Seeing and Saving the Commons

^{A sermon given by Rev. Patricia Brennan}

November 28, 1020

Westminster Unitarian Church 

Coventry, RI

Going to a Bikram yoga class is a little like going to a Catholic mass in that you know exactly what is going to happen. It always starts the same, proceeds the same, and ends the same. If you go to one class, and your friend goes to another, you can be certain that you will have done the same things and heard the same instructions from the teacher. 

In late 1990’s Bikram Choudhury, founder of Bikram hot yoga, got himself in some hot water when he tried to copyright his yoga sequence of 26 postures. Bikram had created this sequence in the 1970’s, when he first came from India to Los Angeles to teach yoga. There he opened up a studio, taught some people his sequence, they opened studios- franchises essentially- Bikram became very rich, and thousands of people sweated themselves to better health from coast to coast- myself among the sweaty masses. All was well until one errant teacher, than another, then another, wanted to divert a bit from the teaching dialogue Bikram required, or wanted to make some changes to the sequence of the poses. To ensure that they wouldn’t do that, Bikram sought to acquire a copyright on his practice. He wanted to own the yoga as he taught it. He sent threatening cease and desist letters to his students who wouldn’t agree to his terms.

Well as you might imagine there was quite an uproar. Not everyone liked this yoga teacher to begin with, he of the multi-millions, big sports cars, expensive watches and domineering ways. But the outrage revolved mostly around him taking some thing as ancient as yoga, reputed to be 3000 years old, and claiming to own it. And just to be clear, those 26 poses in a Bikram class are all ancient poses, much the same as you would find in any other yoga class, just not usually at 105 degrees, and not in the same precise order. But breathing exercises, the backbends, the triangle pose (my personal least favorite), the tree stand as some examples, were no more created by Bikram that Mikhail Baryshnikov created the plie. 

I tell of Bikram, and his ambitions, because it illustrates well the collision of the commons and the market. 

Let me speak now of another person, with a different approach to his success. Craig Newmark started Craigslist in San Francisco in 1995. What started as a helpful list for his friends of things to do blossomed into the largest classified service in the world, 50 billion visits per month. 

Craigslist is a profit-making business, bringing in 25 million a year. Just about all posting are free, except for job postings and real estate in New York and. Craig himself is a millionare. But what puzzles many is why Craig Newmark doesn’t become a VERY wealthy man, by selling his company to any one of the many suitors who have come offering to buy Craiglist. The potential for profits wildly exceeding those posted by craiglist now is in plain sight for anybody with ambitions to amass a fortune.

But to those who come knocking, Craig Newmark just says no thanks. Says he likes what he is doing, what he terms customer service. Says he feels good about providing a service to millions, something for free that benefits all, and doing so in a way that reflects his values. 

I also think Craig also doesn’t want to sell because he knows he has something special with craigslist and that it would change if sold. 

The something that is special about craigslist can be called the commons. Craig Newmark recognizes that he started Craigslist and that he maintains it- he and a staff of 25. But he also recognizes that its success is found in relationships of trust found among its billions users. Craigslist is a huge cyberspace flea market,. It works because the web is free and because people use it, people are wiling to engage with each other, to connect over buying and selling, to follow through on what they promise- show up at the highway rest stop with cell phone in hand, as did the man from whom I bought my second to last cell phone, hand over a product that is what is claims to be, offer cash or checks that don’t bounce, and generally engage in mutually honest exchanges. Craigslist works because of buying, selling and bartering has been going on for eons, this is just the latest rendition of the marketplace. Craigslist works because our currency carries value we can all agree upon, and because of customs of buying and selling that we all know.

I don’t want to demonize Bikram and canonize Craig- both have made wonderful contributions to the welfare of many. Bikram’s sequence really is great. But how they approach ownership of the enterprise they created, an enterprise dependent in no small way upon the contributions and energy of the commons is illustrative of two different ways of looking at the commons

 The commons are everything we inherit or create together, and must pass on, undiminished to the next generation. The commons comprises of shared things (which we manage or should manage, for shared long-term life enhancement) The market encompasses private things which we mostly manage for short-term monetary gain.

