/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.14414442]

*BTFOs everyone's Christmas "presents" in proving that the act of gifting is always selfish, because it must either be acknowledged or reciprocated otherwise the giver will be displeased*

Nothin personal, kid. Before you get upset and call him a Grinch, just remember, he didn't steal Christmas. Anyone who gave you anything did.

Sources: Big Brain Derrida's 'The gift of death', and 'Given Time'

[Anonymous No.14414592]

Doesn't he also say that the unconditioned ideal of the gift can't be given up even if it's impossible to fulfil in practice? I don't know I don't read.

[Anonymous No.14414598]

>>14414442
>what is enlightened self-interest, the post

[Anonymous No.14414603]

>>14414442
But then why do we sacrifice?

[Anonymous No.14414606]

>>14414442
For Derrida the gift was a possible-impossible aporia; an undecidable. That is, the condition of the possibility of the gift is inextricably tied to its impossibility. The act does not merely fall squarely into the category of "selfish" (and thus impossible) or "genuine" (and thus possible).

[Anonymous No.14414615]

Jewish projection.

[Anonymous No.14414629]

[Anonymous No.14414665]

>>14414615
Derrida's critique of the gift is fundamentally a much greater affront to the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah than it is to the Christmas holiday, at least in the Christian rather than corporate sense, as Hanukkah's gift-giving is purely an attempt to outdo Christianity by having several days of gift-giving exchanges as opposed to one. Hence, the critique of the gift damns the Jewish holiday much more than it does the Christian one, with the centrality and purpose of gift-giving eclipsing all else.

[Anonymous No.14414674]

>>14414442
This christmas my dad bought himself presents, wrappped them, and asked my mum to write the tag on them. What is the philosophical significance of this, lit?

[Anonymous No.14414684]

>>14414674
Narcissism.

[Anonymous No.14414689]

>>14414442
>reciprocated
not really
>acknowledged
this is more true, but i don't think this is the motivation for gift-giving

[Anonymous No.14414698]

>>14414689
>I hope you received the gift I gave you

[Anonymous No.14414720]

>>14414674
bad handwriting

[Anonymous No.14414830]

>>14414442
Does donating count as gifting? Because i donate to organisations via online banking. I search for their bank information and donate money.

[Anonymous No.14414889]

>>14414606
https://youtu.be/FU83IZk4n8M

[Anonymous No.14414952]

>>14414889
surprisingly good

[Anonymous No.14414980]

>>14414674

Schizophrenia.

[Anonymous No.14414982]

>>14414674
It means he is a piece of work.

[Anonymous No.14414983]

Prove Derrida wrong.

Give me some Christmas money without saying you gave me money, nor expecting me to thank you in respect, or reciprocate, because I won't and cannot. If you can give into what amounts to be an anonymous face on the internet, then his entire theory collapses. If not, then I begrudgingly much accept Derrida's notion of gift-qua-gift gifting as legitimate.

1sAhEJRXEay3jj8dXDZbgBWKqUmWFJcGr

[Anonymous No.14414996]

No exchanges allowed. – Human beings are forgetting how to give gifts. Violations of the exchange-principle have something mad and unbelievable about them; here and there even children size up the gift-giver mistrustfully, as if the gift were only a trick, to sell them a brush or soap. For that, one doles out charity [in English in original], administered well-being, which papers over the visible wounds of society in coordinated fashion. In its organized bustle, the human impulse no longer has any room, indeed even donations to the needy are necessarily connected with the humiliation of delivery, the correct measure, in short through the treatment of the recipient as an object. Even private gift-giving has degenerated into a social function, which one carries out with a reluctant will, with tight control over the pocketbook, a skeptical evaluation of the other and with the most minimal effort. Real gift-giving had its happiness in imagining the happiness of the receiver. It meant choosing, spending time, going out of one’s way, thinking of the other as a subject: the opposite of forgetfulness. Hardly anyone is still capable of this. In the best of cases, they give what they themselves would have wished for, only a few shades of nuance worse. The decline of gift-giving is mirrored in the embarrassing invention of gift articles, which are based on the fact that one no longer knows what one should give, because one no longer really wants to. These goods are as relationless as their purchasers. They were shelf warmers [Ladenhueter] from the first day. Likewise with the right to exchange the gift, which signifies to the receiver: here’s your stuff, do what you want with it, if you don’t like it, I don’t care, get something else if you want. In contrast to the embarrassment of the usual gifts, their pure fungibility still represents something which is more humane, because they at least permit the receiver to give themselves something, which is to be sure simultaneously in absolute contradiction to the gift.

