My profession is lecturer at an undergraduate Hotel Management School. As such I am interested in hospitality, especially in its manifestations in social reality, how it originated, why people find it important or less important, what motivates people to be hospitable or hostile (note well the similarity of those two words, as they have the same Latin root), etc. Before I will go deeper into it in coming postings, first something about meaning and “the meaning of meaning”.
In one of my previous postings I spoke about imposing poetical or ideological, or religious, in short, meaningful and/or symbolic reality on genuine reality. I did so in an attempt to interpret the subtitle of Goethes’ book “Dichtung und Wahrheit” (“Poetry/imagination/fabrication and Truth”). Before I will make an attempt to explain something of the concept of hospitality, first a little demonstration. In the illustrations you find two figures. One looks like a household ladder used by people who want to attach a lamp bulb in the ceiling lamp, or clean the window etc. The other one looks like a boat, also provided with a lamp which seems to be loosely attached to its stem, anyway the attachment isn’t visible on the picture. I’m sure that adult people who can read and write texts in Latin characters will not think of a household ladder in the first place when seeing the first illustration. They will instantly see it as the letter A. Only when they are asked to look at the figure and answer the question: “What does it looks like further?” They may answer “a household ladder”, but the chance that nothing else comes up in their minds, is also big. In their eyes the other figure, which in fact is the Arabic letter Feh, represents nothing else than maybe a boat or simply “an Arabic character”, if they don’t master the Arabic language. 
This little demonstration gives rise to some intriguing questions: what we people see, is that true, and if it’s true, is it truth itself or a representation of the truth? And representation of the truth is only possible if we have an idea of what the truth entails, otherwise it is impossible to be represented by humans, isn’t it? Because many people will take it for granted, that the first picture IS the letter A, without thinking of what it represents. A loose letter represents nothing, except in mathematics, and even there it is something abstract. We see it as an element in language construction. However, when we see the word “table” we automatically “think of” the useful and concrete object present in every living room. That’s clear. But what to think of the word “truth” or “love” or so many religious words? What to think of the words “society”, “marketing”, “entrepreneurship”, “honesty”, “consciousness”, etc.? Thousands of articles and books have been written in which the author takes for granted that the reader will attach the same meaning to what (s)he writes, as (s)he does. That’s also why in serious papers and books authors dedicate their fist paragraphs to definitions and descriptions of what they mean by their subject topics. The reader then can assess if (s)he agrees or not. When the book is a bestseller this may lead to a public debate about the “truth” brought forward in it. In societies in which the written word and rationalism doesn’t play such a big role as it does in ours, representation of what’s considered to be the truth, and the truth itself – in this stage we can use the words “truth” and “reality” as having the same meaning – are often mixed up, at least, in our eyes! In one of the articles I read about the meaning of symbols I came across the following example:
“… or the example of Victor Turner, who draws attention to a specific kind of tree used as a symbol in a number of rituals by the Ndembi tribe: it represents womanhood, fertility, the mother-child bond, the unity and perseverance of the Ndembi in general, etc. One cannot fail to compare the Ndembi ritual with the different views between Protestant and Roman Catholics about the Christian ritual of the Last Supper: in some instances the tree represents mother's milk (the latex-like juice it produces), in other instances the tree or parts of it are used as a real medicine, really contributing to mother-like characteristics of women.
(Victor Turner, The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembi Ritual (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967).
(To be continued in one of next postings)
In one of my previous postings I spoke about imposing poetical or ideological, or religious, in short, meaningful and/or symbolic reality on genuine reality. I did so in an attempt to interpret the subtitle of Goethes’ book “Dichtung und Wahrheit” (“Poetry/imagination/fabrication and Truth”). Before I will make an attempt to explain something of the concept of hospitality, first a little demonstration. In the illustrations you find two figures. One looks like a household ladder used by people who want to attach a lamp bulb in the ceiling lamp, or clean the window etc. The other one looks like a boat, also provided with a lamp which seems to be loosely attached to its stem, anyway the attachment isn’t visible on the picture. I’m sure that adult people who can read and write texts in Latin characters will not think of a household ladder in the first place when seeing the first illustration. They will instantly see it as the letter A. Only when they are asked to look at the figure and answer the question: “What does it looks like further?” They may answer “a household ladder”, but the chance that nothing else comes up in their minds, is also big. In their eyes the other figure, which in fact is the Arabic letter Feh, represents nothing else than maybe a boat or simply “an Arabic character”, if they don’t master the Arabic language. 
