⩩ 13
The distinction between rich and poor is simple, as old as the idea of “property” and affects every aspect of our social life, but it is comparatively shallow, accidental. It rather acts only as backdrop, setting the stage for the more deeply human and personally interesting distinction: the one between those who honor property and those who honor human qualities, the so-called “virtues,” strengths and excellences of human nature.
A human being habitually values both. But the question is not whether one values both but which value rules, which has priority and authority. It is a question of hierarchy of ends, the structure of the soul.
In one person the desire for property rules. He pays attention to, admires, identifies himself with possessions. Another cares for and identifies himself with aspects of human nature, internal ends of human activity, — one of which is honor itself. So while you can say that the one honors property and the other virtue, it is also helpful to say, as it is sometimes said, that the one loves wealth and the other honor.
And since in this series we lingered at the idea that a person knows what she can do; and paused at the thought that a person might wear secondhand clothes deliberately, out of respect for herself; we have already come close to the distinction between goal and tool, end and middle, activity and thing. Let us turn around and look at it.
In The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James says that “the opposition between the men who have and the men who are is immemorial.” This fact of human psychological and behavioral nature aligned with a fact of grammar: how pleasing we must find such coincidences! How encouraging!
The opposition described goes far back and involves the notions of the noble, the aristocratic, the highborn. The idea is not of a type that doesn’t have wealth or possessions but that is independent of them, a type whose self-respect doesn’t depend on them, who values something else qualitatively more.
While valid in principle, such independence from property is all but impossible to maintain in practice. So one disowns property. One comes to see possessions as shackles, encumbrances, corrupters of freedom and the activity of the soul. “Lives based on having are less free than lives based either on doing or on being,” James writes, “and in the interest of action people subject to spiritual excitement throw away possessions as so many clogs.” At the limit is the ideal of poverty and the unhampered freedom of perfect detachment. The true monk, an Italian mystic writes, takes nothing with him but his lyre.
Thoreau despises the seduction of new clothes. Aspiring rich men, the Buddhas, the Tolstoys and Wittgensteins, leave their estates and disown their wealth. And Emerson writes:
a cultivated man becomes ashamed of his property, out of new respect for his nature. Especially he hates what he has, if he see that it is accidental, — came to him by inheritance, or gift, or crime; then he feels that it is not having; it does not belong to him, has no root in him, and merely lies there, because no revolution or no robber takes it away.
The honor-lover does not see the possession, the estate as his property, even if legally and conventionally it is in his name. Though he “has” it, he does not “own” it. It is not “his,” — and thus we see that we must correct the simple dichotomy as we introduced it. We said there are those who love property and those who love honor, but at issue is precisely what “property” is, what it is to “own” something.
There is indeed a difference between having something and owning it. A person can have a lot and not own a thing. For instance, you can have a house full of possessions you have no use for, things that have no root in you. You can have shelves full of books without owning any one of them.
The prerequisite of owning something, it turns out, is being able to use it, to turn it toward the good. Who doesn’t know the good, their end good, is banned by nature from ownership. This relation to the end is not something you have or possess but something you do and are, and what a person is is living property, and renews itself wherever she breathes.
Those who love honor take the end good to be not a state of things but perfections of character. Courage, friendship, wisdom: these are our goals; this is what we own.
In the end, the interest of this distinction — between the property-loving and the honor-loving, between one kind of property and the other — is not just theoretical. As much as this opposition runs through history and divides the human crowd into distinct classes and types, it runs through each person individually. It is more deeply human in just that sense.
It runs through you. It separates you from yourself. What is mine? What do I own?
Did a part of this essay resonate with you? Make you think of something you have seen, heard or read? Have another angle on the topic? Please leave a comment.
You are reading Footnotes, by Garrett Allen, a series of philosophical-ish short essays. You just read ⩩ 13. Here are some highlights from what came before.
Firsthand
⩩ 11 Secondhand
⩩10 Habit
⩩ 9 Firsthand
Stagestranger
⩩ 7 Mistake
⩩ 6 Whim
⩩ 3 Speechless
⩩ 1 Headsup
If you enjoyed one of them or the series as a whole, please consider passing it along to a friend. And if a friend passed it along to you, welcome. By subscribing you can have these notes delivered to your inbox, too. If you would like, stay abreast.
A shoutout as usual to Danny at breakfastswerved for his ink. See his drawings for the series here.
If you’ve come this far: thank you for reading my work and spending time with me. I would love to hear from you.
Personally, I found this reflection very timely-- thanks for that! One question it raised for me, though, is why you choose to draw a contrast between property and honor rather than, say, virtue. Can’t one draw a line down the middle of honor, too, and say that the honor that matters is not recognition from others but self-recognition, recognition that requires self-knowledge?