[Anonymous No.14415002]

In relation of the greater abundance of goods, which are available even to the poor, the decline of gift-giving may appear unimportant, and considerations on such as sentimental. However, even if it became superfluous in a condition of superfluity – and this is a lie, privately as well as socially, for there is no-one today whose imagination could not find exactly what would make them thoroughly happy – those who no longer gave would still be in need of gift-giving. In them wither away those irreplaceable capacities which cannot bloom in the isolated cell of pure interiority, but only in contact with the warmth of things. Coldness envelops everything which they do, the friendly word which remains unspoken, the consideration which remains unpracticed. Such iciness recoils back on those from which it spread. All relations which are not distorted, indeed perhaps what is reconciliatory in organic life itself, is a gift. Those who become incapable of this through the logic of stringency [Konsequenz: consequence, corollary], make themselves into things and freeze.

[Anonymous No.14415005]

>>14414996
Barron and Derrida said it much more succinctly.

[Anonymous No.14415007]

>>14414442
Shit like this is why philosophers get a bad rep. It's creating a problem, where there is none, so you can make some dumb thesis about it. There's plenty of other stuff to complain about Christmas, but this is just reaching. If you were nodding with OP's post, you have low IQ

[Anonymous No.14415014]

>>14415007
It is a problem because if you refuse it, then it it ceases to become a gift. Why do you think hostile and hospitality have the same origin word and how do you think that came about? You just like to get some goodies and do not like to think about potential strings attached to them or motives behind them.

[Anonymous No.14415036]

at times you have to give the philosophy a rest and participate in your current society abit

[Anonymous No.14415125]

>>14415036
>participate in your current society abit
Never.

[Anonymous No.14415406]

>>14415036
no

[Anonymous No.14415484]

What is the solution to this problem?

[Anonymous No.14415488]

>>14414442
>being this jewish
lol

[Anonymous No.14415512]

>>14415488
>>14414665

[Anonymous No.14415720]

>>14414674
Trying to make the pile of presents under the tree more impressive and at the same time buy that new drill he needed.

[Anonymous No.14415779]

i just can't bear it anymore. last night i stayed in my room and got drunk while my family was LARPing as a real one. even now my gifts sit unopened under the tree in the living room where i rarely step foot, never to be opened by me because i cannot physically bring myself to, not even to please my mother's sensibilities. i can no longer participate in this world's customs and traditions, and i fear that i may soon also be unable to bear the burden of existing alive within it.

[Anonymous No.14415811]

>>14414442
>t. pretending to be Derrida but secretly Russian orthodox

[Anonymous No.14415824]

>>14415779
based

[Anonymous No.14415843]

>>14414442
/pol/tard false flag troll post

[Anonymous No.14415862]

>>14415843
How?

[Anonymous No.14415935]

>>14414603

We don't.

[Anonymous No.14415950]

>>14415036

Yaldabaoth will swallow you whole.

[Anonymous No.14416069]

>>14414603
Watch this >>14414889

[Anonymous No.14416085]

>>14414442

Other than the Metaphysical absurdity of Atonement, that which is sacrificed could just as easily be said to have lost meaning or value after being annihilated and/or to have not actually been sacrificed inasmuch as it has not been annihilated, this is the main argument against it. It is all but forced, practically "Roman". The Victor offers the true coincidence between the "selfish" and the "selfless", and the true salvation, not only in content but also in form.

[Anonymous No.14416268]

>>14416085
t. Fr. Barron.

[Anonymous No.14416328]

>>14416268

What does he say?

[Anonymous No.14416372]

>>14416328
See >>14414889

Don't have his book on me, otherwise would quote the relevant bit from "The Priority of Christ: Toward a Postliberal Catholicism"

[Anonymous No.14416529]

>>14416372
>entire catholic tradition suppurating with obsession with giving god everything
>god can't receive guys XDDDDDDDD

How can the French compete?

[Anonymous No.14416561]

merry christmas /lit/

[Anonymous No.14416672]

>>14416561
Merry Christmas, Orange man.

[Anonymous No.14417069]

>>14415862
Just FUCK OFF !

[Anonymous No.14417209]

>>14417069
Elaborate.

[Anonymous No.14417267]

I don't get it but it sounds like he is manipulating semantics, I think I could debunk him if someone explained his argument clearly.

[Anonymous No.14417293]

>>14417267
Then do it.

[Anonymous No.14417382]

>>14417293
OP didn't elaborate properly on the argument, I need to know the correct interpretation so I won't attack a strawman