This little demonstration gives rise to some intriguing questions: what we people see, is that true, and if it’s true, is it truth itself or a representation of the truth? And representation of the truth is only possible if we have an idea of what the truth entails, otherwise it is impossible to be represented by humans, isn’t it? Because many people will take it for granted, that the first picture IS the letter A, without thinking of what it represents. A loose letter represents nothing, except in mathematics, and even there it is something abstract. We see it as an element in language construction. However, when we see the word “table” we automatically “think of” the useful and concrete object present in every living room. That’s clear. But what to think of the word “truth” or “love” or so many religious words? What to think of the words “society”, “marketing”, “entrepreneurship”, “honesty”, “consciousness”, etc.? Thousands of articles and books have been written in which the author takes for granted that the reader will attach the same meaning to what (s)he writes, as (s)he does. That’s also why in serious papers and books authors dedicate their fist paragraphs to definitions and descriptions of what they mean by their subject topics. The reader then can assess if (s)he agrees or not. When the book is a bestseller this may lead to a public debate about the “truth” brought forward in it. In societies in which the written word and rationalism doesn’t play such a big role as it does in ours, representation of what’s considered to be the truth, and the truth itself – in this stage we can use the words “truth” and “reality” as having the same meaning – are often mixed up, at least, in our eyes! In one of the articles I read about the meaning of symbols I came across the following example:
“… or the example of Victor Turner, who draws attention to a specific kind of tree used as a symbol in a number of rituals by the Ndembi tribe: it represents womanhood, fertility, the mother-child bond, the unity and perseverance of the Ndembi in general, etc. One cannot fail to compare the Ndembi ritual with the different views between Protestant and Roman Catholics about the Christian ritual of the Last Supper: in some instances the tree represents mother's milk (the latex-like juice it produces), in other instances the tree or parts of it are used as a real medicine, really contributing to mother-like characteristics of women.
(Victor Turner, The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembi Ritual (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967).
(To be continued in one of next postings)
2 comments:
Erik, you sure have some interesting thoughts on your blog. With regard to this particular post, you might be interested or amused to know that my wife's sister has just written a little piece about Victor Turner and the Ndembi, here. I am just becoming interested in Goethe, meanwhile, and would like to know more about Dichtung und Wahrheit.
Conrad, I read the contribution of your sister-in-law and commented to it. You people are a threat to bookshops and editors with those stories. Anyway, Dichtung und Wahrheit is Goethes' autobiography which he wrote when he was 60+ or more. He describes his youth, his studies (or attempts to), his affairs and friendships, the important events of the time, and the way his literary work has been received by the public. He does so in the "Goethian way" that some people don't like because he has always explaining and interpreting comments on everything. I don't know if an English translation is available, mine was the first in Dutch. The only thing he very rarely comments is his own work, at least what he intends to "tell" by it. I like Goethe very much not because of his plays and novels, but because of his poems and wisdom: tolerance, curiosity, insight in how people are, and above all he hated dogmas. I found some Truth in his work which he never explains but which shines through it like the eyes of Suleika along the fan covering her cheeks. (image in one of the poems from his "West-eastern Divan" which I also translated and intend to put on a special Dutch blog when I find time). I really recommend D. u. W., Faust I and II (lifetime reading like the Bible, Die Wahlverwandschafte - don't know English title)and his color theory, and before reading, a book about Goethe because he is really an all-encompassing representative of his time, and to be placed in this context. Some hate him because he is very loyal to authorities (Heine blamed him for that) and school-masterish but the thing is that he is entitled to be schoolmasterish. Thank you very much for your interest, I will follow your blog and read as much as I can from preceding postings.
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