Jacob, I think you've made an error:
You've taken:
I think, therefore I Am
and perverted it into:
I own, therefore I Am
The two are equivalent. Descartes was looking for an irreducible datum of existence and found it in subjective activity.
He went with 'I think' because he cultivated the mind/body dichotomy. But he could have gone with 'I own' because of it's subjective component.
You are not the sum of what you own.
This is true but the things I own add brightness and meaning and even possibility to my life. If I live in a pre-industrial society some of what I own probably supports my day to day physical existence (without which I do no thinking at all).
Neither you nor I, nor anyone else, owns anything.
Nonsense. Even some animals own things. We own stuff and we can keep, lose, buy, sell, lend, have it taken away from us, and when we die, we stop owning it because we don't exist anymore.
It's an illusion, the belief that we personally own anything, even our own bodies.
Only if you are a slave. If you are, then you may be bought, sold, etc, but if you're not, then ownership of yourself is not an illusion. Your ownership of yourself may be subject to contingency -ultimately it is beause you're going to die and dead folk can't own anything, but before your death it's not illusory. You either own yourself, or you don't.
We just hold some things, in trust, for the next generation.
We hold, improve, develop, despoil, preserve stuff, most of us, with no thought for the next generation, and in terms of private property this works pretty well for them because the stuff usually has been improved. And they inherit, buy, take it, etc.
What is usually not improved and usually spoiled is stuff no one owns. The usual term for this is 'Tragedy of the Commons'.
If I might preach a sermon: Private property ownership, as in secure title, is far more important for the poor than the rich. Ownership for the poor often, (nearly always), means the difference between misery and comfort, self employment or unemployment, educated or uneducated children, ill health or good health and sometimes, life and death. They may capitalize their property, improve it, sell it, etc. Read de Soto and take it to heart:
reason.com;
You can't take it with you.
If I own it, I can't take it with me only if it's very large and heavy.
If I'm dead, your statement is meaningless.
You have generalized a common and usually socially harmless mistake of magical thinking people make wherein they generalize the promise ownership has to areas it's not applicable: For instance, ownership does not confer intelligence, potency, good character, or love, on owners. Striving for ownership as a substitute for these qualities and graces rather than directly striving for them is a mistake some folk make from time to time; those who do it constantly are known as misers. |
