While the presence of commoning may be most manifest in how resources are managed and commons organized, these are in fact animated by an "inner kernel" -- basic experiences of being, seeing and knowing as a commoner. Certain human aspirations, values and social logics *within* individuals affect the types of "commoning relationships" that they forge with each other and with the nonhuman world.
Philosophers might call this the ontological dimension of the commons -- the foundational categories for how we experience and experience the world. The epistemology that we use to describe our experiences of commoning -- the words, language and ways of knowing -- is closely related as a human-made construct for communicating shared experience and culture.
The inner kernel matters because it represents a different vision of human existence and social relationship than that of modern liberalism and capitalism, which are ontologically focused on the individual freedom, physical objects, and money. The question is what ontological framework shall produce more satisfactory results for the human condition. Ironically enough, marketing for a luxury automobile puts it well: "Look inward. Progress is powered from within."
We have identified the key elements of the Inner Kernel as:
- Relational categories: language that points to a rich range of relationships among people and with the Earth;
- Epistemology: the primary sources of knowledge and why they are regarded as defining;
- Aspirations: the shared hopes and goals of a group of commoners;
- Rationality: the social logic, ethics and worldview of commoners;
- Metaphors: the comparisons used to describe the internal workings of a commons; and
--Federating the Nested-I Perspective: the commitment to nourish and expand the idea that individuals can only develop fully if they are both autonomous and embedded within larger collectives.