Daily Times

Giving has a bad reputation. Giving has become an indication of weakness, or of stupidity. Giving, without getting anything in return? Are you crazy? No offence to bankers (well, just a little), but they have managed to magically transform what during millennia had been considered vices by all great moral systems and religions — greed, selfishness, petty accounting spirit — into virtues. Indeed, it has now become a quality to be money-grabbing, egotistical, covetous, and to rip others off. You have to give them their due: bankers have elevated the art of prestidigitation to unparalleled heights, as witnessed in last year’s financial crisis. Not only did they swindle every possible institution, they managed to get public money to refinance their mess without any credible reform to their regulatory system — and, incredible but true, make everyone assent enthusiastically to what is objectively a complete moral scandal. They have turned fraud and impunity into a Weltanschauung, as the Germans would say — a whole conception of life, of existence, and of the world: cheat and con others, then expect them to pay the price, while you keep your astronomical bonuses. To be fair, bankers only followed the path opened by economists over two centuries ago, who, by founding modern economics, also managed to turn moral values upside down. Part of their magical trick consisted in re-naming selfishness: it now goes by the grander name of “economic rationality”. Human beings are supposed to be motivated exclusively by self-interest, and this is somehow rational. Note that this is an axiom, which cannot be proved (not surprising, since it is basically false) but the magical trick consisted in making egoism appear as a self-evident truth, and as the groundwork for a new definition of rational behaviour. Economic rationality is nothing but a conceptually untenable justification of self-interest. The other sleight of hand consisted in supernaturally turning selfishness into altruism. Greed is good, we are told, because it magically benefits all. Private vices make public virtues, said Mandeville, one of the fathers of prestidigitation. Funnily enough, what we have witnessed recently is that private vices make public vices: a reality involving less magic, but more logic (which is not to displease those who believe in old-fashioned rationality).

Since selfishness is now not only accepted, but hailed as a virtue and a way of life, giving appears as an outdated, obsolete, and rather dumb idea. The principle of a gift is, indeed, antithetical to that of our dear bankers; while the latter ensure they get more than their investment in return, the gift does the exact opposite, giving away without expecting anything back. A gift is not a wise investment — or else it is not a gift, but only a wise investment. It does not mean that you do not expect anything — you do, but just not for your own self. Take the example of organ donation: you give your kidney in order to save someone’s life. What matters to you is this person’s health and well-being — not your own. You certainly expect the surgeons to do their job properly so that they do not fumble with your kidney and mess up the transplant; you hope and pray the recipient’s immune system will not reject the donated organ, and that s/he will soon get better. But as for yourself, you know your own health is jeopardised by having given away a kidney — yet, you did it. It might give you a sense of moral contentment, but this is not why you gave in the first place. So definitely, a gift comes with an expectation — but not a selfish one. One could object that surely, you are entitled to expect gratitude, and thanks, when you give. Or are you? Surely your act of giving did not depend on it. Take another example: charity, or zakat. What matters is not how much you give, or what you give: the poor man’s gift is no less worth than the rich man’s. So generosity does not hinge on the content of the gift. Rather, it depends on how you give it. Did you give in such a way as to make the recipient feel his dependency? Did you give to impress upon him your social or moral superiority? Then your goal was entirely selfish, and certainly far from the spirit of generosity. Or did you offer in such a way as to disappear behind your present, to belittle your own gesture, so that the recipient would not be humiliated, but strengthened, by your endowment? In a way, a gift is nothing material; it is entirely spiritual, as it is all about the manner of giving. A true present is humbling for the donor as much as for the recipient. The art of giving is the opposite of a banking operation, yet it also performs a form of magic: it makes the material object, the present, disappear behind the subject of the recipient. Actually, what the donor gives is not a thing; it is part of him- or herself. Which is why presents are always so touching, however small they appear, a few coins or a child’s drawing, because what you give is yourself; and your aim is to make the other person grow and become a better, stronger, self. The art of giving is the true magic: the present, which is inseparable from the giver’s identity, is magically transformed into something else (the strengthened, bolstered self of the recipient) in the course of the transfer.

Paradoxically, it is precisely because true gifts are so tied up with the giver’s identity and soul that they give rise to obligations on the part of the recipient. Not as an a priori expectation of the giver, but as an a posteriori moral obligation weighing on the one who has been so honoured. This is why there is no contradiction in saying that a gift is both free and that it demands reciprocation, as the anthropologist Marcel Mauss long ago noted in his famous study on gift-economy. It is not the giver who demands: it is the recipient who, in turn, obligates himself to liberality and generosity. Which is exactly why giving makes people more generous, while selfishness only breeds more selfishness. Both are self-fulfilling prophecies: by telling people it is rational to be egotistical, they become egotistical; by supposing them big-hearted, you make them better and kinder. And thus, the second magical trick of the gift is to create a virtuous spiral of largesse.

The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at sikander.amani@gmail.com