The act of giving

[Sara S]

This fits with a comment made once in a lecture by Dr. Thomas Cleary, to wit: If you give something and expect something back, that's not generosity--it's doing business.




from delancyplace.com:

In today's excerpt - the supposedly virtuous act of giving is often instead an act
meant to create an obligation, an act whereby the giver measures himself against
the receiver and requires a repayment, even if that repayment is gratitude:
"[Here] are the words of an actual hunter-gatherer - an Inuit from Greenland made
famous in the Danish writer Peter Freuchen's Book of the Es*kimo. Freuchen tells
how one day, after coming home hungry from an unsuccessful walrus-hunting expedition,
he found one of the successful hunters dropping off several hundred pounds of meat
[for him]. He thanked him profusely. The man objected indignantly:
" 'Up in our country we are human!' said the hunter. 'And since we are human we
help each other. We don't like to hear anybody say thanks for that. What I get today
you may get tomorrow. Up here we say that by gifts one makes slaves and by whips
one makes dogs.'
"The last line is something of an anthropological classic, and simi*lar state- ments
about the refusal to calculate credits and debits can be found through the anthropological
literature on egalitarian hunt*ing societies. Rather than seeing himself as human
because he could make economic calculations, the hunter insisted that being truly
hu*man meant refusing to make such calculations, refusing to measure or remember
who had given what to whom, for the precise reason that doing so would inevitably
create a world where we began 'comparing power with power, measuring, calculating'
and reducing each other to slaves or dogs through debt."
Author: David Graeber
Title: Debt: The First 5,000 Years
Publisher: Melville House
Date: Copyright 2011 by David Graeber
Pages: 79
Debt: The First 5,000 Years
by David Graeber by Melville House
Hardcover ~ Release Date: 2011-07-12

[theindependenteye]

>>>This fits with a comment made once in a lecture by Dr. Thomas Cleary, to wit: If you give something and expect something back, that's not generosity--it's doing business. >>>From delancyplace.com: In today's excerpt - the supposedly virtuous act of giving is often instead an act
meant to create an obligation, an act whereby the giver measures himself against
the receiver and requires a repayment, even if that repayment is gratitude:
>>>"[Here] are the words of an actual hunter-gatherer - an Inuit from Greenland ...
" 'Up in our country we are human!' said the hunter. 'And since we are human we
help each other. We don't like to hear anybody say thanks for that. What I get today
you may get tomorrow. Up here we say that by gifts one makes slaves and by whips
one makes dogs.' ...
>>>"Rather than seeing himself as human because he could make economic calculations, the hunter insisted that being truly human meant refusing to make such calculations, ..., for the precise reason that doing so would inevitably create a world where we began 'comparing power with power, measuring, calculating' and reducing each other to slaves or dogs through debt." David Graeber ‑ Debt: The First 5,000 Years

This didn't get any Wacco comment, but I'd like to revisit it. My take on "gift" is more in sync with Lewis Hyde's argument in THE GIFT. Yes, of course, "gift" is meant to create an "obligation." So too are such human inventions as marriage, parenthood, blood oaths, etc. Is that a bad thing? Sure, if your mom nags at you for not calling, but not if you want to create true bonds between individuals, tribes or cultures.

Hyde contrasts the natures of Gift and Commodity. Gift is an exchange that *does* create a bond between individuals, but not necessarily a bond of dependence, certainly not of "slavery." Commodity is the ultimate tool of our Western concept of individual freedom: if I pay you, I'm no longer obliged. I buy your house, I have no further obligations to you; I pay a whore, I can walk out the door with no emotional attachments; I buy a ticket to your play, I can applaud or walk out in the middle of it, not as a friend who's "obliged" to offer some personal response. It's a perpetual dilemma for artists who think of their work as a "gift of soul" but which inevitably is drawn into the commodity market of the entertainment calendar -- and dear friends can't see our work because we don't control the box office of the theatre that's funding it.

We want individual freedom, as we should. And we want bonding with "community," as we should. But it's a dilemma, a unique paradox of American society that we struggle with perpetually -- sometimes idealizing tribal cultures without acknowledging the totalitarian effect of their taboos, strictures and prejudices. Here and there, we invent modes of truly shared community -- that is, real dependence on one another not only emotionally but economically, and for life -- but it's rare.

For a radio series we did in Philadelphia, I interviewed an extraordinary woman whose life was shaped as a Vista volunteer in an Inuit village, and she described a similar ethic as stated above, but with a different spin. Yes, the products of the hunt were shared, and an expression of appreciation for someone's necklace would be followed by being offered that necklace as a gift. But it had a very simple survival purpose: the individual couldn't survive without the tribe, and the tribe couldn't survive with envy as a cancer within it. So the gift, indeed, was offered as a bonding, with the obligation of friendship attached.


My understanding of the pejorative term "Indian giver" -- someone who gives and then wants it back -- was that it stemmed from a profound misunderstanding in the cultural clash: Yes, the Indians wanted the gift back, or something of equal value, but not as a business deal, as in the fur trade, but as an expression of bonding and trust. We couldn't comprehend that: we wanted peace or a land settlement, but not a sacred bond. That we don't want -- or at any rate we want an exit route -- even as we pronounce our solemn vows in church.


