This morning I sat down to write poetry, but instead, I wrote code. The inspiration for this code was a workshop with the poet Ed Steck. I sent it to our poetry cohort as kind of a gift.
I have been writing about containers and spaces. A gift is something that often comes wrapped in a box. It is a container and a space but serves as a bridge between people.
I have been making code gifts for years. I write bits of code and share them with people that might delight in them. People or communities inspire me to write code. It is part of a relationship.
Free Software Vs. Gift Software
We are used to “free” software. Almost all the software that I use is free. But, just because something is free does not mean it is a gift.
The Gift Economy Vs The Market Economy
We live in a market economy. If I want something, I go to the store and exchange money for something of equivalent value. For example, I go to the store and pay $5 in exchange for bread.
True gifts have no price. When my child gives me a gift, although it is made from pipe cleaners and glue ($5 of materials), it has no price. Gifts have no equivalent value.
Anthropologists believe that gifts knit people together in relations of mutual indebtedness. How horrifying!
The Gift Economy Vs. False Consciousness
In a gift economy, I manage my resources by giving and receiving gifts. A gift economy is unpredictable and inefficient. I might need a pair of shoes, but I am gifted a rug.
Market economies are better suited to satisfy specific desires. Market economies also create new desires. Market economies really manage desires, not resources.
Gifts operate outside of this framework of desire. Gifts create something beyond the satisfaction of desire. Perhaps this is what Lacan meant by Jouissance.
A Gift is a Gift is a Gift
Beautiful is something without qualification, says Kant. Something cannot be more or less beautiful. Either something is beautiful, or it is not. A gift is the same. Something is a gift, or it is not.
All sorts of things used to be gifts but are now transactions: art for example. Transactions devalue a priceless gift. We live in an economy where almost all our interactions are really transactions. In this world, it makes no sense to talk about gifts. There is no framework for people to understand what I am doing.
When I give a gift to someone, the nature of our relationship shifts, when I buy something from someone, the nature of our relationship stays the same.
Gifts are mechanisms for exploring deeper forms of relating.
It is the great leveler. Anyone can give a gift. True gifting is the recognition of another person as simply (or complexly) another person.
Thank you for reading. These are concepts that I am developing, and I welcome thoughts and comments.
