Originally published at National Catholic Register
COMMENTARY: The simplest gift, when accompanied by the right sentiment, is a gift that cannot be measured in dollars and cents.
Some time ago, when I was convalescing, my son and his wife cared enough about my condition to present me with a gift. It was a book, which I think is the ideal gift because it can be opened again and again.
They went through the trouble of finding a book on philosophy which, these days, is not easy to find. Not knowing a great deal about modern philosophers, the author of the book they chose was, oddly enough, dead set against giving gifts. Turning to page 684 of Jean-Paul Sartre’s hefty Being and Nothingness, we read the following:
“Gift is a primitive form of destruction … generosity is, above all, a destructive function. The frenzy of giving which comes over certain people at certain times is, above all, a frenzy of destruction. … To give is to enslave. It is to appropriate by destroying and to use the destruction to enslave another.”
Whew!
We do not expect any more from a philosopher who states that “Hell is other people.” The essence of the gift,
