To begin, some definitions:

• commons (n. sense II.7.a, 1583): a piece of open land available to a community and allowing traditional rights such as grazing livestock, collecting wood or turf for fuel, fishing, etc. 
• commons (n. sense I.2, 1384): the body of citizens or inhabitants of a town or borough; the people of a nation, state, city, etc., considered collectively.
• common (n.¹, sense 1.c, 1382): the whole body of people of a country, state, etc.; the community; (occasionally) the state.

Oxford English Dictionary

The first defines the commons as a part of something greater—a piece left over after other parts have been carved out of a greater whole. The second defines the commons as the whole before it was carved into pieces. The third, dropping the ‘s’, firmly grounds the commons in what is—inescapably—shared.

The relationship between part and whole will be a thread running through these explorations.

Why is that important? Because the way that relationship is understood—and misunderstood—has caused much confusion and much of the seemingly irreconcilable conflict that we now struggle with. We need better ways of thinking about the connections between whole and part that are less reductive, more complex, more creative. We need to become more comfortable with—and skilled in—disagreeing. To move past agreeing to disagree.