The Ownerless Society-Parts one and two

Part One: "If you can't own it, it doesn't exist?!"

As many of you know, I attended a meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), an agency of the United Nations (UN) to present a proposal. This proposal was for the protection of music that is owned by no one, in other words, most of the music in the world. It uses a legal category, the Public Domain, which was created by the (British) Statute of Anne, the first modern copyright law, in 1710. In order to designate certain ideas expressed in songs, stories, inventions, designs, etc. as subject to property-'ownable' by someone-the vast reservoir of human creativity that could not be so owned had to be accounted for. Not only were the origins of most creative expression obscure or unattributable to any individual, but the uses to which they were commonly put excluded commercial transaction. All sacred or religious art is one example. Songs and dances for feasting, harvesting and other communal activities are another. In fact, the entire field of what we call 'culture', must, by definition, be Public Domain. Culture constitutes human being, as such, and must be available to all within a given culture in order to exist. Unless it binds together a group (society as a whole or a subset within it) how can it be? Unless it elevates the group or society above its scattered, incoherent parts-individual people-what eyes or ears would even notice it? Who would have the capacity to differentiate it from the sounds and movements and colors of which the universe is composed? (a simple illustration is any language you don't understand; even if recognizable as a language it remains incomprehensible sound or marks on a page to you who do not speak it.) That there are secret songs or rituals available only to the initiated does not contradict this fact. Rather, it confirms it. Membership in a priesthood, group of elders or master craftsmen does not proffer ownership; it specifically prohibits it by making guardianship of certain works or skills a necessity of the larger group's continuity. That special guidance or education is required to properly appreciate and protect a song, dance, or any cultural artifact or practice is precisely to prevent its appropriation by anyone seeking private gain or devious purpose.

Now, as I mentioned in my report of that meeting, many indigenous delegates specifically oppose the Public Domain because it has been used to justify the plunder of their legacies. In practice, this legal principle has been turned on its head to justify the transformation of cultural expressions owned by no one into copyrighted or patented works whose sale can enrich an individual. The most common examples come from American popular culture. Old blues or work songs were and continue to be taken and registered as: "Traditional, Arranged By" such and such person, the copyright being held by that individual. In effect this makes the Public Domain equivalent to a wasteland, an empty space in which there are no inhabitants and no artifacts, indeed, nothing useful except raw materials. These raw materials belong to the first person who comes to claim them. This is why lawyers speak of a work 'falling into the Public Domain' after the term of copyright expires. Now, this would be laughably loony were it not so deadly. After all, we're not just talking about the obvious fact that the greatest works of literature, art, music and science were made before copyright existed (Shakespeare, for example). Rather, this conception of the Public Domain is exactly identical to how Europeans viewed the Western Hemisphere following Columbus. It was open to be claimed by any European since its inhabitants, in effect, did not exist.

To oppose this today many indigenous peoples are seeking the protection of property law by designating their common legacies collective property. In many cases, treaties signed in the 18th and 19th Centuries between, for example, Great Britain and the First Nations of Canada, explicitly acknowledge this concept and guarantee it legal recognition. (see, 19th Century treaty text between Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and "Indian" tribes available at: http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/pr/trts/hti/site/trindex_e.html) But this presents a paradox; one that bears a striking resemblance to the Copernican threat to Church dogma concerning the order of the universe. For the indigenous explain that their existence consists in this: belonging to the tribe or group renders incoherent or nonsensical any notion of a single person privately appropriating what originates in and depends on the tribe or group for its being. Thus, to suggest that a song belong to one man is as meaningless as saying that the tribe can be owned by one of its members or that the letters of the alphabet can be copyrighted.

Nonetheless, while ironies abound, the argument has weight in the WIPO context because it uses the framework of property and the laws, treaties and institutions erected to propagate and protect it. Moreover, not only indigenous peoples are concerned but big countries such as India, Brazil and South Africa use the same arguments to defend their traditional cultural expression and knowledge. (in most cases the focus is food and medicinal plants, only secondarily music and dance) Of course, this begs the question: from whom must protection be sought? Who is it that would misappropriate and illegally profit from the traditional knowledge of tribes, ethnic groups and even nation-states? Guess who...

It is easy to cynically conclude that this is all an exercise in futility. That big pharma and big agri-business will trump any claims by anyone attempting to limit their access to the wealth of this earth. That the UN is just window dressing for the crimes perpetuated by its real masters, namely the Security Council (the US, China, Russia, France, Great Britain, etc.) That the same fate awaits the indigenous peoples today as it did yesterday. But this would be wrong. First, because it would ignore the great waves of anti-colonial struggle that engulfed the world following WWII. It is only because of this struggle that anyone is listening to the Tulalip Tribe (Puget Sound area, Washington) or the Maasai (Kenya and Tanzania) today. Second, it would ignore the storms now gathering which threaten to radically alter the terms of play once again. What swept the 'Third World' in the Sixties, is rumbling forward again. Thus the recent past and the imminent future both conspire to challenge the ruling dogma of our day and age: Private Property is all that matters. All other rights, obligations and practices must conform to those guaranteeing this one or they will not be recognized. If it exists, it can be owned.

