RETHINKING HOSPITALITY
Diego Gracia
Introduction
What can hospitality mean, here and now, in a secularised world, in which the
Beatitudes no longer seem to move the lives of individuals? Is hospitality merely a relic
from the past without any contemporary meaning, and above all without a future? This is
what I shall try to discuss now.
I. THE TWO ‘DISCOURSES’ ON HOSPITALITY
There are two approaches to hospitality, or as we prefer to put it nowadays, two
‘discourses’.
One is the ‘religious discourse’, specific to the Beatitudes and the works of mercy. “I
was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger
and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I
was in prison and you came to me.” (Mt 25, 35-36). Theology converted this into the
catalogue of the works of mercy that we remember from the Catechism: to feed the
hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to give shelter to the homeless, to
visit the sick, to visit the imprisoned, and to bury the dead.
The other discourse is what we would call secularised. This is found in the works of
certain renowned 20th century philosophers. Their most outstanding representative was
Emmanuel Levinas (Totalité et infini, The Hague, Nijhoff, 1961). This was a very theoretical
and formal account, precisely what Levinas called first ethics or first philosophy, that is to
say, metaphysics. At that level I also finds the works by René Shérer (Zeus Hospitalier; essai
philosophique, Paris, Armand Colin, 1993) all the reconstruction of Ricoeur in “Fallible
Man” (Finitude et culpabilité, Paris, Aubier, 1960), and Derrida (J. Derrida and A.
Dufourmantelle, La hospitalidad, Buenos Aires, Ediciones de la Flor, 2001). This level is
where one finds the books which in Spanish on hospitality, particularly by Daniel
Innerarity, Etica de la hospitalidad: (Barcelona, Península, 2001), and Francesc Torralba,
Sobre la hospitalidad, Extraños y vulnerables como tú (Madrid, PPC, 2003).
This second "discourse" differs from the first because it is more secular, but it also has
the drawback of being excessively formal, abstract and theoretical, making it very difficult
to apply in practice. This is why the theme must be approached from a very different
angle. It is not a matter of studying hospitality as a consequence of the finite and
vulnerable condition of the human being, and hence as a feature which 20th-century
metaphysics, following existentialism and Heidegger’s "being for dying" logically
emphasised, but as a value to be borne in mind when taking decisions and improving
quality. My object here, then, is not philosophy but rather practical philosophy.
My thesis is that in a secularised and plural world, the language must be changed as
must the mentality. It hospitality is to continue to be a matter of interest to all it must
continue to be important, not as a "work of mercy" as we are told in the catechism, and
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not even as the expression of "Christian Charity" or as a "work of charity", for this would
only make sense to Christians, but not to everyone. If we believe that hospitality is
important in itself, even in a secular world, or above all in a secular world, we must
interpret it in terms of new categories: new practical categories. What I am trying to say is
that we cannot merely discuss it in purely theoretical terms, of the vulnerability and the
fallibility of human existence, and the need to be to be accepted, which we all feel,
however important this is. It is necessary to find a more practical approach.
My thesis is that Hospitality is a "value" and must be viewed as such. And this leads
me to talk about values, and how hospitality must be viewed precisely as a value.
II. HOSPITALITY AS A VALUE, AND UNDERSTANDING IT
The language of values has one advantage above others, in that it is universal. All
human beings place values on things, necessarily. We cannot see anything without
judging its value, whether positive or negative. All values therefore have a language which
is very specific to a secular and plural society. We merely need to see how it is that all
countries are now introducing subjects regarding "education in values" into the middle
school curricula.
One frequently hears that values are subjective and that therefore it is impossible to
agree on what values are. There are therefore different artistic tastes, and it is commonly
said that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. The problem with values is that they are
erratic and it is difficult to discuss them in a rational manner.
But analysed in depth, one sees that much of this is prejudice. Firstly, there are many
values, perhaps the most important ones, on which all human beings agree. Today, there
is no-one who would think that injustice is a positive value or that justice is a negative
value. And what is said about the value of justice also applies to peace, solidarity, love,
good health, life, well-being, etc etc. All of us think of or imagine a well-ordered world in
which all human beings can live decently and fulfil themselves. This world is called
different things in different traditions. For the Christians it is the "kingdom of God", in the
ethics of Kant it is "the Kingdom of Ends" and for the Marxists "the paradise of the
proletariat", and so on. But all of them agree that this world will fully attain certain values
which appear to us to be inalienable. The preface to the Feast of Christ the King says that
the Kingdom of God is "a Kingdom of truth and life, a Kingdom of holiness and grace, a
Kingdom of justice, love, and peace”. All these are values, and some of them, such as
truth, life, justice, love and peace, are obviously universal values.
