From Gifts by Ralph Waldo Emerson

First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany

“Passing on the Gift”

Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore, December 14, 2003

Readings

For common gifts, necessity makes pertinences and beauty every day, and one is glad when an imperative leaves him no option, since if the man at the door have no shoes, you have not to consider whether you could procure him a paint-box. And as it is always pleasing to see a man eat bread, or drink water, in the house or out of doors, so it is always a great satisfaction to supply these first wants. Necessity does everything well. In our condition of universal dependence, it seems heroic to let the petitioner be the judge of his necessity, and to give all that is asked, though at great inconvenience. If it be a fantastic desire, it is better to leave to others the office of punishing him. I can think of many parts I should prefer playing to that of the Furies. Next to things of necessity, the rule for a gift which one of my friends prescribed is, that we might convey to some person that which properly, belonged to his character, and was easily associated with him in thought. But our tokens of compliment and love are for the most part barbarous. Rings and other jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me. Therefore the poet brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a gem; the sailor, coral and shells; the painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing. This is right and pleasing, for it restores society in so far to the primary basis, when a man's biography is conveyed in his gift, and every man's wealth is an index of his merit. But it is a cold, lifeless business when you go to the shops to buy me something, which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith's. This is fib for kings, and rich men who represent kings, and a false state of property, to make presents of gold and silver stuffs, as a kind of symbolical sin-offering, or payment of black mail.

From The Gift by Marcel Mauss (1924)

Now, in all these numerous societies, on many different levels of civilization … these exchanges and gifts of objects that link the people involved, function on the basis of a common fund of ideas: the object received as a gift, the received object in general, engages, links magically, religiously morally, juridically, the giver and the receiver. Coming from one person, made or appropriated by him, being from him, give him power over the other who accepts it. In the case where the prestation provided is not rendered in the prescribed juridical, economical, or ritual form, the giver obtains the power over the person who has participated in the feast and has taken in it substances, the one who has married the girl or has bound himself in blood relations, the beneficiary who uses an object enchanted with the whole authority of the giver.

Thoughts on Giving by Karl Clifton-Soderstrom

In my time down in the Southwest, I was privileged to attend a ceremonial dance of the Native Americans at the Santa Clara pueblo. It took place on the central plaza of the pueblo and included scores of dances and hundreds of observers from within the tribe. As is often practiced, the conclusion of the dance was marked by a gift-giving ceremony. Following the choreographed dances, a more chaotic movement overtook the plaza as individuals and families began crossing the large open space to meet others and bestow gifts on them. Long embraces and brief conversations accompanied the gift giving. I later learned that at the next ceremony, days, weeks, or months later, those who had received gifts were expected to return the generosity. Gift exchange, celebrated publicly through such ceremonies, is a central unifying practice of the community.

Unfortunately, it is from this practice of mutual gift giving that the term "Indian giver" was coined. The term is often meant as a derogatory remark on one who is seen as so uncivilized as to expect the return of a gift that is given. Lewis Hyde describes the misunderstanding of the Native American practice.

Imagine a scene. An Englishman comes into an Indian lodge and his hosts, wishing to make their guest feel welcome, ask him to share a pipe of tobacco. The pipe is a peace offering that has circulated among the local tribes, staying in each lodge for a time but always given away again sooner or later. And so the Indians, as is only polite among their people, give the pipe to their guest when he leaves. The Englishman is tickled pink. What a nice thing to send back to the British Museum! He takes it home and sets it on the mantelpiece. A time passes and the leaders of a neighboring tribe come to visit the colonist’s home. To his surprise he finds his guests have some expectations in regards to his pipe, and he learns that if he is to show good will he should offer them a smoke and give them the pipe. In consternation the Englishman invents a phrase to describe these people with such a limited sense of private property. (Lewis Hyde, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property. Random House: New York, 1983)

The opposite of "Indian giver," according to Lewis Hyde, might be "white man keeper" or even "capitalist." The motto of John Nuveen & Company speaks to this disturbing characteristic of our culture: "It’s not what you earn, it’s what you keep." In a society that defines assets and resources solely as possessions, it would do us well to retrieve the social conception of the gift. (http://www.pietisten.org/spring00/giving.html)

Sermon

I recognize Emerson’s frustration feeling forced to go to a store to purchase a gift. My Christmas gift to Philomena this year will not be driven by necessity which Emerson praises, though the treadmill I have gotten her will be important to help her maintain her health. If I go to a store and pick out some nice earrings for Philomena, they will be more the artisan’s gift than mine. Yet I do not have the time, talent and dedication to construct my own gift so it can convey more of me and recognize more of her.

