A Different Ownership Society

I did not catch the news last night, Bush. Nor did I give a more than cursory glance at the newspapers. There were more important family things to be thought about and taken care of, as Ellie and I prepare for a big trip to Egypt at the end of this week. (I'm hoping to be able to keep up with our conversation, though, as we travel--and even went so far as to invest in a tiny, three-pound laptop to take with me, to make that possible. More of this later, as the week progresses.)

Anyway, I have little to say about topical matters, but I did wake this morning with thoughts about ownership. We've had our differences, Bush, about your concept of an "ownership society." It's a concept with which, as you know, I profoundly disagree, because it is based very largely on a material understanding of ownership. But there is also a diffferent kind of ownership, which has more to do with the emotions that undergird our lives and our perceptions, and what might result from a more widespread understanding of these inner workings is an ownership society of which I would heartily approve. It would mean that each of us would take personal responsibility for the way we live out our lives and our relationships with others.

Let me explain. When my deep inner feelings are triggered by some exterior event, unless I am fully conscious of the nature of that feeling, I'm likely to project it on some other person. If anger arises in me, for example, I might well allow myself to project it on my wife. It gets to be her fault, and I'm angry AT her. When I manage to remain fully conscious, however, I'm able to OWN the anger--that is, to recognize that it's mine, that it comes from some source within me and that, though my wife may indeed have triggered it by some action on her part, the feeling comes up from a well of anger that has been stored inside me, perhaps for years, perhaps since early childhood. If I'm able to catch this in time, before the anger explodes, I manage to behave in a very different way than I would if I reflexively allowed the anger to take over and control me.

I'm inspired to these thoughts, once again, in part by the sad drama around the Terri Schiavo case. I could rant on about yesterday's congressional bill and your melodramatic rush to sign it. Also about the cowardly Democratic refusal to take a responsive stand. (My judgments, Bush, I acknowledge it!) But I've already had my say on that. The piece I want to add today is about projection: I heard the young woman's father speak on the TV news this morning about what he deemed to be her response to news that she might be allowed to live a little longer. It's clear from all the medical information available that Terry is incapable of such a response. She just doesn't have the physical capacity. So we're left again with projection. Terry's parents, in their wholly understandable love for their daughter and their reluctance to let her go, are simply projecting their own emotional reactions onto her. It's wholly understandable, yes. No person of compassion could fail to aympathize with their passion. But that doesn't make it right to turn this whole affair into political red meat.

My point is that if we can learn to suspend negative judgment about others and refrain from blame, it's possible for us to create a more tolerant and compassionate society. Imagine an ownership society in which we are all fully conscious of our own reflexive reactions, and all ready to take responsibility for our own inner lives, instead of projecting them out on others. Imagine a society without blame, and without judgment--because judgment, too, arises from unconscious projection. When I find myself making a judgment about another person--oh, he's so cruel, she's so thoughtless--I've discovered that all too often the cruelty or thoughtlessness is in fact my own. It's still, in a significant way, "I, me, mine", but this kind of internal, non-material ownership might result in generosity, mutual caring, and tolerance rather than greed and possessiveness.

And that's an ownership society I wouldn't mind living in, Bush. In fact, I think I'd rather like it.