Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective 303136659X, 9783031366598

Citation preview

Marie-Élise Zovko John Dillon   Editors

Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective

Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective

Marie-Élise Zovko  •  John Dillon Editors

Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective

Editors Marie-Élise Zovko Institute of Philosophy Zagreb, Croatia

John Dillon Department of Classics Trinity College Dublin Dublin, Ireland

ISBN 978-3-031-36658-1    ISBN 978-3-031-36659-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36659-8 This work was supported by the Croatian Ministry of Science and Education © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

Foreword

It was a great pleasure and honour, on behalf of the Town of Hvar, to accept the co-­ organisation and sponsorship of the International Symposium of the Institute of Philosophy on the topic Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective, held in Hvar from 14–17 October 2019. Above all, we would like to thank the organisers – the Plato Society and the Institute of Philosophy, and particularly, Marie-Élise Zovko and Jure Zovko – for their initiative. We would also like to thank Hvar Heritage Museum and the Hegel Society of Zadar for their collaboration in the organisation and preparation of the symposium. Along with numerous eminent Croatian and foreign scholars who participated in the running of the conference and who with their expert lectures and presentations made an important contribution to Croatian and international research, we are very pleased the organisers recognised the importance of opening the conference to the local community. The participation of the Elementary School of Hvar, the High School of Hvar, the Franciscan Monastery of Hvar, the Town Library of Stari Grad, and the Agency for the Management of the Stari Grad Plain brought the often distant scientific discourse closer to the general public. This was all the more so the case as the lectures and accompanying program were open to the citizens of Hvar who praised the organisation of the symposium, which is particularly pleasing to us as co-organisers. Tourism, as the most important industry of our town and island, was introduced to the participants of the symposium via encounters with the archaeological, cultural, and historical tradition of the town and island of Hvar through guided tours and a full-day trip on the island of Hvar which allowed participants to be introduced “first-hand” to the destination where, over 150 years ago, organised tourism in Europe began. The mere fact that the symposium produced this book of proceedings as one of its results confirms the significance and importance of holding conferences. Tourism and culture remain the drivers of most social change in our community. From a philosophical perspective, as expressed through the scientific works of the participants at a distance of more than three years as a consequence of the pandemic and the challenges it brought us on all levels, these inseparable aspects of our daily lives gain an added dimension in the thoughts concerning the development of our town and island. We believe that, as such, it will remain a lasting pledge for a better future for our society. Mayor of Hvar Town Hvar, Croatia Head of the Department for Culture and Public Relations of Hvar Town Hvar, Croatia

Rikardo Novak Katija Vučetić

Acknowledgements

We take this opportunity first of all to thank our gracious hosts and sponsors, the Town of Hvar, represented by Mayor Riki Novak and Katija Vučetić, Head of the Office of Culture, who, by the donation of their time and expertise, the use of the auditorium with its technical facilities and the Captain’s Room in the newly renovated historical Hvar Theatre as our venue, by covering costs for accommodation of our invited participants, for our guided tours, daily coffees, and the festive conference dinner, made the original conference a delightful and memorable event. The Town of Hvar also contributed generously to the costs for production of this volume. We feel exceedingly fortunate to have in the Town of Hvar and its cultural institutions, including Hvar Heritage Museum, with director Nives Tomasović, Hvar Elementary School and Hvar High School, the Franciscan Monastery, in the hotel chain Sunčani Hvar, as well as local businesses and members of the local community, such loyal partners, who repeatedly over the years have stood in to cover costs, provide special discounts, and ensure the logistical means for organisation of our conferences, workshops, concerts, and other events. Thank you, Hvar! We also wish to thank the Croatian Ministry of Science and Education, who provided support for the original conference, as well as a generous grant to assist us in covering our costs for producing this volume. We warmly thank our esteemed colleague Renate Kroschel, member of the organisational committee, and one of the original speakers at the conference, who read and commented on the individual papers and offered sound and productive advice throughout the editing process. Our thanks go furthermore to our author Gregory Morgan Swer, who stepped up to offer his support by providing summaries of the individual chapters for use in the volume’s introduction. This saved us a good deal of time and effort we were able to apply to other tasks. We thank, in addition, the editors and production managers at Springer, who stood by us, despite pandemic-inflicted delays and difficulties, for their patience and support while we painstakingly collected and edited the papers for the volume. We thank in particular Deepthi Vasudevan, Project Coordinator for Springer Nature, for her unflagging patience and support. Our special thanks go to Sofija Ana Zovko of s.wordfish j.d.o.o. for their thorough, reliable, expert, and timely support in editing and formatting the papers for the volume, communicating with the authors and publisher, and providing astute and judicious advice on matters ranging from style to content and the ordering of the individual contributions. Finally, our heartfelt thanks go to the residents of the Town of Hvar and members of the local community, young and old, whose livelihoods and way of life have been indelibly shaped by organised tourism and tourism practice for over 150 years, for providing us with the inspiration and motivation for the conference Tourism and Culture in

viii

Acknowledgements

Philosophical Perspective and for this volume of papers. Since our first international conference in 2006, we have kept coming back to the magical surroundings of the Town of Hvar with its welcoming Mediterranean atmosphere, breathtaking vistas, and unique cultural monuments, traditions, customs, and lore. We hope to continue our fruitful cooperation for many years to come! Members of the other towns and villages of the island Hvar also inspired and cooperated with our efforts over the years. In particular, Stari Grad, the ancient Greek town of Pharos, with its Cultural Centre and Museum and the historical Town Library, and Vinko Tarbušković, Director of the Agency for the Management of Stari Grad Plain (a UNESCO-protected World Heritage Site), have gladly placed their resources at our disposal and given us a warm welcome. Our warmest thanks!

Contents

Part I Philosophical Aspects of Tourism and Travel from Ancient Times to Modernity 1 Introduction:  Mass Tourism, Overtourism, and Post-­Pandemic Revenge Tourism: The Need for a Philosophical Approach to Tourism as a Global Cultural Phenomenon Today��������������������������������������   3 John Dillon and Marie-Élise Zovko 2 The  Philosopher as Tourist: An Identifiable Tradition? ����������������������������������  21 John Dillon 3 Pleasure  and “Happiness” in Aristotle: A Key to Understanding the Tourist?������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  33 Maria Liatsi 4 The  Interior Tourist: Travel, Tourism, and the Path to Self-Discovery from Platonism to the Pandemic����������������������������������������������������������������������  45 Marie-Élise Zovko 5 Ancient  Ideas of Leisure and Contemplation in Francesco Petrarch’s Ascent to Mont Ventoux������������������������������������������������������������������  63 Renate Kroschel 6 From  the Grand Tour to the Virtual Tour: Dreaming of the Classical Between Past and Present������������������������������������������������������  71 Francesca Iannelli Part II Aesthetic and Cultural Aspects of Tourism in Philosophical Perspective 7 Do  We Need a Philosophy of Tourism? ����������������������������������������������������������  93 Jure Zovko 8 The  Seriousness of Play ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 105 Douglas Hedley 9 Journey  in Music: Journey in Space and Time������������������������������������������������ 121 Vladimir Stoupel

x

Contents

10 Architecture  and the Question of Historicity in the Context of Tourism and Culture������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 127 Nives Delija Trešćec Part III Postmodernist and Phenomenological Aspects of Travel and Tourism 11 Overtourism  and the End of Hospitality���������������������������������������������������������� 145 Ching-Lam Janice Law and Jean Jaurès 12 Towards  a Phenomenology of Dark Tourist Experiences�������������������������������� 153 Gregory Morgan Swer 13 Charting  an Invisible Domain: Travel and the Genesis of the Concept of Sexual Atrocities as Genocide�������������������������������������������� 167 Natalie Nenadic 14 Travelling,  Fast and Slow�������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 189 Joseph Campisi and Georganna Ulary Part IV Ethics of Tourism 15 The Botho Perspective on Human and Animal Welfare���������������������������������� 203 Doreen Sesiro 16 The  Ethical Problem of Exploitation of Animals for Tourism������������������������ 215 Ena Pavičić 17 Hedonism  and Its (Negative) Impact on Tourism�������������������������������������������� 223 Maja Ferenec Kuća Part V Tourism and Culture In Situ: Perspectives from the Town of Hvar 18 The  Faces of Tourism in Hvar from Ancient Times to the Present������������������ 239 Marinko Petrić 19 Hvar on Film���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 253 Zorka Bibić 20 Youth  Attitudes on Cultural Tourism in the Town of Hvar������������������������������ 269 Students of Hvar High School, Vesna Barbarić, and Sanda Stančić Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 283

Contributors

Vesna  Barbarić  Hvar High School, Department: Preparatory High School (Gymnasium) and Hotel Management and Tourism Vocational School, Hvar, Croatia Zorka Bibić  Hvar Town Library, Hvar, Croatia Joseph  Campisi  Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA John Dillon  Department of Classics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland Douglas Hedley  University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Francesca Iannelli  Roma Tre University, Rome, Italy Jean Jaurès  Université Catholique de Louvain, Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium Renate  Kroschel  Margarete Ruckmich Academie (1990–2013), Freiburg i. Br., Germany Maja Ferenec Kuća  University of Zadar, Zadar, Croatia Ching-Lam Janice Law  Université Toulouse, Toulouse, France Maria Liatsi  Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece Natalie Nenadic  University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA Rikardo Novak  Mayor of Hvar Town, Hvar, Croatia Ena Pavičić  University of Zadar, Zadar, Croatia Marinko Petrić  Hvar Heritage Museum, Hvar, Croatia Doreen Sesiro  University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana Sanda  Stančić  Hvar High School, Department: Hotel Management and Tourism Vocational School, Hvar, Croatia Vladimir Stoupel  Concert Pianist and Conductor, Berlin, Germany Students of Hvar High School  Hvar High School / Hotel Management and Tourism Vocational School, Hvar, Croatia Gregory Morgan Swer  University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, South Africa Nives Delija Trešćec  University of Zadar, Zadar, Croatia

xii

Contributors

Georganna Ulary  Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA Katija  Vučetić  Head of the Department for Culture and Public Relations of Hvar Town, Hvar, Croatia Jure Zovko  University of Zadar, Zadar, Croatia Marie-Élise Zovko  Institute of Philosophy, Zagreb, Croatia

Part I

Philosophical Aspects of Tourism and Travel from Ancient Times to Modernity

Chapter 1 Introduction: Mass Tourism, Overtourism, and Post-­Pandemic Revenge Tourism: The Need for a Philosophical Approach to Tourism as a Global Cultural Phenomenon Today John Dillon1 (*) and Marie-Élise Zovko2 1 

Department of Classics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland [email protected] 2  Institute of Philosophy, Zagreb, Croatia

Abstract.  In the introduction to our volume, we discuss the need for philosophical reflection on tourism as a cultural and human phenomenon. We give a brief account of the conference which was the starting point of the discussion and papers contained in this volume. We consider pressing social and environmental issues associated with the phenomenon of tourism, tracing its roots from antiquity to the present. Consideration of the peculiar connection between tourism and human behaviour, tourism and culture, provides insights into the causes and possible solutions of problems arising from mass tourism, overtourism, “revenge tourism” in the post-­ pandemic world – problems of social justice, environmental protection, sustainability, economic and political security, human happiness and well-being. The journey of the tourist reveals itself as a journey of self-exploration and self-discovery in a world whose natural resources, biological and cultural diversity, and capacity to sustain humans’ pursuit of happiness and pleasure are fast diminishing. Despite the “breather” afforded by the global Covid-19 pandemic to all those engaged in the practice of tourism, whether as consumers or providers, lasting improvements have yet to be implemented. Instead, tourists and tourist providers everywhere are rushing to recoup their losses and make up for lost time. The papers in this volume examine crucial social, physical, psychological and cultural factors influencing tourism ­practice and their significance for the nurturing of human happiness and well-being, in order to help assure the preservation of the necessary conditions for life on earth. Keywords:  Tourism · Mass tourism · Overtourism · Revenge tourism · Culture · Human behaviour · Philosophy

