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jp57yesterday at 11:43 PM0 repliesview on HN

Okay, I will take the contrarian position. As I read this I kept waiting for the part where he somehow repays all the hospitality he has received, if not directly to those who gave it, then forward, somehow. Instead, all I got was new-agey rationalization.

To solicit a gift from a stranger takes a certain state of openness. If you are lost or ill, this is easy, but most days you are neither, so embracing extreme generosity takes some preparation. I learned from hitchhiking to think of this as an exchange. During the moment the stranger offers his or her goodness, the person being aided can reciprocate with degrees of humility, dependency, gratitude, surprise, trust, delight, relief, and amusement to the stranger. It takes some practice to enable this exchange when you don’t feel desperate. Ironically, you are less inclined to be ready for the gift when you are feeling whole, full, complete, and independent!

The things he lists are not reciprocation. The paragraph strikes me as a long-winded way of saying, "It takes a special mindset to beg from others when you're not actually needy." Indeed it does.

One might even call the art of accepting generosity a type of compassion. The compassion of being kinded.

Not only does he rationalize a life of asking for and taking from others, even the very poor, without any material reciprocation, but even admits that he is not sure he would have done the same for another person in his position.

When the miracle flows, it flows both ways.

No. The attitude of humility and gratitude with which one is obliged to receive another's charity is not itself a repayment. The social contract around this kind of hospitality is that everyone gives and receives materially; if you are taking now because you have nothing to give, then the expectation is that you will give to someone else later, not simply walk the earth taking and taking. It's a prisoner's dilemma, and we only all benefit if we all cooperate. Calling a person who takes but never gives back in a material way a "kindee" is just sanctifying the defector.

(EDIT: please note that I'm not advocating against offering hospitality, only against taking it with an attitude that you will neither repay it nor pay it forward, because just the act of accepting it is somehow holy.)