Aristotle's View Of Ownership

One’s sense of self is something entirely defined by environment, personal beliefs, cultural history, and childhood upbringing, among other factors. One such factor is the idea of ownership. While some may argue on the behalf of ancient Greek philosopher Plato’s view of ownership, which explains that owning tangible objects is detrimental to character, others may refute that view and instead argue from another ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle’s point of view, which states the exact opposite. Still, others debate on whether the idea of ownership applies to only tangible objects, or, as proposed by twentieth-century philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, intangible thoughts, theories, and ideas as well. The ownership of tangible and intangible things
Malcolm Gladwell in chapter 6 his famed novel about success, Outliers, describes two feuding families: the Hatfields and the McCoys. These families lived in a small town in Kentucky, and the feud reportedly began sometime in the 1800s in a dispute over the ownership of either a pig or the death of a family member by the other family, among other theories (Gladwell). In both cases, the feud would have begun due to a sense of ownership over the thing in which was affected; in the case of the pig, the belief that one can own another living being, and in the case of the family member’s death, the belief that family belongs to and is owned by any given family. Some of this strong sense of ownership by these specific families comes from their environment and how they view themselves. In the South during the 1800s, property and what a man owned often defined a person’s or family’s worth within society. If a person in that time, and even now, doesn’t own much in the tangible interpretation of ownership, one’s worth among their peers is significantly less than that of someone who possesses much. This not only changes one’s perception of self in comparison to others’ tangible wealth, but would also change one’s value in owning personal beliefs, such as religion, value of education, and emotion. Many factors in relation to environment connect
Even throughout my high school, there are many different obvious influences from different cultures, financial abilities, and family dynamics. Take my family for example: we are a family of four girls and two parents. Both of my parents have relatively decent-paying jobs, are amazing role models and have an extreme work ethic. We come from a Christian background, strong European roots, a high value for education, and an unbreakable sense of family and home. These traits are easily recognizable among our community, especially in our high school, where three of the four of us girls attend. Speaking personally, a lot of who I perceive myself to be stems from the beliefs of my parents, and the same goes for many of the people around me. As most of the community in which I am currently surrounded are high school students, only teenagers who typically still live with at least one parent, many of our beliefs are passed down to us from those that we look up to. In this sense, we own the beliefs and values of our family members; however, when talking about ownership in the intangible case of religion, value of education, of money, of talent, rather than a single person’s ownership of one idea, it tends to be a shared value of any given subject. In this case, who a person is may be defined