Humans: the giving animals



"Unwittingly noble. A man's behavior is unwittingly noble if he has grown accustomed never to want anything from men, and always to give to them." Nietzsche

1. Introduction

Although I wanted to follow up my latest journal on reading with another which would have dealt with the mystery of listening, I have moved in another direction. The traditional season for giving has come to an end once again. And yet the more years go by, the more I wonder whether the way we actually give is the healthiest available to us as humans. I have gone to many Christmas gatherings, and yet I sense now that many times the giving of things replaces the giving of thought-provoking words. Inquiring into the nature of giving becomes central to see whether the way we moderns celebrate our liberality doesn’t in fact generate some profound puzzles. In this respect, thinking about giving is quite central to adequately understanding what it is to give.

But we rarely pause to think about giving, in part because the primary giving season is too close to the departure of the year. Having given, we are too quick to begin a new year. But many times we forget to find the time to consider what we have been, in fact, doing. In other words, for weeks we have gathered together in giving, and yet, while involved in the act of giving, we rarely come face to face with what it is to give. We give, and hardly think about what giving might hide, or might reveal. So this is why a reflection on giving, and its relation to creation and thought is required. Particularly as artists, and very much as philosophers, we enjoy the season of giving, but we tend to consider giving in a completely different light. We are troubled and feel uneasy when we see such a generous world around us filled with such appalling realities of lack everywhere.

You might protest, “Is this to say that we should stop giving? The whole thing would even be worse!” One could respond. Learning to give takes time, just think of your mother’s constant repetition, day after day, hour after hour; “Share, share, share with your little sister.” And even after that intense training, we still find it difficult! It would be absurd to seek to do away with such learning. But perhaps we could be better givers, and by that I do not mean “give more things”. For it is indeed a bit odd that for us moderns, living in capitalist realities, giving has been reduced to the giving of things, mostly technologically-oriented things. So much giving of things may make it impossible to give ourselves to each other, even to give ourselves to ourselves.

Perhaps we are giving things for we know of no other way to give. But there are indeed many other ways to give. In this respect, artists and philosophers can indeed come together to help us out, though they do not give the same kind of gifts. Perhaps artists and philosophers open to us the gift of giving itself. Together they give what giving IS. The main purpose of this journal then is to puzzle about giving by seeking to look a bit more closely at the dilemmas behind our giving stance. We might even learn that solely if one knows oneself well can one truly come to know that one’s gifts are actually given generously.

To put this puzzle in terms of questions: When we give, must we know that we are giving? For instance, would you like someone to just give you ANYTHING? “Oh yes, that lovely pink dress will be wonderful for her,” he says. And in contrast you bite your lips! Or, should we instead just give and receive as an old saying says in Spanish, A caballo regalado no se le mira el diente (“if someone gives you a horse, don’t fuss about his teeth!”? If you get such a horse, and his teeth are indeed decaying rapidly, just figure a way to deal with it; just don’t be ungrateful. But wouldn’t this stance be very odd? I mean, I surely do not want to receive certain gifts, and surely not receive them from just ANYONE! Don’t you remember the awkward feeling of saying thank you to a gift you actually hated from someone you did not really like THAT much! “What was he/she thinking,” you say to yourself. And don’t you remember the embarrassment you felt when you gave something to another who half-smiled in painful gratitude?

Besides, shouldn’t one ask; how does one give? There must be pleasure in giving, and yet, have you not received a gift that you KNEW was given by someone in utter pain? (just like it pained us to share our toys with our little sister!) Or, do you remember giving something ------thinking that you did it out of the bottom of your heart--- and yet somehow feeling little pleasure? And what about those cases in which you were given something but the giver just told you over and over how difficult it was for him to actually get it! Surely, that is not giving! “How we give” thus becomes crucial, for surely giving must produce great pleasure. But at times things seem otherwise.

