Appreciation

By Jurgen Depicker

Appreciation is may be the most grounded and most significant power of social union. At the point when appreciation has a ton of room in our kindred country it is feasible to perceive the social incredible climate circumstance in a gauge. Much conspicuous appreciation prompts moral high tension in which case for this situation one can comprehend the strain once decidedly in the feeling of together dedicated commitment and obligation. At high strain, the sun sparkles. This is a charming well disposed tension that doesn't request appreciation however emerges from appreciation itself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jurgen Depicker
• Release date: Jan 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201581992

Book preview

THE MEANING AND ESSENCE OF GRATITUDE

1.1 

THE NECESSITY OF GRATITUDE

Gratitude is perhaps the strongest and most important forceof social cohesion.When gratitude has a lot of room in our fellow country; it is possible to recognize the social great weather situation in a barometer. Much recognizable gratitude leads to moral high pressure, in which case in this case one can understand the pressure once very positively, in the sense of jointly committed obligation and responsibility. At high pressure, the sun shines. This is a pleasant, friendly pressure that does not demand gratitude, but arises from gratitude itself. It is counterproductive for Relationships to be obligated to be grateful, but whoever is grateful from free will, knows the community shaft obliged. Gratitudeis thus, as the emotion researcher Barbara Fredrickson, professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, sums up, both a moral barometer and a moral motivator (Fredrickson, 2004). This is followed by another community-forming factor of gratitude: According to Fredrickson, she is also a moral booster, a strong force of encouragement for a relationship characterized by mutual appreciation and consideration. In short: the moral high pressure of a climate of gratitude does us just as well as a warm, sunny spring after a cold winter. The moral catastrophe of the profit and performance society of our day looks rather like winter. The value of gratitude no longer has an economy today, finds ZDF moderator Peter Hahne.

Are we not really chronically malnourished in matters of gratitude? Asks the couple therapist and publicist Hartwig Hansen. He sees a reason for this in the prevailing hectic lifestyle, where all that on 'polite conversational formulas', which does not necessarily seem necessary for survival (or brings in money), is dying out. While 'then' (in the ancient letter-writing age) his messages still regularly began with 'Thank you very much for your letter of July 3', it is said today in the cryptic e-mails: 'Goes in order. MfG. 'But no, Hansen thinks, it's just not right. With me the feeling remains: brought back to the deserved salary, again 'invested in the relationship' and ready to be cut off, again my thoughts and efforts were taken for granted. Give up feedback. But resignation can not be the solution. Because it stays there: I want to be perceived, yes, I also want to be rewarded for what I do. It would make me wonder if that would be different with other people. And 'thanks' is the smallest and at the same time most important unit of the wage "(Hansen, 2008, p. 75 f.).

When gratitude is lost, so does the appreciation, that is, the meaning of what has value, above all human dignity. Whoever is known for small charities, declares that he values ​​the views of the people higher than their outward plunder, the British philosopher and politician Francis Bacon (1561–1626) pointed out in his famous essays (Bacon, 1986, p. 42), and Robert Emmons, a leading professor of gratitude and psychology at the University of California (Emmons & McCullough, 2004; Emmons, 2008), states: Recognize intentions " (ebd., P. 19).

Valuation plays a major role in our society, but very predominantly from an economic point of view: You are satisfied, but not necessarily grateful if you have received a good or service that was worth the money you spent on it. Why should one even thank for it? Man hat es still bought! Gratitude is theempathic perception for the friendly attitude, the good will, the honest effort and the actual competencies of the donor, even where his product gives rise to a demand. Gratitude is therefore not identical with appreciation, but a very significant subset of it. When gratitude is taken out, little is left of the appreciation worryingly little. A warm climate of appreciation needs gratitude as a driving force.

Gratitude is worse than theft, says the Talmud (cited in Emmons, 2008, p. 123), and Seneca (1–65), one of the most significant stoic teachers of wisdom, a very well-earned and highly respected leadership coach at the Imperial Court in Rome, took precedence:

I want to be aware in my life that I have to live for others, and I want to be grateful to nature forthat. [...] Me, the one, has given them all; to me, to one, she gave them all. I want to regard all possessions as a good gift (Seneca, 1996, p. 85). He was of the opinion that no other blasphemy threatens the harmonious coexistence of the human race as much as ingratitude (cited in Emmons, 2008,

S. 144). Seneca knew very wellwell, of which he spoke, because he had been ordered to be the educator of Prince Nero. He did not thank him. In his morbidly narcissistic madness, he finally forced his own educators to commit suicide. He could not tolerate any critical opposition.

