Loch Lomond Rubbish

There is a lot of rubbish in the lay byes at Loch Lomond, Scotland. Astonishing for two reasons (i) Loch Lomond is a beautiful place to outsiders (ii) The rest of Scotland is remarkably litter free. I wondered who had left the litter and examining it I had my suspicions - how many American families do you see on holiday with 6 packs of Carlsberg in their lunch hampers? I made some enquiries and the blame was firmly placed on the Glaswegians from 15 miles to the SE. The locals called them "visitors" but a distinction had to be made because I pointed out that the average American, Japanese or even English tourist who has come here to enjoy the place is quite shocked by the litter. To me the Glaswegians were the locals relatively. It made me realise something that bodes badly for property.

The usual argument is that when we own something we look after it better. But this isn't the whole truth because visitors to Scotland don't own it yet they probably value it the most. It might be because they have spent time and money to get there and so they have invested something, but this leads to the more general appreciated of the area which is why they came in the first place. No! here you have people who don't own even a pebble treating it as well as their own. As that thought experiment goes - imagine finding the Earth wouldn't it be the most precious thing ever discovered yet we behave like Glaswegians here.

So why do the Glaswegians not respect it like the visitors from afar or those who live there? I thought it was because the idea of owning something means we look after it carefully, so automatically and dialectically the idea of not owning something means are more careless about it. What is the meaning of being House-Proud if you don't treat the land around you with disregard? How can we be more careful about "this" without at the same time and in the same mind be less careful about "that". So the property system seems to imply that while we look after what is ours we will mistreat that which isn't ours.

This seemed to rather open the hermetically sealed tin of property logic.