Still, indigenous people exist. So does the concept of the Public Interest. Environmentalism, as a movement and an idea, has taken hold precisely because there is an irresistible logic and irreducible fact of shared space-the Planet Earth-that has to be accounted for if anyone is to live in it. This friction is like a tectonic plate shifting beneath all of today's conflicts whether they appear in national, ethnic, or religious guise. Who is the public? What is their domain? Who are the law-givers and what is their jurisdiction? Because this is so we are subjected to an ideological offensive intended to convince us our happiness depends on being alone. While the 'Private' is a well-decorated altar housing an icon to be coveted and revered, the 'Public' is a defiled and mistrusted shadow lurking in the corners of social life. Think 'public' and you think: public toilet or public education; dirty, dangerous and inferior-only there for those unfortunates without the capacity to lift themselves into the ranks of the private individuals by whom civilization is composed.

Yet, for the vast majority of people in the world-including in the wealthiest countries-the opposite is actually true. What is private, in fact, is unavailable and what is public is best-or should be. In other words, the parks, the beaches, the schools, the libraries, health care and roads are necessary to life and should be maintained for the betterment of all. Thus, what indigenous peoples are demanding in the form of collective ownership is actually what would benefit humanity-meaning everyone. Indeed, these principles express what humanity is when we use the word to describe benevolence and solidarity. It is a quality that we both aspire to and share the capacity for. It is what we honor and extol, especially when we teach our children.

This is why, in the struggle for a future free from suffering and injustice, the old is new. Far from being antique, quaint or even 'traditional', what indigenous peoples are fighting for is dynamic. It could mean renewal for humanity.

Part Two: The Ownerless Society
(What I want most is what I cannot own)

In the inaugural issue of this newsletter I made reference to 'The Ownerless Society'. In part this was a humorous rejoinder to the tired rhetoric of George Bush. We've heard hosannas to the Ownership Society sung so often we know the tune by heart. Like all advertising jingles, they're intended to worm their way into the subconscious where they form habits of thought that go unquestioned. But questioning them is precisely what we need to do. Here, I'd like to invite you to join me in exploring some ideas that might contribute to such an effort. There are many possibilities but I chose these because each directly corresponds to its opposite in terms of owning things/objects and the individual who, it is claimed, should aspire to do so. I want to imagine the Ownerless Society based on the following:

1. Friendship
2. The Bond
3. Belonging
4. Justice

There is a fifth concept, Process, which embraces the other four. By process I mean that ends or goals are temporary, impermanent, negative in the sense that they are forever coming into and passing out of existence. Process or unfolding is permanent, constantly flowing, affirmative in the sense that everything is continually in motion, never at rest. Using this as a guide I'd like to explore more closely the other four.

Friendship is mutuality and equality. Sharing with others who are the same because they are people. "The principle of justice is mutuality and equality, through which, in a way most nearly approximating union of body and soul, all men become cooperative, and distinguish the mine from the thine, as is also testified by Plato who learned this from Pythagoras. Pythagoras effected this in the best possible manner by erasing from common life everything private, while increasing everything held in common, so far as ultimate possessions, which after all are the causes of tumult and sedition."-Iamblichus, the Life of Pythagoras

The Bond declares that the gap between individuals, families, generations and occupations is not a separation, rather it is a connection that must be elevated above the separate objects or persons that reside within it. By doing so, the illusions sown by individuality or 'interests' can be overcome by a unification with community.

Belonging means that membership in humanity supersedes ownership of objects. It is the infinite out of which finite objects come into and pass out of being. In order for any THING to belong to me I must belong to humanity. Furthermore, my existence is no more individual than it can be said that my elbow makes me a person. As the song says: "there ain't no I if there ain't no We".*

Justice is done by serving the principles of mutuality and equality. It makes one demand: that we interrupt the numbing inertia of injustice to assert what is fair and right for all. Thus, a circle is drawn making an indissoluble Bond between Friendship, Belonging and Justice.

Now, these ideas may appear to be hopelessly naive. Perhaps they are so obvious that it is only my ignorance that makes me feel it necessary to state them. But I would like to point out that they operate everywhere in the world today, invisible, unacknowledged, but true. They are what we seek and what we cling to in opposition to all that would tear us apart. They may be deformed and distorted yet they continue their stubborn resistance because they express what makes an animal called homo sapiens a human being. The so-called 'real world' is overrun by war, famine, pestilence and death. Why should we consider that realistic? Where is the sanity in that?

If there is to be a new paradigm we must be able to think it.

 

*"Relatively Einstein" by Mat Callahan