Love is sometimes free.

I can see why people today believe there is no free gift. Growing up I always thought a gift was something i received only on Christmas and my birthday. I never looked at gaining a friend or having someone tell you your special as a gift. If some one commented me on a skill of mine it would influence me to continue what i am doing, and i consider that a gift. If a person commented me it is not like they lost something form it. I guess it all depends on your perception of a gift.

Not-So-Free Gifts

There are no such things as free gifts. It’s unfortunate, but true. It does not matter if the “gift” is material, or not…there are always strings attached and/or reasons for giving something away. One of the biggest problems with giving away a free gift is the feeling of uninvited debt triggered upon the person receiving it. Consider the free, individualized address labels you get from some company asking you to donate money, or the flower that a Kirshna gave you in the airport. When you receive these free gifts, it makes something inside you feel wrong if you just take it without giving something back in return. And that’s exactly the reason why those companies and the Kirshnas due that. They know that by unexpectedly getting individualized address labels, or a flower, you will feel uncomfortable to the point of feeling like you have to donate something to them in return. Which brings me to my next point that free gifts can trigger unequal exchanges that mostly benefit the person giving the free gift.

Now lets say that you are the one giving the free gift. Why are you doing it? Is it because you know if you don’t give someone a birthday gift, it will reflect badly upon you? Or does it make you feel like a good person for giving something away for free? Although it is not wrong to give something away for those reasons, it still is not free because you are getting something out of it.

Gift or Bribe?

I think there is definitley such thing as a free gift.  At times I think people's motives are what interfere with this idea or concept.  I know for a fact that when my parents give me gifts they do not expect anything back in return.  They are doing something nice for a loved one.  I think at times people give others things because they want something in return.  I am guilty of this and I am sure that almost everyone esle is too.  I do not know if I would consider that as being a form of a gift.  If I were to give something to someone and want a favor or something back in return I would view it as some sort of bribe or agreement.

To me gifts have meanings.  You want to give something to someone out of love, pure friendship or as a reward.  If there is any other type of motive behind it I do not know how anyone can call it a gift because it simply is not.

there are free gifts...or at least, there should be.

we actually discussed this in my economics class in high school. my teacher said there was no such thing as a free lunch (or in this case, gift).  For example, if i buy a lunch for a homeless person, its not free because I'm obviously spending money on the food.  Not only that, but i'm spending time on getting the lunch; furthermore, I'm sacrificing energy.  I disagree with that though. the way i see it, the more attached you are to material matters, the more expensive gifts will be.  Personally, i don't care that much about money; if we really needed it to survive, it would grow on trees. Thats how the earth works: it gives us what we need to survive, and it gives us what  we need to die. Money is man-made; its unnecessary. Recently, i bought a bag full of food for a homeless man because i felt he deserved it. He's obviously going through some shit; he deserves respect. And yea, it cost around $30, but who cares? its money: worthless pieces of paper. he's a living, breathing human being with a story to tell just like any one of us.  In the economic sense, this wasn't free. In the human sense, it was.  I found a really good quote that goes along with what im saying:

“The sacrifice which causes sorrow to the doer of the sacrifice is no sacrifice. Real sacrifice lightens the mind of the doer and gives him a sense of peace and joy."

So basically, if you're giving a gift because you have to and not because you want to, it's not free. That's more of a burden than a gift. and i'm sorry, i've given this a lot of thought, but i'm having trouble explaining it.

Not a good image...

In reading this article, I agree that when giving and getting a gift, there is no such thing as a free one if the two are emotional attached, be it friends or family or even co-workers because there is an emotional value placed on that gift now. I do however think that a free gift is available when people are providing more of a service to people than a gift and there is no emotional attachment. For example, if the government is giving away money a.k.a. welfare programs where people are able to get money to support themselves and they have no gratitude for it, they just assume that it's their right and take full advantage of the situation. I know that most people are not like this but I have known these cases also. So in this example, the money is a free gift for the people and they have no intent on giving back. So in my opinion, there is such a thing as a free gift, it is just not in good circumstances.

free gifts.