Gift giving has been a struggle for me for most of my life. I may have inherited my discomfort from my mother, may she rest in peace, who every Christmas in my teenage years would begin the advent season with a suggestion we not give gifts this year. I suppose I shouldn’t blame her. As children, my sister and I would make a great fuss after unwrapping our presents comparing our gifts to be sure there wasn’t any favoritism and we each had an equal amount of booty.

My struggle may also be rooted in being a heterosexual male. I’ve heard recently about a study of the physiological effects of shopping on men and women. On average, men’s blood pressure tends to go up. They get more nervous and irritated. Women on the other hand typically experience a decrease in blood pressure. They are more relaxed and happy after shopping. This study certainly helps me feel more virile but hasn’t encouraged me to spend more time at the mall--It’s bad for my health!

Think about our culture and how women and men approach the big moments in our lives. Before getting married, do men get together so they can exchange gifts and have tea and cake? No, it is women who organize bridal showers. What do men do, they have stag parties, humiliate the groom and tempt him with porno movies, lap dancers and strong drink.

Historically and in just about every culture today, though, the marriage of a man and a woman initiates an elaborate ritual of exchanging gifts that begins in courtship and never ends. Two unrelated families are ritually bound into one through the gift giving process. Two tribes that may have been at war may make peace through the exchange of brides and dowries. A good way to get a handle on gift giving is to begin with the family as the foundation for all gift giving.

There is no more powerful way to establish a relationship than to give a gift. The transformation from stranger to family that happens in a marriage requires many offers and acceptances of gifts and hospitality.

To understand how this works, we must understand the three dimensions of a gift. First there is a giver who acts freely and spontaneously. Gifts are different from exchanges. In an exchange, I give you something, say money, and you give me a good or service of equal value

Second there must be a receiver who must accept the gift. This can be a source of tension because by receiving a gift, the receiver accepts a sense of indebtedness to the giver and an expectation of some reciprocity. I learned very early (and less than perfectly I’m afraid) from my mother, that every gift should be acknowledged, at the very least, with a thank you note.

This sense of indebtedness is the social glue that binds people together and can also make receiving a gift at times very uncomfortable. Jan and Jerome had broken off their committed relationship of several years. A little later, Jan made some strawberry jam and remembered Jerome loved strawberries. She offered a jar to him and was surprised when he became very uncomfortable. For him, to accept the gift would mean he would be indebted to her again and thus, in a sense, tricked into reestablishing their relationship which they had ended.

You see, gifts are not just simple acts of generosity. Because of their dimension of obligation, gifts also function as a tool of power--and a very effective one at that. Gift giving is the primary primitive method of establishing and stabilizing social relationships between groups of people. We would all still be roaming the savannah eating grubs and berries in Africa if it were not for the society building power of gift giving.

While we might have some intuitive sense of all this, Marcel Mauss (nephew of Emile Durkheim), in 1924, first published the modern seminal book on gift giving studying archaic societies and analyzing how gift giving worked. He defined a gift as, “Any exchange of goods or services, with no guarantee of recompense in order to create, nourish or recreate social bonds between people.” Gifts are the means relationships are made and endure, particularly marriage relationships. In a successful marriage, both partners think they receive more than they give. Thankfully, though this is impossible in logic, it is quite rational in individual perception. The stronger a relationship is, the stronger the feeling of indebtedness also is. Thus gift giving is the economy of gratitude.

The stronger a relationship is, the greater the sense of security, but that security comes with a price. The price is freedom. Receiving many gifts creates a strong feeling of indebtedness that limits our freedom. And this is just what two families merged in marriage want. They want the couple to stay together for the sake of the newly enlarged family. The price of social stability is limited freedom.

To illustrate these conclusions, Mauss drew on several examples of gift giving from archaic societies. One of the most extreme examples was what is called the potlatch practiced by a number of Northwestern Native American tribes. During the summer they would be out in the woods hunting and trapping and on the coast fishing. Due to the abundance of the ecosystem there and active trading with Europeans, the tribes became wealthy. In the winter months, they would compete trying to outdo each other by throwing lavish parties and give away huge amounts of wealth. One’s honor was maintained and social standing was gained by the amount given away.

As an act of generosity, this sounds quite appealing, but remember that receiving this kind of generosity incurs obligation. To preserve and advance one’s social standing, the gift receiver would be required to give even more back than they received. Not right away of course – that would cheapen the gift into barter. It couldn’t be expected to be returned either because that would transform the gift into a loan with interest. But the social effect would be to drive people to give away all they had just to maintain their honor. The wealthy could afford this kind of giving but the poor could not. The Canadian government has outlawed the potlatch for this reason.