Even more profoundly, can we even go so far as to ask what seems like an absurd question to our materialistic minds; what is the very nature of giving? Are giving and thinking somehow related to each other? How are giving, thinking and creating brought together in the gift? What exactly do great artists give in creation? Do I have to know myself in order to be a great giver of words, images and things? Are there multiple ways of giving, so that giving a thing is only a very minor way of giving ourselves to others? And for us moderns, what is it to give in a secular utilitarian age?

But you might be thinking to yourself: would it not be odd if, on Christmas Eve, somebody stood up and started asking all these questions? So we end up opening our gifts, play with them, and rarely pause to see whether what we have just done is actually giving in the healthiest of its possibilities. I myself had to wait until January to write this journal! I was too busy playing with my gifts!

But, what could be meant by a healthier form of giving? Well, in a sense, nothing very complex. Giving is one of the noblest forms of life for humans, we could even say that humans are THE giving animals. Not even dolphins wrap gifts, you see. But true giving ----clear-headed giving---- must give for the sake of the action itself, not to receive anything apart from the giving itself. Healthy giving is captured well by Aristotle, without whose work I could not write any of this. Aristotle writes regarding giving:

“and this is probably the right procedure for those who have had a course in philosophy; for the value of this is not measurable in money, nor could such a service be balanced by a gift of honor.” NE IX 1

In giving, one should not expect anything in return. Giving should be done for the sake of giving itself. We ALL know this.

2. The paradox of giving

But seriously, what could be wrong with giving? I mean, specially here at dA we often give in a way that is unique to cyberspace. There is even a nice word in dA which you can place as part of your own description. Deviant "X" is a “gift-giver”. I have seen at least a few deviants who fully fit this category. I don’t use it myself because there is so much I have to learn about giving. One could also mention the amazing work of groups such as `ArtistsForCharity and many others. Besides, many deviants amaze us with their capacity to give creatively time and time again. And I myself have experienced the beauty of giving in my life. I have given quite a few gifts; to the rich and the poor, to the weak and the strong, to the manly and to the feminine. And I myself have received some amazing ones from the ugly and the beautiful, from the empowered and the disempowered, from the ascetic and the erotic. There are some, specially from the weakest ---the damned in society---- which I can never forget. Some, you would not believe.

And just recently I was given really beautiful gifts. Generously, I was recently given Don Giovanni by Mozart. Really, is there any greater gift than that “Overture”? Surely Mozart is perhaps THE greatest gift-giver. Moreover, not too long ago I was given a story about a magical giving tree. Here is a quick summary: a boy and a tree grow up together. The boy moves about life using the tree for a multiplicity of purposes; to swing, to earn money with its fruit, to buy a house, and to construct a boat for new voyages. In the end the giving tree is reduced to a stump. The story ends thus:

_{"And after years and years, the boy came back. Both of them were old.
"I really cannot help you if you ask for another gift."
"I'm nothing but an old stump now. I'm sorry but I've nothing to give."
"I do not need very much; just a quiet place to rest."
"Well, said the tree, and old stump is still good for that."
"Come, boy", he said, "Sit down, sit down and rest a while."
And so he did.
Oh, the tree was happy."}

There is much gladness and pleasure in giving, but as in all human affairs there is much that leads to the corruption of our own possibilities. It is not by accident that this little story has a TREE as the faithful giver! It is a rare tree that gives in full consciousness, it is even rarer a human that teaches by example the gladness of giving. Such a teacher would surely be capable of what Nietzsche calls greatness: "Privilege of greatness. It is the privilege of greatness to grant supreme pleasure through trifling gifts." (496, HatH) This greatness, then, is not measured in quantity as we many times do.

But if so many examples of giving abound, what could be wrong with giving? In a sense, there is nothing wrong if one sees the cultural value of giving as the very basis for the creation of cohesive societal structures. In giving we construct the relations which structure the world with others who become our friends, relatives and citizens. In giving, specially families cement their world. This idea is well presented by Mauss in his The Gift. Against the simplistic idea that gifts are selflessly given, Mauss:

“argued that gifts are not free but rather create an obligation to reciprocate. Through the gift, the givers give part of themselves, implying that the gift is imbued with a certain power that compels the recipient to reciprocate. Gift exchanges play therefore a crucial role in creating and maintaining social relationships by establishing bonds of obligations. The gift …… carries the power to create a system of reciprocity in which the honour of both giver and recipient are engaged.” [link]

Giving creates the bonds of the political. The gift cements the links that bring us together. And we know this all too well. We gather during the giving season to share in our generosity. This is the whole point of the Holiday/Christmas gathering; to get together and celebrate the social ties which unite and bond us, specially to celebrate those ties that are the basis of the family.

