|
|
|
|
|
|
|
musicandchips
Thoughts from 30-Something London
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tuesday, October 07, 2003 :::
Reciprocal Generosity in the Handless: A short history
I've been having a rather surreal debate with a new friend on Friendster about the nature of reciprocal giving and receiving, which recently (and without going into how it got there, which is intractably complicated) settled on the notion that people without hands were by definition unable to perform either action. I was unhappy with this conclusion, believing it to be deeply unfair on the handless, and resolved to offer a proof against it. Clearly in order to meditate effectively I would require assistance to attain true objectivity, so it was off to the pub last night with a view to solving the problem.
A plane of understanding was achieved relatively quickly (not having eaten all day), and from there I was able to attain the heights of the 'Plateau of Undeniable Truth', with the help of sambuca and a couple of choice brandies (nectar of the Gods don't you know). Once there the whole history of this question, which I discovered was extensive, was revealed to me by a small green fairy remarkably similar in apprearance and stature to one Kylie Minogue. I didn't fully understand all of it, but promised to relate it here. So here goes:
“Reciprocal Generosity in the Handless: A short history.
The notion of reciprocal generosity harks back to the ancient days of hunter-gatherer society, when braves would take a wife, in return for which a gift would be given to the wife's former tribe, perhaps in the form of a mammoth skin rug, or an ornately carved sabre-tooth pendant. Similarly in pre-literate early polytheistic cultures, offerings would be given to various deities and spirits in exchange for that which was taken from nature.
Among the earliest written evidence we have for the notion of give-and-take as a pervading element of human culture appears around the 2nd millennia BC, where it features in the written texts that would later form the basis of modern religious works, such as the Koran and the bible. To quote the bible version (NIV), "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away" (Job 1:21). Similarly in the Koran we find “O Musa! surely I have chosen you above the people with My messages and with My words, therefore take what I give to you and be of the grateful ones.” (7:144).
All seemed perfectly straightforward, until scholars preparing for the great canonical conference of 1462, during which the final modern version of the bible was to be decided, noticed a curious preponderance of references to ‘hands’ where giving and receiving were concerned. Principle among these, and the verse that underpins the curious notion that handless individuals are incapable of acts of generosity, was Matthew 6:3; from the King James version, “When thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.” Handless people were therefore regarded as incapable of giving, and so were condemned to eternal purgatory after death for non-payment of tithe, as prescribed in scripture. [As an aside, the implication here that it is the right hand that is responsible for giving led to the subsequent demonisation of left-handed people.]
Of course for every ying there is a yang, and an equally vociferous camp sprang up that believed handless people to be the very archetypes of godliness and purity in generosity. They argued that were all men born without hands we would still be living eternally in the paradise of the Garden of Eden; taking as evidence Genesis 3:22-23 (‘“[Adam] must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” Therefore the lord God banished him from the garden of Eden’) they posit that it is prima fasciae true that it was the possession of hands that enabled Eve to take from the tree of knowledge and give of it’s fruit to Adam, resulting eventually in their banishment from God’s presence. Unfortunately very little survives of the teaching and beliefs of this sect, as shortly after formulating their argument they all cut off their hands to prevent sin, and were thus unable to write anything down.
Of course any modern scholar can see that both these arguments are in fact tautologous, and indeed equivalent, for both still hold it to be true that the handless can neither give nor take - each argument merely ascribes a different qualitative function to the act of giving or taking. No, it seems as though neither moral nor religious philosophy hold any real answers to our dilemma.
Instead the mantle was taken up by a rather more contemporary branch of thinker. Theoretical quantum physicians, realising the massive import of finding an answer to this momentous question, turned upon it the spotlight of their particular philosophical bent. Thankfully for all, after much rumination and rubbing-of-chins an equation was derived that proved once-and-for-all that, at least on the quantum level, the handless are perfectly capable of both giving and taking. In fact in some cases (dependant on a complicated mathematical relationship between stump surface area, proximity to donator / recipient and prevailing atmospheric conditions) they are even more proficient than the handed. This proof has become known on front-pages around the globe as the Quantum Theo-Sophical Mutual Generosity Solution, or “QuanTy SMuGS” for short.
Their findings and proofs involve mind-numbingly complicated equations spanning several dimensions and incorporating the square root of –1, but roughly translated into layman’s terms, “The propensity of the handless individual for giving is a function of the overall stump surface area divided by the thickness of the skin, multiplied by Hankx’s Constant for Quantum Bleed, and all expressed as a root factor of the product of distance from recipient, barometric pressure, prevailing windspeed, and Milessiovenski’s scalar humidity law.” For receiving, the proofs are even more complicated due to the unpredictability on any but the quark level of the motion and inclination of the arm, but simply put it mirrors the proof for giving, reversing the equation, substituting Vengel’s Quanta Absorbtion Ratio for Hankx’s Constant, and dividing the entire result by a complicated combination of stump velocity and angle of reference between arm and source.
Of course on a practical level QuanTy SmuGS may be worse than useless, but it has given hope to the handless community that they will now be more widely accepted into society, and indeed early indications are that this may well be the case. It has also given the one-handed community some new excitement, as it is hoped that a variation of the theory will one day be able to accurately simulate for human ears the sound they make when clapping, thus proving once and for all that they do, in fact, clap.”
I've been listening to Tangerine Dream. Does it show?
::: posted by Andy at 10/07/2003 03:56:00 PM
|
|
|
|