The present volume collects a number of papers held at the International Symposium Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective organised in October 2019 by the

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M.-É. Zovko, J. Dillon (eds.), Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36659-8_1

3

4

J. Dillon and M.-É. Zovko

Institute of Philosophy, Zagreb and the Plato Society of Zagreb in cooperation with the Town of Hvar, which in 2018 celebrated 150 years of organised tourism.1 It includes also invited papers written by scheduled speakers who were unable to attend the conference in person, as well as contributions on topics which were perceived as adding a specific desirable dimension to the conversation. Tourism is one of the most significant and ubiquitous phenomena of contemporary human life and culture and deserves, as such, particular attention and systematic study. If Hegel was correct in his conviction that the essence of philosophy is to be its “time comprehended in thought,” then it follows that philosophy cannot avoid consideration of the phenomenon of tourism. Since the second half of the nineteenth century, tourism has expanded from a privileged pastime of the wealthy or aristocratic few to a multi-­ billion-­dollar economic sector affecting the lives of the majority of the world’s population directly or indirectly in some way. Travel to destinations away from one’s home environment for the sake of rest, relaxation, restoration, rejuvenation, enjoyment, entertainment, and intellectual stimulation, including visits to well-known natural sights and cultural attractions, and pursuit of a broad and ever-increasing range of leisure activities offered at such locations, from enjoyment of local culinary delights to immersion in manifestations of doom and devastation, has become in the period since the industrial revolution a sought-after aim of the “masses,” that is, of anyone possessing the means to indulge in them. And today, anyone not themselves engaged in tourist activities is sure to be affected by tourism in some way or involved in producing or providing the services and goods which enable tourism – making tourism an inescapable aspect of contemporary life. It is fair to say that there is no human being on earth whose life is not in some way affected by the phenomenon of tourism. Croatia and specifically the Town of Hvar, hold a special place in the history of tourism and have played a special role in the recent development of tourism in Europe. Croatia ranked first in Europe in the number of overnight stays in 2020 according to official statistics published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union based in Luxembourg.2 While tourism is of major importance for Croatia in terms of its contribution to the local, regional, and national economies, mass tourism and overtourism put a significant strain on local infrastructures and communities through water, air, and noise pollution, solid waste disposal, energy use, damage inflicted on sensitive habitats, overfishing, poaching of protected species, and transport-related emissions. The COVID-19 pandemic added to these woes by undermining economic gains of recent years through implementation of containment measures and travel restrictions. Most of these measures were rescinded prior to the peak tourist season in 2020 and reintroduced in the autumn as case numbers soared. While domestic tourism and “staycations” made up for some losses, Croatia was particularly hard hit by the economic and social consequences of the pandemic  – although it has since to a great extent recouped those losses. The accessibility of Croatia’s coast by road and the availability of campgrounds meant that foreign arrivals continued at a fair clip in comparison with

 On the history of tourism in Hvar cf. Marinko Petrić’s contribution to this volume.  https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Tourism_statistics_at_ regional_level Accessed 07 January 2023. 1 2

1  Introduction: Mass Tourism, Overtourism, and Post-Pandemic Revenge…

5

other European destinations, even at the height of the pandemic. Thus, despite initial calls for a turn to a new, gentler and more sustainable approach to the tourism economy, the tourist sector threatens to return to its unsustainable numbers and practices as Croatia continues to gain momentum in face of the huge surge in “revenge tourists” desperately wanting to make up for lost time. As we are acutely aware in the Mediterranean countries, travel is a source of happiness and fulfilment to some, a source of misery and suffering to others. While tens of thousands bask in the summer sun on the beaches and crowd the clubs and bars at night, yet another rickety dinghy will depart the northern coast of Africa or the eastern Aegean overburdened with migrants desperate to reach a safe haven or to follow their dreams of a better life in Western Europe or beyond – and too many will lose their lives in the attempt. This clash between tourism practice and stark human suffering can be ignored only at the cost of sacrificing the ideals of freedom and human rights on which Western economies have built their culture of well-being. A peculiar aspect of tourism is its connection to human history and culture. Not only does cultural content – the arts, technology, history, religion, customs and norms, rituals and practices, along with the physical monuments of a region or ethnic group – form a crucial aspect of touristic pursuits; tourism itself has become an ineradicable aspect of the culture, lifestyle, social behaviour, traditions, history, economy, and welfare of municipalities, regions, countries, and the world as a whole. The fact that a significant segment of the world’s population is excluded from participation in tourism and tourist activities does nothing to alter this but rather casts a garish light on the divide between wealth and poverty, advantage and disadvantage, the relative freedom enjoyed by some and the complete or partial subjugation to political and economic oppression suffered by others – a divide characteristic of the painfully inequitable relationships dominating our global society today. Far from progressing in an orderly and rational way, the development of this branch of the global economy has been random and uncontrolled, responding to forces of the market economy whose guiding principles are those of neoliberal capitalist ideology, and answering to the fluctuating pressures of limited supply and ever-increasing demand (cf. Tribe 2009, 3–4).3 The ill effects of mass tourism and overtourism on sensitive ecosystems, resources, and community life have begun to outweigh the economic gains to individuals, as well as to local, regional, and national entities and add urgency to ethical considerations of unsustainability and exploitation inherent in many tourist activities. The task of clarifying and defining the concept of tourism and the factors contributing to tourism as a manifestation of human behaviour and human culture is a first step toward more efficacious and constructive solutions to the ethical issues raised by the practice of tourism but is also indispensable to any attempt at a definition of what it means to be human. This is a task belonging by its nature not only and not primarily to

 “In many cases tourism proceeds in an essentially unplanned and barely controllable way. Hence, it is possible to appropriate Giddens’ idea to talk about Runaway Tourism. This is because, like most things, tourism is delivered in a largely uncontrolled neoliberal market environment, which often precedes and overpowers attempts at planning and management.” (Tribe 2009, 4). 3

6

J. Dillon and M.-É. Zovko

the field of anthropology, sociology, and economics, but above all to philosophy in its native striving not only to produce additional knowledge in the form of information or statistics but to achieve a deeper understanding of the reasons for tourism being what it is and the way it is, as well as insight into the moral obligations incumbent on us as tourists and purveyors of the goods and services associated with tourism. It is our hope that this attempt to begin a philosophical conversation regarding the relationship between tourism and culture may open our eyes to opportunities for a better and happier future which appropriate development of this all-too-human activity might afford. The question of why we humans engage in tourism is thus at the centre of our considerations. We consider whether tourism and tourist activities fulfil an inherent need of human beings or represent a purpose in themselves. We explore social, physical, psychological, and cultural factors which determine this behaviour and this cultural phenomenon. Philosophers as far flung as Lao Tzu, Montaigne, and Ralph Waldo Emerson have reflected on the meaning and benefits of travel. From a philosophical perspective, travel can be seen as a specific expression of the journey of life as a whole. St Augustine saw us as exiles sojourning in a strange land, yearning to return to their heavenly home, while George Santayana saw life as a form of motion and a journey. From this vantage point, the journey itself takes on a significance which competes with that of the destination itself. For the philosopher, travelling has traditionally served as a means of discovery and of self-exploration; but we hope to show that humans’ inclination to participate in tourism and tourist activities is ultimately motivated by the same desire for self-knowledge as that which motivates the philosopher and that, in this respect, tourism, along with its legitimate aims of providing opportunities to travel for the sake of enjoyment, as well as for rest, relaxation, recreation, and a range of leisure activities may be shown to serve a higher purpose. Travel can be the means of discovering the “other” – other points of view, other cultures, other customs, philosophies, other perspectives – and so can provide us with the opportunity of correcting our own limited views. In Michel de Montaigne’s view, travel is “a profitable exercise” insofar as “the mind is continually exercised in observing new and unknown things.” Thus, he knows of “no better school.. .for forming one’s life, than to set before it constantly the diversity of so many other lives,” whereas those of us who do not travel remain “huddled and concentrated in ourselves, and our vision is reduced to the length of our nose.” (de Montaigne 1958, 744; 116). In the age of globalisation, we are in many areas experiencing a levelling and homogenisation of culture without precedent in the history of humankind. The opportunities for vicarious experience of travel and tourism are now seemingly unlimited due to the internet, influencer culture, and social media  – so it is fair to say that it has become possible to participate remotely in many forms of mobility and travel virtually to practically any place, monument, attraction, or destination. Social media make the experiences of travellers and tourists instantaneously shareable so that we become “followers” who set out on their journeys no longer primarily to experience something new or unknown, but rather to experience the same things in the same places in the same ways as those whose profiles, YouTube channels, blogs, vlogs, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok posts we like and admire.

1  Introduction: Mass Tourism, Overtourism, and Post-Pandemic Revenge…

7

Philosophical reflection on these urgent questions enables us to consider whether and how a course change may be possible before the balance is tipped by the seemingly unstoppable growth in “consumption” of tourist commodities in the direction of ever greater destruction of our natural environment, our historical and cultural heritage, our unique personal identities, and the diversity of our local communities. The involuntary “breath pause” that the global COVID-19 pandemic forced upon those engaged in the practice of tourism, whether as consumers or service providers, created a propitious moment for reflection on this topic. But the lessons gained from The Great Realisation of 2020 (Roberts 2020) are unfortunately already slipping into the annals of forgetfulness, as travel agencies, cruise lines, and air carriers all rush to return to “normalcy,” recoup their losses, and restart tourism exactly as it was before the pandemic. This collection of papers represents one of the first concerted efforts to examine the phenomenon of tourism in depth from a philosophical standpoint and in light of recent historical events. It strives to uncover the common characteristics of this human phenomenon, the forces which lead to its excesses, and the moral incentives needed to bring about a transformation for the better. For this purpose, our contributors reflect on the need for a philosophy of tourism, on philosophical aspects and historical precedents of modern-day tourism, on the motives which drive both tourists and hosts, on the aims and content of tourist activities, and on the reasons for choosing specific destinations, specific content, or forms of travel. We attempt to frame our considerations with reference to global issues such as poverty and the migrant crisis, as well as to recent and current historical events, such as the wars in the territories of the former Yugoslavia and in Ukraine. We reflect on possibilities for improving the quality of life of tourists and local host communities, on the importance of caring for rich natural resources and cultural treasures, and the need for educating both hosts and guests on these issues. In addition, we invite our hosts from the town of Hvar, where the International Symposium took place in October 2019, to contribute their perspectives on what has been the dominant way of life for their local community since 1869. Their experience in promoting and cultivating the unique cultural treasures and natural resources of Hvar and their insights into the opportunities and challenges yielded by their primary occupation provided an invaluable resource and stimulating backdrop for our reflections on tourism during the conference. Like other recent works devoted to questions of travel and tourism,4 we believe it is vital to examine crucial social, physical, psychological, and cultural factors that  Some philosophically relevant titles include: Matthew Niblett and Kris Beuret, eds. Why Travel? Understanding our Need to Move and How it Shapes our Lives. Bristol: Bristol University Press, 2021; John Tribe, ed. Philosophical Issues in Tourism. Bristol: Channel View Publications, 2009; Anthony Carrigan, Postcolonial Tourism: Literature, Culture, and Environment. New  York: Routledge, 2010. Urry, John & Jonas Larsen, The Tourist Gaze 3.0. London: Sage Publications Ltd., 2012 explores the pleasurable experience of journeys undertaken for leisure and fundamental notions such as “work,” “leisure,” “departure,” “journey,” “stay,” “signs,” and the “tourist gaze” from a socio-cultural, historical, and geographical point of view; Emily Thomas, The Meaning of Travel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020 considers the relationship of philosophy and travel and notes the lack of a philosophy of travel, as well as the lack of books, university courses, and conferences on the subject. (cf. ibid. 2). Thomas’ book is a kind of travelogue of her 4

