Folk Commons
= "Practical action, basic wisdoms and competences about ‘how to live’ are held in common among common folk. This practical wisdom may be termed the folkCommons". [1]
Description
Les Spencer:
"The folkCommons embraces many sub-domain commons - aspects experienced in common by common folk such as the personal, the interpersonal; the relational, the psychological, the emotional, the familial, the communal, the social, the societal, the cultural, the intercultural, and the environmental. These various ‘commons’ are a rich resource of ‘ordinary wisdom’ and also, more controversially, ‘shared power’ among the common folk. Other examples of the commons are the air we breathe, the radio spectrum, the oceans and the land we occupy – all these are commons, or ‘common pool resources’. As value, they are the common wealth of the common man; they belong to us and we belong to them. The psyCommons (psychological and emotional wisdom held in common) is one of these commons.
Over the centuries a common stock of practical wisdom, proverbs, ways of living, competences and the like has been held within the folkCommons. Older folk would pass these on to the next generations. This common stock was complemented by sub-domain specific practical wisdom, experience, competence, and ways within the above sub-domains. Typically, these folkCommons wisdoms were passed on to younger ones on the run in everyday life contexts as various contexts presented themselves. The passing on was woven into everyday life. ‘Look how rough you have made your bed. Remember, as you make your bed, so shall you lie in it.’ Later, ‘You have been lying there doing nothing for ages. Remember, a rolling stone gathers no moss.’ ‘Remember, the early bird gets the worm.’
Although some common resource systems have been known to collapse due to overuse (the so called ‘tragedy of the commons’), the folkCommons is enlarged, enriched and spread through use." (http://www.laceweb.org.au/shg.htm)
More information
* Article: The Renaissance and Enrichment of the FolkCommons. A Resource for Common Folk. Dr Les Spencer.
URL = http://www.laceweb.org.au/shg.htm
Les Spencer:
"This paper explores the dynamic emergence of new social systems within a system in decline or collapse. It explores practical wise action that is functionally attuned to withstand the withering ways of the current epoch in decline as it seeks by any means to maintain its structure and process. What processes could learn from the dynamics of decline, and enable reconstituting towards a thriving earth and thriving people to continue inexorably through time, to establish and sustain a caring and humane global intercultural synthesis? How to create and further a biology of love – away from homo agressans and towards homo amans (Maturana, Verden-Zöller, et al., 1996)? This action research, marginal to academic power and control, melds inter-disciplinary studies in history, psycho-biology, neuroscience and clinical sociology with folk practical wisdom without enclosing or detracting from the folkCommons.
We are living in a time when the practical wisdom of the folkCommons is subject to massive enclosure and massive attack. Common folk are having increasing restrictions placed upon their freedoms and actions. In the face of this there is a groundswell of action by common folk taking practical action to counter these forces. This action is not oppositional and not based upon power. Rather, action among common folk is towards increasing connecting and relating and taking collaborative action together in providing mutual help to each other towards better worlds in ways that are hardly noticed by the dominant system. This practical wisdom tends to be little in evidence in a 21 Century world society where there is relentless grinding busyness for mere survival, pervasive turmoil, disillusionment, dislocation, disconnection, and uncertainty; where people are suicidal, and paranoid. Or people spending the majority of their life ‘killing’ people on computer games. We live in a sick and sick-making society.
In the past the term ‘the commons’ was used to refer to land around UK villages that was held in common by the folk of the village; the village commons was a common resource used communally by the villagers. They grazed their animals on the commons. Children played there. Then in the Thirteenth Century came what was called the enclosure of the commons. Wealthy landowners were allocated the commons and thereafter the village folk had to give much of their product and labour for the right to use the enclosed land." (http://www.laceweb.org.au/shg.htm)
More information
Author Email: [email protected]