1

Hospitality as a Way to Promote Societal Harmony

Peter Jonkers (Tilburg University, the Netherlands)

1. Introduction

As we can read or see in the media, many contemporary societies are going through
a period of intensifying conflicts over all kinds of socio-cultural issues, sometimes
even leading to so-called culture-wars. Especially in Western societies, societal
harmony seems to be fading away to such an extent that different cultural, religious
or ethnic groups have almost become incapable to communicate sensibly with each
other. In order to illustrate this, let me give a recent example of a socio-cultural
conflict from my own country, the Netherlands. It is about the festival of Saint
Nicholas or, in Dutch, Sinterklaas, celebrated on the fifth of December. Although it
has been for centuries the country’s most important children’s holiday, 1 unifying all
people around the country, Sinterklaas has since a few years turned into an annual
slugfest over cultural differences. “The problem is the figure of Zwarte Piet, an impish
clown with a black face who accompanies the bearded St Nicholas on his rounds,
distributing presents and biscuits. The character is derived from 17th-century
paintings of Moorish slaves, and many Dutch with African ancestry find it offensive.
Most white Dutch fail to see the problem, and react angrily to accusations that their
tradition is racist. The conflict plays out in the media, the schools, the courts and at
Sinterklaas parades around the country. And it has fed into culture wars between
Dutch liberals and anti-immigration populists. […] All of this grumpiness highlights the
difficulty centrist politicians are in. They find it impossible to address their non-white
constituents’ complaints over racism without angering Dutch whites who do not
consider themselves racist.”2 At first sight, this controversy, just like many other ones
over socio-cultural issues, seems like ‘much ado about nothing’, but upon closer
inspection, it manifests that societal harmony is fading. What is more, this is not only
happening in the Netherlands, but also in many other Western societies.
1
See e.g. the painting from 1665 by the Dutch painter Jan Steen, The Feast of Saint Nicholas
(Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
2
The Economist, December 6, 2014.
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What this example and many other, similar ones show is that many of today’s
societal conflicts are not primarily about economic issues, like the unequal
distribution of wealth, but about socio-cultural ones. What also becomes manifest is
that socio-cultural identity has become much more fragmented since the last
decades, running along linguistic, ethnic, religious, and ethical lines, thus
jeopardizing societal harmony. But the most surprising conclusion from this evolution
is that it runs counter to one of the most important predictions of the modernization
theory, namely the emergence and diffusion of an ethos of individualism and
instrumentalism, a procedural, rational, universalist ethics, as well as the fading away
of all kinds of social discrimination. The expected result was a society, in which
cultural differences would have become irrelevant, since it would be based on the
universal principles of justice and equality, as well as individual freedom and self-
determination. Instead, we see that socio-cultural identity still matters a lot to people
as an expression of who they are and what they stand for. Moreover, they are
prepared to defend their identity against others, not so much because it would be
better, but simply because it is theirs. In sum, the ongoing socio-cultural
fragmentation and substantial societal changes in combination with people’s
enduring socio-cultural attachments offers an indication why Western societies have
become far less harmonious over the last decades.
Against this background, I will give in the next section a philosophical account
of the reasons why today’s societies have become much more conflictual in a socio-
cultural respect. In the section thereafter, two philosophical proposals to promote
societal harmony in order to at least reduce the intensity of these conflicts will be
discussed.
At the start of this paper, it is important to make a distinction between societal
harmony and societal homogenization. Given the fact that all societies, not only in the
West, are plural in many respects and will remain so for the foreseeable future, we
should be cautious not to interpret the legitimate call for more societal harmony or at
least an end to culture wars as a license for the cultural majority to impose societal
homogeneity, thereby annihilating existing socio-cultural differences. The very idea of
harmony does not ex-, but rather include differences, and manages to unify them in
such a way, that these differences are still present, but also contribute to giving the
whole an organic richness and flexibility. In other words, true harmony should be
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polyphonic, and this idea serves for me as the litmus test for the kind of societal
harmony that deserves to be promoted.