We ought to ask ourselves whether the other two – holiness and grace – are universal
or not. In my opinion, they are, provided that they are properly understood. The
experience of the gift or grace, in the sense of being the experience of what is given to us
without any merit on our part, is universal, and in this experience lies the origin of all
religiosity. And precisely because existence, life and so many other things that we received
as gifts move us to gratitude or thanks to the origin or the source of those gifts, that they
acquire the status of being "sacrosanct" or "sacred".
Is hospitality a value? Obviously it is. But more than as an act of mercy or an act of
charity, we should view hospitality as a value, something which has had value in itself.
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Hospitality is a value "in itself". This means that it has an "intrinsic value". The same
applies to justice and peace. We cannot conceive of a well-ordered human society unless
there is peace, or justice, or solidarity, or one in which human beings help one another in
times of need. Without this, a society becomes inhuman.
Not all values are, however, intrinsic. There are some which we call "instrumental".
These have a value, but only by reference to other intrinsic values. A drug has a value in
so far as it is at the service of another value, such as health or life. If it does not improve
my health or preserve my life, we would say that it is “worthless” – "it has no value”. This
means that instrumental values must be at the service of intrinsic values, and it is the
intrinsic values which establish the ends of human life.
It is important to understand the world of "values", because this is where one
acquires the meaning of another world – the world of "duties", the specific world of ethics.
The reason for this is that our moral obligation is always the same – to realise values, to
promote the realisation of positive values, and prevent or avoid the realisation of negative
values. Since peace is never fully established, our duty consists of bringing peace etc... The
same refers to hospitality. Hospitality is not only a value, but also a duty, and is therefore
a moral commitment to us. And since there is a great variability in the religious beliefs of
individuals, it is nevertheless a fact that everyone agrees that they have moral duties, and
that they are subject to a moral code. This is another point on which one can find
agreement in the plural world.
Value judgments are personal and intimate acts by human beings. But since values
are the origin of our duties, and duties always consist of doing, or not doing, something,
value eventually take shape through our acts. From being purely subjective, they are
subsequently objectivised, to form part of the world. When Velásquez painted the picture
of The Spinners, he began by imagining the beauty of this picture from within, and then
set about painting it, such that the beauty was fashioned in it, and became objectivised in
it. This means that values eventually move beyond the individual and become objectivised
in society.
The deposit of intrinsic values of a society is what we call "culture", and all the
instrumental values make up what we call "civilisation". We live in a society which is more
civilised than ever before because we have more technical means than ever existed before
(such as mobile telephony, and so on), but it is not so clear whether our society is the
most "cultured" in our history. Heidegger theorised that after the 18th century, Western
society, opted for instrumental values to the detriment of intrinsic values. Hence not only
the religious, but also ethical, importance of fostering intrinsic values in our world. And
one of these is hospitality.
III. THE VALUE AND PROMOTION OF HOSPITALITY
At these heights it is likely that we are convinced of the importance of hospitality as a
value not only from the point of view of religion but also from a purely secular point of
view, and therefore in a strictly ethical sense. The problem is how to foster hospitality.
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The problems of fostering and promoting hospitality are identical to those of
fostering and promoting any other intrinsic value. Throughout history, attempts have
been made to promote and foster values and using three different strategies or tactics:
The most traditional one has been the tactic of "indoctrination". This is the one that
used to be employed when teaching catechism. It involves transmitting the value of
several generations to other generations, of the older generation to the younger
generation, in order that the deposit of values is not lost. Life is like a relay race, in which
some pass on the baton to others. It is not a matter of understanding or even discussing
the substance of the deposit of values, but of obediently accepting them, whether or not
we understand them. This is not the best way of educating adults in values. It may be
useful in very early stages of life, but it is not possible to treat human adults like children,
and neither should they be asked to accept teachings purely on the basis of authority, or
by requiring them to blindly obey. Unfortunately this has been the most common way of
educating people in values, particularly in religious environments.
In the past few centuries, faced with the secularisation of life and the phenomenon of
pluralism, another tactic has become widespread: in order to prevent indoctrination,
education in values has been reduced to a mere system of providing "information" about
values, avoiding any kind of critical judgement, or opting one way or the other. The
prevalent position today is the axiological "neutrality" of the teacher. Once the
information is known, adult and autonomous individuals will judge for themselves the
values at issue and will decide for themselves which way to opt. In contrast to the
"belligerence" of the first tactic, here there is the most total "neutrality". Education is
merely a matter of informing, retaining total neutrality on the part of the informer.
