Giving the Gift

I was thinking about Brett's last post and I remembered a lecture I went to see while I was in Germany, by Larry Lessing, who is a Stanford professor whose main focus is on copyright issues. This lecture is about the problems that can come from putting certain limitations on the kinds of property that people can use.
The concern becomes what is society doing by putting restrictions on artist property, and how much damage could this be causing?

http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity.html

p.s. I would also suggest for those of you who have never been on ted.com to check out some of their other lectures, it is a great site.

Gifts Reflecting

I was thinking about Hegel and the notion that the things you own are a reflection of who you are, but what about the things that you own which were gifts? I was recently at a gas station and the guy at the counter asked me which car was mine ( which I found a bit odd considering it was the only car at the pumps)so I told him it was the mustang. At this point he proceeded to ask me about the year and tell me that it was a really cool car. All this got me thinking about the kind of impression I give due to the car that I own. The thing is that I did not choose the car, my Dad gave it to me, and only due to circumstance ( I needed a car, when I moved back and it just happened to be what he had to give ). I do not drive a mustang as a reflection of myself, but as a matter of circumstance, however, since I own it seems to reflection of me, but I own because it was a gift.

Autographs

What is it that we think we own when we get someone's autograph? Understandably if that autograph is on a guitar or book, we own that which it is on, but that is not what we put value in. Does it link us to the individual who wrote the name? and what does this add to our lives, I mean the achievements for which we admire the person do not change if we get their autograph, but how does our life change by owning their name on something?

Philosophy and Children

I just found this on the NY Times website. It is an article discussing the possibilities of children being able to think abstractly and do philosophy. It is philosophy done through children's books. I thought it was interesting that one of the books being discussed philosophically was The Giving Tree.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/education/edlife/18philosophy-t.html?hp

Spontaneous Spirit ?

This spirit of given that is further with every gift one gets and then gives, does it matter where it came from? Should we concern are ourselves with the origin of the first gift which began this now ongoing exchange? If this spirit is more of spontaneous eruption inside of the individual is there significance in when it happens? So can there maybe be more value placed on gift that is given at random than one which is brought on by occasions, such as kind of potlatch or a birthday? The question of value is important in trying to determine how one should reciprocate.

An Ideal/ Pure Gift

In class we touched on the notion there being something called a "pure" which is what most seem to think of when they think of gifts. It is a kind of benevolent gift which needs no reciprocation and how this is in contrast to what an actual gift is. An actual gift needing something in return even if that something is just a thank you. I was wondering if anyone had ever read "The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein as a child or an adult and what we could take the message of that book to be. Is it the case that the tree is acting in a manner in which it is exemplifying the ideal form of gifting giving and portraying it to be the way it should or criticizing this ideal?

The story is really easy to find online, in case you have not read it. I also found this : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TZCP6OqRlE
It is the youtube link of an animation of the book being read by Shel Silerstein, although I must admit that the sound is not that great, so if you do not know the book already it might be a bit a hard.

A gift ?

I just thought that maybe the video shared something with the notion of a gift in the community that we have been discussing.



sorry video might not work all the time so this is the link:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAFQ5kUHPkY/r:f

The weather

So I know this blog is not really about property, but I guess it can somehow be related. I was thinking about the question we had in class ask to who made the comment " if you don't like the weather in New England, just wait a minute" and as to actually made the comment. So I guess it was just interesting to me the importance one can often place on who a specific saying belongs to. I made in a case such as this the meaning remains the same whether or not Twain said it or my next door neighbor, however it is that in some cases that although the meaning still remains the significance is altered due to the person it belongs to?


So I found a site that stated that what Mark Twain actually said was: "I reverently believe that the Maker who made us all makes everything in New England but the weather. I don't know who makes that, but I think it must be raw apprentices in the weather-clerk's factory who experiment and learn how, in New England, for board and clothes, and then are promoted to make weather for countries that require a good article, and will take their custom elsewhere if they don't get it.

There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather that compels the stranger's admiration -- and regret. The weather is always doing something there; always attending strictly to business; always getting up new designs and trying them on the people to see how they will go..."

Acknowledgement

Can I have property without anyone else acknowledging that it belongs to me?
I was just wondering if can be the case that I can own something without anyone other than myself claiming that I own it. I was thinking about colonial empires and the need for other nations to acknowledge their claims and boundaries over specific areas of lands. However at times this acknowledge meant did not come until months after the initial nation had proclaimed the land to be theirs. In those circumstances did the land still belong to them although no one was there to validate their claim? Is that necessary? Understandably in the case that I bring up some recognition is required in order for disputes over boundaries not to occur, but does it work the same way in regards to more general objects? When does one begin owning something?

Owning and Being Owned

can the things that we own or posses end up owning or possessing us? We have responsibility due to ownership; responsibility for the things that we own. Due to owning things, we must also behave in certain manners, I mean that they (the things) can often direct our actions. For instance one owns a car, one is responsible for that car, if it rolls down the hill and crashes into something one is responsible for that. Also, in order to continue to drive that car one must have a job, to either make payments on the car or to buy gas or repairs, and thus the car is keeping one working. So then who or what is really running the show?

Money and interest

In thinking about the extent to which we can own things I was wondering how we could think of something like interest gained on money? Granted we have yet to speak of the extent to which we can own money, however it seems that in the case money we could make the argument that are labor can be mix in the transaction therefore allowing us to own it. Interest on the other hand requires no actual labor so how does it work in regards to property?

Self ownership

In the class we seem to come to the conclusion that, if one tries hard enough and if one really wants to then one can achieve a rational argument, separate from the theology as to why one cannot commit suicide. However I am not completely convinced that this is so.Which made me wonder exactly how much of the rest of Locke's theory would be affected if, this particular section of killing one's self and others could not be entangled from the theological. Are there a parts that directly need this section to be true? or can one still continue with the theory of property without and clashing?

Gift Giving

While watch the video in the past few classes, I kept coming back to the question of what a gift is? It seems the idea of how a gift was represent in the film was not how I had always though of it. In my understanding if someone gives me something as a gift, I now own that thing which was given. However, the concept in the film seemed to be one of loaning, a kind of gift with strings attached. Is this really what a gift is? and if so do we ever own them? since they must be somehow repaid. It giving a gift to we somehow own the right to gain something from the transaction later on?