Oltre il dono

(Beyond the Gift)

Abstract

To be truly a gift, that is, gratuitous, the gift should be situated outside the logic of exchange and power relations within which givers and receivers are positioned. Self-abnegation, forgiveness, and the will to donate fall instead within the framework of goals and intentions; they thus reveal that authentic gratuitousness is impossible because it would imply perfect sharing between givers and receivers. Yet the possibility of giving presupposes precisely the form of the gift, its act; it implies precisely its own extreme, that which exceeds and transfigures it, the impossible – the powerful condition of compossibility that lies beyond the asymmetry of relations.