Reciprocity

Week 3: Reciprocity

Atwood: Payback (2008)
Aristophanes: Wealth (388 BCE)
Shakespeare: Timon of Athens (during Shakespeare’s play-writing years; c. 1607?)

“Almost every human interaction carries with it a metaphorical balance sheet, an implied burden of obligation and reward. Debt, understood this way, is inseparable from the business of life.”

Working full-time and reading so much leaves me with less free time than I’d like (not that I’m complaining). ‘Listening to Atwood’s Massey lectures might save some time,’ I thought. ‘This will help me resolve the sleep debt I accumulated over the holidays’ (yes, it’s still with me). Well. I realized after the first few minutes of the first lecture that it wouldn’t be worth the aggravation of listening to Atwood speak. A ‘refined form of torture’ is what it was to listen to the first minute alone. However, reading Payback turned out to be pleasurable and far less irritating.

In Payback Atwood analyses the idea of debt from different angles. After my first reading of it, despite the steady theme of debt, I thought the ideas scattered and without cohesion. I just didn’t get the point of what she was trying to say. Like all of her books, this one is very well-researched. In it, she delves into the history of debt and describes how it has shape-shifted through the ages and in different cultures. I was naively expecting tips on how we can turn around the economic crisis we are in, as Massey lectures seem to offer solutions to the troubles that our country and world face. The lectures by John Ralston Saul and Ronald Wright gave us food for thought as did Doris Lessing’s and Stephen Lewis’s, complete with suggestions as to how we can change the world and make it a better place, for you and for me… But really, no one has the answers that can fill the gaping hole of debt around which we all live. Precarious position we’re in, indeed.

After some reflection, I came to regard the work as an extensive exploration on the topic of debt. “Debt” encompasses such a vast range of subject matter that touches our lives and history that the book itself couldn’t have a “point” or a bottom line. What the book can do is generate discussion about our past and present economic state through different lenses, those of anthropology, mythology, literature and religion. Debt and the notions of payback and reciprocity are far more complex than what can fit on a nominal ledger.

Wealth, money and its offshoots can be likened to a virus and its symptoms. The age of a species can be estimated by the number of viruses able to infect it, since over time viruses mutate and find new hosts. When one considers how wealth and debt and their consequences are deeply engrained in our cultural, mythological and religious spheres (as articulated by Atwood) one can see that this virus has been with us quite a while. (p.11) “…I’m assuming that the older a recognizable pattern of behaviour is - the longer it’s demonstrably been with us - the more integral it must be to our humanness and the more cultural variations on it will be in evidence.”

Today, in our society bereft of myth and substance, we seem to have lost whatever social mechanisms we developed to stay on the middle path. (p.28) “Even in shamanistic hunter-gatherer societies there was a right way, and failure to follow it would upset the balance of the natural world and result in famine: if you did not treat the animals you killed with respect, not killing to many of them… the goddess of the animals would withhold those animals from you.” If such devotion and appreciation for what nature offers us today were shown - even if it’s available in abundance - would we be in the mess we’re in? Did the shamanistic hunter-gatherer societies instinctively know of the physical limits to growth and the law of diminishing returns? Could it be - as we’ve seen so often in other domains - that our ancient “uncivilized” ancestors actually had it right, and what we’ve called “progress” has turned on us?

It is an evolutionary force within us to be greedy and, as Atwood put it, to “snatch the low-hanging fruit and gobble down as much of it as we can, without thinking ahead to the fruitless days that may then lie ahead of us. ‘Grab it now’ may be a variant of a behaviour selected for in hunter-gatherer days, long before anyone ever thought about saving up for their retirement.” This instinctive need to grab what’s available makes perfect sense in the jungle but in civil life it’s a perversion. Chremylos sums it up (p.217, Wealth): “All crafts, and every kind of human skill, have been devised with only you [Wealth] in mind.” We are like our father, Prometheus, who strove to improve our lot. Now we strive to improve ourselves but the force we put into it seems to be blown back at us in a way that undoes whatever advances we’ve made.

And if we are to consider what is more “natural”, poverty represents our natural state. As stated in Wealth by Poverty herself: (p.232) “I produce far better men than Wealth does, in intellect and body too. With him it’s gout they suffer, and bloated bellies, fat legs too - yes, rank obesity. With me they’re lean, with wasp-trim waists.” I can’t help but think here on the different diets between rich and poor countries and their associated diseases.



















Atwood’s idea of the “game of debt” as a stimulus is really interesting. (p.83/86) Scientists have seen that rats deprived of toys will subject themselves to painful shocks. The parallel to humans drawn by Atwood is that being in debt can have a certain entertainment value. Like the rats and their self-induced electric shocks, we would rather have something painful happening to us than to feel nothing and be bored. The roller coaster of seeking, spending and then suffering is more exciting than the monotony of saving. This reminded me of Lessing’s comments of people enjoying the “game” of war, and Merton’s statement that one’s activity level is in direct proportion to one’s distance from oneself. Such a one’s reason for existence is to fill his emptiness with something even if that something is painful or meaningless after a pithy moment of stimulation.

