The ethics and psychology of hospitality

"For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was naked and you gave me clothes. I was a stranger and you welcomed me."

                                                                       Matthew 25

Democrats are conflicted on immigration.

Welcome

If America is a lifeboat for the world, a country that accepts "your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," then enforcement of America's borders toward the end of limiting entry is un-American. It is also cruel, because we deny people a better life. It is racist because nearly all the newcomers are from Latin America or Asia. It is un-Christian, per Matthew 25.

Besides, it sound like Donald Trump, and if Trump said it by definition it is ugly, brutish, cruel, racist, and wrong.

There are ancient traditions involving a duty of hospitality to travelers. In Homer's Greece, travelers who came in peace were to be offered shelter. Hospitality was a virtue, rewarded by their gods. It had a name, xenia.  Readers will note the root of a familiar word: xenophobia. Yet Greek guests could wear out their welcome. In the Odyssey, upon Odysseus' return home he killed all of his patient wife Penelope's suitors.  

I believe there is an ethical, progressive, pro-immigration position which is simultaneously politically viable in America. It involves re-affirming rules and limits. I believe the public will accept immigration--even in high numbers--if public policy communicates orderliness and control and mechanisms of assimilation. Disorder communicates cultural surrender. Trump understood that unease people felt over that. Democrats can voice a progressive, non-xenophobic justification for rules: it protects the vulnerable, American and foreign.

Today's Guest Post shares my view that it is political suicide for Democrats to be blind to the public concern over mass migration and open borders. He looks at the notion of hospitality, the politics of immigration, and suggests an approach.

Guest Post, by James Stodder

James Stodder is a classmate from college (Harvard, 1971), an economist, and now a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Administrative Science at Boston University.  He shared the comments below to fellow college classmates.  More about Jim at www.jimstodder.com

James Stodder

James Stodder:

"We need to take seriously polling evidence that Trump and Miller are winning the war for voter sentiment -- public shaming of Trumpsters and left victories in deep blue zones notwithstanding.  Hostility to mass migration is a strong majority sentiment in every country.  Given this sentiment's near universality, and its apparent detachment from any facts about immigration and crime, labor markets, tax contributions, etc. --- it might be helpful to ask about anthro/psych roots.  

Sometimes the best place to start is at the opposite end -- the idea of hospitality.  Many travelers have remarked on the near universality of 'hospitality' culture in traditional societies.  If you approach a village as a stranger, are polite and non-threatening, you are typically invited to stay, eat, given place to sleep, etc.  This strikes us as amazing because it is so different for a foreigner walking into any city in the West. 

But maybe not so different -- if we look for comparable behavior in our culture.  Think of someone who comes to as a safe or 'vetted' stranger, like an exchange student, an official representative, a non-threatening tourist family from a faraway land.  If properly introduced, many Americans will be charmed to invite them in, ask lots of questions, share a meal, maybe even invite them to spend the night. 

The lone stranger in a small village is highly vulnerable, there at the sufferance of the locals.  A hundred eyes are on him.  A stranger in a big US city not so much, especially if s/he has a little info.  When thousands of foreigners arrive in a big US city, they can feel somewhat protected -- both by relative anonymity and by networks of countrymen.  The vulnerability of the stranger in a traditional setting, on the other hand, gives the villagers power -- the choice to accept or not accept.  

So the feelings that Westerners have about being 'invaded' by immigrants is about the sanctity and safety of their homes,  being able to decide who can come in and who can't.  It's the fundamental feeling of being able to protect your home and family.  

Of course Trump and Miller understand this, so they emphasize MS13.  But if I'm right, it makes the idea of anything approaching open borders politically insane.  It would be like saying, "I'm not going to lock up my house anymore.  All my doors and windows will be left wide open.  And if the rest of you are good caring people, you'll do likewise.  Otherwise you're all a bunch of racists."

The idea of the 'guest' makes me think back on the idea of guestworkers, and our Swiss and German friends.  When my wife and I were in Geneva, we chatted with a guestworker from Ecuador (she was our waitress).  She said that she and her son would never be Swiss, even though he had been born there.  That's too much like apartheid; there must be a better way.  

But maybe the *guest* part guestworker has something going for it, emphasizing the reciprocity in traditional guest/host relations.  Maybe there's a better way than the Swiss way.   

We Dems need to come up with something beyond our feelings of vast moral superiority.  What if we offered Mexico and Central American governments a 2-for-1 deal?  Like for every reduction by ONE in the number of illegal migrants coming from your country, you get TWO guest-worker passes.  

That could be win-win: Mexico gets a much higher rate of dollars per migrant, while the US gets lower immigration enforcement costs, a lower dependency ratio, and the ability to target real labor conditions.  After all, that labor is often most needed in red states.  If we don't start thinking like this, Trump could steal a march on us!  If Canada can do it humanely, why can't we?"