2. A philosophical explanation of socio-cultural conflicts

The term socio-cultural identity covers a wide range of things and activities that
people care about, like day-to-day individual habits, language, implicit and explicit
norms of social interaction, (religious or secular) traditions and practices, substantial
ethical values etc. The basic reason for our attachment to all these socio-cultural
elements is that they form a general horizon of meaning, against which we define
who we are and where we belong. This shows that it is an illusion to think that we
could determine our identity autonomously, since it is as much a product of socio-
cultural interaction with significant others. One of the clearest examples of the social
character of our identity is that we express the most intimate elements of ourselves in
a common language; our earliest personal memories are bound up in the lives of
others – in our family, school, or city.3 In sum, socio-cultural horizons of meaning are
an important factor in the fabric of today’s societies. 4
Yet at the same time, it is also clear that socio-cultural identity has lost its self-
evidence, stability, and binding character, and this situation of cultural fragmentation
has led to some problematic, yet understandable responses to the question who we
are and where we belong. Generally speaking, these answers consist in defining
one’s socio-cultural identity in a rigid and exclusive way, thus building a wall between
different societal groups. Again, the controversy over the Sinterklaas festival is a
case in point: a number of people exploit it to define a traditional, but contingent
aspect of Dutch cultural identity in an atemporal and rigid way, thereby taking its
racist connotation for granted; moreover, in their view only the native Dutch are
entitled to raise their voice in this debate. In sum, as soon as people feel that their
socio-cultural identity has lost its self-evidence and stability, they tend to hold on to it
all the stronger, and react in a fiercely negative way against ‘the threat of the other’.
Yet it goes without saying that, when socio-cultural self-identification is practiced in

3
(Ricoeur 2011 81f.).
4
K. Anthony Appiah, “Identity, Authenticity, Survival. Multicultural societies and social reproduction,” in
Multiculturalism. Examining the Politics of Recognition, ed. Amy Gutmann (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1994).
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this way, the legitimate plea for more societal harmony indeed turns into imposing a
cultural homogenization that is eventually self-destructive.
A first explanation for the decrease of societal harmony in Western societies is
that there are profound rifts when it comes to the constitutive goods, and hence the
moral sources, which underpin the universal moral standards of modernity. 5 As such,
this rift is nothing new, but it shows that the goal modernization process, namely to
supersede these rifts by making them subordinate to a procedural, rational, universal
ethics, has not at all resulted in societal harmony.
A second factor is the fact that people show their individual socio-cultural
identities far more explicitly than before. As Charles Taylor has shown, this
phenomenon is a result of the culture of expressive individualism, which means that
each of us has her own, individual way of realizing her humanity and to live that out,
as against surrendering to conformity with a model imposed on us from outside, by
society, or the previous generation, or by a religious or political authority. 6 Expressive
individuals strive for an intimate contact with their deeper (emotional) selves, and
prefer listening to their inner voice and express it through their whole way of life,
instead of following existing socio-cultural patterns.
A final explanation of the decrease of societal harmony is that socio-cultural
identities are no longer seen as derived from an eternal natural law, the
unchangeable will of God, or from a fixed hierarchical social order. Rather, societal
identity has become the outcome of a complex process of social recognition, which
makes it dependent on a lot of contingencies.7 Moreover, recognition not only
concerns who we are as persons, irrespective of our individual differences, but also
our specific, socio-cultural identity. That is to say, as a consequence of the ethics of
authenticity, the principle of recognition has been modified and intensified by the
growing importance of individual identity, one that is particular to me, and which I
discover in myself.8 In the course of modernity, there has been a development from
the equal and universal recognition of human dignity to the striving for recognition of
socio-cultural differences. Obviously, the recognition of differences has made
contemporary societies much less harmonious. Moreover, because some of these

5
Taylor, Sources of the Self, 495.
6
(Taylor 1989, 374-381); (Taylor 1994, 30f.); (Taylor 2007, 475).
7
See (Taylor 1994, 25-27, 31f., 34f.).
8
(Taylor 1994, 28).
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differences are deemed as more important or socially relevant than others, the
striving for recognition has become more conflictual.
The above leads to the following conclusions. First, the hope that the spread
of modernization would make people’s attachment to specific socio-cultural identities
superfluous has not come true; on the contrary, people are stronger attached to them
in times of growing pluralism and cultural fragility. Second, the hope that the rise of
multiculturalism would diminish the conflictual potential of socio-cultural differences
has not come true either. On the contrary, the ethics of authenticity, combined with
the growing importance of the recognition of socio-cultural differences have
increased the number of potential conflicts in today’s societies.