That the concept of “balance” was deified in ancient cultures was perhaps for the sole reason that once balance and order were established, civil life flourished and great advances were made. Clearly, there must have been a god overseeing this and imposing an orderly plan. (p.27) In ancient Egypt the goddess Ma’at represented not only order and balance, but many qualities necessary to the establishment of balance: “truth, justice, the governing principles of nature and the universe, the stately progression of time - days, months, seasons, years, the proper comportment of individuals toward others…” It is no surprise that such a system of weights were at play on judgment day, when the gods were to determine our everlasting fate. In Wealth, when economic imbalance corrupts society and the agreed-upon rituals that make an orderly society are moot, the gods, their shrines and their human servants are disrespected. Society begins to crumble.
The value of honouring equilibrium in life, and avoiding extremes, are articulated by Apemantus (Timon of Athens) (Act IV, sc. Iii, line 341) “The middle of humanity thou never knewest, but the extremity of both ends. When thou wast in thy gilt and thy perfume, they mocked thee for too much curiosity. In thy rags thou know’st none, but art despised for the contrary…” One might argue that he is at least delusional, if not “mad”, while rich. But it is appropriate that Timon is reduced to madness at either extreme because his fellow Greeks had basically defined “madness” as the consequence of imbalance or excess.

And so if someone is mad, in the most extreme sense of the word, and their actions are egregiously out of order; what should be done? Does that person owe a debt to society? This sounds strange to me, somehow, but I’m not sure why. Yes, society has given us a lot, but that’s just the way it is. It’s not as if it exists in this way for us. Just like we had no choice in being born into this world (which makes me think it unfair for every human being to be indebted to god), we have no choice but to live in the social world into which we were born. Of course, the argument changes if we’d been asked to be born into something - then we would be in debt. When I think of murderers and “the debt” they must pay in blood… I wonder: In what way does society benefit from the execution of a criminal? Should it make any difference to us whether Clifford Olsen remains isolated in prison, gets executed or is put into the general prison population to be gang raped (or murdered) by other inmates? Would we be happy for this? And if we would be, what does this say about us?

The end of the final chapter of Payback, entitled “Payback”, ties into the first question posed in the first lecture. “Are we in debt to anyone or anything for the bare fact of our existence? If so, what do we owe and to whom or to what? And how should we pay?” We are living in a time where *Responsibility* is thrown around like a hot potato, where the shouldering of responsibility is only done when commanded by the courts. But I was born into this system, why should it be up to me to change it and to fix what previous generations have done…?

Similar to the fact that money and gold as objects are completely useless (one cannot wear it or eat it… and gold is only ascribed value by convention), Nature has no real use for us, and although we have a use for her health, Nature doesn’t care what we do… the environment has no feeling either way. “Nature doesn't recognize good and evil. Nature only recognizes balance and imbalance.”
We need nature to exist in tact so that we can maintain our economic structure and quality of life… I can only hope that its destruction soon starts to hurt the pockets of the men who wield the big money; only then will there be BIG change.

As far as the world not caring what we do, many of us, beings of nature that we are, are equally unfeeling on the topic of the environment. An ESL teacher I know recently taught a classroom of Brazilian students. He thought a debate on “the environment” would get his students into a passionate discussion. Indeed it did. Contrary to his expectations, his students - people from a part of he world where the rainforests are being cleared - couldn’t have cared less about the environment even though they were all aware of the consequences of a damaged earth. They were passionate about why they did not care and flaunted it. Granted, they were only 17 years old and are probably full of hormonal angst. It makes me doubt all of the promised optimism that the next generation is ‘supposed’ to bring the world. What we’ve done to the earth seems beyond repair and most aren’t willing to change their lifestyles. After all, (sarcasm), “what kind of difference can one person make?”

“Nature is an expert in cost-benefit analysis … Sometimes whether we like it or not, Nature demands compensation.” (p.180) Monsanto comes to mind. The way crops are grown in North America is really not sustainable. The nutrients in the soil cannot keep up with the agricultural output and the soil’s quality and quantity is diminishing rapidly. It’s well documented and the sickness of the industry is no secret to those who have seen the provocative movie Food Inc. or have read The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
All of this we know. The frightening information is out there. Every year, in one way or another, Massey lecturers bring up the idea that humans are deer caught in the headlights. “It is vain to continue an institution which experience shows to be ineffectual. We have now imprisoned one generation of debtors after another, but we do not find that their numbers lessen.” (p.127).

Is there a lesson to be learned here: “Kill the creditors remains an available though morally repugnant way of cancelling your debts”? (p.147) Learning a lesson from the past is not in the interest of the powerful, in this case. (How much does the US owe China, anyway?)

One really interesting point that came up in seminar this week was that Margaret Hatcher sold “Council Housing” (government-owned subsidized housing) to the tenants, thereby breaking the unions. People with mortgage payments cannot easily go on strike. Her government convinced everyone that they must own property. The adoption of this idea was a force toward individualism and the power, and the greater good and the protection of the unions was diminished.
The same idea applies to how one sees the environment. I’m sure many people’s attitude is, “if it’s not my piece of land, to hell with it!”
The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying ‘This is mine’, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this imposter; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody. (Rousseau, from Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men (1754)).

When the natives of North America met Europeans, they could not fathom the concept of land ownership. The whole enterprise and its derivatives make Rousseau’s seemingly provocative statement appear quite reasonable.
Tent cities in Arizona / California… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmeHiFZUWtE