Response to questions:

I want to say: risk has the potential to _put us into touch_ with what we most value. Setting the world of financial risk aside for the moment, consider the athlete who free-climbs the rock-face of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. Why does he risk his life so completely? Precisely, I think, so that he might come to realize (in a moment of fear as he hangs for dear life over the abyss) what is most fundamental, what is precious beyond measure: "I am alive...And now, yes, I desperately _want_ to keep living...something which I didn't realize I wanted." The one who has forgotten the value of his life--he who loses touch with his own pulse--will hazard dying precisely in order to make audible his heartbeat as it thunders now louder than ever before.

It is impossible to risk what we don't value. Such an act is not _truly_ a risk, but a game, a charade whose wagers were never real ones to begin with, for that which hangs in the balance of a mere game in truth weighs nothing at all: what is risked here never existed in the first place. It is Monopoly money.

I think, then, that we take risks in order to determine what we value. Here I come to answer YES to the inquisitor's second question.

I'm thinking for a moment of Genesis 3:1, of the originary temptation made by the serpent. Adam and Even took this risk and then afterward (after LOSING this wager) understood the concept of value. Value did not exist beforehand. Value opens up in the face of losing what is valued. Eden (that absolute value) becomes recognized for itself, as Eden, only in the instance of its having been lost.

To say something of economics: The common stock broker, who calculates risk for a living, isn't really risking anything. It's not his money.

On the other hand: the gambler, who puts EVERYTHING of his own on the line for a single spin of the wheel. Why does he do so? What does he gain by this experience, the experience of that sublime split moment when the dice are there spinning in the air?

Walter Benjamin: "The fascination of danger is at the bottom of all great passions. There is no fullness of pleasure unless the precipice is near. It is the mingling of terror with delight that intoxicates. And what more terrifying than gambling? It gives and takes away; its logic is not our logic. It is dumb and blind and deaf. It is almighty. It is a God..." (Arcades Project, p. 498).

But the gambler who is using someone else's money does not and cannot approach this precipice.

Actually I haven't seen OR read The Luzhin Defense. So I can only say in response to the final question: chess is a game. When I risk the loss of my queen I am not myself this queen that is risked. Thus the risk is not real (unless I've staked my whole life upon winning this match).

The analogy here would be with politics, in which the chess player is akin to our contemporary commander-in-chief, who conducts a war in which the lives risked are not HIS own (neither are they the lives of his children: how many members of Congress have children enlisted?). The REAL risks taking place are obvious. Many soldiers, I understand, have realized the value of their lives only in the instance of their having been put at risk. If George Bush were on the front lines, like an old fashioned general, then the example would be slightly different. Then perhaps we could speak of risk.

Do we risk what we do value, in hopes of getting more of the same, or do we risk what we don't value, in hopes of getting something different?

Or does what we risk retroactively determine what we value - which comes first?

What is it about people who calculate risk for a living, that makes them seem of so little value?

What was the big deal with usury?

Do people who have perfectly symmetrical and well proportioned features ever really risk anything?

What is your credit rating?

When is prayer something more than trying to lock in a good deal?

Can you play to lose?

Have you ever seen (or read) The Luzhin Defense? Where besides chess does luzhin turn in to winnin'?

What we risk reveals what we value.

An adage.
An axiom.
A belief.
A lie.
A maxim.
A principle.
A proverb.
A truism.

I’m not sure what this is. But it stirs me and so I begin this conversation to consider it. Seven-point-two is then, at least for starters (since I’m starting this page), an affective project.

I think the basic meaning of the phrase – its pshat, to borrow a term from the quadripartite scheme of rabbinic exegesis – is that there is no life where there is no vulnerability. We have to put skin in the game in order for it to have real worth.

When there’s nothing of value at stake, there is not only no possibility of loss, but there is also no play. Sport is the simple example. If you don’t care who wins or loses, watching is academic. If you don’t play to win, there is no possibility of losing any pride, of any loss at all. Love is the more challenging one. We can love only when we risk losing that love. We can be loved only when we risk being hurt by it.

But something about the phrase chafes me. This is partly because it seems so very true that some things are valuable to us precisely because we’re not willing to ante them up to life’s gamble.

On another register: when loss and play get spoken together, when risk and value get spoken together, there is Revelation. And of course, every Revelation is also a Concealment. It may not be clear when we are engaged in risky business.

What we risk reveals what we value.

Start here.