3. Hospitality as a way to promote societal harmony

Given the complexity of the question of promoting societal harmony my response can
only be patchy; in particular, it will be confined to a discussion of some ideas of
Charles Taylor and Paul Ricoeur.
For Taylor, a necessary condition for true societal harmony consists in viewing
the socio-cultural other as much as possible from her own perspective, so that one
avoids reducing her to an earlier or deficient stage of our own culture. In order to
realize this, one has “to move in a broader horizon, within which what we have
formerly taken for granted as the background to valuation can be situated as one
possibility alongside the different background of the formerly unfamiliar culture. [This
enables us to develop] new vocabularies of comparison, by means of which we can
articulate these contrasts. So that if and when we ultimately find substantive support
for our initial presumption, it is on the basis of an understanding of what constitutes
worth that we couldn’t possibly have had at the beginning. We have reached the
judgement partly through transforming our standards.” 9
Taylor suggests Gadamer’s fusion of (cultural) horizons as a model how this
broadening and transformation can be brought about in order to promote societal
harmony. Obviously, this is a mutual process, in which in principle all individuals and
communities are involved. The question then arises how the communication between
people or communities with different socio-cultural identities or horizons of meaning
takes place. According to Taylor, “the ‘horizons’ here are at first distinct, they are the
9
(Taylor 1994, 67).
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way that each has of understanding the human condition in their non-identity. The
‘fusion’ comes about when one (or both) undergo a shift; the horizon is extended so
as to make room for the object that before did not fit within it.” 10 So, what is needed in
order to promote societal harmony is the shift to a ‘richer language’, in which all
parties involved can agree to talk undistortively of each other. The crucial factor here
is that we allow ourselves to be interpellated by the other, and refrain from
categorizing ‘difference’ as an ‘error’, a ‘fault’ or a ‘lesser, undeveloped version’. In
other words, our task is to be willing to transform our socio-cultural identity as a result
of the interpellations and challenges by the other. Taylor recognizes that this
transformation implies a painful ‘identity cost’ and that the other may confront us with
disconcerting views of what human fulfillment means. This threat of identity-loss
explains why people may react to this challenge with an unreflected defense of their
own, familiar identity and fence themselves off as much as possible from the cultural
other. Yet, Taylor is convinced that, eventually, his approach fosters societal
harmony while avoiding that it would degenerate into a societal homogeneity, which
would annihilate the irreducible otherness of the other. 11
I agree with Taylor that broadening our socio-cultural horizon and transforming
our common standards for judging the other are vital conditions for societal harmony.
I also appreciate that, through his plea for a mutual transformation, he does not fall
into the trap of reducing societal harmony to cultural homogenization. Yet, I am afraid
that his idea of a fusion of horizons as a model to realize societal harmony is overly
optimistic. Such a fusion is only feasible in a small and relatively homogeneous
society, in which cultural differences are not too big, and in which the different
societal groups know each other well, are in good faith, familiar with each other’s
cultural sensitivities, and willing to respect them. Only then, the participants will feel
secure enough to let their cultural identity be interpellated by the other. If these
conditions are not fulfilled, which happens quite often, the cultural other does not
challenge or interpellate my socio-cultural identity anymore, since there are too few
shared reference points and sometimes even a common language is lacking.

In comparison to Taylor’s suggestion that we can foster societal harmony through a

fusion of cultural horizons, Ricoeur’s ideas are far more modest. 12 In one of his later
10
(Taylor 2011, 30).
11
(Taylor 2011, 36f.).
12
I discussed Ricoeur’s ideas about cultural hospitality in more detail in: (Jonkers 2018, 12-18).
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works, he examines the problems and opportunities of translation from one language
into another, and expands it to those of understanding the (cultural) other. This is a
legitimate move, since the opportunities and threats are quite similar in both
situations.13 Just like Taylor, Ricoeur situates the opportunities of understanding the
cultural other in the broadening of our horizon and the transforming of our usual
standards of judgement. Yet, in contrast to Taylor, Ricoeur recognizes that a fusion
of horizons is seriously hampered because of the unbridgeable gap, which separates
different languages. There are only individual languages, not a universal language
that could serve as an original mother tongue for everyone; in other words, we live in
a world ‘after Babel’. This insight holds also true for socio-cultural identities: they are,
just like languages, fundamentally heterogeneous symbolic systems. Hence, even in
a more principled way than Taylor, Ricoeur is aware of the great danger of
homogenization, be it linguistic or cultural, in other words of reducing the otherness
of the other to a variant of oneself.
In order to make communication possible in a world after Babel, translation is
crucial, since we have no immediate access to the linguistic other. This is not only
true for translation in a narrow sense, but also for translation in a broad sense, i.e.
when we want to understand the cultural other, since we have no immediate access
to her either, even if she speaks the same language as we. In other words, in a world
after Babel, to understand is to translate.14 Yet in spite of these difficulties, the
opportunities of translation are much greater; translation enables us to avoid the
bitter fate of self-enclosure in a monologue and solipsism. Last but not least,
translation is not only necessary for the understanding of the other, but also for
understanding ourselves, since what is our own has to be learned just as much as
what is foreign.15 Therefore, also when we want to understand our own language and
ourselves we have to take the detour of (the language) of the other.
Ricoeur summarizes these opportunities with the catchword ‘linguistic
hospitality’: it carries the double duty “to expropriate oneself from oneself as one
appropriates the other to oneself.”16 Expropriating ourselves from ourselves implies
that we give up our longing for linguistic self-sufficiency and the illusion of a perfect