8

J. Dillon and M.-É. Zovko

i­ nfluence the choices we make as travellers and tourists, in order to discover the meaning and significance of travel for human well-being and for being who we are. One title stands out among recent publications as particularly relevant for our topic. It is Philosophical Issues in Tourism, edited by John Tribe (2009) and represents one of the first forays into philosophical reflection on the phenomenon of tourism, aiming to “provide an initial mapping of, and insights into this territory” (Tribe 2009, 3). Following a general introduction, Tribe’s anthology explores such fundamental questions as “Who is a Tourist?” (Scott McCabe in Tribe 2009, 25–42), “What is Tourism?” (Alexandre Panosso Netto in Tribe 2009, 43–61), and the relationship of tourism to epistemology, ontology (Maureen Ayikoru in Tribe 2009, 62–79) as well as foundational inquiries such as “Post-disciplinary Tourism” (Tim Coles, C. Michael Hall, and David Timothy Duval in Tribe 2009, 80–100), and the “End of Tourism” (Kevin Hannam in Tribe 2009, 101–116). Part III, “Beauty: Well-being, Aesthetics and Art” (Tribe 2009, 117–210), considers the relationship of tourism and aesthetics with respect to nature, architecture, and art, as well as tourism’s relationship to pleasure and happiness. Finally, in Part IV, the book turns to questions of ethics as related to tourism (211–277) closing with a contribution by Irena Ateljevic on “transformative tourism” (278–300). Philosophical Issues in Tourism provides thus an initial conceptualisation of philosophical aspects of tourism and a valuable complement to the present volume. The authors, however, with three exceptions, are not themselves philosophers, but specialists and professors in the fields of Human Geography, and various branches of Tourism, Management, Applied and Social Sciences, and Business. The essays provide thus an initial contact with problems of philosophy related to tourism from within the field of tourism research for those whose primary activity is tourism. In contrast, the present volume presupposes knowledge of the fundamental philosophical disciplines and developments from the history of philosophy insofar as they are relevant to reflection on human life and its manifestations in the modernist and postmodernist, positivist and postpositivist periods. Along with scholars and philosophers from a variety of backgrounds, Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective includes work by young scholars and early-career academic researchers whose lives have been significantly influenced by contemporary tourism and its effects on human culture and society. The papers present in-depth analysis of specific aspects of the cultural phenomenon of tourism and related issues. We attempt furthermore to contextualise our reflections through contributions by stakeholders and professionals involved in the preservation and mediation of cultural heritage, for example, by pianist Vladimir Stoupel, and by the curator of the archaeological collection of the Hvar Heritage Museum Marinko Petrić, as well as through a survey of local residents and participants own journey to the Alaskan wilderness, during which she explores the historical motivation of travel primarily in authors from the early modern period to the present, comparing their experiences with the motivation of modern and contemporary leisure travel. She points to contact with “otherness,” i.e., with the diversity and variety of the world, as a reason for travel which is in itself philosophical and highlights the reduced opportunities for such an encounter which ease of travel today has brought about, concluding that today there is no longer travel, only tourism (Thomas 2020, 8). This is one of the issues our volume, in an attempt to understand the phenomenon of tourism, wishes to confront.

1  Introduction: Mass Tourism, Overtourism, and Post-Pandemic Revenge…

9

in tourism by Hvar High School students regarding their experiences of the relationship of tourism and culture in their everyday life. A preface by the Mayor of Hvar and Hvar Town’s Office of Culture adds an autochthonous perspective on the topic of the conference and our efforts to reflect on the relationship of tourism and culture from a philosophical perspective. We hope herewith to have provided a glimpse of the living context of the matter under consideration. In this regard, our approach is trans- and post-­ disciplinary, while at the same time providing a grounding of our topic in scholarly philosophical research. A new title was brought to our attention toward the close of our editing process, which we can only briefly consider here. It is Philosophy of the Tourist by Japanese cultural critic, novelist, philosopher, and cofounder of the independent institute Genron in Tokyo, Hiroki Azuma, recently translated by John D.  Person into English, which appeared in January 2023  in an edition by Urbanomic, later distributed by the MIT Press. The work, which came into existence in a series of publications by Azuma in the 2010s, is conceived of as a work of criticism in a postmodern sense. Originally addressing tourism’s “deconstruction” of the traditional division between friend and enemy characteristic of the political sphere (Azuma 2023, ix, xiii), in the face of the pandemic and war in Ukraine, its “optimistic” message appears to have been transmuted through rising opposition to liberal thought’s message of “respect for the Other.” The author, whose previous works include topics related to dark tourism such as the controversial Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant No. 1 Tourism Plan, in which he suggests that disaster areas like Fukushima could become a “‘mecca’ for dark tourism on the model of Hiroshima and Auschwitz,” (Azuma 2023, 33) argues that a new philosophy of the Other based on a philosophical exploration of tourism and the tourist is needed (Ibid., 6–7). Like our own book, the author argues that in the age of tourism, it is necessary for philosophy to concern itself with tourism. Some interesting issues raised by Azuma include the progressive internalisation of the tourist gaze into community and cityscape design and the question whether the world itself may be becoming a theme park (Azuma 2023, 32). Closely connected with this issue is the state of mind that may be described as “desiring the desires of others,” a condition becoming ubiquitous due to our ineluctable entanglement in the social media world. Azuma contests traditional humanist dichotomies between the private and the public sphere, which promote respect for the Other, contending that people (the tourist included) in fact dislike one another and do not intend to create a society (Azuma 2023, 40–41). The connection between Part I, The Philosophy of the Tourist, and Part II, The Philosophy of the Family, is not immediately clear but appears to be connected with this thesis, as based on the author’s ideas on “general will” in Rousseau. Azuma promises in a sequel to overcome this shortcoming in an article devoted to “The Philosophy of Corrigibility, or On a New Publicness” in which he will “link the concept of the tourist to the discussion of the family” by reference to Wittgenstein and Kripke “while also proposing a new reading of Richard Rorty and Hannah Arendt.” As opposed to Azuma’s aim of conducting cultural criticism in a postmodern sense, the present volume of papers, with its emphasis on philosophical exploration of the human and cultural phenomenon of tourism, is intended for anyone interested in the connection of culture and tourism. From an academic point of view, its primary audience will include those interested in interdisciplinary studies in philosophy, tourism,

10

J. Dillon and M.-É. Zovko

and culture / culturology, in particular university-level educators and students from departments of philosophy, tourism and tourism research, cultural studies, environmentalists, as well as individuals commissioned with the preservation and promotion of World Heritage. We hope that stakeholders in tourist destinations with a general interest in contemporary problems of tourism (local politicians, members of tourist boards, heads of cultural agencies at local, district, and national levels, members of the World Tourist Organization commissioned with the study of problems of tourism and promotion of ethical, equitable, and sustainable forms of tourism at the local, national, and international level) will also find this book illuminating and enriching. Our intent is to stimulate deeper reflection on the phenomenon of tourism and the moral, political, and social issues raised by the practice of tourism in the contemporary world in the hopes of fostering the development of new and innovative approaches to the practice of tourism and to the problems caused by mass and overtourism today.

1.1 Overview The first part of our anthology concerns philosophical reflections on tourism and travel from antiquity to the present. John M. Dillon opens the discussion with his essay “The Philosopher as Tourist: An identifiable Tradition?” Dillon’s chapter explores the phenomenon of philosophical tourism in Classical antiquity. Focussing primarily on the peregrinations of Pythagoras and Plato, he argues that philosophical tourism played an important, albeit hitherto underappreciated, role in the culture of the Greco-Roman period. Pythagoras serves here as the model for the intellectual tourist, travelling far from his home in Samos to Phoenicia, Egypt, and Babylon in search of the wisdom to be gained from the philosophers and priests found there. Plato initially follows the Pythagorean pattern, on Dillon’s account, spending years as a philosophical tourist before becoming something of a tourist attraction in his own right after founding his school in Athens. Having sketched the nature of philosophic tourism, and its subsequent role as a model for further touristic philosophical enterprises, Dillon then explores the question of tourism finances in the ancient philosophical world, tracing the economic sources of philosophic tourism in the wealth derived from family estates, discussing also the vital role played by an international network of social connections and patronage that enabled the intellectual sightseer to gain access to the sources of wisdom that they sought. In closing, the author reflects upon the parallels between modern and ancient forms of philosophic tourism and the peripatetic existence of contemporary academics. In “Pleasure and ‘Happiness’ in Aristotle: A Key to Understanding the Tourist?” Maria Liatsi then takes up a topic that is fundamental to our understanding of the phenomenon of tourism. Liatsi begins by noting that striving for happiness is a basic human need. With the modern tourist, she suggests, the satisfaction of this striving is understood to lie in the feelings of pleasure derived from enjoyable tourist experiences. For Aristotle, on the other hand, happiness did not correspond to a transient experience but instead involved the formation of character and a consistent pattern of behaviour

1  Introduction: Mass Tourism, Overtourism, and Post-Pandemic Revenge…

11

directed towards the common good. On such an account, the author informs us, a happy life “has its pleasure within itself.” To back up this claim, the paper provides a detailed analysis of Aristotle’s views on the path to eudaimonia through the practice of aretê, or excellence of the soul. The activity of the soul in accordance with reason achieves its highest form when that soul’s activity is in accordance with aretê, when it has as its telos complete or perfect happiness. Liatsi concludes by suggesting that Aristotle would counsel the modern tourist to devote more attention to the care of their soul, and to acting virtuously towards others, in order to give their travels a deeper, less ephemeral significance. Taking up this thread in “The Interior Tourist: Travel, Tourism, and the Path to Self-­ Discovery from Platonism to the Pandemic,” Marie-Élise Zovko presents her arguments for understanding human beings as tourists by nature. She begins by observing the key role that mobility plays in our understanding of the world, both as an aspect of ourselves and as something valued by us in its own right. Indeed, throughout human history, travel has served not only as means of displacement but also as a means of transforming one’s innermost being. The desire for self-knowledge appears to be central to the desire for travel and, by extension, the desire for tourism and new experiences may be seen as reflecting an inner yearning for self-knowledge and self-discovery. Through the prism of the philosophy of Plato and Plotinus, Zovko reflects on how the desire to travel to faraway places and the desire to “return home” to our true selves are connected and how they might be reconciled, if the tourist’s desire for pleasurable experiences can be linked to their desire for self-discovery and to the pursuit of beauty and the good in a higher sense. For to recognise that the inner journey is, or perhaps should be, an essential motivating force behind our desire for external travels, is to ultimately realise that the hedonistic pursuit of purely sensual pleasures to the exclusion of our higher needs ultimately harms our own capacity for happiness. The contemplative aspect of leisure and travel for pleasure is by no means new, as Renate Kroschel’s essay on “Ancient Ideas of Leisure and Contemplation in Francesco Petrarch’s Ascent to Mont Ventoux” brings home to us. Kroschel’s paper begins with the observation that tourism activity aimed at leisure and contemplation tends to be the exception rather than the rule in the contemporary age. As an aid to the development of alternative considerations of the purpose and nature of leisure, the author points to the reflections of Classical Antiquity on the subject. For the Ancient Greek philosophers, Kroschel notes, leisure and contemplation were closely related. To elaborate on this point, she revisits Petrarch’s account of his ascent of Mont Ventoux in 1336. Petrarch, inspired and informed by the work of St Augustine, plans the ascent of Mont Ventoux with his brother as a companion. Upon gaining the summit, Petrarch’s exhilaration at the spectacle as seen from his vantage point is swiftly eclipsed by his spiritual reflections and abrupt realisation that the proper object of his wonder should have been the “inward contemplation of self.” It is thus that his upward path to the mountaintop becomes an analogy for the approach to God. Petrarch, Kroschel informs us, subsequently went on other expeditions to seek out new sights and experiences and advocated such touristic activities as palliatives for the weary and afflicted soul, contemplation and genuine leisure having become inextricably linked in his thought. In “From the Grand Tour to the Virtual Tour: Dreaming of the Classical Between Past and Present,” Francesca Iannelli transports us closer to the present, following the