I believe gifts ARE free for the person receiving the gift. Yes, there might be the feeling that you must give a gift back in return, but that feeling should not be felt by the person giving the gift. If you are giving a gift then yes, most of the time it is going to cost some money, but there must be a reason behind giving the gift whether it be out of love, friendship, condolences, kindness, etc. that should not require anything in return except for a thank you, forgiveness, I love you or whatever the cause may be. If the receiver feels like giving a gift back out of the kindness of his/her heart, then he/she is in turn the giver and the gift is free for the receiver. However, if it is a true gift that is given, there should be no obligation to give one back in return because, the reason it is called a gift is because gifts are meant to be free; and not as a "now you owe me."

Emotions Gifts?

I agree with Don and Sarah entirely. A gift is an act of kindness, but it does come free. In todays society gifts are usually purchased. A purchased gift costs money. A person has to work for the money; its not free. I think that the idea of a free gift is nice to think of but it is not possible. Also, if someone is given a gift out of kindness the person who received the gift feels obliged to give the other person a gift. A free gift could possibly the gift of trust between friends, but I am not sure if trust is a gift of one person to another. Are emotions gifts? Can I tell someone I love them as a gift?

Why Didn't I Get Them Anything?

I don’t believe that there is such a thing as a “free gift” for two main reasons. The first being the same as the others that economically at some point that gift was paid for. The other reason, and the one I will elaborate one because the others spoke enough about the monetary aspects, is the debt that is inherently earned with the exchange of said gifts. Although Chani would argue that she gives gifts without expecting compensation that does not mean that the receiver does not possess a sense of debt to the giver. When I receive a gift I feel that if I cannot repay the kindness with a gift as well that I must repay them in some other way. Either way, I feel a need to repay the gift, or I will be forever in debited to them. Although I do not keep track of the “score”, if you will, I do keep loose track of which I should be giving gifts to in relation to their gift giving activity.
One point that seems relevant to human interaction is the idea that gifts are exchanged in a new relationship as a way to progress and enhance the relationship. I find myself doing the same type of behaviors with new friends. I will lend them movies, or buy them drinks because in a subconscious way I am saying I want to share with them something that I enjoy, and would like them to do the same, which is the usual reaction to such acts. Although I would not consider this a debt per say I would consider it an act that is likely to meet with the same type of gesture.
So even if one does not expect payment for a gift the receiver may feel the need to repay anyways thus, a gift is never truly free.

Technically, there is no such thing as a "free" gift.

I don’t believe that there is really such a thing as a FREE gift, whether this gift be material or not. There is always effort involved in giving a gift to someone, whether it be physical or emotional. In the reading, on the first page, it states that charity is meant to be a free gift, yet whatever amount of money that a person donates to a charity they had to earn it by working. The work was an expense to this person perhaps both physically and emotionally.
I think that a “free” gift only works in theory as something is never entirely free. I agree with Don in his final sentences as he stated “So by handing off a “free” gift it doesn’t really entail that it is free, someone along the line had to pay for the product, the time, the labor for something in order to made that gift exist.” Let’s say that the person who donates any amount of money to charity feels reimbursed by the good feeling they get from doing it. In their minds perhaps the charitable donation was an even trade for sense of "good-doing" that they got from it.
In the literal sense perhaps a person can give a "free" gift such as a mother finally trusting her lying son. This gift of trust probably had to be earned by the son and it probably took the mother alot of time and worrying to be able to give this "free" gift to her son. The trust may not have cost any money however it was not free.

Free Gift? Bah Humbug

In my honest opinion there is no such thing as a free gift if you look at the logistics of things. Receiving a gift for nothing gives the person an illusion of the idea of “free.”

Thinking about this prompt reminds me of an Economics lesson when I was taking that class in high school. My teacher Mr. Bills engaged the class with a question similar to that of the free gift. He said, “Is there such a thing as a free lunch?” Many kids who just talk for the sole reason to hear their voice would say yes without even thinking of the question. The problem lies in how the lunch came to be, much like the “gift.” The lunch/gift didn’t just appear to the giver to hand off to someone, one must take in account that someone had to pay raw materials to make the finish product, as well as transportation, marketing and all that mumbo jumbo. So by handing off a “free” gift it doesn’t really entail that it is free, someone along the line had to pay for the product, the time, the labor for something in order to made that gift exist.

