3. Marcel Mauss (RECIPROCITY)
• The anthropologist, Marcel Mauss, author of
“The Gift” says that we should regard the duty of
giving as a liberty, for in it there lays no risk. In
that same paragraph he collects a Maori proverb,
which says something like: “Give as much as you
receive and all is for the best” (M. Mauss, 69).
• Also, in the same line of thought, a Basque old
says “If he/she gives one and takes two... We do
not want him/her back at our home” (Bat eman
ta bi hartu? Gure etxean ez berriz sartu.)
4. Scott Lash and Celia Lury
• “While there is clearly an element of (subjective) will in the culture
of circulation described here, and this is partly what animates this
system of objects, it is in many respects a will without purpose, that
is, there is in part also a kind of (objective) automation. (This is
perhaps partly what provokes Rosalind Krauss (1999) to include a
discussion of automatism in her discussion of the medium.) This
automation is a consequence of the terms of availability, the logic
of circulation, of such little presents – that is, of the logic of flows.
Their movement is such as to modify, sometimes even to neutralize,
the action of time (and the time of action). So, for example, many
of the practices of giving and getting we documented do no more
than ensure the continuality of interpersonal relations, maintaining
the channels of communication, in short, sustaining the flow.” (Lash
and Lury, 140)