I’ve recently finished ‘The Songlines" by Bruce Chatwin. It’s a wonderful book using some travels he made among aboriginal peoples in Australia to reflect on humanity and our common roots as nomads.
In one section he records a meeting with Konrad Lorenz, whose book ‘On Aggression’ I am now reading. It’s a controversial thesis in many ways as it appears to offer some support for the view that war is inevitable. However, I was drawn to it by an exchange with Chatwin on gift exchange – a theme I explore in the book. Chatwin writes:
In the Orinoco there were Indians who would supress tribal warfare with ‘ritual’ exchanges of gifts.
‘But surely’, I butted in, ‘this "gift exchange" is not ritual to supress aggression. It is aggression ritualised. Violence only breaks out when the parity of these exchanges is broken.’
‘Yes, yes’, he answered enthusiastically. He took a pencil from his pocket and waved it towards me. ‘If I give you this gift that means "I’m territorial here." But it also means "I have a territory and am no threat to yours." All we are doing is fixing the frontier. It would be an offence if I put my gift too far.’
In the book I talk about gifts being a form of exchange that leaves a relational potentiality: inviting someone for dinner and giving them food without expecting payment deepens a relationship. But Lorenze seems to be suggesting another mode of gift exchange, whereby gifts act as a symbol of territory, as a means of strengthening a boundary between 2 people, peoples or cultures.
Perhaps what Chatwin means when he says that ‘violence breaks out when the parity of these exchanges is broken’ is that once we stop the process of gift exchange we might actually be threatening the boundary between ourselves and the ‘other’, and this threat causes the other to rise up against us.
A good example appeared to me to be when Rowan Williams and all the other faith-group leaders met and offered a joint statement denouncing the terrorists. What this meeting of minds did, this act of religious generosity, was perhaps not to say ‘we’re all the same, there is no boundary’, but ‘I respect your boundaries and do not want to threaten them.’
Terrorism is all about a violent breaking of boundaries: smashing your way into another’s land, life-style, day-to-day life and saying, ‘Be afraid, I am in your territory somewhere so you can never feel safe.’ Perhaps what we need to do as a Western society is ensure that the message is put across more clearly (and that we act on this message) that we are not interested in violating boundaries and building a new capitalist empire. Rather, we must learn to meet and ‘exchange gifts’: to increase mutual understanding and trust; to allow the other to be different, and agree not to force the annihilation of difference.
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2 responses to “Gift Exchange and Terror”
Nice to find this site, I look forward to interesting thoughts.
What you’ve written there makes a lot of sense, in the context of all the current mass of discussion about how our society responds to the bombings. I’m somewhat convinced by Trevor Phillips’ line. He suggests that a laissez-faire tolerance – which so easily characterises some forms of multiculturalism in this country – is actually destructive, rather than a benign characteristic. If differences are simply passed by as we walk, then we might actually fail to acknowledge the humanity of that different person. Indifference, by which you say a lack of gift exchange, in a way critical engagement and everyday contact can. Identity needs to be acknowledged, and tolerance isn’t enough for that.
Nice to have discovered you.
“Terrorism is all about a violent breaking of boundaries: smashing your way into another’s land, life-style, day-to-day life and saying, ‘Be afraid, I am in your territory somewhere so you can never feel safe.”
Yes!
“Perhaps what we need to do as a Western society is ensure that the message is put across more clearly (and that we act on this message) that we are not interested in violating boundaries and building a new capitalist empire.”
It seems diffcult to exchange gifts when we are dropping bombs. Yet, I agree that the way may be to exchange gifts.