12

J. Dillon and M.-É. Zovko

trajectory of ideas from Classical philosophical models of travel to the modern period in her reflection on the history of “the Grand Tour.” Iannelli explores the diverse motivations that lay behind the persistent allure for the German intellectual of remains of classical Antiquity found in Greece and Italy. Drawing upon the writings of several generations of intellectual tourists, Iannelli maps the overlapping and often contradictory ideas of Antiquity they shared. With Winckelmann, the author argues, we find an ideal of Antiquity so potent that it can only be safely appreciated at a considerable remove, by contemplating the shadows of classical Greece found in the ruins of Ancient Rome. In tandem with the development of modern forms of transport that made voyages to the South less perilous and less costly, Iannelli notes a shift in attitude towards classical Antiquity. She describes a growing philosophical disenchantment with myths of origin, and a concomitant sense of disillusionment, or at least dissonance, which arose through exposure to classical Antiquity’s concrete material traces. She also charts, via Freud and Vischer, the journey South as part of a more subjective process of mourning and healing, wherein the significance of the classical lies in its symbolic role in overcoming personal bereavement. In a more contemporary vein, she turns to Henrich’s travels in Greece and Italy in the 1950s and 1960s, in which the ideal of Classical Antiquity forms a rapprochement with the celebration of modern modes of life found there, in all their colour and diversity. Iannelli concludes by likening the turn to virtual tourism necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic to the situation Hegel and other intellectuals found themselves in when obliged to visit the historical treasures of the South in imagination only. The second part of our volume concerns Aesthetic and Cultural Aspects of Tourism in Philosophical Perspective. Jure Zovko’s chapter, “Do We Need a Philosophy of Tourism?,” opens with a rhetorical question, to which it responds with a most emphatic affirmative. Drawing on Zygmunt Bauman’s analysis of tourism, J. Zovko draws our attention to the key role played by tourism in the current socio-economic system, a phenomenon which in turn points back to a significant alteration in the operations of contemporary capitalism as dominated by consumerism, in which experience itself has become the commodity to be consumed. Employing Bauman’s concept of the contemporary tourist as an “irreligious pilgrim,” J. Zovko traces the devolution of the cultural understanding of pilgrimage: from St. Augustine’s traveller on an earthly journey of moral-aesthetic development towards the model of Christ, to the subjectivist “inner pilgrimage” of Weber’s Protestants in which appropriate affective states become the hallmark of moral value, and to the hedonistic contemporary leisure-seeker who derives existential meaning from the “hectic busyness of pleasurable consumption.” Zovko decries the reckless and superficial consumption of cultural heritage, which ultimately destroys, or at least debases, the object of its attention. In closing, he calls for a critical engagement with tourism that recognises its centrality to modern existence and at the same time the need to restore an older sense of travel as cultural education and self-­ cultivation. This sense of “deeper tourism,” the author hopes, holds out the possibility of connecting the modern traveller to a more authentic and profound sense of happiness, as opposed to the pleonexia cultivated in the contemporary consumerist City of Man. In “The Seriousness of Play,” Douglas Hedley connects the phenomenon of tourism to the central role of play in human culture. Hedley ponders the question why people

1  Introduction: Mass Tourism, Overtourism, and Post-Pandemic Revenge…

13

feel the need to travel for recreational purposes. Hedley suggests that the answer might be found in concepts of play like that of Huizinga, who held that play lies at the very source of culture. Recent research has shown that play fulfils a decisive evolutionary role in human development. With Schiller, it is even possible to say we are only truly human when we play – a position which seems to speak in favour of the practice of tourism as a natural and justifiable pursuit. In keeping with Erasmus and the Christian humanistic tradition, Huizinga identified play with the exercise of freedom, as opposed to the Christian tradition represented by Tertullian, Pascal, and Kierkegaard, which attacked the culture of play. Although play can sometimes degenerate and have negative consequences, by permitting us to step outside the constraints of ordinary life into a magical space structured by arbitrary rules, play defies materialistic-deterministic views of reality and affirms the priority of the life of the mind. Hedley considers Hesse’s novel The Glass Bead Game as an example of a critical tradition and an attitude of ambivalence toward the cultural significance of play. In his novel, Hesse creates an imaginary world in which he showcases the problematic relationship of the life of the mind and our human condition in the world. While Narcissus and Goldmund highlights the value of the artistic as affirming the human need to live in beauty and providing meaning to “the meaningless death dance of fleshly existence,” Hesse appears in The Glass Bead Game “to oscillate between recommending retreat from the domain of the diurnal and … criticising the sterility of the purely intellectual life.” Huizinga, by contrast, emphasises the civilising effect of the play-spirit and its therapeutic effect in countering a culture of barbarism. Hedley closes with a consideration of Pieper’s reflections on the relationship between leisure and ritual, as exemplified in liturgical feasts and festivals, as a “non-instrumental avowal of life” over against the “idolatry of work” and its obsession with productivity. Leisure, in this sense, functions not merely as a break from work, but as affirmation of the transcendent and manifestation of a higher order in human existence, an order of freedom, intellect, and creativity. Renowned pianist Vladimir Stoupel, who participated in the conference with a concert performance and lecture, exemplifies the dual aspect of play – as manifestation of a higher order and in its therapeutic and civilising effect – in his “Journey in Music: Journey in Space and Time.” In this chapter, Vladimir notes that travel is an important part of the life of a professional musician, not only for the purposes of performing or soliciting work, but also for self-education. Here, however, Stoupel explores the musical journey by way of an analysis of certain works of Schubert, Schulhoff, and Shostakovich, reflecting on music as a form of, and means for, inner travel. Stoupel details the way in which the act of creating music enabled these composers to travel in time, to relive past experiences and revivify past cultural forms. Stoupel points out that these compositions still have the power to enable the contemporary audience to travel in their imaginations and experience for themselves the cultural atmosphere in which this music was formed, with the musician as their temporal tour guide. In “Architecture and the Question of Historicity in the Context of Tourism and Culture,” Nives Delija Trešćec provides the bridge to the following section, dealing with postmodernist and phenomenological approaches to travel and tourism. Delija Trešćec explores the need that we as tourists feel to engage in cultural tourism, especially our desire to visit historical city centres and both historical and contemporary buildings. Delija Trešćec follows the Hegelian insight that architecture, even of the

14

J. Dillon and M.-É. Zovko

“ahistorical” variety, is a form of art. And that, as art, architecture possesses a hermeneutic dimension that allows the beholder to access the historical context whose spirit the building expresses in material form. The tourist’s need for cultural tourism can then be understood, Delija Trešćec argues, as an attempt to compensate for the loss of place and historicity experienced by individuals in this postmodern age in which space has ascendancy over time. Delija Trešćec substantiates her claim by analysing the case of modernist architecture, the exemplar of dehistoricised architecture, and its commitment to functionality, utility, and the expression of abstract and universal ideas. Here too, she argues, the hermeneutic capacity of architecture persists. And through a combination of the tourist’s experience of the place and their prior historical knowledge, the tourist is able to imaginatively engage with the “spiritual and material substantiality” of the community that constructed the architectural site. Thus, even architectural styles committed to the repudiation of locality and historicality can speak to the tourist as an artistic expression of the spirit of an age, inextricably embedded in a specific historical context and locality. In Part III of our volume, Postmodernist and Phenomenological Aspects of Travel and Tourism, our contributors turn to more solemn aspects of tourism and travel. In “Overtourism and the End of Hospitality,” author Ching-Lam Janice Law considers some of the negative consequences of the contemporary tourism practice and their aetiology. Drawing on Derrida’s analysis of hospitality, Law first analyses the cultural roots and ethical dimensions of hospitality prior to the emergence of the contemporary tourist industry. Law argues that we find the origins of the idea of hospitality in the customs of Western Culture, specifically in Greco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian traditions. Both traditions of hospitality are based on a moral obligation to be hospitable to the traveller, an obligation that operates within ritual limits, binding upon both the giver and the recipient of hospitality. Derrida sees this tradition of hospitality as “constituted by irresolvable aporias,” in that the condition of hospitality’s possibility also constitutes the condition for its impossibility. Hospitality, in its traditional sense, is based namely on an infinite ethico-religious obligation to be hospitable, which, being unconditional, cannot be realised in practice. Ideally, such a form of hospitality would require infinite trust between the host and the guest. Despite this inner contradiction, however, unconditional hospitality makes possible real-world instances of conditional hospitality. Indeed, Law argues, hospitality in its unconditional form requires conditional hospitality in order  – by imposing limits on it, e.g., by screening guests, limiting stays, etc., − to render its utopian ideal of hospitality practicable. With the development of the modern tourist industry, Law detects a radical alteration in hospitality. The modern-day tourist industry, namely, inserts a third party into traditional host-guest relations: the owner/investor. The host is now obligated not to the guest, but to the owner. The owner, moreover, is motivated by profit rather than by any ethical obligation to the guest. It is in this fundamentally extractive attitude toward the guest that Law identifies the cause of the contemporary phenomenon of overtourism. In the transition from hospitality as custom to hospitality as industry, Law also sees the demise of hospitality as a regulatory ideal for tourism praxis and with it the “irrevocable” loss of the ethical foundations of hospitality.

