Gratitude as A Mindful Virtue

Fresno Bee, November 26, 2023

Tis the season of gratitude. Gratitude is an important virtue that helps us live well. Like other virtues, gratitude can be found in the middle between vices. Too little gratitude is grumpy and rude. Ungrateful Scrooges live narrow and cramped lives. The ingrate is egoistic and resentful, too focused on what he doesn’t have to give thanks for what he has received.

But too much gratitude is servile and smarmy. Sycophants and suck-ups are effusive in their gratefulness. Sometimes this is manipulative, as the suck-up says thanks to ingratiate themselves to others. The overly grateful seem to lack self-respect and a sense of proportion.

Gratitude demands mindfulness and care. And it involves a kind of reciprocity. When a slave thanks his master for scraps, gratitude is being abused. So, too, when the boss fails to thank his employees for their hard work.

There are other ways that gratitude can misfire. One example is the mass-produced thank-you note. “Dear sir/madam,” the pre-printed note says. “Thanks for the gift.” An anonymous thank-you is better than nothing. But transactional acknowledgement is not authentic gratitude. An anonymous note is a mechanical response devoid of personality. It does not recognize the gift you gave nor the time and thought you put into it.

Genuine gratitude recognizes the person behind the gift. It is more than a transactional exchange. Of course, some gifts are merely transactional — say, an automated donation to a charitable organization. But soulful gifts deserve a personal thanks that celebrates the thought and care of the giver.

On the other hand, some folks go overboard with their thank-you’s. Gratitude goes wrong when it is out of proportion with the gift. It would be odd, for example, for a friend to bring you an expensive souvenir as a thank-you gift for a quick ride to the airport.

You might suspect, in a case like this, that the excessive thanker is buttering you up and preparing to ask for another favor. Virtuous gratitude ought to be free of ulterior motives. You shouldn’t give thanks to show off or to butter up. Genuine gratitude is not selfish or manipulative.

Gratitude is an important part of the project of living well. It is correlated with positive neurological states. Some studies even suggest a grateful spirit can help with longevity and psychological well-being. A grateful way of living is open and receptive, humble and joyful— and healthy!

A generally thankful mindset is not merely a response to a gift. This is not gratitude for something or toward someone. Spiritual gratitude is broader than that.

Religious people thank God as the source of goodness with prayers before meals and at day’s end. This can be linked to a general “count your blessings” attitude. You can overcome a gloomy mood by counting your blessings, and by recognizing that things could be worse.

But gratitude is not the only thing that matters. It misses the point to tell a slave to overcome resentment and count his blessings. Critics of gratitude say it is too passive and acquiescent. Other virtues are also important: justice, courage, and self-respect.

But the saints of gratitude approach life with an accepting and grateful spirit. The grateful saint does not view gratitude as a boring duty, or as a mere transaction. Nor does she use it as an opportunity to show off or suck up. Rather, the paragons of thankfulness experience a kind of unconditional gratefulness that is happy to receive whatever is given.

The affirmative gladness of deeply grateful people overcomes resentment. They view each moment as a gift. They treat every day as Thanksgiving. They seem to believe that we ought to be grateful because things are fundamentally good.

But is it always good to be grateful? Should we give thanks for everything — even for wars and toothaches? Or is gratitude properly reserved for gifts that are genuinely good?

We have wandered into deep questions here about the wisdom of gratitude and the state of the world. These questions can provide food for thought to accompany the pumpkin pie. And thankfully, every year at this time we have the chance to ask ourselves what we are grateful for, and why.

Read more at: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article282215153.html#storylink=cpy

November 20, 2021November 18, 2021

Be Thoughtful About Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving provides an opportunity to reflect on gratitude. I’ve written a number of columns over the years about Thanksgiving and the spirit of gratitude. It is good to be grateful. But gratitude requires honesty. And giving thanks should be grounded in truth.

It is possible, after all, for gratitude to be mistaken. We can thank the wrong person, for example. Or we can misunderstand what we are thankful for. Gratitude misfires, for example, if I thank someone for a gift that they did not give me. We’ve got to get the facts right, when we express gratitude. We also need a correct interpretation of those facts.

Nor does it make sense to be thankful for “bad gifts.” It is not appropriate to give an alcoholic booze for his Christmas. Nor should a drunk really be thankful for such a present. Gift-giving and thankfulness imply that the gift is beneficial and represents goodwill.

Moreover, saying thanks does not justify misdeeds. If someone eats the pumpkin pie on my plate without my consent, saying “thanks” does not make the theft OK.

All of this is especially important at Thanksgiving, when our rituals are infused with misleading myths that conceal terrible misdeeds

The Thanksgiving myth celebrates religious freedom and hospitable relations between European settlers and Native Americans. These are noble ideas. Religious liberty ought to be celebrated. And hospitality is important. Unfortunately, both ideas are mythological when it comes to the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving.

The Christian colonizers viewed the natives as heathens. The colonizers did not respect indigenous religions. Nor did the Puritan colonists tolerate Christian dissenters: Quakers were persecuted in New England, as were figures such as Roger Williams and Ann Hutchinson (see Smithsonian for details). When it comes to religious liberty today, it is the First Amendment we ought to thank—not the Pilgrims.

The European colonists were not friendly to the natives. Columbus himself began the process of enslaving the natives on American mines and plantations, while also exporting slaves to Europe. The African slave trade grew as the Native America slaves began to die out from European diseases.