We have the adage, "It's more blessed to give than to receive." But I'd add to that, "It's infinitely more difficult to receive -- with a truly open heart -- than to give." How do we create partnerships, marriages, enterprises, communities, nations even, where the bonding is true and committed, while promoting the freedom of the individual? I don't know the concrete particulars of an answer, but somewhere in there is an understanding and deepening of the concept of Gift.

Peace & joy--
Conrad

[Sara S]

Thanks, Conrad, for your thoughtful and thought-provoking comments; they made me see how much more complex this idea is.

Your comment

"We want individual freedom, as we should. And we want bonding with "community," as we should. But it's a dilemma, a unique paradox of American society that we struggle with perpetually...."

reminded me of a line from a David Byrne song (Independence Day) : "Though we struggle for our freedom, our need for others still remains..."

And, when I think about it more, I think that even in a case where one just "gives" something freely (like if I hand some money to a beggar) I still get the reward of feeling that I've done something nice.

Sara

>>>This fits with a comment made once in a lecture by Dr. Thomas Cleary, to wit: If you give something and expect something back, that's not generosity--it's doing business. >>>From delancyplace.com: In today's excerpt - the supposedly virtuous act of giving is often instead an act
meant to create an obligation, an act whereby the giver measures himself against
the receiver and requires a repayment, even if that repayment is gratitude:
>>>"[Here] are the words of an actual hunter-gatherer - an Inuit from Greenland ...
" 'Up in our country we are human!' said the hunter. 'And since we are human we
help each other. We don't like to hear anybody say thanks for that. What I get today
you may get tomorrow. Up here we say that by gifts one makes slaves and by whips
one makes dogs.' ...
>>>"Rather than seeing himself as human because he could make economic calculations, the hunter insisted that being truly human meant refusing to make such calculations, ..., for the precise reason that doing so would inevitably create a world where we began 'comparing power with power, measuring, calculating' and reducing each other to slaves or dogs through debt." David Graeber ‑ Debt: The First 5,000 Years

This didn't get any Wacco comment, but I'd like to revisit it. My take on "gift" is more in sync with Lewis Hyde's argument in THE GIFT. Yes, of course, "gift" is meant to create an "obligation." So too are such human inventions as marriage, parenthood, blood oaths, etc. Is that a bad thing? Sure, if your mom nags at you for not calling, but not if you want to create true bonds between individuals, tribes or cultures.

Hyde contrasts the natures of Gift and Commodity. Gift is an exchange that *does* create a bond between individuals, but not necessarily a bond of dependence, certainly not of "slavery." Commodity is the ultimate tool of our Western concept of individual freedom: if I pay you, I'm no longer obliged. I buy your house, I have no further obligations to you; I pay a whore, I can walk out the door with no emotional attachments; I buy a ticket to your play, I can applaud or walk out in the middle of it, not as a friend who's "obliged" to offer some personal response. It's a perpetual dilemma for artists who think of their work as a "gift of soul" but which inevitably is drawn into the commodity market of the entertainment calendar -- and dear friends can't see our work because we don't control the box office of the theatre that's funding it.

We want individual freedom, as we should. And we want bonding with "community," as we should. But it's a dilemma, a unique paradox of American society that we struggle with perpetually -- sometimes idealizing tribal cultures without acknowledging the totalitarian effect of their taboos, strictures and prejudices. Here and there, we invent modes of truly shared community -- that is, real dependence on one another not only emotionally but economically, and for life -- but it's rare.

For a radio series we did in Philadelphia, I interviewed an extraordinary woman whose life was shaped as a Vista volunteer in an Inuit village, and she described a similar ethic as stated above, but with a different spin. Yes, the products of the hunt were shared, and an expression of appreciation for someone's necklace would be followed by being offered that necklace as a gift. But it had a very simple survival purpose: the individual couldn't survive without the tribe, and the tribe couldn't survive with envy as a cancer within it. So the gift, indeed, was offered as a bonding, with the obligation of friendship attached.


My understanding of the pejorative term "Indian giver" -- someone who gives and then wants it back -- was that it stemmed from a profound misunderstanding in the cultural clash: Yes, the Indians wanted the gift back, or something of equal value, but not as a business deal, as in the fur trade, but as an expression of bonding and trust. We couldn't comprehend that: we wanted peace or a land settlement, but not a sacred bond. That we don't want -- or at any rate we want an exit route -- even as we pronounce our solemn vows in church.


We have the adage, "It's more blessed to give than to receive." But I'd add to that, "It's infinitely more difficult to receive -- with a truly open heart -- than to give." How do we create partnerships, marriages, enterprises, communities, nations even, where the bonding is true and committed, while promoting the freedom of the individual? I don't know the concrete particulars of an answer, but somewhere in there is an understanding and deepening of the concept of Gift.

Peace & joy--
Conrad