1  Introduction: Mass Tourism, Overtourism, and Post-Pandemic Revenge…

15

In “Towards a Phenomenology of Dark Tourist Experiences,” Gregory Morgan Swer examines another dark side of tourism, namely, the strangely unsettling phenomenon of “dark tourism.” With the expression “dark tourism,” Swer refers to the presentation and consumption of death-related sites and experiences as tourist attractions. Swer adapts Erik Cohen’s (1977) framework for the analysis of tourist experiences in order to provide a phenomenological analysis of the range of experiences sought by the dark tourist. For Swer, what demarcates dark tourism from other forms of tourism is the way the dark tourist site signifies, that is to say, the way in which the site is paired symbolically with a province of meaning that transcends the material. Making use of Alfred Schutz’s social phenomenology, Swer suggests that Schutz’s analyses of types of intentional signification and modes of transcendence can be used to supplement Cohen’s account. Such a supplementation provides a framework for the analysis of dark tourism that focuses on the channels by which dark tourist sites point to the transcendental within the intersubjective structures of meaning according to which dark tourists interpret their experiences. Veering away from the realm of tourist practices into what in her case formed the sombre backdrop of the tourism industry, Natalie Nenadic uses her personal connection to Hvar to reflect on travel’s capacity to act as a springboard into an existentially transformative experience. In “Charting an Invisible Domain: Travel and the Genesis of the Concept of Sexual Atrocities as Genocide,” Nenadic narrates events she herself became engaged in on behalf of victims of sexual atrocities during the wars which took place in the region. Nenadic’s chapter describes how international connections between the author and Asja Armanda and the Kareta feminist group enabled the transfer of information from Croatia to the US regarding the sexual atrocities being committed during the conflict, and the application of insights grounded in US feminist legal praxis to articulate and address the issue. This fusion of philosophical reflection and praxis resulted in the legal action brought against Radovan Karadžić, then president of Republika Srpska, which in turn led to the recognition of sexual crimes as genocide in international law. Part III closes with a contribution by Joseph Campisi and Georganna Ulary on the topic of “Travelling, Fast and Slow.” Campisi and Ulary approach the topic of “fast” and “slow” tourism using an analytic framework derived from Albert Borgmann’s philosophy of technology. Growing awareness of the destructive impacts of increasing international tourism on the environment and local cultures has produced criticism of “fast” tourism and the positioning of “slow” tourism as an alternative. In addition to mitigating negative environmental and cultural impacts, “slow” tourism also aims to produce beneficial effects on tourists themselves. The authors identify an explanatory gap in accounts of “slow” tourism regarding these benefits and employ Borgmann’s theory of focal practices to address it. Borgmann introduces what he calls the “device paradigm” to describe the structuring of our everyday lives by the use of “devices,” technological equipment that provides goods without the expenditure of effort or acquisition of skills formerly needed to produce those same goods. Despite the obvious benefits, Borgmann argues that the saturation of our existence with such devices results in an increasing sense of disconnection and alienation from the goods made available by these devices. Personal fulfilment cannot be attained through exclusive reliance on devices that do the work for us, but

16

J. Dillon and M.-É. Zovko

rather through meeting the challenges posed by preparation of the goods themselves. Borgmann proposes thus limiting our use of technological devices whilst reserving space in our lives for “focal practices,” activities that engage our full attention and participation in the preparation and enjoyment of a particular good. Campisi and Ulary extend Borgmann’s analysis to tourism, identifying “fast” tourism with “device tourism,” which leads to tourism sites and experiences being viewed as interchangeable commodities to be consumed. “Slow” tourism, on the other hand, instantiates Borgmann’s focal practices, a mode of tourism which favours quality of the tourist experience over quantity, a way of being with tourist sites that enables unhurried savouring of the experience, and alleviates our sense of alienation and disconnection from the goods we long to enjoy. Part IV of our volume turns to some more specific issues regarding the Ethics of Tourism. In “The Botho Perspective on Human and Animal Welfare,” Doreen Sesiro addresses ethical dimensions of human-animal conflicts in Botswana and their implications for her country’s tourist industry. More specifically, Sesiro explores current conflicts between humans and elephants over access to natural resources, such as water. Adopting a Botho perspective, she contextualises this conflict within a broader relational web of ethical considerations and obligations that, despite apparent similarities with major currents of Western ethical thought, differs significantly in key regards. Sesiro details key features of Botho as an ethical framework, such as its emphasis on human dignity and the intrinsic value of all beings. Whilst Botho, she argues, places upon humans moral obligations to all beings (both persons and non-persons), it does still allow for discrimination between types of being such that a human’s moral obligations are weighted towards those beings that are themselves capable of morality. Furthermore, it is noted that these moral obligations to moral persons extend beyond the boundaries of the community or nation. Sesiro then recasts the recent furore over the lifting of the moratorium on elephant hunting in Botswana as an ethical issue to be understood within this weighted scale of ethical considerations. Thus considered, the decision to reopen hunting, itself a response to an ongoing conflict between humans and elephants over access to natural resources, should be considered within the Botho perspective at a community level in terms of the ethical obligations of humans to non-human others within Botswana. In light of these circumstances, Botswana’s leaders need to consider the negative impact of restoring elephant hunting on the global perception of Botswana’s conservation reputation, whilst also obliging the international tourism community to consider their own obligations with regard to the dignity and livelihoods of the Batswana. In “The Ethical Problem of the Exploitation of Animals for Tourism,” Ena Pavičić, provides a complementary perspective to the previous paper, focussing on the role of animals as tourist attractions. Pavičić argues that, regardless of the specific role played by animals in the tourist industry (e.g., as modes of transport, as entertainment, etc.), animals are typically treated as resources to be exploited for human interests. After surveying several approaches to the analysis of tourist behaviour regarding tourist attractions involving animals, Pavičić points to a tendency to focus solely on the motivations and experiences of the tourist consumer, and not that of the animals involved. She then argues that a shift in focus is needed, in other words, that ethical considerations need to be extended to animals and animals need to be treated as beings with an

1  Introduction: Mass Tourism, Overtourism, and Post-Pandemic Revenge…

17

intrinsic worth. The chapter concludes by underlining our responsibility as tourists to consider whether attractions involving animals do in fact extend such consideration to the animals involved and, if not, whether we should refrain from patronising such attractions. The final paper in Part IV, “Hedonism and Its (Negative) Impact on Tourism,” by Maja Ferenec Kuća, brings an ethical perspective to bear on tourist activity in general, exploring the pursuit of pleasure as the primary motivating force in tourism today. Based on a meta-ethical investigation into the nature of the values that motivate tourist activity, Ferenec Kuća argues that some form of hedonistic calculus is at work in any holistic value system. Detailing some of the hedonistic aims of the tourist, Ferenec Kuća highlights what she terms “unnecessary desires,” by which she means the excessive desire to consume certain pleasures in a way that arouses further desire rather than providing satiation. This tendency to excess can include even the desire to consume aesthetic pleasure, as well as the pleasure derived from natural or cultural heritage. Ferenec Kuća notes that tourist demand for enjoyment of a particular object, site, or experience can have negative consequences if satisfaction of that demand harms the object itself. The tendency to excess with regard to the object of one’s desire, and the tendency for demand for the object to exceed the limits of supply, appear to be an unavoidable effect of the natural inclination to pursue what gives us pleasure, but may also act as a motivating force in efforts to conserve the object. The hedonistic values of the tourist thus do not necessarily entail negative effects and could, in principle, also produce positive ones. Ferenec Kuća concludes by arguing for an ethics of responsibility, which incorporates considerations from the main branches of ethical theory, and understanding of our natural tendency to hedonism, as the basis for the development of an ethical form of tourism. In the final section of our volume, Part V, Tourism and Culture In Situ: Perspectives from the Town of Hvar, we give the floor to our hosts from the Town of Hvar, to voice their own perspectives on a topic which concerns them directly in their daily lives and in the practice of their livelihoods as tourism providers and members of the local community. In the first paper, “The Faces of Tourism in Hvar from Ancient Times to the Present,” Marinko Petrić, Senior Curator at Hvar Heritage Museum, provides a critical and informative overview of the history of tourism in Hvar. His paper unfolds a wealth of historical detail that is sure to be of interest to tourism scholars on matters ranging from the development and organisation of tourism infrastructure to variations in the intensity of tourist flows, and alternations in the class and nationality of tourists. The author contextualises Hvar’s shifting fortunes as a tourist destination over the decades in relation to broader national and international developments. And whilst celebrating the recent upturn in Hvar’s prospects as a top tourist destination, Petrić is careful to note the negative impacts of Hvar’s success on local culture and ecology. In “Hvar on Film,” Zorka Bibić, a local expert from the Hvar Town Library, provides an illuminating survey of the history of film productions associated with or produced in Hvar. Her paper traces Hvar’s role as both foreground and background in the history of film, from its first appearances in short documentary films to its later role as an exotic backdrop for prestigious international productions. Of particular interest to Hollywood cinephiles, will be the sections in this chapter where Bibić discusses the films that Orson Welles directed in Hvar and the ways in which these productions are recalled by

18

J. Dillon and M.-É. Zovko

the local community. The chapter concludes with an exhaustive list of all known films or documentaries filmed on the island of Hvar. “Youth Attitudes on Cultural Tourism in the Town of Hvar” presents the results of a survey conducted by students of Hvar Preparatory High School, from the department of Hotel Management, and from the Tourism Vocational School, under the supervision of their teachers Sanda Stančić and Vesna Barbarić. Though Hvar has a long and diverse history as a tourist destination, nowadays, their chapter argues, it appeals mainly to the younger end of the tourist market. They suggest that the tourism potential for both Nature-Based Tourism and Cultural Heritage Tourism is currently either un- or under-­ exploited in Hvar and that the necessary development and marketing of these tourism features requires a process of engagement with the relevant stakeholders, including the youth of the town. To substantiate their views, the students of Hvar High School embarked on a project to poll the youth of Hvar in order to determine the extent to which this subset of the local population are aware of the benefits of cultural tourism and to register their experiences and anticipations of the positive and negative consequences of tourism development, and what their own contributions towards the future development of Hvar as a tourist destination might be. The student researchers found that the youth polled were far from oblivious to the role that tourism does (and could) play in Hvar’s socioeconomic life, and that they were unhappy with the current state of affairs and wanted change. The researchers also noted that whilst the youth polled were in general positively inclined towards tourism, further education of young people regarding the nature and operations of tourism was required.

1.2 Conclusion To regard the connection of tourism and culture as a phenomenon necessitating philosophical reflection is ground-breaking and, at the same time, long overdue. In confronting the challenge we set ourselves by undertaking to explore this topic, we found ourselves grappling with philosophical issues that were unexpectedly urgent and deep. While the individual papers are quite diverse in their perspectives and in their approach, by collecting them into the space of a single volume common themes begin to emerge from the discussions conducted during the conference and continued in ever greater intensity among the participants over the intervening years. The ones that spring to mind in reviewing the volume’s contents are the centrality of pleasure to human existence and of play to human culture, as well as the implications of these insights for an understanding of human beings as tourists. Moreover, a guiding thread throughout the discussion remains the connection between play, playfulness, pleasure and the central values of freedom, human dignity, and the life of the mind. The stark contrast of these with the violent background of war, exploitation, poverty, and displacement cannot, with moral impunity, be ignored. Nevertheless, in our view, from these diverse reflections, a kind of hope emerges that what is natural to the human condition, the desire to travel to distant places in order to satisfy one’s desire to encounter the new and unknown, and for the sheer pleasure that one takes in this activity, is in fact deeply tied to the desire to come home, to gain deeper knowledge of oneself, to preserve and to cultivate

1  Introduction: Mass Tourism, Overtourism, and Post-Pandemic Revenge…

19

the beauty of the natural world we live in and to attain to a vision of a higher order where each of us accepts the responsibility we are called to take upon ourselves to secure for ourselves and others a higher good.

References Azuma, Hiroki, 2023. Philosophy of the Tourist. Trans. John D. Person. Falmouth: Urbanomic Media Ltd. Carrigan, Anthony. 2010. Postcolonial Tourism: Literature, Culture, and Environment. New York: Routledge. de Montaigne, Michel. 1958. The Complete Works of Montaigne. Essays. Travel Journal. Letters. Newly translated by Donald F. Frame. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Eurostat. Statistics Explained. Tourism Statistics at the Regional Level. https://ec.europa.eu/ eurostat/statistics-­explained/index.php?title=Tourism_statistics_at_regional_level Accessed 9 Jan 2023. Niblett, Matthew, and Kris Beuret, eds. 2021. Why Travel? Understanding our Need to Move and How it Shapes our Lives. Bristol: Bristol University Press. Roberts, Tomos. 2020. The Great Realisation. With art by Nomoco. London: Egmont Books. Cf. The Great Realisation. Tomfoolery | A bed time story of how it started, and why hindsight’s 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw5KQMXDiM4 Accessed 19 June 2022 Thomas, Emily. 2020. The Meaning of Travel. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tribe, John. 2009. Philosophical Issues in Tourism. Bristol: Channel View Publications. Urry, John, and Jonas Larsen. 2012. The Tourist Gaze 3.0. London: Sage Publications Ltd. John Dillon is Regius Professor of Greek (Emeritus) at Trinity College, Dublin. Born in 1939, in Madison Wisc., U.S.A, but returned to Ireland in 1946. Educated at Oxford (B.A., M.A.), and University of California at Berkeley (Ph.D., The Fragments of Iamblichus’ Commentary on the Timaeus of Plato). On faculty of Dept. of Classics, UC Berkeley, 1969–80 (Chair of Dept. 1977– 80); Regius Professor of Greek, Trinity College, Dublin, 1980–2006. Main focus of research: Plato and the Platonic Tradition. Chief works: The Middle Platonists, 1977 (2nd ed. 1996); Alcinous: The Handbook of Platonism (1993); Iamblichus, De Anima (with John Finamore, 2000); The Heirs of Plato (2003); The Roots of Platonism (2018); Philo of Alexandria: On the Life of Abraham (with Ellen Birnbaum, 2021), and three volumes of collected essays.  

