First and foremost, I find myself unequivocally in the “anti” camp, but that’s neither here nor there. But the idea that this is somehow a trivial question fit only for internet losers with nothing better to do is completely wrong. The broader question is what really is a gift and what its social meaning is. This is anything but obvious and it kicked off one of the biggest anthropological debates since there was anthropology. How one feels about whether it’s ok to read a book before gifting it is connected to a constellation of opinions about gift-giving, exchange, and social relations that are anything but arcane or trivial. Consider The Gift by Marcel Mauss.
My emphasis. These are very different approaches to gift-giving. My personal intuition about gift-giving is that I must alienate the thing I am giving from myself completely. If I am giving someone a used item of sentimental value, the power of the gift comes from the fact that I am surrendering it completely to someone else. If I am giving a new item, then social force comes from the fact that I resisted the temptation to assert my ownership or use rights over an object which I purchased and thus have a claim to. I could steam open the sticker that covers the DVD case, watch it, and put the sticker back on as new, but I don’t. This act of resisting temptation and completely alienating the good I own by right is what gives a gift its social meaning. This is the message I want the receiver of my gift to hear. “Maeglin gave you something of value that he might have liked for himself, but he did not assert his rights over this thing and he transfers them unreservedly to you instead.”
I simply can’t read a book before giving it away if I purchased it as new. It violates my social intuition because it is contrary to the very thing that distinguishes gifts from exchanges or one-way acts of goodwill, like dumping a bag of (gently) used but unwanted goods off with the Salvation Army. I give an object I used (but have no sentimental value for) to a stranger; I give a new object (or a valuable object used by someone else that I might like) to a friend.
I don’t think this choice has much moral valence. Malthus is certainly not a bad person for reading books before he gives them away. But I’m not sure I’d want to give and receive gifts with him because it might not mean the same thing to me as it does to him, and this could be the cause for unwanted friction later.
The thought of the boogers flying out of the readers nose and a book rife with boogers kind of made me giggle. Books are sacred, but sometimes the image is too much. Amazing how immature I still am at 38.
It’s not necessarily that you must prove you’ve been inconvenienced, but some people will notice you’ve read the book and be offended. Some people will notice and NOT be offended. I guess my point is, if you don’t know where the person you’re giving to stands or whether they’d realize the book was pre-read, why risk reading it if there’s a potential they’ll be offended or see you as “that person” who gives gifts so they can use them themselves?
Honestly, I might be taken aback if someone gave me a book they presented as new, only to find out they’d read it first. I wouldn’t care, ultimately. I like that others sometimes think of me enough to get me a gift they think I’d like. But you never know what’ll push people’s buttons.
I must say, I’m scratching my head over your cite and its relevance. I do not consider that by giving a gift of a book from my personal library, I have thereby demonstrated myself to be akin to a hunter-gatherer in my approach to private property.
Methinks you may be overthinking it a trifle. Not a problem, as I am easily amused by this sort of thing. So let’s go with your “anthropological model”.
To my mind, I see myself as belonging quite firmly in the “property is alienable” camp. Which means, once I give something, it is the other person’s. What I don’t understand, and what your cite doesn’t say, is that I should somehow “backdate” that ownership to the moment I acquire the property, so that it somehow “becomes” the other person’s before I give it to them. To my mind, the moment that the property changes hands - “becomes alienated” - is, sensibly enough, the moment I give that property away as a gift.
Strikes me that you have to go back to your sources and figure out where the notion of “backdated property” comes from, in anthropological terms. I submit it is not explained by the “property inalienable/ property alienable” dichotomy you cite from your academic work. We are, I suspect, both on the same side of that.
I seriously don’t see what you’re trying to do here. First you complain that no one has articulated reasons for being anti pre-reading, and when reasons are given you say that such reasons are overthought and not normative.
Well no kidding. Anyone who tries to think of reasons to explain a gut feeling can be accused of “overthinking.” And none of the reasons I give explain why anyone else should think differently about this subject. I’m not trying to moralize my own intuitions, I’m just trying to explain them in terms of reasonably clear concepts. The cite doesn’t justify my position in any kind of normative sense, it just connects it to larger issues of the social meaning of gifts, something still very contested. It is not an authority; it is an illustration.
I start from a feeling that using a gift before giving it away is socially wrong. I scratch my head and think of reasons to explain my intuition. My explanation is that using something beforehand is what you do to give stuff to a stranger and restraining yourself from using something is what you do to a friend.
I give books off my bookshelf all the time to friends. The difference has been raised upthread between giving something away spontaneously and giving a gift on some sort of ritual occasion when that gift usually requires preparation. Same reasoning applies.
Think about property rights economically. You have ownership rights and use rights. Both are alienable. When I obtain and give a gift on some ritual occasion, part of the force of the gift for me and (evidently for lots of other people, too) is the voluntary alienation of both of these rights. That’s what makes a Gift with a capital G different than an act of goodwill, like pulling something off my shelf to give to a friend in a spontaneous way. You may see these as equivalent, and I’m not trying to say that you are wrong. My intuition differs, and I have honestly tried to figure out and explain why. That’s all.
