for rights of nature and tracks progress around the globe. . Their website is both a good source of information and a good place to start for those wishing to get involved. Several countries are getting onboard. Ecuador has even incorporated rights of nature into its constitution!
Thank you so much for reading, and for such a thoughtful response!
I feel like I came across that case at one point as the first instance of a "rights of nature" reference in the U.S., but I can't remember where. I do have it printed out, though! I got interested in it through Ecuador and New Zealand, but then also the situation around Lake Erie, where people voted to give the lake rights of nature and the governor then made representing nature or natural entities illegal. Which to me is almost helpful because those kinds of actions increasingly show how absurd the assumptions underlying much of this is.
I'm reading an interesting book right now by German philosopher Andreas Weber called "Enlivenment," and he's digging into the base assumptions that make it possible for both economic thinking and biology to ignore life itself, and what makes it worthwhile. It's a bit more of a slog than I thought it would be (It's very short, but very full of philosophical language!), but he's making a lot of these points, that even our language and imaginations are structured to deny the importance of life and ourselves as integral with nature, and to justify objectification and commodification.
Thank you again! I'll dig into that 1971 case again, and look up CELDF :)
In addition to CELDF, there's the Earth Law Center and the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, also the org Thomas Linzey (a founding force behind the rights-of-nature movement) started after he left CELDF: Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights. The rights-of-nature movement does challenge ownership assumptions, and dozens of communities around the US and the world are passing local ordinances. The states, however, come down hard (usually) in favor of extraction rights and outlaw the power of local communities to protect their own regions. But the communities are organizing now at state levels, to amend state constitutions, etc. Definitely a movement to know about.
I checked out Weber's book. It looks interesting. I hope you will share more of what you find. I've got too many literary irons in the fire right now to add yet another one.
The last line in that penultimate paragraph of yours: "even our language and imaginations are structured to deny the importance of life and ourselves as integral with nature, and to justify objectification and commodification," strikes to the heart of the problem. The problem is deeply systemic.
In his "Letter on Humanism" the philosopher Martin Heidegger writes that "language is the house of being." Indeed it is. And outside of those walls is infinite possibility, including the possibility to reimagine ourselves and our relationship to the whole of the cosmos and everything in it, including our non-human brothers and sisters. In order to reimagine ourselves we need a new vocabulary. We need a new house of being.
Have you read the article by Lynn White Jr., "The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis," published in 1967 in the journal, Science? In his article White writes, "More science and more technology are not going to get us out of the present ecologic crisis until we find a new religion, or rethink our old one." I agree that this is a fundamental part of the problem.
A new religion, a new language, and an entirely new way of being in the world. No problem. Let me take a nap first and then I'll get right on it.
Lynn White was exactly right in naming Western culture's disconnection from nature as a spiritual problem, which was gutsy in 1966 at the keynote of a scientific conference. But he pointed to the creation story in Genesis as the culprit, which is hugely problematic because that story arose out of Jewish history, not Christian, and it never led to imperial conquering of nature in Jewish thinking—in fact, just the opposite. I took on Lynn White and his thesis in one of my episodes: "But the problem with White’s talk is that if you look at the actual history, very little of the evidence he used to support his argument actually holds up. Fifty years of hindsight show that what Lynn White the historian did was, essentially, to write a myth. He created a story about how Western culture got ourselves and the rest of the world into a terrible mess, and it’s a compelling story, as all good myths are, just because it rings so true." https://priscillastuckey.substack.com/p/29-where-did-we-go-wrong-b9d
That's good to know. Thank you for sharing that deeper analysis. I feel like I've heard something similar -- in that book Ishmael maybe? Daniel Quinn's book. Definitely left me with not-great feelings at the end, because he did seem to be blaming Jewish people and worldview for everything. Not a great look!
I will definitely share. The Walking Compositions portion of this newsletter tend to incorporate reflections on those eadings, which are part of my research on ownership, private property, and the commons. This book went into places I didn't expect.
I did read that article! I have it printed out because it seems important that this kind of thinking isn't new (including Heidegger). And of course with language, there's Lakoff & Johnson -- I keep going back to Metaphors We Live By and thinking about how the words we use frame our understanding of the world around us.