The Trobriand Islanders in northwest New Guinea have an interesting ritual of giving, called the kula, that networks the tribes on different islands together to establish and maintain peace and trading partnerships. One group will go from Island A to Island B with some trinkets to give in their boats. When they arrive they are ritually received along with their modest gifts. They are then entertained and given significant gifts in return of much greater value which they take back home to Island A. A little while later, a group from Island C will show up at Island A with their trinkets and the process is repeated. This gift giving and receiving creates a circulation of indebtedness that moves gradually through all the islands. Some of the same gifts also move from island to island. The decision of what gift to retain and what gift to give consumes a large amount of conversational energy.

One interesting result to notice here is the effect of all this giving. It initiates and maintains a proto-monetary system that moves goods around and generates wealth. What is also interesting to note is just how far we are from this kind of giving today in our global society.

Modern social relations are not maintained through gift giving but through laws. Money and the marketplace have replaced the gift. Contracts govern exchanges not obligation. Not that gift giving has disappeared--far from it. But today, gifts are subordinate to exchanges. I don’t give my landlord a gift so I can live in his house, I give him a deposit and sign a lease. The IRS agent will not accept the promise of a son or daughter in marriage to settle my tax arrears. International agreements are not brokered through gifts of cows, sheep and carved shells.

Mauss began his research after returning from a trip to Bolshevik Russia. There he saw gift giving being replaced by a heartless bureaucratic state that used violence to enforce its will on the people. All of the wisdom of gift giving was systematically being eliminated from the communist rule of terror.

Today we continue to eliminate the power of gift giving as a way to regulate our society. Think of Campaign Finance Reform which was just upheld by the Supreme Court this week. We don’t want big gifts of money to control our political system. Politicians can be expelled from office for receiving gifts (also known as bribes).

Businesses are also careful about gifts. Corporate purchasing agents are often prohibited from receiving gifts from vendors. Accounting firms can be destroyed by receiving gifts from those they audit. CEO compensation is under fire because of the largess of their employers, some of which comes in the form of gifts of stock.

The Republicans have long railed against the state being the agent of gifts to the poor as a means to circulate wealth. Instead of distributing freely given gifts, the state distributes money gathered through taxation. What the Democrats value about public welfare as opposed to private charity is the promotion of dignity and fairness. The price of that separation, complain the Republicans, is the loss of a sense of social obligation.

One reason we have so much trouble with gifts in America is because we cherish freedom. And to be free, one needs to be able to choose one’s obligations and relationships. Gift giving interferes with that freedom of association. In fact, the liberal wants the state to operate in just this way: to separate the giver and the receiver loosening the yoke of obligation. The conservative wants just the opposite. Unfortunately the net effect today of state facilitated anonymity of giver and receiver has been to diminish the value of giving.

One effect of dismantling the social safety net (aka welfare reform) has been to make people want to hold on to what they have as they fearfully dread the future. My attitude toward giving is profoundly shaped by the isolation I experience knowing that I may have to fend for myself after I retire or become disabled and cannot work. When social responsibility and mutual obligation are devalued, the resulting anxiety stimulates hoarding rather than sharing. A society is only as strong as what we share and what we give away.

I don’t know what effect what I’m saying is having on you, but my study of giving this week has greatly affected me. It has become clear to me, as never before, giving, receiving and mutual obligation are the building blocks of society. Markets and nation states, much as they resist them, cannot remove the need for giving and receiving to bind us together.

It is in the citadel of the family that the ancient tradition of giving is grounded, discovered, learned and nourished. Probably the most important thing we can teach our children is how to give and receive. Perhaps this is one of the most important functions of a religious organization: to teach and reinforce the importance of giving and receiving.

Perhaps this is why the story of God giving us his only son and his son giving his life for us has been so powerful for two thousand years. The Universalist extension of that story, that this gift comes to all of us without obligation, can light a fire of love in our hearts.

So as we approach this gift-giving season, let us have firmly in our minds and hearts the transforming agenda of the season. The transforming lesson that giving and receiving gifts can strengthen our relationships. May we use gift giving to build each other up creating a positive sense of mutual recognition. By learning about the poisoning dimension of domination through gift giving, may we better avoid its use.

In reality, we are so deeply obligated to so many, known and unknown, who have given us life and brought us to this day, that there is no way to return the gift. Even Bill Gates doesn’t have enough wealth to begin to pay off that obligation.

The best we can do, as indigenous Native Americans right here knew, is pass the gift on.

References:

The Logic of the Gift: Toward an Ethic of Generosity, Edited by Alan D. Schrift, Routledge, NY, 1997

The World of the Gift, Jacques T. Godbout, McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston, 1998

The Enigma of Gift and Sacrifice, Edith Wyschogrod, et al., Fordham University Press, NY, 2002

(all found at the SUNYA library)