Don't look a gift horse in the mouth
by TragicKittens on redbubble.com
I.
One of the proverbial expressions I would advise people to consider carefully is: Never look a gift horse in the mouth [1].
Those who like to use this phrase think it impolite to treat a gift as one would a purchase by checking for flaws or critically considering the quality. One should, rather, accept the gift with good grace and gratitude and not question the giver's generosity.
However, this displays a certain moral naivety. Because the giving of gifts is rarely an innocent act and should always be understood (at least in part) within the context of power, politics, and seduction ...
II.
Within the general economy of potlatch, for example, an individual expresses their sovereignty not by accumulating wealth but by giving it away; by their ability to endure loss and to place themselves outside of a restricted economy of utility. Their prestige is thus a form of symbolic power built upon contempt for riches and self-preservation.
But the giving of a lavish gift, according to Bataille, is also an act of aggression and rivalry; a challenge to the recipient to either accept their indebtedness and social inferiority, or to reciprocate with an even more excessive gift. In other words, in accepting a gift, one is placed under an obligation [2].
III.
Jean Baudrillard considers the gift in somewhat different terms; namely, as an object with a purely symbolic value able to disrupt a system of commodity exchange based upon economic logic. The giving of an object of this kind allows the giver to turn the tables on a powerful subject; to confuse and disconcert them, so that they no longer know what to think or how to act.
Recall, if you will, the case of the young woman who is amorously pursued by a wealthy older man who repeatedly tells her that her eyes are the most beautiful thing about her and has flowers delivered daily to her house. In the end, she sends him of one of her eyes in a little box tied with a lovely ribbon, the violence of the act leaving him shocked and speechless.
For Baudrillard, this is an act of seduction (with the latter understood to be an ironic and fatal game of signs that divorces a subject from its power, rather than the persuasive play of desire). By taking the man's metaphorical fascination with her eyes literally and returning the object of his desire, she destroys the possibility of a normal romantic exchange of gifts and asserts her own sovereignty [3].
Notes
[1] Saint Jerome popularised this proverb by including it in his commentary on Ephesians around 400 AD as the Latin phrase Noli equi dentes inspicere donati.
[2] See Volume I of Bataille's The Accursed Share, trans. Robert Hurley (Zone Books, 1991), where he develops his theory of general economy and discusses the notion of potlatch.
[3] I might be mistaken, but I believe that Baudrillard refers to this story on several occasions in his work and each time gives a slightly different version. See, for example, Fatal Strategies, trans. Philip Beitchman and W. G. J. Niesluchowski (Pluto Press, 1999), pp. 120-21.