Marie-Élise Zovko, née Deslattes, from Ithaca, New York, is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy, Zagreb, and doctoral thesis advisor at the University of Zadar, Humanities Studies, Dept. of Philosophy. Her areas of specialisation include Ancient Greek philosophy, Platonism/Neoplatonism, Mysticism, Spinoza, Kant, German Idealism, German Romantic philosophy, Schelling, Franz v. Baader, metaphysics, theory of mind, philosophising with children/ philosophising in life contexts. She is the author of two books, co-editor of three volumes of proceedings, and has published numerous scholarly articles.  

Chapter 2 The Philosopher as Tourist: An Identifiable Tradition? John Dillon1 (*) 1 

Department of Classics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland [email protected]

Abstract.  The purpose of this paper is to trace the theme of mind-broadening travel in the ancient world, as practised by a series of philosophers, starting with Pythagoras, and including Plato, and then a series of Plato’s disciples, including Xenocrates of Chalcedon, Heraclides of Pontus, and not least Aristotle of Stagira, who were attracted to Athens by reports of the interesting new philosophical school that had been set up there. The theme is continued into later times, with the interesting figure of Antiochus of Ascalon, in the first century BC, and then Plotinus, coming from Egypt to Rome, in the third century AD. I raise the question, without resolving it, of what constitutes philosophical tourism, as opposed to more permanent modes of study, but seek to highlight what seems to me an ongoing feature of philosophical study throughout antiquity and beyond. Keywords:  Philosophical tourism · Philosophical school · Pythagoras · Plato · Aristotle · Plotinus

2.1 Introducing the Theme The philosopher Philo of Alexandria, in the course of his Life of Abraham (§65), finds occasion, in connection with Abraham’s voluntary exiling of himself from his native land in obedience to the command of God, to discourse on the reasons why a philosopher might be prompted to leave his native place and engage in travel: Some men go voyaging for business reasons through desire for gain, or on an embassy, or for the purpose of viewing the features of foreign lands through love of learning (di’ erôta paideias), possessing as forces drawing them towards remaining abroad, in the one case, the prospect of profit, in another, the chance of benefiting one’s city in a time of emergency in respect of the most pressing and essential issues, in yet another, the process of enquiring into those things of which they were previously ignorant, bestowing as it does both pleasure and profit upon the soul – for blind indeed, as compared with the sharp-sighted, are those who have not traveled abroad, by comparison with those who have.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M.-É. Zovko, J. Dillon (eds.), Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36659-8_2

21

22

J. Dillon

Now this might not seem to be a specific commendation of travel for philosophical purposes, but, coming from such a man as Philo, it must at least include that. The odd thing is that we have very little information as to any such travels undertaken by the man himself – though a visit at some stage of his life to Jerusalem and the rest of the ancestral homeland would seem highly probable. Otherwise, though, there are just his periodic excursions into the desert to consort with the Therapeutae, and his participation, towards the end of his life, in the highly-fraught embassy to Rome, to counter, at the court of the lunatic Emperor Caligula, the sinister Jew-baiting activities of the Prefect Flaccus in Alexandria – this latter journey hardly to be reckoned as tourism, admittedly, though he doubtless took the opportunity to make the acquaintance of leading intellectuals in Rome at the time! However, Philo does give voice to the topic of philosophical tourism, even if he does not much practice it himself. What I wish to enquire into on this occasion, and in these most delightful surroundings, is how much a part of the Greek philosophical tradition the idea of tourism really is, and what its contribution may be to that tradition.

2.2 The Travels of Pythagoras The story, it seems to me, may reasonably be said to start with Pythagoras.1 For a study of the activities of this largely legendary figure, I turn to the account given by the late Platonist philosopher Iamblichus, in his book On the Pythagorean Way of Life, which incorporates a “life” of Pythagoras himself. Iamblichus, we may note, while presenting Pythagoras as the “father” of Greek philosophy, is also able to present him as the father of academic tourism, of the type that so many philosophers of his own day, and of previous generations, had indulged in – including, not only himself (though he returned triumphantly in due course to his native land of Syria), but also his teacher, Porphyry (who had journeyed from Tyre to Athens, and then to Rome, and even to Lilybaeum in Western Sicily,2 in search of enlightenment), and Porphyry’s revered teacher Plotinus, who had come from Lycopolis in Egypt, via an abortive expedition to visit the Magi of Persia and the “Naked Philosophers” of India, to Rome – though by the time he got there, he is plainly in the position of being

 We may note, however, that, as part of the process of the allegorization of Homer, Odysseus, in the Odyssey, as an aspect of his portrayal as Everyman, struggling through the toils of human life, was portrayed also as someone travelling in search of new knowledge, and therefore as the archetype of the philosophical tourist  – this notion being based in particular on an exegesis of his encounter with the Sirens, in Book 12, 184–191. We find this set out in Cicero’s De Finibus (V 49), expounded by M Pupius Piso, the spokesman for the philosophical position of Antiochus of Ascalon. This portrayal of Odysseus, however, was certainly not original to Cicero, or even Antiochus, and was very probably known to Philo, well-schooled as he was in all aspects of Greek paideia. 2  Though this last, it must be said, was undertaken rather for mental health purposes, at the prompting of his teacher, Plotinus (Porph. VP ch. 11). 1

2  The Philosopher as Tourist: An Identifiable Tradition?

23

teacher rather than student, having learned all his philosophy from the mysterious Ammonius Saccas in Alexandria. At any rate, let us consider the presentation of Pythagoras’ academic tourism in the Bios Pythagorikos. As Iamblichus tells the story (VP ch. 2), Pythagoras’ philosophical journeying began when he was only 18, in face of the increasing oppressiveness of Polycrates’ tyranny in Samos,3 he decided to head off, first to the island of Syros, to visit the “wise man” Pherecydes, and then to Miletus, on the mainland of Asia Minor, to call on the philosophers Anaximander and Thales. What he learned from any of them is not clear, but they were all greatly struck with his intellectual prowess, and Thales, in particular, urged him to go on to Egypt to further his education by consorting with the priests in Memphis and Diospolis (the other name for the Egyptian Thebes). On the way to Egypt, however, he stopped off at Sidon in Phoenicia, where he fell in with what Iamblichus describes (VPyth. 14) as “the descendants (apogonoi) of Môchos,” who is in turn characterised as “a prophet and natural philosopher” (physiologos prophêtês),4 and he spends some time studying with them on Mt. Carmel,5 “and was initiated into all the sacred rites of the mysteries (teletai) celebrated especially in Byblos and in Tyre, and in many parts of Syria.” Iamblichus is at pains to specify that he did not do this out of superstition (deisidaimonia), “but much more with a desire and yearning for theoretical knowledge (theôria), and a reverent concern that nothing worthy of learning kept in the secrets or mystic rites of the god escape his notice.” Here, then, we have the intellectual tourist in his pristine manifestation. Even the wisdom acquired on the refreshing heights of Mt. Carmel, however, does not satisfy our hero, and he resolves to head for Egypt, “having learned that the wisdom there (sc. in Syria) was somehow derived and descended from the sacred rites in Egypt.”6 In furtherance of this aim, he was able to hitch a lift from some Egyptian seamen who had pulled into shore somewhere below Mt. Carmel.

 This should have been around 532 B.C., but as we shall see shortly, Iamblichus has little concern to maintain an accurate chronology in listing Pythagoras’ voyages, and indeed his career in general, so this must be taken with more than a grain of salt. 4  All translations from the Bios Pythagorikos are from the Dillon-Hershbell edition (Scholars Press: Atlanta, 1991). 5  I must say that I persist in regarding Môchos as a garbled version of Moses (“Moshe”/“Moche”)), made into a Phoenician because of a general Greek aversion to crediting ancient wisdom to the Jews, but it is undeniable that he takes on something of a life of his own in the tradition. He seems to be earliest attested in Posidonius (cf. Strabo, Geog. XVI 757; Strabo 1983, 270–271), who presents him as a Phoenician sage from Sidon, living before the Trojan War, and the founder of Atomism! Even Josephus (Ant. Jud. 1. 107; Josephus 1930, 50–51), it must be said, regards him as an authority distinct from Moses, but he could well be reflecting earlier Hellenistic distortions. 6  This, we may note, may be related to a standard gibe in Greek anti-Jewish polemic that the Jews were merely a deviant group of Egyptians, who had left their homeland (some said because they were leprous, or otherwise diseased), and settled in Palestine – though we need not attribute any such imputation to Iamblichus here. 3

24

J. Dillon

They gladly took him on, it seems, as they liked the look of him, and hoped to sell him profitably as a slave when they reached their destination. During the voyage, however, they became impressed by his almost supernatural impassivity, and by the time they reached the shore of Egypt, they were prepared to worship him as a daimon, putting him ashore with a supply of food, and sailing on. In Iamblichus’ account (VP ch. 4), Pythagoras here ceases for some time to be a philosophical tourist in the strict sense, since, after being received most warmly by the Egyptian priestly class, he then spent fully twenty-two years with them, “studying astronomy and geometry, and being initiated in all the mystic rites of the gods.” This research stay comes to an end when he is arrested by the troops of Cambyses, the Persian monarch who has conquered Egypt, and brought by him to Babylon.7 This does not strictly count as tourism, either, I suppose, but once there, Pythagoras is able to consort with the Magi, studying their rites, learning the perfect worship of the gods, and “reaching the highest point in knowledge of numbers, music, and other mathematical sciences.” Once again, he takes his time, staying in Babylon for a further 12  years, before returning finally to Samos, at least for a brief while. He was now, says Iamblichus, 56 years of age – but strict chronology has long since gone out the window. He is portrayed as now staying home for a number of years, gradually building up a group of followers, and running an informal school, but in due course he becomes dissatisfied, because of the low regard exhibited by the people of Samos for his kind of learning,8 and takes himself off to Croton in Southern Italy, where he is received ecstatically by the inhabitants, and sets up a formal school, and indeed a quasi-monastic community. There, however, we may leave him, as he is no longer a searcher after wisdom, travelling to improve his mind, but already an accomplished sage, and so no longer an intellectual “tourist” within the ambit of the present discourse.