It can be hard to see, as David Bollier points out in the excerpt from his book which I read. We are used to thinking about things that we own, or others own- that is the mental model we carry. Seeing all that we hold in common, all that is owned, if owned is even the right word, by every person, is quite a different thing to imagine conceptually, and thus to see.

Sometime it can be best imagined if we think of the commons as a large river with three tributaries of nature, community and culture. 

Nature is usually the easiest to see as part of the commons we share. The commons of nature consists of things like water, air, dna, photosynthesis, seeds, topsoil, airwaves, minerals, animals, plants, antibiotics, oceans, fisheries, aquifers, quiet, wetlands, rivers, forests, lakes, wind power, solar power.

How about community? The commons exists in communities in things like streets, playgrounds, the calendar, holidays, universities, libraries,  museums, social insurance, laws, money, accounting standards, capital markets, political institutions, farmers markets, flea markets, craigslist, to name just some.

Can you see how these things are all things that we all own, either we have inherited them, like our calendar, or they been established as a way to do things, like accounting standards, or we’ve created them- like laws, streets, your local farmer’s market. No one owns them. No one person or company controls them and can keep others out- the libraries are public, the political institutions can be changed, law can be changed, by us.

And then there is culture. Who owns language or philosophy or chemistry or religion? Who controls physics or musical instruments or classical music, jazz hip-hop or ballet? Who is in charge of astronomy, electronics, the internet, broadcast spectrum, medicine, biology, mathematics, open source software. Who owns nursery rhymes or jokes or yoga? No one does, or should. 

Once upon a time there was nothing but the commons. There was no such thing as private ownership or corporate control. That was a long time ago. 

These days the presence of the market is very strong and getting stronger. The regulating force of the state has decreased in the US over the past 25 years, and the power and reach of corporations has grown. The commons is in danger because the market relentlessly attacks it. 

The market assault of the commons comes from two sides. With one hand, the market takes valuable stuff from the commons and privatizes it. Historians have called the ‘enclosure’. With its other hand, the market dumps wastes and side-effects into the commons and says, “it’s your problem,’ Economists call this ‘externalizing.’ (The state of the commons, Tomales Bay Institute) 

Bikram copyrighting yoga is an example of enclosure, as is vast unfenced lands we took from the native peoples and Mexico. Companies and people who pollute rivers, oceans, air and soil, with no compensation given for the damage, are externalizing. Between enclosure and externalizing, the commons are not as healthy or large as they once were. Not just the commons of nature but the commons of community and culture are diminished.

What is at stake with the taking of the commons?

A lot. 

Early I tried to describe what the commons are. 

Now let me say a word about what the commons gives:

Foremost, we get basic sustenance. For most of human existence, the commons supplied everyone’s food, water, fuel and medicine. Because of the commons, we live. It is as simple as that.

The commons is the source of all natural resources and nature’s many replenishing services. The commons recycles water, oxygen, carbon and everything else we excrete, exhale and throw away.

The commons holds humanity’s vast store of science, art, customs and laws, and is the seedbed of all human creativity.

Without the commons we could not communicate, for the shared languages that are part of our commons are the living products of many generations.

And finally, the commons is community. It is the village tree, the public square, Main Street, the neighborhood and the internet. Outside of families it is the glue that holds us together. 

Before one can protect the commons, one must see it. More than anything else, I think that is why I wanted to give this sermon, in hopes that it would enable more people to see the commons, which means they would need to be able to think commons, able to wrap one’s mind around the concept. 

In our culture of extreme individualism- the individual is in focus. And Commons- that makes all life possible- is out of focus or invisible.

The fact that we don’t see it works well for those who loot the commons, dump into it, enclose it and fence it off. We don’t see how our commonwealth, our commons, has been taken from us by those who would turn it into a commodity.

