I recently published an essay about the dynamics of generosity. If you’re short on time, the gist of it is that generosity acts as a kind of supervirtue, spreading and sparing literal energy within a system (like a family, congregation, county, etc.). The more generous you are with your peeps, as opposed to those who live in Timbuktu, the more you enrich your community. The energy you distribute allows and encourages others to do the same with their surplus. Contained locally, the system flourishes. Allowed to dissipate far and wide, and there is little effect on a system as large as the entire world.
There are many more nuances to the argument, but one of them I’d like to retract is the contention that generosity is best given anonymously.
Few things are quite as rewarding as encountering an argument that upends a cherished belief. This retraction stems from a case made in I believe chapter 20 of Charles Eisenstein’s Sacred Economics, a book full of such arguments.
I had the notion that when people give conspicuously, it isn’t really generous. That’s because it’s impossible to distinguish from virtue signaling. Those credited with gifts may just be doing it for the reputational boost, among other reasons. I still think that’s true. I also hold that giving anonymously (and I’m talking about everything besides money, and money, last among it) is pretty nice. That sort of generosity is genuine to the point of being near-saintly. At best, you might be doing it for the feeling of warmth that you can’t share with anyone. That’s the problem.
Near the end of the essay, I called on the parable of the poor woman who gave her last pennies to the collection plate. Jesus declared her more generous than the rich, and I gave a possible explanation in support of that statement. However, I missed that the biggest contribution of her generosity—the example she set for everyone who ever encountered that parable—would have been null had she snuck into the church after hours to deposit the coins.
Ascetic generosity, giving all that you have and when possible, doing it anonymously, is indeed saintly. That is, it’s associated with those who forgo worldly reward, usually living secluded in a hermitage or a cloister. Their gift costs them the receiving of gratitude, and spares the recipient the obligation of repayment. I don’t mean that donations come, like debts, with strict terms of remuneration. They don’t. But all gifts bear an obligation. If it isn’t a strict and immediate repayment, we feel as though we owe that person, or that we lack self-sufficiency. And if we miss that, those who witnessed the gift will be sure to remind us. Not all gifts are given back to the giver, because that would be indistinguishable from a transaction. Often, they’re paid forward. Regardless of the direction of flow, though, a great act of generosity can feel painful, in that it entails a similar contribution on my part to someone in the nebulous future.
In fact, that’s how traditional gift economies usually work. There are strict rules governing when you can accept or refuse a gift, with whom, where, and when you’re expected to give to others. They differ sharply between cultures, but the penalty for breaking them can range from whispers behind your back to exile or death.
From that angle, a gift hardly seems different than a loan of money, through which you incur a debt. In many ways, it’s not. That’s a feature, not a bug. Without standards of giving, the gift economy disintegrates. There are always people who treat it with respect, and always people who ignore it, but those consequences ensure that the latter can’t harm the former, and that gifts flow freely through a society.
It does differ in a few key ways. First, as I mentioned, the gift isn’t necessarily given back to the giver. It can flow in any number of directions. Second, it doesn’t have to be repaid with interest. It may stimulate a gift of greater value, but also of lesser value, or in some other form that’s entirely beyond comparison in terms of measured value, but which still satisfies what’s more of a role than a material denomination of wealth.
Why is that important?
Because the gift economy, synonymous with generosity, meets the needs of the community. It can only do so by your participation. Why don’t you give your toolbox to someone who needs it, knowing that when your own need arises, he or someone else will make sure the right tools find their way back to you? Why don’t you help your neighbor pay for their child’s school expenses, knowing that when you need a new roof, some other capable member of the community will do it for the costs of materials? Likely, it’s because that won’t happen. We don’t live in such an economy. There’s no structure in place to enforce reciprocity. Many people just don’t participate. They’re probably not bad folks, but the communities we have in America in the 2020’s aren’t very close. We follow the laws (these gift practices were traditionally not always formal laws, but often unspoken). We’re independent, and don’t owe nobody nothing.