Formal Vs. Informal

There is such a thing as a free gift. It just depends on who is giving the gift and who is receiving the gift. While there are times of the year that people give gifts, such as Christmas, birthdays, or anniversaries, there are other times that people give each other gift purely because they care for each and are not expecting anything in return. I give my close friends presents all throughout the year, not just on their birthdays. These gifts are given not as a way of ensuring that I get a gift in return (economical gain) but to express my feelings for them. If I see an object or item that reminds me of one of my friends, I will buy it for them because it has special meaning: it reminded me of them and I chose it carefully. I would be insulted if I gave a friend a gift and they turned around and had to rummage through their room to find a gift to give back to me. It would both demean my gift and not be heartfelt from them. Yes, it would be nice to always get presents in return but only if they are genuinely given. I have numerous times given friends Christmas presents even when they have told me they can’t afford to get me a Christmas present. While I do probably subconsciously expect a birthday gift in exchange for the gift I gave them for their birthday, as is tradition, I do not expect gifts in return for “unannounced” or random gifts that I wish to shower my friends with. Nor, if I found out a friend would not be giving me a gift for my birthday (because of funding) would that lead me to refrain from buying them a gift. However, if a friend did not buy me a gift because they were either too lazy or spent their money on something else, I would probably be upset. Not because they didn’t get me a gift but because their actions (or lack of action) shows their carelessness and how they value our friendship.
However the reading does make valid points about other gifts that are given voluntarily but a gift is expected back. When my relatives send me cards (a form of a “gift) I have been taught to send a card back thanking them. In formal relations, as opposed to informal ones, I think it is polite to exchange gift for gift. But the key is that most of the time, when we perform these “voluntary” gift exchanges with expectations, we both know the expectations because it is more of a business exchange. It would be completely different if one of us was sending a gift and expecting something in return, but the gift receiver was unaware of the gift’s implication. It all depends on the relationship between two people: formal or informal.

Blog Assignmet #3 Due by Thurs. Feb. 28th

Read "The Gift", then tell me if there is such a thing as a free gift.

This essay is available on the course OASIS page. Your blog posts can be very dynamic: you can talk about the essay, you can talk about your own life, you can talk about rituals.

Again: each blog assignment is worth 6 participation points. If you don't do the blog assignment, then you get 0 out of 6 points. If you put in extra work into the blog, e.g. commenting on other people's posts, then this will earn you points towards your overall class participation grade.

If this isn't clear to you, then you can email with questions or bring them to me during class.

For Clarification

There is no blog assignment due for this week.

Survival of the Fittest?

Although it’s not a good thing that all these languages are rapidly dying out, from what I have read it doesn’t seem so awful either. Except for the case in eastern Siberia where the government forced speakers of minority languages to use the national and regional languages, most of these languages are dying out because the younger generation no longer seems to need them. A fine example of this is the sole speaker of the Amurdag language in Australia who strained to recall what little he knew from his father. Yet, he obviously was able to communicate just fine with the people interviewing him so the loss of his native tongue wasn’t detrimental.

So the big question is why are all these languages dying out? I believe that for the most part, aside for cultural appreciation, these small languages are unnecessary and the younger generation would rather spend their time conversing in a more popular and widespread dialect. If they really felt that the language of their ancestors was really important, I’m sure that they would have taken the time to learn it. Now it is sad that all these languages are being lost because they would be very interesting to study. However, times change and people have to change with them in order to keep up with the world. If the younger generation feels that keeping an ancient language alive is not worth it, who are we to blame them? It’s their decision. But like I mentioned earlier, if people are being forced to drop their language in favor of a more popular one, then that is just wrong.

