I've been pondering the "gift"..... We've talked about that already at length. I'm talking about the gift that, according to Derrida, is "nothing". But yet this thing is a thing in itself, is nothing, is impossible, can't even be thought about without nullifying its property as "gift", that no gift is a gift without an inherent obligation to return that gift, like the gifting system that Mauss talks about as being "formal pretence and social deception".
But we've already talked about it without identifying it as gift. The gift that I want to talk about, as I see it, meets about all the criteria for the "real" gift: must not be thought of as gift, must not have a donor, must not have that built-in compulsion for return or recompense, must be forgotten, must not be.
The "gift" that I have in mind, presuming for the sake of the argument, that I subscribe to the theory of evolution - the Big Bang - comes gratis, has no recognised donor to be grateful to, to feel the need to recompense; it, according to scientific definition (given that the authority referred to in the piece set for discussion in this class, writes with authority) has "no density", "no value", is "quasi-permanent", "represents at the very most an altogether transitory state". Yet this "gift" is recognisable as a thing, is visible, has value, and, even in its quasi-transitory state bestows "non-returnable" benefits. This gift is the cloud.
It just happened. It is visible. It does disperse and is nothing. It does not have to be recompensed for the benefits it bestows - shade across a glaring expanse of highway, relief from relentless, glarey sun. It waters the barren lands, gives life to the pastures and the trees, fills the tanks of the people, gladdens the hearts of the recipients. Yet, at times, it is a bad gift: floods the land, drowns the livestock, breaks the hearts of the recipients. As Derrida says, there is the potential in gifts to be either good or bad.
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That the cloud is nothing must be disputed. It is not only real as a "thing", it also has beneficial attributes other than the physical: its character can act as a warning of atmospheric disturbance. The cloud has no qualities! |
There is no such thing as the term cloud, defined as something quasi-permanent; topologically, it is perhaps an area in space where the density of water is such and such, but this definition has no value and represents at the very most an altogether transitory state. |
Clouds can act as barometers. Their character can act as a signal that atmospheric disturbance is imminent, although for Serres the terms "cloud", "temperature", "turbulence", etc. are so many terms which refer to no particular physical situation, but to a distribution of possible situations. To my mind, clouds can have positive attributes, other than as signifiers in meterological terms, but also in human terms. In former days we enjoyed the friendship of friends - they, like the clouds have dissipated and become invisible now, although their friendship for us is just as "real" - parents of a relatively large, very interactive family. When "atmospheric disturbances" appeared to threaten the equilibrium of the family, especially threatening to the head of the family who was feeling the atmospheric pressures to the extent of possible physical eruption, he turned on a pilot light in the centre of the house (installed long ago by a previous owner) and which really served no purpose now except as a warning signal to the family that heavy weather was brewing. A favourite pastime, and safety valve, for the father was to lie on the grass under the trees in his front yard and watch the clouds. Soothed and relaxed, his feelings of tension and "atmospheric pressure" dissipated like the clouds, he got on with things, feeling gratitude to no one, since he himself was a man of science and of significant academic calibre, and felt no gratitude to any Creator/donor or any sense that he needed to repay this "gift".
The argument that a cloud is nothing does not hold water, so to speak, either, in real terms. For example, in the highlands of New Guinea where the clouds rise up high into the dome of the sky like huge stone columns in a prehistoric chamber, they are very real. Were one of those heroic pilots who fly planes in New Guinea to believe that flying through this transient mass of particles would be to fly through "nothing" with no consequence, he would certainly encounter "collisions, slides, irregularities, changes, dissonances, disorder". In fact, he and his passengers would meet their Maker on the other side of a mountain, invisible through this mass of nothingness.
To recapitulate: this "gift" has no donor, requires no return, has benefits without obligation, is "nothing" in the sense that it's ephemeral and has no solid substance, is easily forgotten, can be a good gift as well as a bad gift. For me it seems to fill all the required definitions of "gift".
Kathleen Marshall
