Problems with Hospitality

[chironcentaur]

I've attempted a few times to write my essay on hospitality, it never gets very far before I have to tear it up and start over again. I have some problem with this virtue, and I just haven't been able to put my finger on exactly what it is.

Part of it, I know, is the way so many people seem to tie hospitatlity together with formality, and I

Comments

[brit0martis]

I have a few ideas on this and this is my take on the concept of "hospitality" It has a lot to do with Irish and Scottish tradition and the old tradition of hospitality in that manner was very much alive where I grew up.
First, in my opinion, it has nothing really to do with formality. It has everything to do with looking out for your neighbors and the community. There was once a tradition in Ireland that if a traveler knocked on your door, you were obliged to feed him at least one meal and give him/her shelter for the night. Mind you, that may be a night in the barn and with leftover slop for dinner, but that would save a person's life in a cold winter's night. Conversely, this could also be used against you. If you had a quarrel with someone lower in social status, and he knocked on your door demanding "hospitality", refusal would be deemed unseemly no matter how much you hated the person or how much higher you were than he. That very same person could protest by camping out at your door until you relented.
In the south, it is customary to bring food to those who have suffered misfortune. Whether that be a death in the family, or injury or disaster, such as a house burning down etc. Formality doesn't really enter into it. It is not really charity so much as doing what you would wish be done to you should you be in such a situation.

[chironcentaur]

I see this angle as well, and my problem does go beyond how distasteful I find formality to be. Much of it has to do with the distance I feel toward the community at large and the very bad experiences I've had with the way the tight knit village occasionally treats strangers, even if that stranger is just a girl living among them that doesn't live up to their self imposed standards of normal.

I understand its importance as a community value, I really do. Because I recognized that most people in this world, for whatever reason, need to belong to a community in order to thrive, they have to have that sense of structure and stability. But at the same time I am not one of those people, and so the social bonding aspects of hospitality will not mean much to me, or at least will not mean the same thing. And while I don't intend to entirely ignore the more commonly held views on hospitality, I feel it important to include a bit of my own perspective as well. And considering I've just now managed to find a small group of people who are not entirely hostile to me, I'm still trying to work things out.

Thank you for your input.