It seems that every day I am astonished at how much I don't know and how much I may never understand. But the path is the point, and I'm just trying to stay on a good path. After all, a universe that is fully comprehensible by human beings is a universe not worth being part of. As Patrick Henry surely never said, "Give me mystery, or give me death!"
On that note, I didn't even know the Lakoff & Johnson book existed. Now that I do it simply must be read. There is no choice.
A couple of items related to the project you are current engaged in:
Have you read the chapter, "The Land Ethic," from Aldo Leopold's book, A Sand County Almanac? It is beautiful. A classic.
And then there is this:
The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had someone pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: “Do not listen to this impostor. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one!”
—Jean Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1755)
Believe it or not, Leopold's book is still on my to-read pile. I know it should be a priority! I should have read it years ago but didn't. I will get to it soon because every quote says so much related to all of this. The Rousseau quote has definitely been on my desk for a while! Despite Rousseau's other significant failings (especially forcing his mistress to give up all of their babies to adoption), it still says pretty much everything that needs to be said on the subject.
"Metaphors We Live By" is a bit academic but full of compelling thoughts about how language is shaped by metaphor and how metaphor is shaped by our physical experience of the world. George Lakoff has continued writing about the effects of language on perception, including in day-to-day politics. And oh no, look, he has a Substack!
As it relates to your area of research that one chapter in the Leopold book is the most important. And it reads quite nicely even without the context of the rest of the book.
It is instructive to note that property rights, so called, and as they relate to land and its associated material possessions, are predicated upon the essential but unarticulated premise that the natural world is infinitely abundant and infinitely resilient. In fact, our entire civilization and way of being in the world is predicated upon that same premise. Think of our civilization as a form of argument (which it is), based upon certain values and assumptions. Surely you know what happens to an argument once a major premise is shown to be false.
But regarding property rights in a broader sense, they encompass so much more than simply owning a piece of land. In fact, I believe that certain other elements contained with the definition of “property rights” are far superior to land ownership in that they are inextricably rooted in human nature. In a short essay published in the National Gazette in 1792, James Madison, considered by many scholars to be the “Father of the Constitution,” expounds upon his definition of property as it relates to his theory of government. The essay can be found here: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-14-02-0238
How ironic that a link to Lakoff's Substack page should suddenly appear. The universe must be listening. I am very much interested in the subject matter of his book, so I appreciate the referral. I just need longer days and more energy to take all this in.
Hopefully books and movies will start to move the needle on people's attitudes. Soul of an octopus. My octopus teacher and now there's a movie called EO that seems absolutely amazing. Can't wait to see it. Sounds like it would be right up your alley. All the best to you and your family!
I watched My Octopus Teacher after meeting an octopus for the first time last March. That's not an experience I'm going to forget anytime soon. Just incredible beings.
Reading your post inspired me to look at cabins. It seems nearly impossible to score even three nights. Any secrets to getting those reservations? Really enjoyed the post. I'm a veterinarian and I am chafed by humans sense of ownership over the animal world!
I have to book them 6 months ahead of time, and have better luck if I'm not trying to do it in a popular season (summer, usually, but also over winter holidays). It depends on the cabin, too. The ones up Montana's North Fork valley, where we were, are particularly popular, and this one (Schnaus cabin) is known as very difficult to get. I think I only managed because November isn't a peak time. Sometimes I'll get lucky and there will be a cancellation. I have a friend who used to book several cabins a year before she got a camper, and if she needed to cancel she would tell me so I had a chance to reserve it instead. I did the same for another friend this year.
There are also a number that you have to ski into in winter, like Challenge cabin near Glacier National Park. We have friends who go for those, though we haven't pushed our kids on that level of commitment. I haven't even explored that many places outside of the valley I live in and there are a lot!
