Societal/cultural
pure gratitude but can also be motivated by a fear of social sanctions or
of the discontinuation of profits ensuing from social relationships. Only
in more or less equally balanced relationships can gratitude unfold the
best of its powers.
The fourth layer consists of the societal and cultural meaning of gratitude.
As Simmel stated, a culture or society deprived of all acts of gratitude
will inevitably break down. Just as gratitude is indispensable in the life of
one individual, whowill face isolation and loneliness if his or her capacity
to feel grateful is impaired, gratitude is also a crucial ingredient of every
society and culture. Without the ties created by gratitude there would
be no mutual trust, no moral basis on which to act, and no grounds for
maintaining the bonds of community.
Table 3.1 summarizes the various ways gratitude may be expressed in
people’s experience and behavior, as well as the conceptual “layers” belonging
to a particular manifestation of gratitude. The four layers or
meanings of gratitude are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they
are different formulations of the same force that compels people to restore
the disequilibrium caused by having received a gift, whether from
a supernatural power, nature, or a fellow human being. In all these cases,
the failure to reciprocate acts as a boomerang to the recipients themselves,
because the fundamental principle of gift giving – keeping gifts in motion
by passing them on – is not heeded.
The enormous psychological, social, and cultural effectiveness of gratitude
is basedonthesamecapacityofmutual recognition that was involved
in the act of gift giving itself (see Chapter 2). No gratitude can exist without
recognition of the entity – person or nature – that brought the feelings
of gratitude into existence. These insights play a crucial role in the theoretical
model presented in Chapter 9.
In the words of Lewis Hyde (1983 [1979]: 50), “Those who will not
acknowledge gratitude or who refuse to labour in its service neither free
their gifts nor really come to possess them.”