The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property

"The artist appeals to that part of our being...which is a gift and not an acquisition - and, therefore, more permanently enduring." - Joseph Conrad

"At the corner drugstore my neighbors and I can now buy a line of romantic novels written according to a formula developed through market research. An advertising agency polled a group of women readers. What age should the heroine be? (She should be between nineteen and twenty-seven.) Should the man she meets be married or single? (Recently widowed is best.) The hero and heroine are not allowed in bed together until they are married. Each novel is a hundred and ninety-two pages long. Even the name of the series and the design of the cover have been tailored to the demands of the market. (The name Silhouette was preferred over Belladonna, Surrender, Tiffany, and Magnolia; gold curlicues were chosen to frame the cover.) Six new titles appear each month and two hundred thousand copies of each title are printed.

Why do we suspect that Silhouette Romances will not be enduring works of art? What is it about a work of art, even when it is bought and sold in the market, that makes us distinguish it from such pure commodities as these?

It is the assumption of this book that a work of art is a gift, not a commodity. Or, to state the modern case with more precision, that works of art exist simultaneously in two "economies," a market economy and a gift economy. Only one of these is essential, however: a work of art can survive without the market, but where there is no gift there is no art.

There are several distinct senses of "gift" that lie behind these ideas, but common to each of them is the notion that a gift is a thing we do not get by our own efforts. We cannot buy it; we cannot acquire it through an act of will. It is bestowed upon us. Thus we rightly speak of "talent" as a gift, for although a talent can be perfected through an effort of the will, no effort in the world can cause its initial appearance. Mozart, composing on the harpsicord at the age of four, had a gift.

We also speak rightly of intuition or inspiration as a gift. As the artist works, some portion of his creation is bestowed upon him. An idea pops into this head, a tune begins to play, a phrase comes to mind, a color falls in place on the canvas. Usually, in fact, the artist does not find himself engaged or exhilarated by the work, nor does it seem authentic, until this gratuitous element has appeared, so that along with any true creation comes the uncanny sense that "I," the artist, did not make the work. "Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me," says D.H. Lawrence. Not all artists emphasize the "gift" phase of their creations to the degree that Lawrence does, but all artists feel it.

...For some years now I myself have tried to make my way as a poet, a translator, and a sort of "scholar without institution." Inevitably the money question comes up; labors such as mine are notoriously nonremunerative, and the landlord is not interested in your book of translations the day the rent falls due.

...Every culture offers its citizens an image of what it is to be a man or woman of substance. There have been times and places in which a person came into his or her social being through the dispersal of gifts, the "big man" or "big woman" being one through whom the most gifts flowed. The mythology of a market society reverses the picture: getting rather than giving is the mark of a substantial person, and the hero is "self-possessed," "self-made." So long as these assumptions rule, a disquieting sense of triviality, of worthlessness even, will nag the man or woman who labors in the service of a gift and whose products are not adequately described as commodities.

...[U]nlike the sale of a commodity, the giving of a gift tends to establish a relationship between the parties involved. Furthermore, when gifts circulate within a group, their commerce leaves a series of interconnected relationships in its wake, and a kind of decentralized cohesiveness emerges... I began to realize that a description of gift exchange might offer me the language, the way of speaking, through which I could address the situation of creative artists." - Lewis Hyde, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property

p.s. The whole of this remarkable book that was gifted to me by Tara Hunt centers around "to possess is to give." And: "Scarcity appears when wealth cannot flow." These are the ideas that are swirling for me these days: How to stay centered and not abandon your art in a market society, and have abundance continuously moving and circulating in a cohesive community.

Art: The Accolade, by Edmund Blair Leighton; The Charity of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, by Edmund Blair Leighton

Comments

[arkieology]

There is no purer example of the gift economy than the Potlatch. The Native Americans of the Puget Sound lived their entire lives around the Potlatch. A person or clan would work for months, sometimes years building and creating artifacts and storing food in order to give a potlatch and give it all away. They lived as the lilies of the field, taking no care for the morrow, because somebody would be throwing another potlatch. My website jaspersbox.com has a novel, Daily Bread, the Story of Jasper's Box, which is about ATM machines that come to earth and give everyone $100 a day. The Prolog takes the Potlatch as its inspiration. Good to read your words again.

[Richard]

A complementary take on your post that might interest your readers:

The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies by Marcel Mauss.

[Vaspers the Grate (abrasive to falsehood)]

This is precisely why I give abundantly of my insights, web analysis, socnet testing, computer music, digital art...

...NEVER seeking to "protect" my various arts from "takers" or "remixers".

I think the idea of the talent AND the work produced as Gifts is key to the new online Share Economy, that goes far beyond idealistic communism.

I speak of a Super Spiritual Communism, to piss off both Mammonists and Marxists. We share on Twitter, blogs, forums, email, live streaming video, YouTube, all over the New Reality Dimension of the Web.

We share freely and abundantly, not in fear of poverty, but in joy of giving.

Sure, we must pay our bills, but 70% of my effort goes into making things to give away for free. Only 30% of my labor is directed toward profits, like working for my employer. I hours at job, then another 10 hours a day at home working on freely distributed gifts to all the world via the web.

I spend much time and effort making computer music with free Audacity audio editor, then putting free mp3s of it on multiple sites and via Pownce.

Infinite Creativity is what a real artist taps into, so "protecting" and "limited distribution" and elitism for a tiered moneyed group is ridiculous.

[Vaspers the Grate (abrasive to falsehood)]

And real enduring art is often a snapshot of the times in which it was made, yet also somehow detached at the same time, thus "difficult", "outsider", "avant garde", "artsy", hence unpopular.

Most great art is done in suffering, struggle, obscurity, pain, deprivation, the opposite of Maslows stupid Hierarchy of Needs.

Artists defy Maslow theory, and put creative goals above physical and emotional needs.

[sarahas]

I listened to another audiobook during my commute last week: The 4-Hour Work Week. The author discusses the idea of separating the financing of our lives from the living of our lives...and concentrating the financial aspect to the smallest amount of time possible with the greatest amount of freedom possible. As a bonus, he even gives plenty of practical advice and resources to help one make great progress toward such a goal.