I am chafed by it, too, and my 12-year-old even more so. Another reader said their spouse is studying the book "Without Animals Life Is Not Worth Living," by philosopher Freya Matthews, and I haven't read it yet but am ordering it. I like that perspective! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29006087-without-animals-life-is-not-worth-living
I am guessing you mean literally? Looking for food! Most people renting this cabin would probably do what we did, which is leave their cooler of food outside on the front porch (there’s no electricity but outside was like a freezer). Our cooler is bear-proof and we’re extremely careful about leaving any food where animals can get it when we’re camping, etc., but not everyone is so careful and it doesn’t take much. This porch had a picnic table on it — I can see, say, a family having eating outside when it’s warmer and the animals coming for anything left behind. The fox clearly knew this as a place to sniff out something to eat!
"What about the fox herself?" I imagine some judge in long robes explaining that the fox is perfectly entitled to self-ownership; they are free to evade Post and Pierson as long as they like and as long as they manage to stay alive or avoid being captured, no one can own them. I guess it's hard to talk about ownership of property without talking about ownership of power.
If ownership is about possessing (Erich Fromm's "to have" vs. "to be" mode), and power is about doing or making others do (influencing mode), perhaps the missing ingredient that might allow for a different kind of relationship between them is that "being" orientation toward the world, or as Fromm puts it, ”The difference between a society centred around persons [or foxes] and one centred around things. ” His book To Have Or To Be is profound and so relevant to property, I think! You've probably read it before but if you haven't this is a nice summary: https://daily-philosophy.com/to-have-or-to-be/
As for a turn to animism, I am so behind the curve on that (and have never been a big "animals" person, at least in the sense of feeling a connection or specifically wanting to care for one). But animals have so many powers and abilities that we don't have; it seems like a purely arbitrary twist of fate that our abilities happened to give us systematic power over them. You could say the fox, or any other part of nature really, perfectly exemplifies the difference between being and having.
I have not read it before but it sounds like I should (a sentence I've said too often recently!) -- I've only heard his name. (I started out as a philosophy major in college but quickly dropped it. All the classes were at 8 a.m. I am a morning person now but wasn't then.)
I am no animism expert at all, but my understanding is that it's more about feeling the aliveness of everything around us -- animals, trees, water, etc. A feeling that it's a relationship based on respect and reciprocity, rather than possession or power. Which would then make sense of the fox having agency over herself. Definitely the "being" rather than "having"!
It's a really powerful idea, for sure. I guess that would have to be one of the key differences between indigenous and settler ways of thinking, right? Or at least, it's always identified as a difference by those who really know. Maybe the other attitude that goes hand in with possession/power is hierarchy. You can appreciate that an animal is fully alive, but simply believe humans are better and higher on the ladder. So it's not just having more power or even greed, but *entitlement* to wield that power over others.
From what I've read, part of Descartes's idea of "I think; therefore, I am" came from a movement that sought to separate hierarchies of humans from the slave-owning ideas of Ancient Greece. It was Aristotle maybe who expressed how enslaved people were closer to nature and therefore not really human in the way that, say, people who owned slaves were? (Setting aside women; we don't get many chances to be human throughout written history.) And Descartes was part of thinking that wanted to make all humans -- all humans as they understood them; again, not women and I'm sure plenty of other people who didn't fit what they thought of as "civilized" -- as something *above* nature. So in a way erasing a hierarchy that had previously existed, but not realizing that they were leaving in place the same larger heirarchy that had enabled that thinking.
Entitlement to wield that power over others is a good way to put it! And we don't have to go far -- our modern Uber-wealthy often express similar sentiments.
The photos are surreal -- so incredibly beautiful. I am reminded of the how I feel every single time I visit Yosemite -- to me, the holiest place on the planet that I have ever visited. I would love to see "your" country as it, too, looks breathtaking. I like your idea of fleeing on election day. I do the same on SuperBowl Sunday, as I despise it. I hope that you came "back" somewhat relieved. Amen to all you've called for here -- may it be so.
I stumbled into a Super Bowl Sunday weekend once in the city where it was being held, and fervently regretted it. Sympathies all around.
I've only been to Yosemite once and would love to go back. I only spent a night during a very long road trip, but it's worthy of far more than that -- thank you for the reminder!
So beautiful and true. Your trip to the woods, and your encounter with the fox, sound like the perfect antidote to election anxiety. In wildness is the preservation of the world (and our sanity).
