Dear Unborn Kin,
Our society in this day and age is based upon two fictions: ownership and property. We have decided that it is proper to divide the earth into property. We prop ourselves up with our property, achieve social standing. We stand upon our property. The more property we can stand upon the higher our standing. Those with no property have no standing.
We own property. What does this mean? It means we can maim or kill anyone who threatens the sanctity of our property. We back the fiction of property with guns. Owning means paying a steady flow of money to other fictions also backed with armed might: governments. Governments have the right to take our property from us if we don't pay money or if our property gets in their way. Maybe it is more accurate to say that property owns us.
We are all squatters. We squat on land taken from others. We are allowed to squat as long as we follow the squat rules: keep paying money. Even when the property is "paid for," money must continue to be paid.
Where does property come from? From violence and force. All property is stolen. Who stole it and steals it? Those with the most devastating weaponry and willingness to use it. Physical weaponry and legal weaponry are used in tandem.
You probably will shake your heads and wonder how we could all fall for this. Property and ownership are our religion and we believe it with all our might. We are still very primitive, yet believe we are highly sophisticated.
I hope things are well for you.
Your Loving Ancestor
Our society in this day and age is based upon two fictions: ownership and property. We have decided that it is proper to divide the earth into property. We prop ourselves up with our property, achieve social standing. We stand upon our property. The more property we can stand upon the higher our standing. Those with no property have no standing.
We own property. What does this mean? It means we can maim or kill anyone who threatens the sanctity of our property. We back the fiction of property with guns. Owning means paying a steady flow of money to other fictions also backed with armed might: governments. Governments have the right to take our property from us if we don't pay money or if our property gets in their way. Maybe it is more accurate to say that property owns us.
We are all squatters. We squat on land taken from others. We are allowed to squat as long as we follow the squat rules: keep paying money. Even when the property is "paid for," money must continue to be paid.
Where does property come from? From violence and force. All property is stolen. Who stole it and steals it? Those with the most devastating weaponry and willingness to use it. Physical weaponry and legal weaponry are used in tandem.
You probably will shake your heads and wonder how we could all fall for this. Property and ownership are our religion and we believe it with all our might. We are still very primitive, yet believe we are highly sophisticated.
I hope things are well for you.
Your Loving Ancestor
Hopefully our unborn kin will be more enlightened...and forgive us our trespasses.
ReplyDeleteWhich brings to mind that section of the Lord's Prayer...'forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us'. If we 'squatters' really understood the depth of our trespasses, I wonder if we'd be willing to make amends? Once we know something, we can't pretend we don't know it...asking forgiveness doesn't seem to be quite enough.
Thanks, for (yet another) thought-full offering, George! ♥ Cathy
Dear Loving Ancestor,
ReplyDeleteYour words speak to my heart and mind, as I see "property" describing both the earth and our ideas--as if the two were ultimately separate.
Does not your counseling us to be "passers by" extricate us from ownership? If there is no ownership, where is the property?
Your Loving Descendant,
--Gary
I don't know the answer to this, but I wonder how many American Indian tribes do not have the word property in their language? So if there is no property there is no ownership. LG
ReplyDeleteGeorge - check out the link below which shows this nation's layout prior to the Europeans' intrusion.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151151818860139&set=a.10150909805445139.437398.67895825138&type=1&theater