I’m not complaining. I like this stuff. Please don’t think I’m complaining. I’m expressing mild amusement. Some of which would be aimed in my direction I’m sure, for the same reason.
My point is that the dicotomy in your quote is not illustrative of the situation here.
I can think of cases that are - for example, the way that teenage stoners about the time I was growing up treated “ownership” of pot is a pretty close analogy to the highlighted part in your cite - they would “smoke each other up” with the unstated but real understanding that future reciprocation was expected; refusal to smoke someone present up was an act of hostility, tantamount to exclusion from the ‘band’ or ‘tribe’ of stoners, reserved for cases of extreme selfishness (that is, someone who was known to always take but never give, even when he or she had). This is a situation in which a modern person’s property rights are considered by their peers in a manner somewhat analogous to Mauss’ conceptualisation of gift exchange, and for a similar reason - it’s a form of social insurance, guaranteeing that every stoner can get a bit high frequently whether he or she has pot or not.
In contrast, reading books before giving 'em says nothing about the form of gift-giving involved. If property is truly “alienable”, it is “alienated”, to the “pro” side, at the moment that the gift is given; for the “anti” side, it is effectively “alienated” earlier - at the moment it is purchased. That’s what needs explaination.
So, purchase of an product (and refraining from reading it) is part of the “ritual” preparation specific to gift-giving to the “anti” side? Why is purchase-and-restraint more significant than (say) inherent value, or the “preparation” inherent in selecting just the right book? Can’t careful selection be the “ritual” preparation too, and if not, why not?
I don’t think the alienated property/usufructory rights dichotomy explains your intuition. In both cases, the person receiving the gift gets the gift as his or her absolute property. Pre-reading a book does not detract from the absolute rights of the owner after the gift has been given.
I’d suggest there are essentially five, for ease of reference:
Super strict antis - only new, unread books may be gifts. Used books, books from your library, pre-read books are all not real gifts.
Strict antis - pre-reading is never okay. It is not okay to give any book as a gift if you have already read that specific copy of it. No giving of gifts from your library, or pre-reading books you have bought as gifts.
Mild antis - the default should be to not pre-read books you have specifically purchased for a gift, although there may be exceptions. Giving books from your library or used books is okay.
Mild pro - the default should be that pre-reading books is okay, although there may be exceptions. Giving books from your library or used books is okay.
Strict pro - pre-reading, used books, books from your library are all okay in every case.
…
I’m a “mild pro” and from your posts I’d say you are a “mild anti”. The thing is, we likely agree on the situation in the OP.
And then reattach the tags and present it as a new, unused purse? That doesn’t strike you as…completely dishonest?
That’s the real difference between this behavior and not telling the Reverend he’s sitting in a barely-dried jizz spot. You’re not deliberately misrepresenting the couch–when a couch is in someone’s home, it’s presumed that the couch has received typical use–people have put their feet up on it, animals and children have climbed on it, people have eaten and drunk and spilled things on, and yes, if two romantically involved adults live in that house, that amorous events have taken place on it. But with the book or the game or the purse, you’re presenting what you know to be a used item as something unused.
I guess I just fall into the sixth category of people in this thread: The Do Whatever, But Be Honest About It’s.
Is it competely dishonest to buy that purse on remainder, then give it as a gift, when the tags don’t say it’s remaindered? The impression you give is that you got it full price. You would be “deliberately misrepresenting” its cost (unless of course you choose to tell the new owner, ‘by the way, I only paid $10 for it, even though it’s marked up as $500’).
Usually, I deliberately remove the tags from a present, because I feel it’s sorta tacky to show the other person how much I paid for a gift. The exception is if it is something they may want to return.
Why do I say it isn’t “competely dishonest”? Because stuff like how much you paid, or whether you have ever read the book, or carried the purse about, isn’t supposed to matter, in my opinion. What matters is the thought that went into selecting the gift. My getting (say) the gift on sale isn’t important. Neither is my reading a book, or carrying a purse about. It isn’t “dishonest”, it is just completely irrelevant (with some notable exceptions).
See, from my point of view (as a ‘mild-anti’ ), I can’t see how an explanation is required, because the point seems self-evident.
I was going to try to give one anyway, but I’m having trouble formulating one. I suppose there is no objective reason that it should be that way, but I feel that “ownership” of a gift belongs to the giftee beginning at the moment of purchase; I am simply holding the object in trust, as it were. If I purchased a gift for someone, and it was damaged before I had a chance to give it to them, I would feel obligated to replace it in like kind (as opposed to finding something else to give them); if I was unable to (it was a very expensive item, very rare, etc.) then I would feel as if I had violated some social contract.
The situation is pretty much the same if I’m giving an item that previously belonged to me (like the 'beloved book" of an earlier example). Once I decided that the book will be a gift, I would remove it from whatever shelf it was sitting on, wrap it up (or put it in a box, or whatever might be appropriate) so that it would be ‘protected’; so that nothing might happen to it…because at that point, I would consider it to be being held in trust for the other person.