2.3 Plato in Search of Wisdom Instead, let us turn to consider the case of Plato, somewhat over a century later, which exhibits a number of significant parallels with that of Pythagoras. First of all, his life as a “philosophic tourist” is provoked at least partly by an unfavourable political situation at home. Even as Pythagoras was driven to travel partly by his hostility to the tyranny of Polycrates, so Plato, and indeed various other companions of Socrates, after his execution by the Athenian people in 399, felt constrained by the general atmosphere of hostility to all connected with Socrates, as well as his own antipathy to a regime which

 Since Cambyses conquered Egypt in 525  B.C., and presumably Pythagoras was arrested not long after this, Iamblichus’ chronology is already considerably out of kilter. 8  We may note that Iamblichus, unlike Porphyry in his Life of Pythagoras (16), makes no further mention of the tyranny of Polycrates, probably realizing that his chronology of events would render such mention absurdly anachronistic; instead, he merely makes a vague reference to “political distractions” (politikai askholiai) which Pythagoras wished to avoid. 7

2  The Philosopher as Tourist: An Identifiable Tradition?

25

could do that to the mentor that he revered, retired down the road to Megara, to study with the philosopher Euclides, who seems to have practised Socratic dialectic in an extreme, aporetic form. At any rate, whether he became bored with Euclides and/or his other companions, Diogenes Laertius, in his Life of Plato (Vit. Philos. III 6) tells us that he soon pressed on to further travels, all driven by the desire for knowledge; first, across the Mediterranean to Cyrene in Libya, to visit the noted mathematician Theodorus (whom he later celebrates in the Theaetetus), then somewhat further on, to Italy, to visit the Pythagorean philosopher Philolaus, and his pupil Erytus, in Croton9 – where, of course, Pythagoras had first settled and founded his school. Having thus attained some proficiency in the principles of Pythagoreanism, it is said that he next journeyed to Egypt, in the footsteps of Pythagoras, to acquaint himself with the wisdom of the priests. He is reported to have fallen ill while there (a touch of Tutankhamun’s revenge, perhaps?), and to have been cured by the priests with seawater – an unlikely story, which may yet conceal some significant truth. He then – once again seeking to follow in the footsteps of Pythagoras – proposed to go on to Persia, to consort with the Magi, but gave up on this “because of the wars in Asia,” and returned to Athens, sometime in the mid to late 390 s. We can see from this itinerary that, unlike Pythagoras – at least according to the rather fanciful chronology followed by Iamblichus  – he spent only relatively short periods, to be measured in months rather than years, in each venue, but he undoubtedly learned a good deal in the process of his travels. He must by this time have acquired a certain notoriety as a “seeker after truth,” if we can draw this conclusion from the stories to be considered below, which assume his reputation being known in such places as Syracuse and Cyrene, but he had not yet, it would seem, moved to set up any sort of a school. His final adventure as a philosophical tourist, however, leads him back10 to Italy and Sicily, it would seem in late 387 and early 386, “to see the island and view the craters of the volcano (presumably Mt. Etna)” (Diog. Laert, VPhil. III 18.). at the invitation of the Syracusan noble Dion, brother-in-law of the tyrant Dionysius I. How exactly Plato and Dion were initially brought together remains a mystery  – perhaps Archytas of Tarentum, on whom Plato originally called on this trip, served as an intermediary, or perhaps Dion, who was a bit of a philosophical tourist himself, had met Plato on a previous visit to Athens11 – but there is no question that they hit it off very strongly from the start; indeed, Dion might be characterised as the one true love of Plato’s life!

 If one can accept the historicity of this brief account; it seems to conflict with Diogenes’ other statement a little later on (III 18) that Plato’s first visit to Sicily was his somewhat later (early 380’s) journey, at the invitation of Dion of Syracuse, during which he had an unpleasant encounter with Dion’s formidable brother-in-law, the tyrant of Syracuse, Dionysius I. However, strictly speaking, this is only a visit to Southern Italy, not Sicily. 10  “Back,” at least if one accepts the historicity of his earlier visit to Croton; see above, n. 7. 11  Plutarch, in his Life of Dion (Chaps. 2 and 3), rather fatuously, attributes Plato’s journey from Italy – not Athens, we may note – to Syracuse to divine providence; but we may suspect rather the intermediacy of Archytas, who could well have known that Dion had an interest in matters philosophical. 9

26

J. Dillon

The story of Plato’s return from Syracuse to Athens, as told by Diogenes Laertius (III 18–20), is certainly a bizarre one, but I think that a somewhat rationalised version of it can actually be made to yield useful evidence.12 Diogenes tells us that Dionysius was so enraged by Plato’s reprimanding of him that he handed him over to the Spartan admiral Pollis, who happened to be visiting Syracuse on business at the time, to be taken away and sold into slavery; and this Pollis duly did, when he reached the island of Aegina, on his way home – the Aeginetans were at war with Athens at the time, and had declared that any Athenian they captured would either be put to death, or sold into slavery.13 However, fortunately, a rich gentleman of Cyrene, one Anniceris, was visiting Aegina at the time, on his way to the Olympic Games, to compete in the chariot race,14 and he ransomed Plato, for either 20, “or, some say, 30” minae, and sent him home to Athens. When Plato’s friends had a whip-round and offered to pay him back, Anniceris gallantly turned down the offer, “declaring that the Athenians were not the only people worthy of providing for Plato”; so Plato’s friends instead used the money collected to purchase a small estate (kêpos) in the vicinity of the Academy park, and thus set up the Platonic Academy. This is, as I say, in many ways a bizarre tale, but I think that perhaps something can be made of it. Let us suppose that Dionysius, instead of behaving like an enraged tyrant, was actually concerned simply to fix up a suitable lift home for Plato, and asked Admiral Pollis to oblige in this. Plato, after all, though Athenian, was distinctly pro-Spartan in his sympathies, so the choice of transport was not so unsuitable as it might otherwise have been. Pollis, in turn, might well have been somewhat out of touch with developments on the home front, while pursuing an alliance with Syracuse in the West. He would have known, presumably, that peace with Athens had been established through the so-called “King’s Peace” of that year, handed down by King Artaxerxes of Persia, through the agency of the Spartan general Antalcidas, but he may not have known that Athens was still at odds with Aegina, and could have chosen to deliver Plato there, as being the nearest he could decently come, as a Spartan admiral, to sailing into the Piraeus, and a place from which Plato could easily obtain a further short lift. But, alas, neither he nor Plato was aware of the punitive measures against captured Athenians recently passed into law by the Aeginetans! The rescue by Anniceris is also a bizarre tale, but its historicity is secured, if anything, by its oddity. How could one make something like that up, one might ask?15 I think that we may take it, then, that Plato’s last effort at philosophical tourism had some such remarkable ending as this!

 Diogenes tells us that he derives this story from the Pantodapê Historia of Favorinus of Arles, which is something, but does not really get us much further along the rocky road to the truth. 13  Actually, death seems to have been the original sentence, but, we are told (DL III 19) that the Aeginetan leader, Charmandrus, son of Charmandrides, when he heard that Plato was a philosopher, opted to sell him as a slave instead. This sort of detail, I would maintain, actually adds plausibility to such a narrative! 14  One might ask, indeed, why he was in Aegina at all, as it is not on the most obvious route from Cyrene to Olympia – but let us not make difficulties! 15  Anniceris, by the way, on his way back from Olympia, is reported to have called into Athens, where he gave a demonstration of chariot-racing in the grounds of the Academy. He is also 12

2  The Philosopher as Tourist: An Identifiable Tradition?

27

The tale of Plato’s later visits to Sicily, particularly to Syracuse, at the invitation of his friend Dion, with the purpose of converting the young and dissolute Dionysius II into a philosopher-king, to be placed at the head of a Platonist ideal state, is a fascinating one, but hardly falls within our remit on the present occasion, since Plato is not at this stage a tourist in search of gaining wisdom, but rather is hoping to impart it, so they may be passed over here; and indeed, apart from his Sicilian ventures, Plato, after the founding of his school in late 386, does not seem to have indulged in any further philosophical tourism throughout the rest of his life. His two later trips to Sicily would fall rather into the category of “business” – if “business” can be deemed to include trying to convert a dissolute playboy tyrant into a philosopher king, and establish an ideal state!

2.4 The Academy as a Tourist Destination He and his foundation, however, do seem to have constituted a considerable focus for philosophical tourism over the following 40 years until his death in 347 – and indeed beyond, into the next century. Idealistic young men came to study with him from all over the Greek world, most staying for the rest of their careers, or at least for long periods, but some returning to their native lands to put Platonic principles into practice. In the first category, we may list such luminaries as Xenocrates of Chalcedon, on the Hellespont, the third head of the Academy (after Plato’s nephew, Speusippus), who did return on occasion to visit his native place, but made Athens his spiritual home. And then of course there was Aristotle, originally from Stagira, in Chalcidice (his father. Nicomachus, was physician to the Macedonian royal house), who came to study with Plato while still a teenager (presumably sent by his father), and made the rest of his career in Athens (with some brief excursions), ultimately setting up his own school across town (having failed to get elected head of the Academy after the death of Speusippus); this school, the Peripatos, in turn attracted many young men from various parts of Greece – not least his successor Theophrastus, from Eresos, on the island of Lesbos. But in the community of the Academy there were many others, of somewhat lesser note, though by no means insignificant: Heraclides of Heracleia Pontica, on the Black Sea, whose family was among the most prominent in that city, contributed much to the Academy while he was there, but ultimately returned to his native city, and enjoyed a prominent role there; the distinguished mathematician and astronomer Eudoxus of Cnidos spent a number of years in the Academy, but also ultimately returned to Cnidos, and was greatly honored there; Philip of Opus, also a noted mathematician, coming from either Opuntian Locri, on the Greek mainland, or, more probably, from the city of Medma, a colony of the Epizephyrian Locrians, on the west side of the toe of Italy, acted as Plato’s secretary in his latter years, helping him to edit the Laws – and also, I am persuaded, authoring the rather odd “appendix” to the Laws, known as the Epinomis;

reported (by Favorinus) to have remarked that “freeing Plato was a greater honour than winning the chariot-race at Olympia,” which would seem to imply that he actually won!

28

J. Dillon

and quite a number of others, listed by Diogenes (VPhil. III 46), including two enterprising ladies, Lastheneia of Mantinea and Axiothea of Phlius – both from the northern Peloponnese (they may have known each other before heading for Athens!) – who are reputed to have worn men’s clothing. Others joined the Academy under Xenocrates and Polemon, such as Crantor of Soli in Cilicia, or indeed Arcesilaus of Pitane, who stayed on to become head, and turn the Academy in a new, sceptical (but, as he would claim, authentic and Socratic) direction. Arising out of all this, the question occurs to me, particularly in connection with the ladies, but also with the others, from Aristotle on down, as to how they all came initially to hear of Plato’s interesting initiative in founding a school. After all, there is no question, really, I think, of his publishing a brochure, and sending copies round to the cities of the Greek world, from Magna Graecia to the shores of the Black Sea and the coast of Asia Minor, announcing his intention of opening a philosophical school. And yet the word must have circulated, on the grapevine of intellectual gossip, carried by travellers on the flood of ships constantly fanning out from the Piraeus over the whole Greek world, that this fellow Plato had opened a quite new sort of institution (though with some affinities to previous Pythagorean communities), and that he welcomed visits, or longer stays, from serious seekers after truth. This is not a topic that I have seen at all discussed in accounts of Plato’s Academy (though I may well have missed something); and yet this constitutes the most significant boost to philosophical tourism that had yet been provided. Previously, after all, philosophers – such as, for example, Thales, or Anaximander, or Heraclitus, or Parmenides, or Empedocles – seem simply to have roosted in their native places as individuals, with small groups of local disciples round them, and their fame and works later spread around the Greek world; while the great Sophists, on the other hand, such as Gorgias, or Hippias, or Protagoras (all duly celebrated satirically by Plato), travelled all over the Greek world, bringing their wisdom to adoring crowds -though they do indeed seem to have had small bodies of disciples who followed them about; but nobody else seems to have done quite what Plato did, before he did it. After he did it, on the other hand, it becomes a sort of philosophic norm. First Aristotle, then Zeno (of Citium in Cyprus), then Epicurus (a native Athenian, it must be said), set up schools modelled at least loosely upon that of Plato, and attracted students from all over the Greek world. It is primarily, if not exclusively, in Athens that these schools were established, and continued in existence for centuries, though in the new dispensation created by the Roman Empire philosophers established themselves at various points in the Empire, particularly in Alexandria and in Asia Minor, and students travelled to study with them. By the time we reach the first century BCE, we find such a figure as Antiochus, a native of Ascalon in Palestine, coming, first to Athens, to study with the then head of the (New) Academy, Philon of Larissa, but then having to decamp to Rome to escape the assault of King Mithridates of Pontus, where he joined the household of the Roman aristocrat Lucius Lucullus, and travelled on his staff to Alexandria in 87 BCE, only returning to Athens towards the end of the decade, in time for Cicero, himself taking on the role of philosophical tourist, like many another young well-to-do Roman, to attend his lectures in 79–8.

