Delphic Maxim 59: Honour a benefaction
I’ve set myself the challenge of responding to each Delphic Maxim for 15 minutes a day
59. Honour a benefaction
I find accepting gifts from people really difficult. I think it’s because by nature I am not an especially greedy person, I don’t need anything, and I don’t like the idea that people are going out of their way — spending their time and money — on me. If you add to that the fact that my least favourite emotion is awkwardness, and I am often awkward about receiving gifts, then we get into dicey territory around the receiving of benefactions.
I don’t think I’m the only person in this position. Almost always, when I talk about a hideous awkward experience I’ve had, somebody else agrees with a sigh of relief that they aren’t the only one. I can imagine the same might have been the case in Ancient Greece, otherwise there probably wouldn’t have been a need to remind people in these Delphic Maxims.
In previous posts, we looked at the word honour, and how it is bound up in social relations. Your position and role in society — in the network of social relations — has a strong bearing on how you show, receive and construct honour. So the receiving of gifts, in this context, probably has a lot to do with respect, gratitude and recognition of that act of kindness.
There may also be a dimension of reciprocity, though not immediately. It’s a bit tacky to feel like you must immediately reciprocate a gift with another (incidentally, the dynamics of gift-giving have fascinated anthropologists and sociologists for a long time, it’s a fundamental part of human social relations). In time, you might honour an act of benefaction with a similar act yourself, a way of mutually reinforcing good social relations. Of course, not every act of giving needs to be reciprocated — part of that honouring involves not feeling obliged to reciprocate for that specific ‘transaction’, since doing so might cheapen it.
This is all pretty academic — I think it’s challenging to write about it a time of such massive abundance, and from the perspective of someone who has never really wanted for anything. Awkwardness is a cheap emotion — probably the most middle class emotion there is — and it’s probably a bit of a copout to be writing about it in the context of receiving gifts or benefactions (in the broadest sense).
To break the lesson down into something concrete: when someone shows you generosity, say thank you, and mean it. That’s the best thing you can do. Reciprocate in time, if it’s appropriate. And most importantly, remember that these acts of kindness are about building community and friendship — and honouring that is probably the greatest response to benefaction.