By the time the Pilgrims landed over 100 years after Columbus, European diseases had already decimated native populations. The land of the Pilgrim’s pride had originally been cleared by natives who had recently died.

The Pilgrims were aided in their settlement by Squanto, a native American who had been taken to Europe as a slave. Squanto returned to his homeland only to find that his tribe was dead from disease.

There is even more to the story. I recommend Loewen’s “Lies My Teacher Told Me” as a useful source that dispells the myths of the first Thanksgiving and discloses the horrible truths of European colonialism.

Now let’s ask what we should be thankful for today about this history.

Should we be thankful that Native peoples such as Squanto were enslaved—and thus had the linguistic skills that allowed him to help the Pilgrims?

Should we be thankful for the plague that killed the Indians before the Pilgrims arrived? In 1629, John Winthrop seemed to thank God for that “miraculous” plague that left the country “void of inhabitants.” Is it appropriate to thank God for the diseases that depopulated the continent?

These questions remind us that not everyone views Thanksgiving as a time of celebration. Native American activists have declared this a “day of mourning.” A plaque commemorating this reads: “Thanksgiving Day is a reminder of the genocide of millions of Native people, the theft of Native lands, and the relentless assault on Native culture.”

Some might conclude that this shows that gratitude is relative. Not everyone will be grateful for the same thing.

There is some truth here. But relativism is a cop out. Objective facts matter when it comes to gratitude. The more important problem is that we can be mistaken in our gratitude and misled by our myths. These mistakes can lead us to give thanks for the wrong things.

And so, as we enter into the holiday season, let’s enjoy giving gifts and giving thanks. But let’s be careful about the gifts we give. And let’s be thoughtful about what we are thankful for.

November 28, 2014December 7, 2014

Gratitude

Giving thanks allows us to reconnect with the good in life

Fresno Bee, November 28, 2014

The holidays provide an opportunity to reflect upon gratitude. Our gift-giving rituals allow us to practice the art of giving thanks.

Gratitude is important for living well. Gratitude affirms life and connects us to others. It can even help us feel in tune with the cosmos. Gratitude is kindness reciprocated. It is the resounding echo of love and generosity.

Research in positive psychology has shown that gratitude is linked to happiness. We become happier when we acknowledge what we’ve got to be thankful for. Gratitude also builds and sustains relationships. If you want to feel better and have more friends, learn to say “thanks” often.

As with other virtues, gratitude should be sincere. Insincere expressions of thankfulness are fruitless. Ingratiating flattery is an inevitable part of social life, where schmoozers use gratitude as a tool. But we are social animals, who are pretty good at detecting phoniness. Only sincere gifts and honest gratitude bear the fruit of friendship.

In the end, love and gratitude rest upon the honesty of genuine social relations. True friendship cannot be faked. And gratitude only develops when you really do have something to be grateful for.

In addition to connecting the virtue of gratitude with other virtues such as sincerity and honesty, the world’s wisdom traditions link gratitude with modesty. The Roman Stoics taught that we should not expect much from life and that when something good happens, we should be thankful. Gratitude develops when we see that simple goods are easily obtained. Nearly everyone has something to be grateful for: health, friends, or life itself. Gratitude grows when we view life as a gift, to be lived simply, honestly, and sincerely.

Gratitude also rests upon moderation of desire. Riches, fame, and power tend to stimulate desire, making us feel — oddly enough — ungrateful. Immoderate desires cause ingratitude, leaving us “spoiled.”

Spoiled people are narcissistic. If they give thanks at all, their gratitude is insincere. They expect to receive; but they don’t feel grateful for what they’ve been given. They become resentful when they don’t get the goods they feel they deserve. Resentment builds as acquisitiveness and ingratitude grow.

The solution is modest simplicity. We should expect little and be thankful for much. This helps us recognize love and kindness in simple things.

Ungrateful resentment is a defect of love. Spoiled people have not learned how to love — either how to receive love or how to give it. The art of gratitude aims to receive love with grace and return it with joy.

Christian ethics helps connect gratitude with love. Christians celebrate a loving God, to whom a sort of cosmic gratitude should be given. Religious gratitude points beyond the social world and the simple goods of life toward divine love that gives us the benefits we enjoy.

Such an idea will cause atheist eyes to roll. Atheists often argue that religious thanksgiving is based upon fear of God or a superstitious desire to curry favor with a mercurial deity. Believers might respond by saying that joyful thanksgiving is not fearful and submissive but, rather, a celebration of the goodness of God.

Believers may also suggest that atheists miss out on something important when they do not feel the cosmic sort of gratitude associated with prayers of thanksgiving directed toward a loving God. The atheist may respond by saying that gratitude can be directed to society or to the natural world, which sustains and inspires us. One can acknowledge that life is good without also thinking that it is a gift from God.

This theological dispute should not distract us from the importance of gratitude and love in human life. We are finite and needy beings, whose basic desire for love is only satisfied by a gift from another. Just as you can’t kiss by yourself, you can’t really say thanks by yourself. “Thank you” points toward another person.

Whether the object of our thanks is God, the cosmos, or our friends and family, gratitude reminds us to see love and appreciate kindness. In this difficult world, love and kindness are never guaranteed. That’s why we should be grateful when good happens. And that’s why we should let the good reverberate by saying thanks.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/11/28/4259153_fiala-on-ethics-giving-thanks.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy