OK, short break, back to the regularly scheduled program ...
I know, I know ... I'm chapping more than one hide out there. Sorry about that ... well, actually, no, I'm not sorry at all. You got to get over yourselves. My point is, really, that when you think a thought back to its source (which is what our little thought experiment last time was about) you realize that at some point, it all become just a little bizarre, a little absurd, a little arbitrary.
To put it bluntly, at some point, we just decide to make stuff up and say, "well, that's how it is". That, dear friends, is strange. But that, dear friends, is how we make most of reality and most of our lives work.
To be perfectly honest, at the moment, I'm not interested at all in any rationalizations or alleged justifications for why things are the way they are. Whether our example had to do with Native Americans, the bushmen of the Kalahari, some Siberian tribe, or the Celts or the Cro-Magnons or the Neanderthals, well, it just doesn't matter. There was a time when no one thought about "ownership" or "property" and just because someone else came along with those kind of concepts doesn't really mean anything at all. There is no natural law that identifies, defines, or describes "property", for example. The notion is simply one that we made up at some point and that we all now just take for granted.
What amuses me most about all of this is that those amongst you who get your dander up about fiction, about made-up stories, are the ones who are feeling most chapped right now. Why? Because all that single-minded, grounded, factual, objective, this-is-how-it-is stuff turns out to be just as made up as anything else. The only thing "natural" about any of this, if you will, is the fact that we humans have a tendency to make stuff up and believe that what we made up are facts. They're not.
I would be the last person to maintain that there isn't a lot at stake here, but that's not the issue. My point, in case you may not be getting it, is that if we made this up, then we are perfectly within our "rights", actually are in tune with our true natures, if we decide to make something up to replace it. The world is the way it is because we have either made it the way it is, or because we have allowed others to make it the way it is. It's really a very simple idea. There is nothing Gd-given about it, there are no natural laws that describe it. Just about all of what is involved in how we organize and structure our social lives is a result of how we decided to organize and structure it. It is as it is, but it could just as easily have been somehow else. None of it is cast in stone.
This is, truth be told, a difficult notion. This is something that a whole lot of people have trouble wrapping their heads around. Nevertheless, I would like to suggest that it is possible. I'm not asking anyone to give up their cherished beliefs. I'm not asking anyone to deny their upbringing or what they hold to be good and true, or even sacred. What I am doing, however, is suggesting that it just might be worth your while -- in the long run, and that means for those who come after you, be they children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren or people you will never, ever know -- to think a thought or two to the end (or the beginning, depending on how you view it).
You'll be a better person for it. And, the world will be a better place because of it.
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