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02
Those who see the world as a battleground
vanquish duality. The gun-slinging rancher Nick Grindel in The Western Code (1932) embodies that mentality: “This town ain’t big enough for the both of us.”
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03
Those who see the world as a commons value duality. Consider Woody Guthrie: “This land is your land. This land is my land.”
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04
Those who see the world as a battleground “engage” people as one engages the enemy: “I demolished his argument.” “Fire away.” “He brought out the big guns.” “You can't change his mind. He's entrenched.” “She shot me down.”
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05
Those who see the world as a commons “involve” people as one involves a peer in the cocreation of play. “What is genius‚" Goethe asks‚ “but the faculty of seizing and turning to account anything that strikes us ... every one of my writings has been furnished to me by a thousand different persons‚ a thousand different things.”
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06
The relationship of play opens one to surprise from others so that the activity of play can continue ad infinitum.
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07
Play is‚ therefore‚ the collaborative creation of new relations‚ new possibilities‚ and new realities. Philosopher Martin Buber: “Play is
the exultation of the possible.”
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09
Those who see the world as a battleground strive to suppress surprise from others. “Loose canons” are dangerous.
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10
Those who see the world as a battleground revel in what they’ve made impossible for others. Those who see the world as a commons revel in what they have made possible with others.
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11
While those on the battleground strive to produce their autonomy from others‚ those in the commons provide others with the autonomy to produce. Lawrence Lessig: “If the Internet teaches us anything‚ it is that great value comes from leaving core resources in a commons‚ where they're free for people to build upon as they see fit.”
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13
To those who see the world as a battleground‚ the purpose of property is to display the rewards won in past confrontations. To the victor go the spoils. Only losers come home empty-handed. “The rich man glories in his riches‚” observed Adam Smith‚ the great philosopher of competition‚ “because he feels that they naturally draw upon him the attention of the world‚ and that mankind are disposed to go along with him... The poor man‚ on the contrary‚ is ashamed of his poverty. He feels that it ... places him out of the sight of mankind.”
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14
This is the essence of profit. As in battle‚ as
in a market economy: for every plus there must be a minus.
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15
People who see the world as a commons make gifts of property because they know that the greater the number of people who can play, the greater the number of people with whom they can play. People who see the world as a commons practice what is called a “gift economy.” Thus property is not a show but a means of enhancing relationships and expanding play. In a gift economy, says writer Howard Rheingold,
“people do things for one another out of a spirit of building something between them.”
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16
The expansion and extension of play is, then, the essence of wealth. John Ruskin pointed this out more than a hundred years ago in discussing the etymology of value: “Valor, from valere, to be well or strong; –strong, life (if a man), or valiant; strong, for life (if a thing), or valuable. To be ‘valuable,’ therefore, is to ‘avail toward life.’ ... For wealth, instead of depending merely on a ‘have,’ is thus seen to depend on a ‘can.’ ... And what we reasoned of only as accumulation of material, is seen to demand also accumulation of capacity.... Wealth is, therefore, ‘The Possession of the Valuable by the valiant.’”
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18
Therefore, those who see the world as a commons see the world and the people in it as source; as that which gives forth. In giving forth, a source is profuse in its self-initiated production. One does not engage a source to harness it to one’s personal agenda, but to involve it in the genesis of one’s own future.
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19
Those who see a battleground see others as mere resource. A resource is anything converted from its original form into that which is useful for perpetuating someone”s past. To see others as a resource is, therefore, to expect them to surrender to your continued past.
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20
Those who see the world as a battleground establish hierarchies: pyramids that declare a past enshrined and all futures bound to it. To do this, they confer rank. Rank demands that people acknowledge that another is more powerful, and it compels them to withdraw all opposition to that rank. This is the cessation of a war.
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