Of give and take and peace on Earth

Opinion editor's note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes a mix of national and local commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

Jean Valjean, the hardened convict in "Les Miserables," has his life profoundly changed by the bishop telling the gendarmes that the silver cutlery Valjean had stolen was a gift, and then giving him two silver candlesticks that the convict had mistakenly left behind.

Things like this happen in real life. Last month my law school class heard the story of a recent graduate of Hennepin County's drug court. A hard-core addict and drug dealer, he had spent 15 years in prison and had pending felonies in multiple counties when he started in drug court. He recalled nothing positive in his entire life. But when he was told that the full drug court team was there to help him, he said that it "softened" him.

He went on to push through the program in only 18 months, without a single setback or sanction. He is now a good family man, an author, and a certified peer recovery counselor.

In my years in Hennepin County drug court and other therapeutic courts, I saw many lives changed by generosity. Generosity has power. In fact, it made civilization possible. Generosity is the tool we all have for counteracting the trends toward coarseness and narrow-mindedness that threaten to engulf us.

In my course on lawyers as peacemakers, we study the elements of human nature developed through natural selection that predispose people to cooperate and help each other. These include kin selection, group loyalty, and empathy. But most important for society is the reciprocity instinct, sometimes called reciprocal altruism.

Our genetic blueprint inclines us to respond in kind to good treatment as well as to bad treatment. We are the descendants of long lines of ancestors who prospered and reproduced because they cooperated with generous people while avoiding exploitation by retaliating against manipulators and free riders.

In his forward to the 1984 breakthrough book "The Evolution of Cooperation," Richard Dawkins, the eminent British evolutionary biologist, says that because of reciprocity, from the "deep selfishness" of natural selection comes something "that is, in effect, if not in intention, close to amicable brotherhood and sisterhood."

I first stumbled onto the power of reciprocity after sitting on the bench for a few years. Unsurprisingly, people in court are often not happy and sometimes get angry. I found out that if I said just one nice thing to a person they would calm down. "Sir, I know this is a difficult and emotional matter, and I appreciate the good job you are doing to explain it to me."

Then I realized that I too had a strong reciprocity impulse. Whenever lawyers told me I had done something dumb, they got a better response if they simply had prefaced their critique with the words, "With all due respect, Your Honor … ."

We all instinctively understand reciprocity. If someone invites us to dinner or gives us a birthday present, we want to return the favor. And no offense by a stranger will spark as much resentment as being double-crossed by someone we have helped.

The reciprocity instinct is so strong that it caused headaches for the high commands of both sides during World War I. Units in the trenches facing each other regularly gravitated to informal arrangements whereby for long periods of time their artillery and snipers would deliberately miss each other's positions.

The reciprocal gift the soldiers could give was faulty aim. The reciprocal gift that Valjean or a drug court participant could give back was to try to lead a good life.

The generosity that triggers reciprocity is not second nature to young lawyers. Their instinct is to bargain — we'll do this, if you do that. But bargaining triggers wariness and self-interested accounting, not reciprocity. A gift must have no strings attached.

So in my class we talk about what gifts of respect or support a judge can give to improve compliance. Or how spouses in a family court case can start a settlement process with an unqualified concession of property or parenting time they know is important to the other party.

Just recently I conducted a sentencing hearing for a woman who, while driving under the influence of alcohol, had hit another car. The other driver's physical injuries were not life-threatening, but she was emotionally traumatized. In an eloquent letter the victim explained that she has been afraid to drive for weeks, causing great difficulty in getting to work and caring for her adult, autistic son and her father with cancer. Then in the last paragraph, she forgave the defendant.

I asked the defendant to read the letter and tell me her reaction. The defendant, who had said little all day, tersely informed me that she understood. But then she turned around to the injured woman and made a tearful apology.

Forgiveness and apology are reciprocal gifts. Each can inspire the other.

The problem with reciprocity, of course, is that it can fuel negative cycles as well as positive ones. Think Hatfields and McCoys, Israelis and Palestinians.

Escaping a negative reciprocity cycle usually means someone has to dig deep into the internal collection of human sentiments for either one of its two most precious jewels: forgiveness (overlooking the other person's misdeeds) or contrition (not overlooking your own). At some point an Anwar Sadat has to go to Israel.

Try a gift, by word or deed, to someone who doesn't expect it. Or even better, to someone who doesn't deserve it (you think). It may not bring peace on earth and goodwill toward men, but it is the surest way to bring out the best in people.

Merry Christmas.

Bruce Peterson is a senior district judge and teaches a class on lawyers as peacemakers at the University of Minnesota Law School.