I so love your tradition of getting away on election day--I feel that same dread you describe, of frantically checking and re-checking on something I have zero control over. To see foxes and mountains like those (so gorgeous! Ack! Must get to Montana sometime soon) and time spent on a different plane of time, essentially. This essay is gorgeous, and I'm grateful to have read it this morning. I often think about how insane it feels to work backward in time to understand what rights a living being, animal, plant, or mineral, has--and I love your response to that as you question, "If we started from an assumption that all beings own themselves, that every being has agency and choice?" Yes. How different our experience of and to this world could be with that basic assumption. Also, Hopkins is my first love as a poet, but I had forgotten this poem--and its ending is so apt to accompany your images: "unforeseen times rather — as skies / Betweenpie mountains — lights a lovely mile." Thank you again for sharing this beauty.
I feel like you and I had an exchange about Hopkins at some point. He's my favorite, purely for the feeling that he was always so overwhelmed with the gloriousness of the world that he tried to reshape language in its image because what was available was inadequate. I love the ending of this one, you're right.
A long time ago I got stuck on the question of water. This idea that we know we need water to survive, but so many are willing to abuse it and make it unusable for the rest of life, even humans. And I thought, maybe that's where it starts -- the mind-trick that tells people they can be separate from nature and one another -- with seeing water as an "other" that can be used and abused, rather than, for lack of a better word, a relative. And one we're entirely dependent on to survive.
Yes--I think it was when I posted the moonrise poem of Hopkins--he is my favorite too--and I love how you describe his poetry--of trying to reshape language in the image of the gloriousness of the world. Interesting about water too--it is so incredible that we can treat nothing with the respect of kin and interconnectedness with our own survival, but instead begin on the opposite end--of treating everything like an other, who can be exploited.
"one of my biggest struggles with the work I’m doing here is finding effective ways to explain, for people who don’t already get it, that wrongness—of ownership itself": YES! Sometimes the wrongness of it makes me gasp. Just 180 to what is life giving. Count me among the people struggling alongside you to find ways to communicate this. I take heart from poet Jackie Wang in Carceral Capitalism: "For some time I have been thinking about how to convey the message of police and prison abolition to you, but I know that as a poet, it is not my job to win you over with a persuasive argument, but to impart to you a vibrational experience that is capable of awakening your desire for another world.” Find me somewhere along the path of trying to "awaken desire for another world."
(I think this comment is to a different, more recent post, but interestingly this one was on my mind as I wrote the other one.) I LOVE that from Jackie Wang! Yes, exactly. Anywhere, any way, we can reach people where they are and help them see what's actually going on, helps. I see your light along the path! May we all be starlit sparks together.
Just a quick note to say thank you for suggesting the Freyfogle book. I thought I was only going to read the first chapter, but that is like trying to eat only one tiny morsel of dark chocolate with that cup of hot tea. It (the book) has given me new insights and a new vocabulary with which to think, talk, and write about land ownership and the rights of the commons.
I'm so glad! I wish more people knew about that book. It's very engaging, and when I talk with or interview people who work in some form of environmental law, it's always Freyfogle they refer to. He's given a lot of talks and such on this subject. It's that "new vocabulary" that I find so valuable -- it's easy to feel like something is wrong or not quite right, but to know why and how helps a lot.
Antonia! My friend Ann's poem was just published in the Hastings Journal on Gender and the Law Review
You'll have to download to read it, Pierson v Post's Unheard Voice, by Ann Tweedy
https://repository.uchastings.edu/hwlj/vol34/iss1/17/
Oh my gosh, Charlotte, reading this is giving me huge chills! That's incredible. Seriously, I've got all sorts of churning feelings thinking that your friend was thinking about the fox. I loved reading this. Thank you!
Cree and Dans daughter Rafa. Born in May.
Yes the weather is less icy.
Congratulations!
A friend and neighbor of ours sent us this gem of yours, it made me smile ... Sky islands are the back and front yards for us now, and a short walk into Mexico’s isles. Thanks Nia.
Harry, it's so good to see you here! Love thinking of you guys looking at the sky islands :). I bet the weather there is far nicer than it is here. And is that a baby I see in your profile photo?!