And yet it is precisely in such times of communal giving that artists and philosophers tend to be the most puzzled. For their very being knows of other ways to give; but these, unfortunately, are frequently silenced so that the ritual of giving may continue without reflection. And so years go by, and our modern world lacks more.

But why then go and ruin everything by thinking about it! Let things be! Indeed most will have to let things be as they are, but some of us will not. Why? Precisely because we want to make sure we are not deluding ourselves. And more importantly, because this reflection has direct consequences on our actions in the world in which gift-giving is a social, economic, and political reality. The purchase of gifts drives our economy, the giving of gifts solidifies our diplomacy, the handing out of gifts conforms our familial structures. In this respect, political corruption is a misunderstanding of gifts; just look at the dilemmas generated in my two countries, Canada and Colombia, because of this.

So, where could one find the path to the discovery of the basic elements behind giving? One avenue is to look at those times in which giving comes to a bitter end. Where do we find such events? Primarily when our friendships come to and end, or when our loves are no more, or when severe fights for identity occur in the family, or when civil war begins. Don’t we come to realize just then things like: “Oh yes, when I gave you that beautiful sweater of mine, I REALLY did not mean forever. And by the way, do you remember those cds I gave you; perhaps you misunderstood me, I JUST lent them to you.” We have become so ironic that we actually speak of “de-gifting” and “re-gifting”. I myself remember once getting back several paintings I had “generously” given away! It was many MANY years later that I understood I had not actually truly given anything to her.

“But this is just when we are too young to notice”, you might respond. Then, think of the following case frequently found among the adult core of a family. Our parents are the greatest of givers for they have, unknowingly or not, given us life. And however, in the heat of the moment such gifts become a burden. What was once the gift of life, becomes the sacrificial burden of parenthood. It is in such times we might hear things such as; “I have given you everything and this is how you repay me.” Blunt translation; “I have given you life, you owe me buddy.” Of course this is done, frequently, in desperation. But it points to the nature of giving. Giving requires no pay back, and yet the closest to us seem to forget it often. Instead, how beautiful it is to receive a gift and feel that the thank you in one’s response is not required at all. But it seems we tend to constantly require, at least unconsciously, the “thank you” to affirm our own generosity. This is an odd, and very dangerous, need indeed.

The irony of this unhealthy view of giving is very well captured in the movie As good as it gets. There, it is assumed that the offer to save Helen Hunt’s own child, requires payback in sexual installments by the weird character played by Jack Nicholson. One of Nietzsche’s powerful fragments also captures well this very same tension with few words: "Anticipating ingratitude. The man who gives a great gift encounters no gratitude; for the recipient, simply by accepting it, already has too much of a burden." (HatH VI 323)

Perhaps now you have felt the full force of the puzzle underlying our desire to give. Giving without becoming clear on why it is we give, we can literally become the worst of tyrants. For we give endlessly simply to accumulate the necessary repayments; in love, in things, in affection, in dominance. And we do so unconsciously, which is even worse, for we actually BELIEVE we are doing great good. So you see, it seems that giving is full of perplexing intricacies. But, more precisely, where is the puzzle? To repeat, when we give generously we give simply for the sake of giving; we do the action for the sake of itself. Herein lies the joy and pleasure of giving; and yet we have come to see that such giving can be quite rare. Rarely do we give in the generosity of a free consciousness. And the more we give things, I believe, the farther we are from understanding a type of giving that gives in liberty. Liberality is the name of the virtue that corresponds to giving; it is not a coincidence that the word “liberality” is intimately linked to the word “liberty”. By learning to give, we free both ourselves and those to whom we give. It seems few of us are actually free.