I’ll admit that I can’t come up with an objective reason why I should feel this way; but I do. And to be honest, I hadn’t really given the matter much conscious thought prior to the discussion in this thread, but upon considering it, the answer seemed ‘obvious’ to me.
Both! Seriously, I am very dismayed at the distortiveness of so many of the posts (and I can’t say this is all on the part of the opposition.) There seems to come a point in the life of a thread where people can no longer argue the issue on its legitimate merits, but have to start misrepresenting the view of the other side.
(“So, you’re perfectly okay with enslaving Chinese people?”) etc.
At this point, such threads pretty much lose any residual value.
Well, at least it’s been informative: I never knew there was another opinion on the matter. The very idea just never occurred to me.
For the record, my defense of reading gift books is not based on the idea that the recipient will never know of it. My recipients damn well know, and take it as granted, just as I take for granted that they will have read the books they give me.
I do argue, as in your analogy, that my reading is careful, so that the recipient will not find any physical evidence of my reading. I could avoid telling them, and they would never know. But I don’t even depend on that. I exchange gifts with people who hold similar values to my own.
The real benefit of this thread has been to inform me that there are people who hold the opposite values, something I honestly had never known. So, in future, I’ll be careful in choosing to whom to give gift books. (The sad part is that this thread may have the end effect of denying gift books to some of my less intimate friends.)
Some people seem to think that there are precise rules for any etiquette situation that dictate exactly what is correct in that case. There aren’t such rules. In fact, there aren’t such rules for anything that’s related to human behavior. Suppose that you gave someone a Christmas present that consisted of several books that you had found on the ground after a rain. They were dirty and wrinkled. They weren’t anything that the person might want to read. That would be a pretty clear case of acting like a jerk.
Suppose on the other hand that you knew that someone really wants a particular book that’s out of print and rare. They can’t afford it. You bought it from an online rare book dealer for $200 and give it to them for Christmas. Then you have clearly gone out of your way to find a good present.
So where is the line between being a jerk and going out of your way to give someone a treasured present? There isn’t one. There isn’t even a clear measure applicable to everyone of how good the present is. Etiquette is not mathematical logic. You just have to try to understand other people’s belief systems as best as possible and try to guess as well as possible what they consider the right thing to do.
There’s actually a market for these! People take old books and do horrible things to them – bury them in the garden for a week, etc. – to make them suitable for props as pseudo-Lovecraftian tomes. If I found a box of books that had been in the rain, I know somebody who wants them.
If you read a book before giving it to someone, most times you’re thinking about yourself. That you’d get enjoyment out of this ‘gift’ yourself. Sure there are some exceptions, but mostly it seems to cheap and self serving.
Why would he? They aren’t important friends, so in what way do they rate a gift at all, especially one as personal as a book? Among book lovers, books are often gifted specifically because of that knowledge of the other person’s likes.
Are you saying that it isn’t possible to buy a book as a gift for a friend that will fit their tastes without reading it first?
IMHO, book lovers are quite capable of picking books for friends based on their likes without pre-reading first. I’m trying to imagine how pre-reading would even help in this situation. I would buy a book as a gift if I knew that my friend was a fan of the genre, or author, or if I knew they specifically wanted a particular book (and then include a gift receipt so they can return/exchange it if it turns out they already read it). Say hypothetically I go into a store and pick out a book that I’m pretty sure my friend would enjoy. And then I read it myself. And I enjoy it (or not). But individual tastes can be idiosyncratic - maybe my friend would have a different opinion than me. So I fail to see how pre-reading would aid in the decision whether or not to give the book.
I know that earlier in the thread some people gave the analogy of giving used clothing, or wearing clothing first before giving the gift. When downsizing my closet and giving away gently used clothing, I usually see if some of my friends or family would like any of the items before I give the rest to charity. But there’s no way that I would go through my closet and pick out something to give as a gift for a special occasion. I would also never say, buy a nice sweater, wear it myself to a few Christmas parties, and then wrap it up and give it to my mother as a Christmas present.
Similarly, I would say that I am generally anti- pre-reading when it comes to special occasion gifts (rare first editions and heirlooms/books with special sentimental value excepted). I’ll give or lend my used books to any friends or family who might like them, but I wouldn’t give them as a special present. The only exception I can think of would be if it resulted in giving a much bigger gift than I otherwise would have given. Like maybe a friend is just starting to read an author who has written a long series of books that I’ve already read and don’t want to keep. Instead of buying a new copy of the first book in the series, I might give them my used copies of the whole series, if I was sure they wouldn’t mind. I think this also avoids the whole “cheapskate” vibe of giving used books.
And I don’t know about you and your friendships, but I have lots of friends that I’ve given the gift of a book, and received books from, and thinking about it now I really don’t know how they would be pro- or anti- “pre-reading”. And I think that if you aren’t 100% sure how a particular friend would respond, then the most courteous thing to do is not pre-read.
“less intimate” friends != “not important” friends