The cultural longing for a gift world is rising after four hundred years

Evidence

When I was young, I thought the change might happen that fast. Now I am old and I know that transformation is slow. The commodity economy has been here on Turtle Island for four hundred years, eating up the white strawberries and everything else. But people have grown weary of the sour taste in their mouths. A great longing is upon us, to live again in a world made of gifts. I can scent it coming, like the fragrance of ripening strawberries rising on the breeze. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 118

Categorization

• SEED: Temporal arc — personal berry-waiting scaling up to civilizational waiting — is a strong framing device for eco-justice writing about patience and hope.
• XREF: connects to: Modern conditions have atrophied the faculty of genuine gift-giving — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 37; Civilization’s bondage breeds longing that becomes worship of a transfigured nature; Gifts create feeling-bonds that commodities do not — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 98 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Modern conditions have atrophied the faculty of genuine gift-giving #corroborates (0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 37
• Civilization’s bondage breeds longing that becomes worship of a transfigured nature #qualifies (0.75)
• Gifts create feeling-bonds that commodities do not #expands (0.75) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 98
• Societies move from Westernization to cultural revival as modernization accelerates #corroborates (0.72) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 202
• Mass cultural manipulation depends on genuine Utopian longings #corroborates (0.72) — Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 6911