13
See: (Ricoeur 2006). For an excellent introduction to Ricoeur’s philosophy of translation see:
(Kearney 2007, 147-159).
14
(Ricoeur 2006, 24).
15
(Ricoeur 2006, 29).
16
(Ricoeur 2006, 10); Kearney 2007, 150f.).
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translation and a fusion of linguistic horizons. Yet translation also offers an

opportunity: by appropriating the foreign language to ourselves we become aware of
the specific expressive possibilities and idiosyncrasies of our native language as well
as those of the foreign language. This multifaceted learning process explains why the
desire to translate goes beyond constraint and utility. Against this background,
Ricoeur’s call for linguistic hospitality highlights the opportunities of a process, “where
the pleasure of dwelling in the other’s language is balanced by the pleasure of
receiving the foreign word at home, in one’s own welcoming house.” 17
What can we learn from Ricoeur’s theory of translation for the promotion of
societal harmony? First of all, we have to acknowledge that the dissemination of
socio-cultural identities and horizons of meaning is just as much part of the human
condition as linguistic dissemination. Our deeply embedded longing for self-
sufficiency explains our resistance against this dissemination and our opposition
against expropriation of our socio-cultural identity. This longing also explains why
socio-cultural pluralism can so easily become conflictual, and why the confrontation
with the cultural other is often experienced as a threat to our socio-cultural identity.
Yet, this longing for a stable and homogeneous identity is just as illusionary as the
longing for an absolute, pre-babylonic linguistic homogeneity. Instead, we have to
accept that socio-cultural pluralism is a reality that is just as fundamental as linguistic
heterogeneity. This implies that there always will be something incomprehensible in
the culture and values of the other, just like there will always be something
untranslatable. The same holds true, paradoxically, for the understanding of our own
culture, as human beings are never fully transparent to themselves.
However, just like learning other languages expands our linguistic horizon,
understanding the socio-cultural other is not necessarily conflictual, but also offers
unexpected opportunities. They consist in an enhanced awareness of the specific
characteristics of our own and the other’s socio-cultural identities, thus preventing the
deadlock of self-enclosure. In an even stronger way than Taylor, Ricoeur highlights
how vital it is for us to expand our value-horizon, so that we can learn from other
value-systems. Moreover, in this learning-process we also discover our own socio-
cultural identity through that of the other. The term cultural hospitality aptly expresses
this attitude. It symbolizes the respect for the otherness of the cultural other, her

17
(Ricoeur 2006, 10; see also 26-9).
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irreducible strangeness to me, while at the same time acknowledging the

opportunities that a dialogue about diverging identities offers.

5. Conclusion

This paper has first of all made clear that, due to various recent societal
developments, socio-cultural identities have become far more fluid and diverse,
although this does not at all mean that people would be less attached to them. On
the contrary, many people express these attachments far more explicitly than before,
and strive for a public recognition of their specific socio-cultural identity. However,
greater divergence in these identities, in combination with a culture of expressive
individualism and the recognition of socio-cultural differences have jeopardized
socio-cultural harmony, as the controversy over Sinterklaas in the Netherlands
clearly shows.
Against this background, the question is how to promote societal harmony.
Answering this question is all the more tricky, since the plea for societal harmony in a
situation of socio-cultural heterogeneity runs the risk of reductionism, in particular of
reducing harmony to homogeneity, that is the annihilation of all socio-cultural
differences. However, the combined answers of Taylor and Ricoeur have shown that
other, more promising responses to this question can be given. Of course, the
confrontation with the socio-cultural other implies that we have to give up the idea of
an immediate, fixed and self-enclosed identity, or to put it sharper, the illusion of a
homogeneous society, in which we could lead a socio-culturally undisturbed life. Yet,
acknowledging this reality enables us at the same time to recognize that other
cultures offer alternative and, in principle, equally worthwhile views of what truly
fulfilling human life means. In order to appreciate the socio-cultural other we need to
be prepared to broaden our horizon and transform our common standards of
judgement. Realizing such a shift through a fusion of horizons, as Taylor argues,
seems only possible under very specific conditions, which are typically not fulfilled in
a situation of substantial socio-cultural heterogeneity. In comparison to Taylor,
Ricoeur’s proposal of cultural hospitality is not only more modest, but also more
promising, since it starts from accepting the reality of this heterogeneity. This makes
it easier to accept that we indeed live in a world after Babel, that there will always be
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something in the culture of the other that eludes our understanding or even fills us
with repulsion. Ricoeur also offers an important argument why it is important for us to
respond positively to the challenge of cultural hospitality, namely that it promotes true
societal harmony. Such a harmony brings forth a creative encounter between
different socio-cultural identities and makes their meanings move. It enables us to
hear new resonances, the beauty of polyphony, and to make unexpected
connections. In sum, cultural hospitality offers us new, surprising opportunities to
understand what living a human life, and living it together with others actually means.

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