The Anti-Soapbox: Collected Essays

lifelong trauma, death, the deaths of others—all these become possible when expectation rules one’s reality, and they all stem from the same, seemingly benign cause: a distorted, limited perception of oneself and the outside world, as to see what isn’t there or ignore what is.

  Would you prefer your plane’s pilot to maneuver according to actual weather conditions, or those that are expected?

  Yet, for all the expectation making the rounds, there is hope. I propose a simple solution: act on what is, so that one might open themselves to unyielding reality, that which exists despite all expectation and agreement. To conduct ourselves in any sort of responsible manner, we must first see things as they actually are, instead of what’s expected or desired. This is an essential truth of life on Earth, and one scarcely in practice at this point in history, for all its necessity in our collective survival.

  Are you seeing actual reality and its huge spectrum of possibilities? Or are you caught up in the web of expectation and its perceptual distortions?

  XIII. ON PROPERTY

  Private property and its practice: it’s a big issue, and remains as relevant today as in ages past. However, before it can be addressed, we must first sort out some confusion surrounding it, for this has muddied the waters and hindered resolution.

  In my experience, there is a popular misunderstanding regarding private property and property rights, as to create a general confusion of the issue at hand, equal parts linguistic and semantic. As it were, the modern-day idea of “property” has been influenced by various cultural and ideological forces, to the point of having little to do with actual property, the same way politics has little to do with policy. Consequently, we are left arguing “property” when, in reality, we are arguing only our individual semantics of property, trapped in a knot of misguided language, mixed metaphors, and confused concepts. This is so much chasing our own tails, and is unproductive, to say the least.

  So, what is being argued under the banner of “property” these days? Difficult to say. As with so many semantically-driven distortions, “property” has become individualized to the point of no longer having much bearing on reality, instead involving whatever personal associations and attachments the individual has placed on the issue. Being so heavily subjective, today’s “property” can, theoretically, be anything, from subjects only loosely related to property, such as real estate and municipal zoning, to those as wildly irrelevant as political and cultural rubs, things which have more to do with ego and social standing than the philosophy and implications of property. And though surely some folks are in touch with the true heart of the issue, others could, due to the confused concepts at play, perceive “property issues” as whatever their subconscious mind labels this as. And therein lies the crux of the problem: if one person’s “property” involves the consequences of private holdings and delineation of land, and another’s involves labor problems and socialist ideology, then how could these people ever communicate?

  While perceptions of “property” vary, there is one which is common enough, and misguided enough, to be disruptive to progress on the issue: that private property is a question of materialism and class struggle.

  The idea that private property is inherently wrong and unfair, though not without its merits, is misplaced as it relates to the issue in a practical, real-world sense. The wholesale condemnation of private property as a social evil is not unknown to most people living in this day and age. Rooted in the circa-1800’s anarchist slogan “Property is theft,” then further popularized by socialist and communist ideologies, the argument certainly means well, and possesses salient points; however, it ignores the greater reality at play, namely the fact that property is not a political or ideological institution. Rather, property is a social convention, founded not on materialism or acquisition, but on the premise of permission. That is, property is not, by nature, a means of declaring ownership, but a means of setting boundaries; one can own a window screen simply to keep the bugs out, rather than a selfish desire for possession of a screen. And sure, property can instigate the negative and dysfunctional types of ownership typically associated with private property and, tangentially, capitalism; but that is incidental, for it could just as easily go the other way. Indeed, a social system permitting private property can go so far as to result in a classical “haves and have-nots” scenario, complete with all the messiness outlined in a Marxist pamphlet; but that’s a result of what is done with that system, not an inherent flaw the system itself. It’s the same principle as, “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.”

  Property is as property does, you could say.

  In this sense, private property is far more a social mechanic than a material or economic one, as to be an offshoot of the social contract—a tangible extension of respect, civic duty, and basic human cooperation. Say of these things what you will, but the fact remains that the true issue is a social one, not the mislabeled “property” issues that have become conventional as of late. Which brings us back to this essay’s premise, for it is far too often today that “property rights” refers to clashes between socialism and capitalism, or arguments against industry and materialism, or loyalty to a cherished political cause. These issues, though they do touch on the subject of property, are only distantly relevant, the way the price of plastic wrappers is relevant to the taste of the food that goes in those wrappers. Yet, these popular distortions have gained prominence over the actual, social issue at hand, such that the efforts to sort out matters of property have been redirected to things like materialism—not an invalid or unjust issue, by any means, but still a misdirected take on the real issue of property.

  This is the heart of the confusion surrounding property today, and it is this which must first be resolved.

  So, what’s to be done about it? Unfortunately, a solution is beyond this essay’s purpose. Here, my point is not to answer the massive question of property and the social contract, but instead to clarify just what the practice of property entails, including the social and ethical concerns central to the greater issue. These details have become buried by our confused concepts and linguistic and semantic distortions, so that “property rights” conjures any number of things in the public consciousness, real and imagined.

  And, really, is clearing the air in this regard not the first step toward answering the question of property? After all, you can’t hit the target if you’re facing the wrong way.