My thesis is that neither of these two tactics is correct. Values cannot be imposed, but
neither may we ignore them. If not completely rational, values need to be "reasonable",
and therefore all values have to be "deliberated" both individually and collectively. Hence
the third attitude, the "deliberative" approach, which does not impose anything, but is not
neutral. As I see it, this is the only attitude with a real future, even though it is the most
complex. Educating people, sing this new approach or attitude, is one of the most serious
and urgent questions at the present time. Education in values is very complex because it
has to do with the deepest and the primary dimension of every human being. The
objectives of any training or formation process are, or maybe, of three types:
Relating to knowledge: these are the easiest to address, and to train people in,
because, among other things, the human nervous system can continue to acquire new
knowledge until quite advanced age.
Relating to skills: skills differ from knowledge because they are not theoretical but
practical. These cannot be acquired by studying, but by practising. Knowing the Highway
Code does not mean that you can drive a car! The flexibility of the nervous system for
acquiring new skills is very soon lost. Nobody who learns to drive when they are adults
becomes a good driver etc.
Relating to attitudes or character traits: these are deeper. Basic attitudes are acquired
very early on in life and remain indelible throughout it. This makes them very difficult
change. On the other hand, these attitudes are not acquired deliberately, consciously, but
by imitating other models with which one lives or sees. The primary transmission of values
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is unconscious, purely imitating the conduct of the older people with which children mix,
love and who they admire.
The problem of values is that they have to do not only with the first level, that is to
say the level of knowledge, but also the second level of practical skills, and above all with
the third level of attitudes and character. Hence the need to educate children in values
from their earliest years.
In adults, basic attitudes and character traits cannot be changed directly, but only
through knowledge and skills, and this is where the "deliberation procedure comes into
play. Values cannot be properly managed in adults except by "deliberating". This is why
this has to be the method used to provide education in values, and in our case the value
of hospitality.
Deliberation is an intellectual procedure, a rational process, which enables us to
become aware of the values we take on unconsciously in our childhood and youth, and
reaffirm them or rectify them and, at all events, to critically analyse them and
autonomously and responsibly adopt them.
IV. HOW SHOULD WE THINK AND SPEAK ABOUT THE VALUE OF HOSPITALITY TODAY?
Let us now move from theory to practice. How should we promote Hospitality today?
How can we hand on this message? How should we talk about it?
The first problem is linguistic – the word "hospitality" itself, which sounds strange to
many people today, and even causes some to reject it. We should not forget that the term
"hospitality" comes from the Latin word hospes, a pilgrim, and that used in this way it fits
beautifully into very specific real-life contexts, for example on the pilgrimage to Santiago
de Compostela, where there are centres or places where people are welcomed in and
shown hospitality. But in the secular world, whether you talk about pilgrimages or
hospitality, both of these terms sound strange precisely because they have such powerful
religious overtones. To this should be added the fact that Hospitality has been seen
hitherto as a kind of "work of charity", something that is viewed extremely negatively by
most of society, considering that many of these obligations have nothing to do with
charity at all, but justice.
However, what has happened to the word "hospitality" has not happened with the
word "hospital". This was secularised in the 16th century and since the 18th century it has
become a secular, civil term, which carries no negative overtones. It has completely lost its
original sense, but has taken on a new one altogether. But this, at least so far, has not
happened with the word ‘hospitality’.
But it is not enough to stop seeing hospitality as a work of charity, and it has to be
seen as a value. We must also see whether it might not be better to call this value, at least
in our dialogue with the secular world, by a different name, with fewer overtones.
I believe that we should, and that the value of hospitality must become identified
with the value of promoting quality and excellence in the world of health care, and more
specifically psychiatric care. Hospitality must become synonymous with total quality or
excellence, in both technical and human terms. And promoting and fostering this value
can perhaps be done beneficially, reversing onto it all we know about promoting quality
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care and excellence, in both professional and human terms, in the Congregation's
institutions.
I am well aware that this is what the Congregation has been doing in its centres from
its beginnings, more than a century ago. And that is why I am saying that it cannot sound
new. The only novelty might be to realise clearly that if we want to make this message
fruitful in the secularised world in which we are living, we have to be capable of
translating it into secular terms, as well. And in my opinion, these terms have to show
hospitality as a value, first and foremost, making it coincide in practice with the fostering
of total quality and excellence, in technical and human terms.
Conclusion
The fact is that hospitality is not only a Christian value but also a human value, of
which our plural and secularised society is in great need, perhaps more than ever before
in history. This is a fine challenge to us, especially for those who have made hospitality the
main purpose of their lives.
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