Death of a Language

Language does play an important role in cultural identity and we should care because the language goes hand in hand with its tradition and its rituals. It may have been around for hundreds if not thousands of years and is also a creative way of separating one culture from the next. Language and culture would evolve over time, but if a language is lost, there would be other dialects or forms of communication that would stem from it. Preserving the language is the responsibility of those that remain.

Languages Die, Is it my responsibilty to save them?

To be completely honest I am not sure if we should care about these languages dieing out.  They are obviously dieing out for a reason and that is probably due to the fact that not many people are speaking them.  If we were to preserve them I am not quite sure what good that would do in the future.  If anyone should take the time to save these languages it should be the people that speak them.  If the language is important to them they should make some sort of documentation to ensure that the language will not be forgotten.  Otherwise I am not sure that I feel any sort of responsibility to try to preserve something that is only spoken by a small minority of people.

            I think language is important to a culture’s identity to a certain extent.  The main languages that are used today have strong importance to their cultures, such as English, Greek, Spanish etc.  When it comes down to the vase amounts of dialects based off more common languages I do not think they are too important.  As I mentioned above if they were truly important to the people who spoke them they would be trying to document in some way themselves instead of letting them fade away.

            I am not exactly sure what is lost in a culture when their language becomes extinct.  From what I read in the article we are still able to identify the people who spoke the languages.  So I would argue that while something is lost we still have some information to rely on.            

On the Fence

Dealing with the subject of losing languages is a very difficult subject for me to really have an opinion about. For instance, the “threat” of globalization doesn’t seem like that much of a threat to me. It opens the world up to vast communication where all cultures can easily communicate. However, I do see the downside to the loss of a language as well. My main concern for losing languages is the fact that with the loss of these languages we lose historical knowledge that was written in languages now dead (i.e. Egyptian).
This being said, I believe it is a great idea to record languages that are on the way to extinction for records, and in case written documents exist. Other than that though, I can’t say I am really completely for or against the preservation of spoken languages. I sit on the fence with this subject and choose not to take one side or the other.

The Inevitability of Language Death

I think its important to note that the “language” discussed in the article “A Language, Not Quite Spanish, With African Echoes” is actually a Creole. It was composed of two languages that already existed to create a communication form. Spanish is still in high use! It doesn’t really mention the African language influences, but there is a possibility that that language is also in still in use. Also I feel that by accepting technology and outside contact into the culture people must have known that change was inevitable.

It seems that everyone has responded that language is culture. If there are only three people in the world who speak a language, is that really a strong culture? While reading “Languages Die, but Not Their Last Words” I was curious why the languages were being studied. If those three people do die out and the language no longer lives on, I don’t really see how that negatively or positively effects the people left living on earth. Just as easy as gaining new culture, it is unavoidable to lose it. I had to step back from these two articles and remember that they are both from the New York Times. Pure American media. All of our bits of news made to look more exotic than necessary. For instance look at how dramatic the titles of the articles are. They should be Broadway musicals. I can’t help but wonder what the views are of the people in these cultures. I’m not trying to be a Debbie-downer, but when I think of cultural anthropology I often get conflicted with that everlasting question of “why?” Don’t get me wrong, I think Anthropology is really thrilling and I enjoy reading about these things (especially the parts about language!), but I don’t know that I believe that studying dieing language is important. In a sense I suppose we could predict how to stop others from dieing. But isn’t it natural for them to die?

(P.S. I needed a title for my entry. The New York Times has taught me well!)

Paper #1

Hey everyone,
I've decided to make your first paper due on 2/28th instead of 2/21. I put a description of the assignment up on the OASIS page. I'll discuss this on Thursday.
-Andre

Death of a language

To be honest I don’t think we should be spending that much time worrying if a language dies or survive. Language is a living breathing entity, and over time it evolves. If a language dies there will be other dialects/ languages that will stem from it. And if a language dies and takes form into a more common mainstream language that mean the language barrier is crumbling due to globalization. Forms of communication will extend to the far reaches of the Earth and I can see people benefiting from it.

