About a hundred years ago, a French social scientist who had lost several close colleagues to the first world war sat down to write an essay titled “The Gift”. Marcel Mauss wanted to understand how most societies in the past had managed to avoid mass slaughter. In a preface, he honours each fallen friend in turn: “Robert Hertz was killed in the useless attack of Marcheville, April 13, 1915, at the age of 33, leading his section out of the trench.” Mauss discusses the work they would have done had they lived. And then he delivers an essay that remains so influential that some social scientists have their own favourite footnote. He decodes, among other things, this week’s Christmas gift-buying frenzy.
大约一百年前，一位在第一次世界大战中失去了几位亲密同事的法国社会科学家坐下来写了一篇题为《礼物》的文章。马塞尔•莫斯(Marcel Mauss)希望了解过去大多数社会是如何避免大规模屠杀的。在序言中，他依次缅怀每一位逝去的朋友：“罗伯特•赫茨(Robert Hertz)在1915年4月13日的马尔舍维尔无用攻击中阵亡，年仅33岁，当时他正带领他的部队冲出战壕。”莫斯讨论了如果他们活着会完成的工作。然后，他发表了一篇至今仍有影响力的文章，以至于一些社会科学家都有自己最喜欢的脚注。他解读了包括本周圣诞节礼物购买狂潮在内的诸多现象。