The Gift_ Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World - Lewis Hyde [45]
She’s a very selfish girl and not very mature in many ways … She’s not used to doing things for people. She didn’t think her life should be constricted in any way … She wanted a fur coat. It really shook me up. It was unnerving … She was reluctant and unenthusiastic … She’s very calculating.
Asked if the gift had made her uncomfortable, the mother replied, “I’m not uncomfortable. I’ve put up with so much … then she turns around and kicks us in the teeth.” The daughter even saw fit to complain to her mother about postoperative pain. “I said to her, ’I didn’t tell you about my labor pains.′ And that shut her up.”
The story is hardly a model of familial affection, but the reader will note that despite its magnitude, the gift did not render the mother subservient to the daughter. And for a good reason: it wasn’t a gift. As soon as the daughter shifted the category of the exchange and tried to barter, all of her authority drained away. When either the donor or the recipient begins to treat a gift in terms of obligation, it ceases to be a gift, and though many in such a situation will be hurt by the revealed lack of affection, the emotional bond, along with its power, evaporates immediately.
We cannot really become bound to those who give us false gifts. And true gifts constrain us only if we do not pass them along—only, I mean, if we fail to respond with an act or an expression of gratitude. We might here remember the stories of genius and of the shoemaker’s elves, for they make it clear that there is a kind of servitude associated with gifts of transformation. We are indentured to our gifts until they come to term. But this is a willing bondage, and the bond is loosened with the maturation of the gift. Our servitude is ended by the act of gratitude which accomplishes the transformation. The elves and the shoemaker are quit of each other then, just as genius becomes free spirit. Bondage to our gifts (and to the teachers who wake them) diminishes as we become empowered to pass them along. It is true that when a gift enhances our life, or even saves it, gratitude will bind us to the donor. Until it is expressed, that is. Gratitude, acted upon or simply spoken, releases the gift and lightens the obligations of affection between lovers, family, and comrades. Is it really proper, then, to speak of the ties of affection as a bondage? These are attachments to be desired. When gift exchange achieves a convivial communion of spirits, there is no call for liberty; it is only when our attachments become moribund that we long to break them. Interesting as the subject may be, it is not for a theory of gift exchange to explain why we so often enter and maintain relationships that have in them no life to offer.
Because gifts do have the power to join people together, there are many gifts that must be refused. On the simplest level, we are wary of gifts in any situation that calls for reckoning and discrimination. If I am to negotiate a contract, I do well to pause when the man who wants my signature offers a three-course meal with wine. For, if I am a man of goodwill, I may subsequently feel my generosity rise as the time comes to put my name on the line. A gift, no matter how well intentioned, deflects objective judgment. Persons whose position in society demands that they maintain their objectivity—I am thinking now of policemen, politicians, judges—are expected, even required, to refrain from gift exchange. A judge should embody the law’s impartiality. We want to feel he can separate himself from the particulars of his class, race, and religion; we certainly want to feel he has no tie to either the prosecution or the defense. Similarly, we would be suspicious of a congressman who accepted secret contributions from the liquor industry, or a doctor who took gifts from pharmaceutical companies. We want the doctor to be concerned about our health, and not feel a convivial communion with some proprietary drug.*
Despite my earlier caveat about fees for service, there are times when it would be inappropriate for