"The events that shake our world so brief, against the timespan of stone." Amazing line a read over and over. You put into words beautifully a hazy thought that has been rolling around in in my head. Such a thoughtful, wonderful read.
Thank you so much for reading, and for this response! Geological time is something I hang onto, but need regular reminding ...
Thank you for writing and posting this article.
Because it relates to climate change and to environmental degradation more generally this is a supremely important issue. Humans must change their orientation towards non-human nature at the most fundamental level. But unfortunately, the dominant origin myth of our civilization entitles (in effect) humans to not only be masters of, but to exploit to the point of total depletion and extinction, and to even replace with technological gadgetry, that very nature of which we are intertwined at every level of our being. The objectification and commodification of all things non-human so that we might live "the good life" and satisfy our every ambition and amusement is so ingrained in our thinking, and so conveniently systematized into our way of being in the world (giving license to greed), that rooting it out will be no less difficult than changing the course of the stars. But we must try. We are fouling our own nest.
There is another Court case you may be interested in: Sierra Club v. Morton (1971). In his dissent Justice Douglas advocates (powerfully) for the personhood of objects in nature "for the purposes of adjudicatory processes." It is very much worth reading.
Also...there is an organization, the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), that advocates for rights of nature and tracks progress around the globe. . Their website is both a good source of information and a good place to start for those wishing to get involved. Several countries are getting onboard. Ecuador has even incorporated rights of nature into its constitution!
Thank you so much for reading, and for such a thoughtful response!
I feel like I came across that case at one point as the first instance of a "rights of nature" reference in the U.S., but I can't remember where. I do have it printed out, though! I got interested in it through Ecuador and New Zealand, but then also the situation around Lake Erie, where people voted to give the lake rights of nature and the governor then made representing nature or natural entities illegal. Which to me is almost helpful because those kinds of actions increasingly show how absurd the assumptions underlying much of this is.
I'm reading an interesting book right now by German philosopher Andreas Weber called "Enlivenment," and he's digging into the base assumptions that make it possible for both economic thinking and biology to ignore life itself, and what makes it worthwhile. It's a bit more of a slog than I thought it would be (It's very short, but very full of philosophical language!), but he's making a lot of these points, that even our language and imaginations are structured to deny the importance of life and ourselves as integral with nature, and to justify objectification and commodification.
Thank you again! I'll dig into that 1971 case again, and look up CELDF :)
In addition to CELDF, there's the Earth Law Center and the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, also the org Thomas Linzey (a founding force behind the rights-of-nature movement) started after he left CELDF: Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights. The rights-of-nature movement does challenge ownership assumptions, and dozens of communities around the US and the world are passing local ordinances. The states, however, come down hard (usually) in favor of extraction rights and outlaw the power of local communities to protect their own regions. But the communities are organizing now at state levels, to amend state constitutions, etc. Definitely a movement to know about.
I checked out Weber's book. It looks interesting. I hope you will share more of what you find. I've got too many literary irons in the fire right now to add yet another one.
The last line in that penultimate paragraph of yours: "even our language and imaginations are structured to deny the importance of life and ourselves as integral with nature, and to justify objectification and commodification," strikes to the heart of the problem. The problem is deeply systemic.
In his "Letter on Humanism" the philosopher Martin Heidegger writes that "language is the house of being." Indeed it is. And outside of those walls is infinite possibility, including the possibility to reimagine ourselves and our relationship to the whole of the cosmos and everything in it, including our non-human brothers and sisters. In order to reimagine ourselves we need a new vocabulary. We need a new house of being.
Have you read the article by Lynn White Jr., "The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis," published in 1967 in the journal, Science? In his article White writes, "More science and more technology are not going to get us out of the present ecologic crisis until we find a new religion, or rethink our old one." I agree that this is a fundamental part of the problem.
A new religion, a new language, and an entirely new way of being in the world. No problem. Let me take a nap first and then I'll get right on it.