Something happened to me personally when I started to see the commons and noticed what was happening to it. The first emotion I felt was gratitude: It really is remarkable the gift that we have been given- and the social wealth that preceded us. This gratitude instills an obligation- to pass the gift along.

The second emotion I felt was deep offense, anger, outrage really. In the same way I might be angry is someone took my coat or car.

Water is a commons. Yet we tolerate private companies when they pump water from our aquafers and water systems, put them in plastic bottles and sell it back to us.

Seeds have been traded and passed on for generations. Yet we allow Monsanto company to take seeds, and patent them and sell them back to us.

We allow folks songs, hip hop and music that has been in the public domain for generations to become the intellectual property of someone. There is nothing wrong with artists earning a living and claiming ownership of something. But the property rights people have gone overboard.

Anyone here ever a Girl Scoup? A few years ago the Girl scouts were informed that the songs they sing around the campfire- songs like Puff the Magic Dragon, Edelweiss, This Land is Your Land- are private property. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers sent a letter demanding an annual royalty payment. They backed down after negative publicity, but it reminds us that culture is a commons. How long should culture be owned and locked down? Since most music is a gift from the commons- derivative and passed down- what should be privately owned?

Traditional medicine and knowledge of plants is a commons. Yet this has now been enclosed be private drug companies and for-profit health corporations. They will patent and package this traditional knowledge and sell it to us. if you pay enough- you can be healthy.

There are many examples of the commons being enclosed and looted. Commonwealth is being siphoned away from under our noses- and sitting in private bank accounts. Walter Hickel, former secretary of the Interior said, “If you steal $10 from a man’s wallet, you are likely to get into a fight. But if you steal billions from the commons, co-owned by him and his descendants, (and we would add her and her descendants) he might not even notice.” 

How does all this talk about the commons, by right, have a place in worship? What is religious about seeing and naming, claiming and preserving the commons? 

In the Christian creation story, God creates the world and all that is in it, including man and woman. But it was to humankind that God gave the power and responsibility to name the creatures of the world. Naming is a powerful act. It is a very powerful and intimate act. Once our eyes are opened to the reality of the commons that surrounds us and sustains us, once we name the air and water, music and stories, knowledge and customs as our commons, these things become like our kin, and we realize that the commons is ours to enjoy, cherish and protect. 

Whether we believe God created the world or not, it is right and useful to think of creation as a gift we have been given, ours to enjoy and pass along. A gift is very different from a commodity that we acquire for our use, and use up. Gifts inspire more gifts, more giving.  When we open our eyes to the commons all around us, and see the gift of life that everywhere sustains, we can be changed. 

We engage in the struggle to protect the commons because it is just to do so, and our faith calls us to justice and sharing.  We protect not for ourselves alone but especially for those in our world who lack power, and for those who will inherit the world from us. In no part of the commons is this issue of justice more crucial than with water. Access to clean and free water is denied now to one sixth of the world, with billions more at risk. In the 20th century we fought over oil, in the 21st wars will be fought over water unless we ensure that water is never a commodity but a part of the commons that belongs to all living beings. 

Our churches live and breathe the commons. We play and sing music from many cultures, some of it ancient rhythms, some of it sung in words we know well. Our very order of service derives from a protestant tradition centuries old. Our cherished practice of congregational polity is not something we created but something we inherited, and same with the democratic principles we strive to embody. The preservation of the commons rightly finds a place in our religious communities because to no small degree these communities both are the commons and carry the commons forward through our institutions and practices. 

Theologian Walter Bruegermann said “Transformed realities require transformed imaginations.” At their best, religious communities enable us to see things we may have missed before, and help us to be braver and more loving people. Strengthened by one another, let us open our eyes to the commons around us, name and claim it as belonging to all, and love it by keeping it safe for years to come.

This sermon drew upon two publications by The Tomales Bay Institue:

The State of the Commons and The Commons Rising.

Also, info from the website onthecommons.org

And David Bolllier, Silent Theft