I think what we lose in the loss of a language is the diversity in the human race. Language disappears and some could say a cultural is lost or at lease a part of it is lost.

death of language vs. the death of culture

Despite the inevitable threat of globalization and the unifying of tongues that it brings, I think we should definitely care about dying languages. Through unique languages unique culture is expressed and perhaps with the death of a language also comes the death of that particular culture. I think that we should care because it is important to perserve culture. Some have said that it is better for us all to speak one language, or similiar languages but I don't believe that is the case. Many speakers of these "dying languages" are members of self sufficient communities. So why should we force these people, who can take care of themselves, to abandon their culture and conform? These languages have obviously survived for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years and I don't think that there should be any reason to not support them in the future.
Language is very important to cultural identity, perhaps they are even synonymous. Language is how we express ourselves and how we express ourselves is essentially our cultural identity. The traditions, rituals, stories, and history of individual language groups dies along with the language if we do nothing to record or preserve it.

From now on...

From now on, for your regular blog assignments, I want you to start new threads for each assignment rather than publishing new posts on other threads. That is, in order to earn all six participation points for each blog assignment. If you're one of the people who already posted your response to blog assignment #2, then don't worry about it. This policy is going to count towards all blog posts after this post.

I do, however, encourage you to comment on other people's threads. Any extra work and thought that you put into the course blog will earn you points towards your overall participation grade.

Oh, and please don't name your threat "blog assignment #2". It'll make it easier for your classmates and for me if you title your blog post something different....AND I know that you are all creative, unique, and different, right?

I'm available if you have questions. Have a great weekend.

I'll go second

The Old Nacirama culture described is similar to the modern Nacirama culture. All of the rituals described have been for the most part unchanged for 50 years. For example the modern counterpart of each of the rituals are the same, people still use medicine cabinets, people still go to the Pharmacist, prescriptions are well over priced and people go to the dentist and fear the drilling in their mouths.

The only differences are the Ritual ablution of the mouth for children have vastly changed. That Ritual does not occur anymore since it is borderline child abuse in this day and age. Punishment for children in this modern age is less drastic in fear that an extreme punishment would do more harm than good.

I think the culture of the Nacirema of yesteryear and the culture today are quite similar with a few exceptions. For the most part the people of the Nacirema are still driven by the same desires and motives from 50 years ago.

Blog Assignment #2

According to the NY Times article “Languages Die, But Not Their Last Words”, there are about 7,000 languages spoken in the world today. Of these languages, nearly half will likely be extinct in the next 100 years. [I'll hand this article out in class tomorrow and it's on the course OASIS page.]

In your blog response, I want you discuss one or more of the following questions:

Should we care about languages dying out? Why? Is language important to cultural identity? What is lost when we lose a language?

Feel free to post your own thread or to comment on other people’s threads or to their responses. Again, blog responses will count towards your participation grade.

Responses to blog questions will be due by the beginning of each class. Responses to blog assignment #2 are due by the beginning of our third class on February 14. Responses to blog assignment #1 are due by class time tomorrow.

Each blog question will be worth 6 participation grade points. You should, however, feel free to continue commenting on threads after the due date. Any extra activity will help you earn additional participation points.

All right...I'll be the first post

In the article, Miner looks at the Nacirema as being obsessed with their body. Today, the Nacirema are still obsessed with their body except perhaps even more. People see thousands of ads everyday. Most of these ads point out deficiencies in people’s appearance. I think that Capitalism has gotten more predatory over the last 50 years. People’s obsession with their body has increased too. Think about how many ads pointing out your deficiencies that you see everyday: ads telling you that you smell bad, that you’re too fat, that you’re ugly, etc. I’m a girl and I get spam email a few times a week telling me that I’d be happier with a bigger penis.

I think that a lot of people buy into the deficiencies too. I’m sure that I buy into it to an extent too. I think that it’s impossible not to! So yes, I think that we’re the same culture as the Nacirema of 50 years ago, except we’re even more obsessed?

Blog Assignment #1

Horace Miner wrote the article on the Nacirema almost 50 years ago. How do you think that the Nacirema from 50 years ago are similar to the Nacirema of today? How do you think that they are different? Do the Nacirema have the same culture today as the Nacirema from 50 years ago?