Lynn White was exactly right in naming Western culture's disconnection from nature as a spiritual problem, which was gutsy in 1966 at the keynote of a scientific conference. But he pointed to the creation story in Genesis as the culprit, which is hugely problematic because that story arose out of Jewish history, not Christian, and it never led to imperial conquering of nature in Jewish thinking—in fact, just the opposite. I took on Lynn White and his thesis in one of my episodes: "But the problem with White’s talk is that if you look at the actual history, very little of the evidence he used to support his argument actually holds up. Fifty years of hindsight show that what Lynn White the historian did was, essentially, to write a myth. He created a story about how Western culture got ourselves and the rest of the world into a terrible mess, and it’s a compelling story, as all good myths are, just because it rings so true." https://priscillastuckey.substack.com/p/29-where-did-we-go-wrong-b9d
That's good to know. Thank you for sharing that deeper analysis. I feel like I've heard something similar -- in that book Ishmael maybe? Daniel Quinn's book. Definitely left me with not-great feelings at the end, because he did seem to be blaming Jewish people and worldview for everything. Not a great look!
Haha, yes, I'll join you right after my nap!
I will definitely share. The Walking Compositions portion of this newsletter tend to incorporate reflections on those eadings, which are part of my research on ownership, private property, and the commons. This book went into places I didn't expect.
I did read that article! I have it printed out because it seems important that this kind of thinking isn't new (including Heidegger). And of course with language, there's Lakoff & Johnson -- I keep going back to Metaphors We Live By and thinking about how the words we use frame our understanding of the world around us.
It seems that every day I am astonished at how much I don't know and how much I may never understand. But the path is the point, and I'm just trying to stay on a good path. After all, a universe that is fully comprehensible by human beings is a universe not worth being part of. As Patrick Henry surely never said, "Give me mystery, or give me death!"
On that note, I didn't even know the Lakoff & Johnson book existed. Now that I do it simply must be read. There is no choice.
A couple of items related to the project you are current engaged in:
Have you read the chapter, "The Land Ethic," from Aldo Leopold's book, A Sand County Almanac? It is beautiful. A classic.
And then there is this:
The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had someone pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: “Do not listen to this impostor. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one!”
—Jean Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1755)
Peace. Stay warm up there.
Believe it or not, Leopold's book is still on my to-read pile. I know it should be a priority! I should have read it years ago but didn't. I will get to it soon because every quote says so much related to all of this. The Rousseau quote has definitely been on my desk for a while! Despite Rousseau's other significant failings (especially forcing his mistress to give up all of their babies to adoption), it still says pretty much everything that needs to be said on the subject.
"Metaphors We Live By" is a bit academic but full of compelling thoughts about how language is shaped by metaphor and how metaphor is shaped by our physical experience of the world. George Lakoff has continued writing about the effects of language on perception, including in day-to-day politics. And oh no, look, he has a Substack!
https://georgelakoff.substack.com
The path is the point. I always need reminders of that.
As it relates to your area of research that one chapter in the Leopold book is the most important. And it reads quite nicely even without the context of the rest of the book.
It is instructive to note that property rights, so called, and as they relate to land and its associated material possessions, are predicated upon the essential but unarticulated premise that the natural world is infinitely abundant and infinitely resilient. In fact, our entire civilization and way of being in the world is predicated upon that same premise. Think of our civilization as a form of argument (which it is), based upon certain values and assumptions. Surely you know what happens to an argument once a major premise is shown to be false.
But regarding property rights in a broader sense, they encompass so much more than simply owning a piece of land. In fact, I believe that certain other elements contained with the definition of “property rights” are far superior to land ownership in that they are inextricably rooted in human nature. In a short essay published in the National Gazette in 1792, James Madison, considered by many scholars to be the “Father of the Constitution,” expounds upon his definition of property as it relates to his theory of government. The essay can be found here: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-14-02-0238
How ironic that a link to Lakoff's Substack page should suddenly appear. The universe must be listening. I am very much interested in the subject matter of his book, so I appreciate the referral. I just need longer days and more energy to take all this in.
Thank you for engaging with me. This is fun.
Thanks, Antonia
Hopefully books and movies will start to move the needle on people's attitudes. Soul of an octopus. My octopus teacher and now there's a movie called EO that seems absolutely amazing. Can't wait to see it. Sounds like it would be right up your alley. All the best to you and your family!
