I believe that gratitude is the greatest of all social lubricants. Gratitude is none other than the appreciative and ever so willing acknowledgment of the good that another has done on one’s behalf. And limitless are the forms that gratitude can take. Nothing allows for more originality than the expression of gratitude. Accordingly, it is very, very, very rare that a person is not in the position to express gratitude. These cases aside, anyone who is too busy to express gratitude is too busy, indeed. For reasons that I shall indicate at the end of this essay, it is owing to expressions of gratitude that I consider myself very much alive.
What follows is a confession: There is much for which I can forgive a person. For I understand that we all make mistake; and when people are willing to acknowledge and make amends for their mistakes, where genuine sincerity abounds, I can often find it in my heart to forgive that person. But ingratitude is another thing entirely. I have enormous difficulty forgiving the ungrateful. For I have enormous difficulty forgiving someone who is enjoying (or has enjoyed) the benefits of another’s labor, but who does not express his gratitude for the effort that the other person made on his behalf. This is an incongruity that I cannot abide.
I understand that the absence of gratitude does not make a person evil—a Hitler the Second, as it were. Still, my natural tendency is to disassociate myself from the person. This is because the absence of gratitude bespeaks a profound self-centeredness that I simply cannot abide. Indeed, it seems to me that anyone who maintains a relationship with a person in the face of sustained ingratitude on that person’s part also has a problem.
Gratitude is an independent affirmation of the good intentions with which another takes himself to have behaved. Thus, gratitude is very much a moral power. For there is the issue of what a person intends to do for another and there is the issue of whether or not the person’s intentions realized their end. Gratitude is a way confirming to the agent that his intentions realized their end.
No matter how wonderful you think that the cake that you made for me tastes or how beautiful you think that the piece of art you produced for me is, and all with good reason, there is not and cannot be a substitute for the confirmation that comes with my expression of gratitude to you for what you have done.
Indeed, no matter how much you have may have obviously done to help me, there is nothing on the face of this earth that can substitute for my expression of gratitude. For that is a confirmation that I judged your behavior as you wanted me to judge it. And nothing takes the place of that confirmation. No amount of self-knowledge; no amount of objective assessment of the matter.
The absence of gratitude, when it is appropriate, can in fact be vicious. For you see, gratitude is an acknowledgement of the purity of another’s intentions. After all, if in the end your only reason for helping me was to obtain media publicity, then I rightly feel used, though I have benefited. Moreover, the purity of your intentions has been called into question. My absence of gratitude may reflect just that. Or I may engage in what we might call perfunctory gratitude, which is on the order of saying “Congratulations” to the person to whom one lost (being a good sport) or saying “I am pleased to introduce Smith” (mere social protocol). Perfunctory gratitude can be appropriate.
But if you have helped me and have been there for me over time, giving of yourself when you did not have to, then what is owed is the real thing. And the absence of gratitude in this case is essentially a denial of the good intentions with which the person acted on my behalf. Sometimes, of course, we have reason to question a person’s motives, in which case gratitude is indeed not in order. But when a person has been helpful and decent over time without ever committing a transgression, then questioning the person’s motives is inappropriate. After all, what other evidence can we have that a person is doing what is right by us, then that the person has been consistently doing so over time without committing a transgression.
The absence of gratitude, then, in the face of a person’s doing what is right over time is none other than an affront to the person’s efforts on one’s behalf. The absence is an affront precisely because there is no excuse for not showing gratitude.
It should now make more sense as to why I distance myself from those who show an absence of gratitude. It should now make sense why anyone should. Living right calls for considerable self-control and foresight. It requires making sure that one does what is appropriate as well as making sure that one does not do what is inappropriate. Not acknowledging such behavior on the part of another is a form of viciousness—a form of moral discounting if you will. Essentially, then, the absence of gratitude is an insult. Its absence is tantamount to attributing—and entirely without good reason—unsavory motives to a person who had every reason to think that she or he has acted with good will. Only a psychologically unhealthy person would put up with that.
It should also be clear why gratitude is such an extraordinary social lubricant. For insofar as we aim to be decent human beings, nothing provides greater independent affirmation of that than the gratitude of others. Gratitude is the moral affirmation with one’s own will of the will of another. And for all of its simplicity that is an absolutely riveting expression of moral power. The proof of this is just how much we treasure those expressions of gratitude that we have received.
Over the years, I have received various gifts from my friends students: a shirt from Africa, the Hebrew Bible in French and English, a pen with my name on it, and various notes of thanks from this one and that one. These are like rubies and diamonds in my life. I try to live right. And these gifts are indications from various individuals with whom I have formed ties or whom have taught (or both) that I may have met with some success in that regard. These gifts are an acknowledgement that I, with all the various things in life that I have going for me, could not possibly give myself.
I remarked at the outset that gratitude takes a multitude of forms. And one of the remarkable forms that it has taken is that one of my former students shares with me the joys of his fatherhood. I sometimes wonder if he realizes how precious and transforming a thing he is doing. That is a worthiness I could never give to myself, though I lived an eternity. The same holds, but in a different way, for the Rougemont family in France (which now ranges over three generations). I have to remind myself that once upon a time I did not know them.
I believe that I live one of the richest lives on the planet. Not because I travel between two continents like some people move between adjacent towns. Not because I pretty much have the material things I want. These things are nice; and there is no denying that. But I live one of the richest on the planet because I have been blessed with expressions of gratitude that have elevated my soul to unimaginable heights. This does not make for immorality, but life shorn of gratitude would surely be some form of death itself. Thank God: I am very much alive. To the many who have made that a reality:
T h a n k Y o u