Eisenstein argues that the two-sided coin of obligation and gratitude, so hard to separate, is what drives a tight-knit community to tend to the needs of its members. I’m obligated to you because you gave to me, or to someone else when the tables were turned. If everyone observes the same practices, then we understand that much of what we have came from the wealth of another, that giving increases wealth within the local system, and that we must play our part.
Few of us built our own homes by ourselves, machined our cars from smelted iron, grew our own food, and spun our clothing, yet we don’t go around trembling with gratitude for what we have. That’s because we paid for it. The exchange of money has the effect of removing, in our minds, an obligation. The roofer could be starving right before us, and we might help, but we certainly don’t have to. That’s unthinkable in a gift economy. The very topic was the subject of hot debate between Kondiaronk, statesman of the Wendat people, and the French in the 17th century American colonies, chronicled in The Dawn of Everything. He couldn’t fathom how the French could let their neighbors starve in the streets, and the French couldn’t understand why he expected them to pay for their upkeep. Both were right, from the point of view of their own economy—one gift-based, one money-based.
Monetary exchanges serve to remove the notion of an obligation, and at the same time, foster one of independence. For those who depended on the land to survive, though, there was no independence. They partook in the gifts of nature’s resources: water, food, wood, stones, in fact all the same things we rely on, only less-removed. No one could make those raw materials, and money couldn’t discharge the obligation, which was felt in its warmer, fluffier form as deep gratitude. No matter how long the chain of transactions, there is always at some point a giver who took nothing in return. So the obligation stood.
When we give in our community of our time and resources, people recognize it. That obligation also becomes a story. We know of them, and people know of us. That story sparks more gifts. But it only takes one to create a connection. Once I receive something within a system, a community, a gift economy—call it what you will—I am obligated to the whole system in return. It may feel like a burden, but it isn’t a debt. Because of that, it also may feel like a responsibility, even a privilege. Who is wealthier than the one who can afford to give the most? The loan agent doesn’t thank you from the bottom of his heart when you pay your mortgage, but your neighbor might, and so might the person who he helps in turn thank him.
In these terms, a gift is a mixed blessing. It can be lifesaving, but it asks us to also save a life. By these bonds, the entire group becomes dependent on one another (as arguably, they already are). The connections of gratitude and obligation strengthen local ties and fill all with confidence that they can never fall so low as to drown in a sea of people who didn’t think it their responsibility to help.
In contrast, the anonymous gift refuses this web of interdependencies on which generosity thrives. It becomes an isolated act, with one beneficiary and no one to thank. As such, the recipient isn’t required to pay it back, forward, or any which way. The gift dies in transit.
According to Eisenstein, we also harm the organism of generosity in subtler ways. Whenever we refuse to share a meal, accept a hand in carrying something, or go it on our own, we are denying that we have any such obligation to help others. Independence is gained at the price of destroying the flow of generosity. The same is true in downplaying how others have aided us. On the flip side, when I say, “Aw shucks, it was nothin,’” or anything but a heartfelt “thank you” in response to my gift, I think I’m being humble and kind by removing the recipient from a burden. That’s only true in a community based solely on transaction. If I care about generosity and mutual support, I’m undermining the work of the gift.
There are times when refusing to give, or to credit a gift, may be a wise choice. If so, we must acknowledge that we are consciously preventing the establishment of ties with this person, and denying them participation in our community of generosity. There are also times when we should recognize a manipulative act of virtue signaling in a gift, as when the billionaire stands behind a big check. The point that Eisenstein makes is that to give anonymously is counterproductive to the generosity we’re hoping to promote. It denies the formation of a meaningful connection, and a community of aid.
So I revise my statement. We should take care to know why we give. Hopefully we avoid doing it for political gain. The real power of the gift comes when we do it in the context of mutual support. It comes with the admission of dependence, the acceptance of obligation, and the expression of gratitude. Don’t downplay your gifts, or dismiss those of others. Don’t lord them over people, and don’t beg. If generosity is your goal, accept both roles—that of giver and receiver—with the humility of knowing that no one can do it entirely on their own.