The emotion research of the lastYears confirms the importance of gratitude for a successful life together. Gratitude, Fredrickson sums it up, builds a range of personal and social resources. Youforms and strengthens friendships and other social bonds, it forms and strengthens civil society and it forms and strengthens spirituality. That's all

‘Sustainable resources in the sense that they areserve to be recourse to in times of need " (Fredrickson, 2004, p. 145, translation

d. Paint.) Prosperity phases provide the most reason forGratitude and are therefore best suited to replenish the reserves in order to be able to maintain a warm climate of each other even in times of drought. But what about when, in the best times of prosperity, gratitude is lost? What happens when waiver is really required - for individuals as well as for society as a whole? That's a scary question. There are many signs that globally, in fact, icy selfishness is still on the rise. We need a very strong counter-movement, which is warming our society and reviving the Atlantic like the Gulf Stream. We need a big movement of gratitude.

The high significance of gratitude for one another was recognized in all major religions and cultures. Therefore, it is well understood that the obligation to be grateful also plays a major role everywhere. But since the mighty are very often situated in the gratitude of their subjects to make themselves comfortable, and since they often seek to enforce their gratitude at any cost, ordinances of gratitude from above produce much more moral depth and depth than a pleasant climate. Ganz otherwise, powerful people who commit themselves to gratitude and, morally motivated by doing so, do everything they can to lead as many others as possible into a life that also makes them as happy as possible, happy and grateful. Such differentiations are necessary if we are to strive to cultivate the sense of gratitude and make it applicable to life practice. Understanding right can be the gratitude of the greatest blessing, misunderstanding and misusing it as a cynical instrument of power (Komter, 2004).

1.2 

GRATITUDE IS FEMALE

The story of ideas gratitude is similarly ambivalent as that of woman. On the one hand, both were praised, on the other hand, both were considered inferior and contemptible. For the Romans, gratitude was a sacred duty. One would have been grateful if one had experienced the benevolent favor of another. Whoever responded with thanks, exercised his right to exist. That is why gratitude was praised as a great virtue, but everyone wished to use as little of it as possible. The more you owe a person a debt, the more dependent you become on it. Gratitude was seen as a moral currency: according to the favor bestowed on the recipient, the recipient had to repay the giver. Whoever received a gift was obliged to give back the equivalent, whoever was not able to do so owed the benefactor

Submission. The social power games wereon top of thataimed at bringing others into the compulsion of the duty of gratitude in order to make them compliant, while at the same time avoiding even such dependencies. A master of this tactic was Julius Caesar (100-44 BC). When he seemingly generously pardoned the defeated, he in effect obligated them to morally unconditional surrender. If they murmured, he could destroy their good conscience (Sørensen, 1995).

From time immemorial, to this day, the gratitude of the powerful is needed as a highly effective instrument of government. So great was the recognized significance of gratitude for it everywhere and at all times on the one hand, so little was it placed as a generally coveted virtue by those on the pedestal who had the sayings. The philosopher Robert C. Solomon (1942–2007) even thinks that she is not only one of the most neglected emotions, but also one of the most underrated virtues (Solomon, 2004). It is fitting that one should rather associate the essence of gratitude with feminine qualities. Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) described the connection as follows:

Woman is the noblest word that can be said by the soul. It's even nobler than a virgin. That man receives God in himself, that is good; and in this reception he is Magd. But that God may be fruitful in him, that is better. For fertility is gratitude for the gift; and in the regenerating gratitude the soul is a woman (Meister Eckhart, 1981, p. 66).

The great theologian and mystic thus sees firstly the special nobility of the human soul in gratitude, secondly his view of the essence of gratitude lies above all in a fruitful reception and thirdly it follows logically that it is about something feminine, because everywhere in nature fertile reception is a main characteristic of the female.

In the strongly male-dominated cultures of the past that have shaped our society, female virtues have been demanded everywhere, especially of course by the ruling men of women and the other submissive, but at the same time they have not received much public attention. Among the much praised and highly effective four-cardinal virtues in the evening country ethic, which Plato (427–347 BC) first compiled and explained, gratitude does not belong. The parade horse of the virtues in ancient Greece was the Andreia, who was associated with both masculinity and

Bravery can be translated. The Romans saw inmasculinity, defined as bravery, is a bad virtue, from which they conclude that no distinction can be made between masculinity and virtue (Jaeger, 1959).

Man meansLatin Vir - Vir-tus is both manhood and virtue. Plato identified femininity with softness and cowardice and the Romans used for feminine and soft the same word: effeminatus.

In all things, the male sex is superior to the female, Plato believed, and so was he.

„Naturgemäß (Plato, 1973, p. 155 f.). A man who does not live a virtuous life, unfortunately, has to reckon with being born again as a woman (Plato, 1940). Plato's student Aristotle (384–322 BC) said that it was quite obvious that the woman had subordinated herself to the man, because it is by nature so that the one is better, the other is inferior, and that one governs, the other is governed " (Aristotle, 2009, p. 53). The empirical problem that yes obviously women can also be brave, he solved by claiming