In
Seduction, a book that bristles with insights, the
philosopher Jean Baudrillard introduces the concept of 'cheating
value' in the context of the wager. "Gambling's truth
is to be found on the tricks it plays on value."
As
a worldwide cultural constant, cheating value refers to man's
seemingly preordained attraction to activities that result
in a reduction of the expenditure of energy or capital normally
required for the same result or outcome. If someone is contractually
obliged to labour X hours per week for a salary or equivalent
in trade, and if the person is willing to undergo the risks,
he can decide to place a wager or undertake an activity (selling
illicit drugs, sex work, gambling, smuggling, playing the
stock market) that promises the possibility of cheating value,
of obtaining at least the same in salary or trade without
having expended the accustomed time and effort.
The
expectation of satisfaction and/or enjoyment -- the pleasure
principle -- is the basis of the attraction. The species reflex
to cheat value often determines the choices we make which
in turn reveal repeatable patterns in human behaviour. The
content of a nation's ethos -- its institutions, vernacular,
algorithms, leisure activities, laws and customs -- reflects
the measure and manner in which cheating value operates though
human endeavour.
The
arc that traces the course of a human life is often shaped
by the temptation and attendant risks of cheating value. As
a rule that allows for many notable exceptions, the moneyed
are less tempted than the impecunious.
From
time immemorial, man has been seeking the ways and means to
render his life less stressful in matters of security and
securing the necessities of life. The path of least resistance,
whose every toll-free road is an homage to cheating value,
once a narrow footway through tall grass that would disappear
with the first wind, has been turned into an ever-widening
and deepening gorge whose layered cliff sides mark, without
distinction or exception, all the ages of man in his quest
to cheat value.
There
hasn't been a person on the planet who hasn't at least thought
of, or been tempted by it. Gambling is one of its most accepted
forms and is legal in all but a handful of countries; and
where it is not legal, the activity, like prostitution, persists
surreptitiously or under the radar. In the computer age, the
religious proscriptions against gambling have been rendered
near obsolete by the proliferation of online gambling platforms.
Twenty five percent of the world's 8 billion gamble at least
once a year. That in 2021 more than 10 million gambling
addicts worldwide sought professional help
speaks to the dark side of cheating value and the heartbreak
and suicides left at the table.
During
the past year, globally, over 700
billion dollars were wagered,
and another 500 billion unofficially -- almost half the value
of the economy of Canada – and those numbers are on
the rise in part because of the declining influence of religion,
the breakdown of the family unit and erosion of family values,
and the growing discontent among the
have-nots vis-à-vis the ever-increasing
wealth of the world.
Many
of our leisure activities are deemed pleasurable because cheating
value is built into them. What is the thrill of non-competitive
downhill skiing if not to cheat value. The reward is the giddiness
or high comes from being able to get from point A to B without
having to expend the normal amount of time and energy to cover
that same distance on a flat plane. The same thrill applies
to ice skating and roller blading and the like.
That
the shortest distance between two points is a straight line
is a geometrical constant that begets the universal entity-artifact
of the 'shortcut.' Cheating the corner, the distance marked
by two vertically intersecting sidewalks, is the well-worn
path that cuts a diagonal through the grass. Shortcuts are
a feature of life everywhere in the world. The student, disinclined
to labour through 1,400 pages of Tolstoy's War and Peace,
happily breezes through 50 pages of Coles Notes. Who hasn't
opted for ordering out instead of preparing a home-cooked
meal? And how much easier is it to launch a cyber war compared
with a conventional one? The former requires a small cadre
of computer tech geniuses, the latter entire divisions of
men and women and an obscene percentage of the wealth of the
nation.
The
mostly outlawed practice of prostitution is one of cheating
value's greatest triumphs. For non-partnered men, frequenting
a sex worker obviates the time-consuming and costly rites
and risks of courtship and seduction that precede conventional
sexual relations. Predicted by the pleasure principle and
measured in dollars and assents, it's a win-win for both buyer
and seller. She earns in half a day what the check-out girl
earns in a week, and the client gets what he wants without
having to put out for concert tickets and a candlelight dinner.
All
the incremental advances in speed we take for granted are
consequent to the delight derived from cheating value: kayaking
is swifter than swimming; biking is faster than walking. Once
a new speed threshold has been reached and becomes the new
normal, the motivation to better it, that is to expend less
time and energy to cover the same distance, results in a chronology,
underwritten by cheating value, that traces the history of
speed.
Many
of our civilizational advances owe their origins to cheating
value. Prior to the invention of the wheelbarrow, in the construction
of a primitive family dwelling, man would call upon his arms,
legs and torso to transport the materials of his future home
and suffered beneath their weight. Implicit in all forms of
suffering is the universal yearning to suffer less. This yearning
to suffer less becomes the necessary condition to the creative
leap that gives birth to the invention of the wheel and then
the wheelbarrow. The fact that man is rewarded by suffering
less (cheating value) assures the technological progress that
marks all the ages of man.
However,
caveat Homo sapiens: there may come a digital age
when man will have so successfully cheated value he will be
able to enjoy a life-long sedentary existence. At which point,
as Marshall McLuhan cautions in Understanding Media
(1964), in respect to technologies that are extensions of
the body, underuse or disuse will set in motion a degenerative
process that must culminate in atrophy or obsolescence. The
hairy ape, now dressed to the nines, has lost most of his
body hair. With the discovery of fire and cooking, rendering
food easier to masticate and digest, human teeth are significantly
smaller than those of his primal predecessors, Neanderthal
and Cro-Magnon.
The
stock market is a direct appeal to cheating value. Once the
first offering of shares has been sold and the company has
all the capital it requires, all subsequent purchases of stock
are forms of gambling. To lend an air of probity and rectitude
to wager culture, the share holder, with an invested interest
in distinguishing himself from the common gambler, peremptorily
identifies himself as an ‘investor’ to couch the
brotherhood that binds all cheats who dream of cheating value.
Until 1937, selling short, placing a wager on the hope that
a company's share value will decrease, was banned. A reminder
that, inculcated morals and ethics notwithstanding, human
nature, despite the suit and tie and certificate of purchase,
is calling the shots.
Lying and dissimulating are often employed to cheat value:
we enhance our accomplishments to make us more attractive
to or admired by others, especially in finance and affairs
of the heart.
Begging
your favour, all forms of begging and bribing are manifestations
of cheating value. Bribing (via gifts, currency, sexual favours)
facilitates obtaining a position or privilege without the
merit. Despite the laws and eruption of anger and outrage
upon its discovery, the persistence of corruption (accepting
bribes) speaks to the incorrigibility of the impulse. Everywhere
in the world there are people begging for sustenance or coin,
or begging for transport (hitchhiking); getting from point
A to B without having to walk the block or pay the way.
If
we can agree that cheating value is for the most part an irreformable
behavioural constant, is it not in our best interest to get
in step with the DNA that underwrites it in order to better
work with it? For all the illegal and degrading activities
attendant to cheating value, the civilizational advances that
every age of man has enjoyed and can’t do without argues
that, however begrudgingly, we should embrace the impulse
and 'beg' that it continue to play a major role in human endeavour
for the indefinite future.
It
is not for nothing that when we successfully cheat value the
brain releases serotonin and dopamine, a sure sign that Homo
sapiens is doing mostly well by it.
