A citação completa (de Estranho em uma Terra Estranha , Parte II Sua Herança Anti-Posse , Cap. 1),
“Sit back down—and for God’s sake quit trying to be as nasty as I am; you don’t have my years of practice. Now let me get something straight: you are not in my debt. You can’t be. Impossible—because I never do anything I don’t want to do. Nor does anyone, but in my case I am always aware of it. So please don’t invent a debt that does not exist, or before you know it you will be trying to feel gratitude—and that is the treacherous first step downward to complete moral degradation. You grok that? Or don’t you?”
Jill bit her lip, then grinned. “I’m not sure I know what ‘grok’ means.”
“Nor do I. But I intend to go on taking lessons from Mike until I do. But I was speaking dead seriously. ‘Gratitude’ is a euphemism for resentment. Resentment from most people I do not mind—but from pretty little girls it is distasteful to me.”
“Why, Jubal, I don’t resent you—that’s silly.”
“I hope you don’t… but you certainly will if you don’t root out of your mind this delusion that you are indebted to me. The Japanese have five different ways to say ‘thank you’—and every one of them translates literally as resentment, in various degrees. Would that English had the same built-in honesty on this point! Instead, English is capable of defining sentiments that the human nervous system is quite incapable of experiencing. ‘Gratitude,’ for example.”
“Jubal, you’re a cynical old man. I do feel grateful to you and I shall go on feeling grateful.”
“And you are a sentimental young girl. That makes us a perfect complementary pair. Hmm… let’s run over to Atlantic City for a weekend of illicit debauchery, just us two.”
“Why, Jubal!”
“You see how deep your gratitude goes when I attempt to draw on it?”
“Oh. I’m ready. How soon do we leave?”
“Hummph! We should have left forty years ago...
Ao lê-lo, não é gratidão per se que ele não gosta, é o senso de endividamento que geralmente acompanha. Para colocar de outra forma, se eu fizer algo de bom para alguém, a última coisa que quero é que eles sintam que têm que me pagar de volta, que eles me devem. É a diferença entre um presente e um empréstimo. E embora a parte sobre o japonês seja provavelmente errada (eu não falo essa língua e não posso julgar), o inglês não tem uma boa maneira de diferenciar entre puro altruísmo e algo dado com uma expectativa de retorno. Famílias e amizades foram dilaceradas por mal-entendidos sobre este ponto. Nesta passagem, Jubal está esclarecendo seu contrato social para evitar qualquer mal-entendido entre eles. Neste ponto da história eles não se conhecem muito bem, então é importante definir as regras básicas para o relacionamento deles.