Reciprocity – Like Water to Fish, Part Seven

Bob Fiske

Reciprocity – Like Water to Fish, Part Seven

CLICK HERE to go to Part Six

Using the Noble currency.  In the last section I introduced the Noble, a new unit of currency that is the antithesis of conventional reciprocity-based currency.  The point of the Noble is to give something away without expecting anything in return.  The hope is that the favor so performed will inspire the recipient to pay the benefit forward to someone else.  The back side of the Noble is designed with multiple pay-it-forward lines.  Thus, favors can be paid forward through a series of people.  There are two points I can make about the usage of Nobles.

First, what is the experience of Person A giving a Noble to Person B.  If I give this card to Person B, then I am “putting myself out there”.  I am declaring that I am available for doing a generous act of some kind without knowing in advance what that act will be.  This can be a little bit threatening.  Do I really want to commit myself in such a way?  What if the person asks me to do something unreasonably difficult?

One answer to this fear is indicated by the phrase on the bottom of the front of the card.  It says “For example, one hour of my time”.  This will, hopefully communicate that the recipient should make a reasonable request of the giver.  Another answer might be as follows: everything is open to negotiation.  For instance, I could say to Person B, “I’m sorry, but that is more than I can do right now.  Here is what I am willing to do for you.”  A third answer might be to remind the person that he or she will have to pay forward a favor of similar magnitude.  In other words, suppose Person B asks me to buy a car.  If I agree to do this, then I would be within my rights to suggest to Person B that he or she will have to buy somebody else a car in the future.

I am sure that a lot of people reading this might be thinking, How do I know that I can trust the recipient of the card to act honorably and pay the favor forward?  Let’s face reality.  You don’t know.  Giving a Noble is an act of faith in the goodness of the human species.  Yet, we know that there are people out there that don’t act nobly and who take advantage of others.  Now, isn’t that the way of the world?

What I mean is this.  If we start with the presumption that everyone is a criminal, then our behavior will sink to that level of selfishness.  However, if we want to bring out the best in people, we’ll probably get there faster through the positive assumption of goodness than the negative assumption of criminality.  It takes a certain degree of character to make yourself an example through your actions, especially when it does not appear to be the popular thing to do.  It takes a measure of nobility to act that way.

Please remember one thing.  By using the Noble currency, you are not trying to change another human being.  Rather you are trying to change yourself.  But, if it makes you feel better, then just pass the card to somebody to whom you feel kindly disposed.  In other words, give it to somebody you trust, like a friend.

Here is the second point I can make about this card.  Because there is room on the back side to list multiple names and pass this card around, each Noble has a life!  I find this exciting.  The currency will record its own history of being used.  Imagine getting a Noble that has lots of names on the back.  Wouldn’t that convince the recipient that this idea was valued by a group of people?  Wouldn’t that make the recipient feel like part of a living chain of people with an idea and an action?

Epilogue.  In this essay I have described an idea that I found.  Or maybe it found me!  Not only that, this idea consumed me!  And therefore, I felt it was worth sharing with others.  I have tried to express the idea as a sequence of thoughts and to make a clear argument.  My hope is that you find this essay to be persuasive, even compelling.

Maybe I didn’t succeed in doing that.  Maybe you still have reservations.  In that case, I have just a single suggestion for you.  Do a small act of nobility.  The next time you get a nickel back as part of your change at the store, put that coin down on the sidewalk for someone else to find.

Want two final questions to chew on?  Think carefully!  Are you willing to do a favor for a person, any person?  More importantly, can you find it within yourself to allow someone to do a favor for you—and not repay the debt back to that person?

Summary of Part Seven.  Having put forth the Noble as a new currency, we consider two questions.  First, is it safe to use this currency?  Will others take advantage of your generosity?  Some suggestions for diminishing this risk are stated.  However, the ultimate answer is that using the Noble is a way to change yourself.  The second question approaches this from a different angle: a Noble shows its users.  The aim of the new currency is to change human behavior, one person at a time.  Seeing a list of names on the back of a Noble can communicate motivation to the recipient of a Noble: if these people are acting differently, then maybe I can, too.  Some final thoughts hinge on the ideas of choice and willingness.  To change my behavior is, first and foremost, a choice to do something different, something unusual and uncomfortable.  I pose this discomfort as two parting questions that dare the reader to examine his or her willingness to try on the uncomfortable notion of giving and receiving favors.

CLICK HERE to go to the abstract of this essay.

Reciprocity – Like Water to Fish, Part Five

Bob Fiske

Reciprocity – Like Water to Fish, Part Five

CLICK HERE to go to Part Four

Erasing the debt.  Our relationship to the earth has been one of taking and not of giving.  We—all of humanity—have accrued a huge debt.  We have not made a sincere, planet-wide effort to begin making payments to repay the loan.  The big question that will get in our way is this: Who’s going to start?  Which person?  Which neighborhood?  Which city?  Which state?  Which country?

This is not an idle question; it’s a central one.  Just witness the difficulty we are having with climate change related to global warming.  The collective efforts to reign in human production of greenhouse gases (so-called atmospheric carbon and carbon equivalents) continue to stall.  The talks are marked by in-fighting and failure to come to consensus.