But if this is so, what kind of gifts would be the ones that are healthier? Perhaps it is by looking at artists, allegedly the freest humans, that we might learn more about healthier types of giving.

3. Artists as givers.

Artists may indeed turn out to be THE greatest of givers. They seem to be, by far, the most complete expression of the giving animal that we humans can be. One simply has to call to mind the life and work of artists such as Mozart, Van Gogh, Shakespeare, and Mann. Their creative production is a gift with few parallels in history. In embodying their expressive capacities, they bring to life the plasticity of our instinctual nature. Through them, what is animal in us, receives the form of a gift.

Why is the artist the greatest of givers? In part because what is created is left into the liberty of what appears. The artist liberates “what is” through his giving. Bringing thought and feeling to matter, the material nature of the work becomes a truly independent gift for those of us who can learn to perceive it. In a sense, the artist gives the world to us by opening the world to its possible and unknown interpretative dimensions. Sure, the artist signs the work, but the signature which signs is not the signature which lives. In this respect, artists can become the greatest of givers. But the way an artist gives is not without deep dilemmas. In a sense, one need also remember how Van Gogh and Gauguin could not stand each other. Or think of the relation between Bach and his musical brother. Artists can be the very worst of givers. At least three illusions may haunt the giving of an artist; the illusion of self, the illusion of world and the illusion of the recognition by the audience.

The artist, in giving so much, might get confused into thinking that SHE is, in fact, what gives. This is what one could call the illusion of self. Nietzsche sees this clearly in his The Genealogy of Morals which has a several long sections on the soul of artists and their extremely problematic form of ascetism. It is a must read for ANY artist, specially young artists, because artists are sometimes so sure of themselves that they hardly think they might be the expression of the severest forms of ascetism. However that may be, Nietzche writes:

“one does best to separate and artist from his work, not taking him as seriously as his work. He is, after all, only the precondition of his work, the womb, the soil, sometimes the dung and manure on which, it grows --- and therefore in most cases something one must forget if one is to enjoy the work itself. “ (III #4)

Giving art gives you to yourself for the very first time; a similar thing occurs when we read as we saw in the previous journal I wrote on the desire to read. The gift of art is not yours, it is a gift which become “ours” through you. In the creative process you cease to affirm yourself, you dis-center yourself to become another. Indeed the artist is dung, the artist MUST be dung. Have you had dung in your hands? Dung fertilizes the soul so that births and rebirths can come to life. In the true gift of a mature artist, manure appears transfigured into the symbolic gift liberated from its preconditions. Even manure can become the greatest of gifts. And I remember the gifts given to me by those who are seen as manure by many.

But this is not the only issue. The second illusion, perhaps the most dangerous, is the illusion that the world we care for as artists has some kind of inherent meaning to it. Rather, in the explosive desire to express our bodily selves through the working materials at our disposal, we seek to give some kind of meaning to that which might otherwise not have any. This is what we could call the illusion of THE meaningful world. The complex issue of how our modern world is a disenchanted one is too long to develop here. Briefly, previously art could secure its meaning through an intimate connection with the real symbols which permeated the world of things. Foucault has studied this in his amazing Les mots et les choses which begins with a dramatic analysis of Velázquez’s painting Las Meninas. Taylor has studied this issue deeply in his art-loving Sources of the self. Ours is a world of disenchantment in which things have been freed from any intrinsic meaningfulness. Once the moon had an intrinsic meaning, now it no longer does.