I hope so, too! And thank you :)
I watched My Octopus Teacher after meeting an octopus for the first time last March. That's not an experience I'm going to forget anytime soon. Just incredible beings.
Reading your post inspired me to look at cabins. It seems nearly impossible to score even three nights. Any secrets to getting those reservations? Really enjoyed the post. I'm a veterinarian and I am chafed by humans sense of ownership over the animal world!
I have to book them 6 months ahead of time, and have better luck if I'm not trying to do it in a popular season (summer, usually, but also over winter holidays). It depends on the cabin, too. The ones up Montana's North Fork valley, where we were, are particularly popular, and this one (Schnaus cabin) is known as very difficult to get. I think I only managed because November isn't a peak time. Sometimes I'll get lucky and there will be a cancellation. I have a friend who used to book several cabins a year before she got a camper, and if she needed to cancel she would tell me so I had a chance to reserve it instead. I did the same for another friend this year.
There are also a number that you have to ski into in winter, like Challenge cabin near Glacier National Park. We have friends who go for those, though we haven't pushed our kids on that level of commitment. I haven't even explored that many places outside of the valley I live in and there are a lot!
I am chafed by it, too, and my 12-year-old even more so. Another reader said their spouse is studying the book "Without Animals Life Is Not Worth Living," by philosopher Freya Matthews, and I haven't read it yet but am ordering it. I like that perspective! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29006087-without-animals-life-is-not-worth-living
May I ask a question? What do you think the fox is doing outside?
I am guessing you mean literally? Looking for food! Most people renting this cabin would probably do what we did, which is leave their cooler of food outside on the front porch (there’s no electricity but outside was like a freezer). Our cooler is bear-proof and we’re extremely careful about leaving any food where animals can get it when we’re camping, etc., but not everyone is so careful and it doesn’t take much. This porch had a picnic table on it — I can see, say, a family having eating outside when it’s warmer and the animals coming for anything left behind. The fox clearly knew this as a place to sniff out something to eat!
First of all, alpenglow has to be one of the loveliest words in all of the English language. Even better, it describes something lovelier.
Thanks for a great essay and suggesting a different way to think about who owns what and for what reasons.
You are right, "alpenglow" is a beautiful word. Hard to believe it came from the same language as "blog," which I could never warm to.
😂😂😂😂
Great photos!
"What about the fox herself?" I imagine some judge in long robes explaining that the fox is perfectly entitled to self-ownership; they are free to evade Post and Pierson as long as they like and as long as they manage to stay alive or avoid being captured, no one can own them. I guess it's hard to talk about ownership of property without talking about ownership of power.
That last sentence is an excellent summation of what is probably the core of the issue with ownership.
I can imagine an animist culture taking the tack, though, don't you think?
If ownership is about possessing (Erich Fromm's "to have" vs. "to be" mode), and power is about doing or making others do (influencing mode), perhaps the missing ingredient that might allow for a different kind of relationship between them is that "being" orientation toward the world, or as Fromm puts it, ”The difference between a society centred around persons [or foxes] and one centred around things. ” His book To Have Or To Be is profound and so relevant to property, I think! You've probably read it before but if you haven't this is a nice summary: https://daily-philosophy.com/to-have-or-to-be/
As for a turn to animism, I am so behind the curve on that (and have never been a big "animals" person, at least in the sense of feeling a connection or specifically wanting to care for one). But animals have so many powers and abilities that we don't have; it seems like a purely arbitrary twist of fate that our abilities happened to give us systematic power over them. You could say the fox, or any other part of nature really, perfectly exemplifies the difference between being and having.
I have not read it before but it sounds like I should (a sentence I've said too often recently!) -- I've only heard his name. (I started out as a philosophy major in college but quickly dropped it. All the classes were at 8 a.m. I am a morning person now but wasn't then.)
I am no animism expert at all, but my understanding is that it's more about feeling the aliveness of everything around us -- animals, trees, water, etc. A feeling that it's a relationship based on respect and reciprocity, rather than possession or power. Which would then make sense of the fox having agency over herself. Definitely the "being" rather than "having"!
Very much enjoy this train of thinking.
