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.
大約一百年前，一位在第一次世界大戰中失去了幾位親密同事的法國社會科學家坐下來寫了一篇題爲《禮物》的文章。馬塞爾•莫斯(Marcel Mauss)希望瞭解過去大多數社會是如何避免大規模屠殺的。在序言中，他依次緬懷每一位逝去的朋友：「羅伯特•赫茨(Robert Hertz)在1915年4月13日的馬爾舍維爾無用攻擊中陣亡，年僅33歲，當時他正帶領他的部隊衝出戰壕。」莫斯討論瞭如果他們活著會完成的工作。然後，他發表了一篇至今仍有影響力的文章，以至於一些社會科學家都有自己最喜歡的腳註。他解讀了包括本週耶誕節禮物購買狂潮在內的諸多現象。