To put it more simply. In painting a flower that flower which is painted is not the flower of the world, and much less is it the flower as we tend to imagine romantically. The more the meaningfulness of the world resides, the less we can push meaningfulness into living things. The work of art becomes the plausible site of meaning itself, even if it is only to express the lack of meaning surrounding us. For some, the work of art even becomes autotelic, that is to say, it is the sole point in which the world may appear. For instance, a flower in Medieval times brings to light the connection of correspondences between the microcosm and the macrocosm. Think of the nature of alchemy. In contrast, what is a flower to us moderns? Best to hear what a beautiful artist says herself: Georgia O’Keeffe expresses it well in the words accompanying her 1941 painting entitled An orchid:

“Well – I made you take the time to look at what I saw and when you tool time to really notice my flower you hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see of the flower ---and I don’t”

Projecting unto the flower an illusory sense of meaning becomes the trap in which a gift which is honestly given is charged with the greatest of dangerous illusions. The artist, as the greatest gift-giver can give the most profound of lies. But who would ever want such a gift? Perhaps this is why artists need thinkers as much as thinkers require the gift giving nature of artists. Nietzche points out this mutual dependence dramatically:

"The artist’s sense of truth. Regarding truths, the artist has a weaker morality than the thinker. He definitely does not want to be deprived of the splendid and profound interpretations of life, and he resists sober, simple methods and results. Apparently he fights for the higher dignity and significance of man; in truth, he does not want to give up the most effective presumptions of his art: the fantastic, mythical, uncertain, extreme, the sense of the symbolic, the overestimation of the person, the faith in some miraculous element in the genius. Thus he considers the continued existence of his kind of creation more important than scientific devotion to the truth in every form, however, plain.” (146 The Portable Nietzsche pg 53 )

For the more radical Nietzsche, we have art lest we perish of the truth. But knowing this can liberate art’s gift to its own myth.

Finally, the third illusion which beautifully wraps the artist’s gift is what may be called the illusion of the audience. The desire for recognition by others is specially deep in artists for the artist requires an audience who partakes of the work. A gift which is given into the air cannot really be called a gift. A hand, a few eyes, some ears, several bodies, must be there to receive it. But the need for such recognition may drive the artist into a dangerous compromise. As in Mann’s Death in Venice the initial creative stance becomes a deadly formalism. What was light becomes ash, as Aschenbach’s name –the main character of the work---- clearly shows. In the desire for recognition, recognition trumps the honesty of the work given. Ponder, do you post work in dA to receive favorites? Isn’t it rather that the gift you give us here is given in spite of any deviants who are so touched that they click the favorite button in gratitude?

This dramatic corruption may be felt the more in truly creative artists because truly creative work -----ground-breaking work--- must be misunderstood from its very inception. Van Gogh was not seen, and much less importantly, was not sold during his lifetime. But this requires much courage; to believe that the gift which has no hands to be received is nonetheless worth creating. Once again Nietzsche dramatically portrays this dilemma inherent to the artistic activity of giving by pointing to the depth of the Greek tragedians. A true artistic gift presents itself as a gift of excellence primarily in front of oneself. For Nietzsche, the audience for the artist is the audience of an imagined scale of excellence. Giving is not merely a sacrifice for the recognition of my efforts, but rather the giving of greatness in a battle between the greatest of givers:

"Artistic ambition. The Greek artists, the tragedians, for example, wrote in order to triumph; their whole art cannot be imagined without competition. … Now, this ambition demanded above all that their work maintain the highest excellence in their own eyes, as they understood excellence, without consideration for a prevailing taste or the general opinion about excellence in a work of art. And so, for a long time, Aeschylus and Euripides remained unsuccessful until they finally educated critics of art who esteemed their work by the standards that they themselves applied. Thus they strive for victory over their rivals according to their own estimation, before their own tribunal; they really want to be more excellent; then they demand that others outside agree with their own estimation, confirm their judgment. …… " (HatH, IV 170; see also IV 197). [link]

Giving before your eyes in the honesty of the search for excellence, opens the gift to others who await.

Grasping the danger of these three illusions, the artist may come to give not in the pain of self-sacrifice, but in the pleasure of the world which opens amidst the surrounding darkness. The artist does not give in the way that the kiss is awkwardly withheld in Klimt’s famous The Kiss. Instead, the artist gives for the sake of giving itself. By learning from thinkers the dangers of these illusions, we artists are better prepared to give out of ourselves. Perhaps for the very first time we might give a gift as it should be done. This, artists teach us.