It's a really powerful idea, for sure. I guess that would have to be one of the key differences between indigenous and settler ways of thinking, right? Or at least, it's always identified as a difference by those who really know. Maybe the other attitude that goes hand in with possession/power is hierarchy. You can appreciate that an animal is fully alive, but simply believe humans are better and higher on the ladder. So it's not just having more power or even greed, but *entitlement* to wield that power over others.
From what I've read, part of Descartes's idea of "I think; therefore, I am" came from a movement that sought to separate hierarchies of humans from the slave-owning ideas of Ancient Greece. It was Aristotle maybe who expressed how enslaved people were closer to nature and therefore not really human in the way that, say, people who owned slaves were? (Setting aside women; we don't get many chances to be human throughout written history.) And Descartes was part of thinking that wanted to make all humans -- all humans as they understood them; again, not women and I'm sure plenty of other people who didn't fit what they thought of as "civilized" -- as something *above* nature. So in a way erasing a hierarchy that had previously existed, but not realizing that they were leaving in place the same larger heirarchy that had enabled that thinking.
Entitlement to wield that power over others is a good way to put it! And we don't have to go far -- our modern Uber-wealthy often express similar sentiments.
The photos are surreal -- so incredibly beautiful. I am reminded of the how I feel every single time I visit Yosemite -- to me, the holiest place on the planet that I have ever visited. I would love to see "your" country as it, too, looks breathtaking. I like your idea of fleeing on election day. I do the same on SuperBowl Sunday, as I despise it. I hope that you came "back" somewhat relieved. Amen to all you've called for here -- may it be so.
I stumbled into a Super Bowl Sunday weekend once in the city where it was being held, and fervently regretted it. Sympathies all around.
I've only been to Yosemite once and would love to go back. I only spent a night during a very long road trip, but it's worthy of far more than that -- thank you for the reminder!
So beautiful and true. Your trip to the woods, and your encounter with the fox, sound like the perfect antidote to election anxiety. In wildness is the preservation of the world (and our sanity).
Jack Turner wrote a whole thing about that line and the idea that the wildness discussed is that within ourselves, as well as without. Very timely!
Thank you for this. I feel more at peace for having read it, and that is a powerful thing.
That means a tremendous amount. Thank you 💚
I so love your tradition of getting away on election day--I feel that same dread you describe, of frantically checking and re-checking on something I have zero control over. To see foxes and mountains like those (so gorgeous! Ack! Must get to Montana sometime soon) and time spent on a different plane of time, essentially. This essay is gorgeous, and I'm grateful to have read it this morning. I often think about how insane it feels to work backward in time to understand what rights a living being, animal, plant, or mineral, has--and I love your response to that as you question, "If we started from an assumption that all beings own themselves, that every being has agency and choice?" Yes. How different our experience of and to this world could be with that basic assumption. Also, Hopkins is my first love as a poet, but I had forgotten this poem--and its ending is so apt to accompany your images: "unforeseen times rather — as skies / Betweenpie mountains — lights a lovely mile." Thank you again for sharing this beauty.
Would love to see you in Montana!
I feel like you and I had an exchange about Hopkins at some point. He's my favorite, purely for the feeling that he was always so overwhelmed with the gloriousness of the world that he tried to reshape language in its image because what was available was inadequate. I love the ending of this one, you're right.
A long time ago I got stuck on the question of water. This idea that we know we need water to survive, but so many are willing to abuse it and make it unusable for the rest of life, even humans. And I thought, maybe that's where it starts -- the mind-trick that tells people they can be separate from nature and one another -- with seeing water as an "other" that can be used and abused, rather than, for lack of a better word, a relative. And one we're entirely dependent on to survive.
Yes--I think it was when I posted the moonrise poem of Hopkins--he is my favorite too--and I love how you describe his poetry--of trying to reshape language in the image of the gloriousness of the world. Interesting about water too--it is so incredible that we can treat nothing with the respect of kin and interconnectedness with our own survival, but instead begin on the opposite end--of treating everything like an other, who can be exploited.
It's really insane when you think about it.
I really do love knowing there's someone out there who likes Hopkins as much as I do!