What most people fail to recognize is that global warming is just one of several “overshoot problems” looming on, or just over the horizon.  If we’re having this much trouble with the global warming problem—for which replacement technologies already exist—then how are we going to deal with other pollution excesses and resource shortages, not to mention destabilization of the greater biosphere beyond the pale of human concern?

The new human nature.  My answer is a shift in values.  Change ourselves.  If we can flip our taking behavior over to giving behavior, then the question of “Who will start?” may evaporate.

For many, this new direction may be an almost insurmountable challenge.  In the book of Genesis, God instructs Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, and to take dominion over the earth.  In some religious traditions, these statements are regarded as God’s first commandments to humanity.  I view these statements as somewhat more than mere commandments.  They are concise, brilliant expressions of human nature.

Looking at the broad scope of human history, is it not obvious that our natural inclinations have lead us down the path of “mastery over the earth”?  Our successes in this regard are a logical outgrowth of our basic nature.  Or is it?  What is missing from this description of human nature?

What if we were to recognize that human mastery of the earth—the cause, one might say, of our unquestioned taking from the earth—is only one half of our nature.  In that case, it might not seem quite so impossible to change our nature. 

Changing our nature might appear to be a process of forcefully suppressing our “base desires”.  That is an unpalatable notion.  But the problem can be turned around.  Perhaps there are parts of our nature that are already being suppressed, making it seem as though we are nothing more than taking creatures.

I maintain that fully human beings are more than taking creatures.  Animals are taking creatures.  They respond to motivational forces and show no capability to restrain those motivations.  Only human beings can consciously exercise restraint.  It’s true that many times we don’t want to do that—unless we are provided with a compelling reason.  Nonetheless, it is a capacity we have that is unique in the kingdom of living beings.

What else can fully human beings do?  We can think about and judge our own actions.  We can look back upon something we have done and conclude that that action is not desirable or socially acceptable.  Again, we often do not wish to do this because of emotional barriers such as shame or guilt making us want to hide our actions from others or ourselves.  But if we have sufficient reason, we can override these barriers.

I have given just two ways that mark fully human beings as more than taking creatures: self-restraint and integrity.  Furthermore, if we consciously take ownership of these traits (and other fully human traits), it will become easier to reign in the part of us that exists only to take.  Our full human nature can “naturally” lead us away from fruitful multiplication and dominion over the earth.  Our full human nature can lead us to own that part of our humanity that is rooted in integrity and responsibility for our actions.

And so, I have a proposal to begin our reprogramming of ourselves into giving beings.  This is coming in the next section of this essay.

Another Path to Self-Worth: Nobility.  I have argued so far that our economic system has embedded within most of us a “deep value” that guides many of our choices.  This value is reciprocity, which can be understood as the drive to engage in fair exchanges.  We are so well conditioned in this way of thinking that many of us determine our sense of self-esteem or self-worth based on how effective we are at conducting fair exchanges.  For most adults this occurs firstly through the activity of earning a living.

To illustrate this I will ask you to imagine a person that has developed a severe illness that will require an extended period of recuperation.  Consequently, the person will have to stop working.  If the person is fortunate, he or she may have some kind of worker’s compensation that keeps some income flowing into the bank account.  Nevertheless, this person feels uncomfortable about not working and impatiently waits for the doctor to release him or her to return to work.  Have you ever met a person like this?  Maybe it was even yourself.

When people are denied the opportunity to work they often feel inadequate and may even sink into a state of depression.  I would suggest that this makes perfect sense if generating income for the purpose of engaging in reciprocal exchanges (buying stuff) is the primary means that people have been taught for arriving at a sense of self-worth.  Consequently, people will become highly invested in maintaining a system where self-worth is organized around reciprocity, or fair exchanges.

However, this is a distorted picture of human psychology, as well as of the entire system governing the well-being of the world.

Martin Seligman, who wrote a book entitled Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment talks about a fellow psychologist who built a career on a phrase he learned from his mother when he was a boy.  If the mother found her son moping around, she would say, “If you’re in a bad mood, go find somebody to help.”  This idea brilliantly reminds us that self-worth is not only about exchanges.

Yet our economic system seems to have forgotten this.  It is no wonder, then, that the field of economics has lead us down a path toward ever-increasing imbalance.  It is no wonder that citizens of developed countries, and the United States in particular, are having trouble reclaiming a sense of self-worth.

Summary of Part Five.  In our relationship to the earth, it is time to start repaying the debt.  Who will take the lead?  Suppressing our desire to take might appear to be an insurmountable challenge.  Maybe the answer is to un-suppress other aspects of our nature.  The fully human being is endowed with capabilities such as self-restraint and judgment of actions as good or bad.  There may be other suppressed capabilities of the fully human being.  Expanding these capabilities will help temper our taking nature.  Additionally, our economic system is tied in with the methods we use to achieve a sense of self-worth.  If self-worth is primarily achieved through earning an income and buying goods and services, then this, too, will impair our ability modify our taking nature.

CLICK HERE to go to Part Six.