4. Philosophers; the gift of thinking about giving.

This brief voyage into giving has revealed much. But I must be honest. Most of it comes not from me, but rather from the gift of thinkers who have opened me to what the plausible nature of giving might be. Such philosophers include Socrates, Aristotle, Nietzsche and Heidegger.

But you might wonder, is the giving by thinkers free of such illusions? Surely not. Perhaps the single most problematic illusion with regards to giving for the thinker is misunderstanding the nature of teaching. Unfortunately, I cannot go into this in detail. I have taught for many years myself, and when one begins to teach one feels that one is truly a privileged giver. One congratulates oneself on one’s decided generosity. But things might turn out to be otherwise because we also feel the desire to please our students, we feel the powerful desire to let them know how helpful we teachers are. But this unhealthy desire may end up by hampering the possibility of thought itself. For as in reading, a teacher who does not make YOU puzzle, surely has only pretended to give. This is captured powerfully by Nietzsche in a famous remark which captures succinctly this profound idea:

"Caution in writing and teaching. Whoever has once begun to write and felt the passion of writing in himself, learns from almost everything he does or experiences only what is communicable for a writer. He no longer thinks of himself but rather of the writer and his public. He wants insight, but not for his own use. Whoever is a teacher is usually incapable of doing anything of his own for his own good. He always thinks of the good of his pupils, and all new knowledge gladdens him only to the extent that he can teach it. Ultimately he regards himself as a thoroughfare of learning, and in general as a tool, so that he has lost seriousness about himself." (HatH, IV)

Nietzsche’s words are striking. A teacher who “dissolves” himself in his students is no teacher. The teacher who -----and these are the current models for education---- thinks only of what he gives his students, is a teacher who is somewhat confused.

Moreover, I have been around teachers and I have remarked that as the years go by, the pessimism of some increases in direct proportion to a demand for a recognition for the “gifts” they have given to their students. Fortunately, I have had professors who have shaken me in such a way that I now understand that education as a means for recognition of one’s efforts is the kind of educational model that goes about things in the wrong way. Learning is a gift, and as such, it is an activity done for its own sake. But rarely do we find this. True learning moves us to the pleasure of the word, but we tend rather to emphasize the painful effort required. This is what is so striking about Aristotle’s simple words. Let me repeat them once again for you to read: “and this is probably the right procedure for those who have had a course in philosophy; for the value of this is not measurable in money, nor could such a service be balanced by a gift of honor.” As we have argued, true giving gives in the selflessness of the gift. In this respect, philosophy seems to give as no other human activity can.

But what exactly does philosophy give? Surely it does not give things. The richness of thought lies elsewhere. Rather, it gives questioning words which seek to counteract the strong powers in us that move us forcefully towards self-delusion. And in this very same vein, I have not found any more perplexing words on giving and its relation to thought, as those given to us by Heidegger:

“What gives us food for thought we call thought-provoking. But what is thought–rovoking, not just occasionally, and not just in some limited respect, but rather gives food for thought inherently and hence from the start and always –----is that which is thought-provoking per se. This is what we call most thought-provoking. And what it gives is to think about, the gift it gives to us, is nothing less than itself ---itself which calls on us to enter thought” (“What calls for thinking”, pg. 367)

What could Heidegger be speaking of? In part, what he speaks of we have already tried to do by thinking about what giving is essentially. But in doing so we have been given a very unique gift which is not at all the type of gift we have grown accustomed to in our materialistic world. In thinking about giving we have come across that which is thought-provoking. Puzzled we have had to stop our actions, and turn to our thoughts. Turn not just to any thoughts, we have been mobilized towards those thoughts underlying our very actions. In turning to thought, and attempting to understand what we did before without ever pausing, we liberate the action to itself.

Perhaps we have even become better givers of gifts by thinking about giving. This is so because, just maybe, we have given ourselves the chance to give ourselves to ourselves more generously. No longer deluded by the necessity of reciprocation in things, we give in what is a truly liberal fashion. The words that now appear ----the very word “gift”---- does so in true liberty. This is why we can say with total confidence that it surely is no coincidence that liberality and liberty go hand in hand.