2  The Philosopher as Tourist: An Identifiable Tradition?

29

2.5 An Example from Later Antiquity: Plotinus Rome, however, does not really become a focus for philosophical tourism for quite some time yet, though a few philosophers  – mainly Stoics, such as the Spaniard L. Annaeus Seneca, did make it their home. Athens remains the home of philosophy for many centuries yet. If we may jump abruptly to the first half of the third century CE, however, we find, in the person of the most distinguished philosopher of late antiquity, Plotinus, a most interesting shift to Rome. Plotinus is in many respects a mysterious figure, since, as his pupil and biographer, Porphyry, tells us (VPlot. ch. 1), he declined to give details of his home place, parents, or early years. We do think we know, however, that he was born in the Egyptian city of Lycopolis in 204 CE, we may presume in very comfortable circumstances – though we do not know if his parents were by origin Roman or Greek – and only at the rather advanced age of 28 did he decide to leave his ancestral estate inland and journey to Alexandria, in search of philosophical enlightenment. He must have had a definite idea of what he wanted, since he found that the more “mainline” teachers of philosophy were not giving it to him. “He came away from their lectures,” Porphyry tells us (Chap. 3), “so depressed and full of sadness that he told his trouble to one of his friends.” The friend, “understanding the desire of his heart,” sent him down a side street to a rather off-beat guru called Ammonius Saccas, and there he found his inspiration. “This is the man I was looking for,” he told the friend; and he remained with Ammonius for fully 11 years. At this point, before going on to recount his further adventures, I want to draw attention to an aspect of this philosophical tourism that is all too easily swept under the carpet, simply because we know nothing about it, by reason of the discreet veil that is drawn over it by our sources. What I am referring to is the financial aspect of all this activity. How on earth was all this paid for? On this intriguing subject, no one ever drops a hint. Money matters are simply beneath the notice of our sources – perhaps mainly because we are expected to understand these things, though also at least partly because money matters are too vulgar to discuss. We may presume however, I think, that all was ultimately financed by the profits from the family estates, and conveyed throughout the Empire by a network of financial, or banking, houses, of the workings of which we know all too little, but which plainly kept the trade and commerce of the Roman Empire – and indeed of the Athenian Empire long before! – ticking over efficiently. We have no idea, of course, of the resources of Plotinus’ ancestral estates, but we may assume that they were fairly considerable, amply sufficient to finance 11 years of philosophical study in Alexandria, followed by a rather wild jaunt through the Empire, ending up in Rome. For when Plotinus finally decided to leave Ammonius, Porphyry tells us (Chap. 3), “he became eager to make acquaintance with the Persian philosophical tradition, and that prevailing among the Indians” – and in furtherance of that ambition he attached himself to the staff of the Emperor Gordian, who was gathering an army to attack Persia. Now I have been guilty, on other occasions, of comparing this project, rather irreverently, in terms of practicability, to, let us say, that of an idealistic young German, who had developed an enthusiasm for existentialism, joining the SS in 1940 to take part

30

J. Dillon

in the assault on Paris, in the hope of meeting up with Jean-Paul Sartre. But that is by the way; what interests me here is, rather, the circumstance that Plotinus was able to join the Emperor’s staff – he did not join up just as a foot-soldier! We can deduce this from the fact that, when Gordian was assassinated by one of his lieutenants, Philip the Arab, Plotinus felt it necessary to flee for his life!  – escaping back to Antioch, and thence, ultimately, to Rome. What we have to see here, I think, lurking in the background, is a comprehensive network of social connections and patronage, as between Plotinus’ household, as prominent members of the provincial aristocracy, and the local representatives of the imperial administration, which leads to introductions being provided, when required, at the very highest echelons of the Empire. And this would not by any means be peculiar to Plotinus; we can see such connections working, for example, in a rather different way, in the case of Plutarch of Chaeronea, in the late first and early second century, who was on good terms with a selection of Roman administrators, and travelled to Rome on a number of occasions, as a high-class philosophical tourist – but also a social one! We may probably assume similar financial and social arrangements behind the philosophical journeyings of Porphyry, and of Iamblichus, as I have suggested earlier.

2.6 Conclusion, with a Personal Note This may suffice, perhaps, as a sketch of the ancient phenomenon of philosophical tourism, which is such a salient feature of the Greco-Roman philosophical scene. I ask myself, in conclusion, whether I myself have engaged in this genre of travel, and I think that to a certain extent I have – as no doubt, have many of the present audience. When I was a young student in Dublin in the mid-1960s, my professor, John O’Meara, declared to me that I would never get anywhere in the field of Neoplatonism if I remained in Dublin, and urged me strongly to head for America, helping me significantly to do this, by suggesting suitable places, and writing letters of recommendation. And so I headed off to the University of California in Berkeley – not, of course, with support from the income of my ancestral estates, but rather, in the modern mode, on foot of a generous scholarship from the Berkeley Department of Classics; and I have been benefiting from that, and from a series of similar grants and awards ever since, at irregular intervals. This is, then, an important distinction between the ancient and modern modes of philosophical tourism: ancestral sources of income have largely dried up, and even if they were available, one would not generally be admitted to an academic program, or visiting fellowship, just because one was rich; one must show some evidence of philosophical competence in advance. However, mutatis mutandis, much the same scenario prevails in modern academia as in the ancient world: most people study and teach in some institution far removed from their home place; and relatively few return to it. I was fortunate enough to do so, after some time, rather like my earliest enthusiasm, Iamblichus, who at least returned to Syria, if not to his native city of Chalcis – as was indeed fitting for one who was himself related to the royal line of the priest-kings of Emesa. But for an important segment of one’s academic life, one must be reconciled to being a tourist!

2  The Philosopher as Tourist: An Identifiable Tradition?

31

2.7 Appendix: The Case of Democritus Shortly after the final submission of this essay, my friend Andrei Lebedev, to whom I had shown a copy, reproved me for omitting from my account (no doubt because of my Platonizing prejudices) the philosopher Democritus, who actually constitutes another good example of the philosopher as tourist, to go with Pythagoras and Plato. One distinctive feature of the account of his adventures relayed by Diogenes Laertius, indeed, is that it addresses a question that I had raised in the body of the essay, namely, how was all this philosophical tourism paid for? I feel therefore that he should be added to the account, as an appendix. Democritus, as Diogenes relates (Book 9, 34ff.), was the son of a distinguished citizen of Abdera in Thrace, Athenocritus, who had actually entertained the Persian King Xerxes, when he passed through Abdera in 480  B.C., on his way to attack Greece. Xerxes, it seems, left a number of his Magi with Athenocritus to help with the education of his son, who learned about theology and astronomy from them, and this stimulated in him a desire to learn more – the Magi having presumably departed with Xerxes after his defeat. At any rate, Diogenes (drawing on two authorities, Demetrius in his Men of the Same Name, and Antisthenes of Rhodes, in his Successions) tells us that, in due course, Democritus headed off to Egypt, “to study geometry with the priests, and to Persia and to the Red Sea; and some say that he associated with the Naked Sages (Gymnosophistai) in India, and went to Ethiopia” – in fact, more or less the usual circuit, apart, perhaps, from Ethiopia! But now we come to a detail of great interest, since it concerns the above-mentioned conundrum, to wit: what financial arrangements underpinned the wanderings of the philosophers we have surveyed in their search for wisdom? No hints on this topic, as I say, are given in our other sources, but here, in the case of Democritus, we have a significant revelation, such as, I feel, may well shed some light on the financial backing of such figures as Plato or Plotinus: [On his father’s death], he, being the youngest of three brothers, divided the family property. And most say that he chose the smaller portion, which was in money, because he needed it for his travels, a choice that his brothers had shrewdly anticipated. Demetrius says that Democritus’ portion amounted to more than one hundred talents, all of which he spent.

The sum mentioned here as being bequeathed, and being spent, seems quite preposterous, constituting as it does an enormous total, but we need not therefore doubt the essential accuracy of the report, that Democritus was able to use his inheritance in this way. There is still no light shed, it must be said, on the actual mechanics of shifting large sums of money round the Mediterranean world, and beyond  – one hardly just takes one’s hundred talents with one in a large bag, and stores it under one’s bed – but at least in the case of Democritus some little light is thrown on the financial realities behind our philosophers’ peregrinations.

32

J. Dillon

References Cicero. 1914. In De Finibus, ed. H.  Rackham. (Loeb Classical Library). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Diogenes Laertius. 1925. In Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, ed. R.D. Hicks. (Loeb Classical Library). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Iamblichus. 1991. In On the Pythagorean Way of Life, ed. John Dillon and Jackson Hershbell. Atlanta: Society for Biblical Literature. Josephus, Flavius. 1930. Jewish Antiquities. Books I–III. Trans. H. St. J. Thackeray. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Plotinus. 1966. In Enneads. Vol. I, ed. A.H. Armstrong. (Loeb Classical Library). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Plutarch. 1918. In The Parallel Lives. Vol. VI, ed. B. Perrin. (Loeb Classical Library). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Porphyre. 1982. Vie de Pythagore et Lettre à Marcella. Trans. and ed. E. Des Places. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Strabo. 1983. Geography. Books XVI–XVII (Loeb Classical Library). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. John Dillon is Regius Professor of Greek (Emeritus) at Trinity College, Dublin. Born in 1939, in Madison Wisc., U.S.A, but returned to Ireland in 1946. Educated at Oxford (B.A., M.A.), and University of California at Berkeley (Ph.D., The Fragments of Iamblichus’ Commentary on the Timaeus of Plato). On faculty of Dept. of Classics, UC Berkeley, 1969–80 (Chair of Dept. 1977– 80); Regius Professor of Greek, Trinity College, Dublin, 1980–2006. Main focus of research: Plato and the Platonic Tradition. Chief works: The Middle Platonists, 1977 (2nd ed. 1996); Alcinous: The Handbook of Platonism (1993); Iamblichus, De Anima (with John Finamore, 2000); The Heirs of Plato (2003); The Roots of Platonism (2018); Philo of Alexandria: On the Life of Abraham (with Ellen Birnbaum, 2021), and three volumes of collected essays.  

Chapter 3 Pleasure and “Happiness” in Aristotle: A Key to Understanding the Tourist? Maria Liatsi1 (*) 1 

Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece [email protected]

Abstract.  In ancient Greek thought, the final destination of humans’ life journey is eudaimonia, “happiness.” Aristotle follows this tradition in taking eudaimonia as the “goal” (telos) of human life. Eudaimonia, however, is not a momentary achievement or a means for attaining something else, nor is it identified with the chance “goods” of aristocracy, wealth, beauty, or political power. It is tied rather to the specific nature of human beings and depends on their particular function or “work” (ergon) as their proper condition throughout an entire lifetime. There is also a pleasure (hêdonê) which corresponds to this activity as the most essential and highest possible pleasure for human beings according to their nature. What is the proper activity for the human species and its proper pleasure? Which pleasure corresponds to a human being’s true nature? This paper explores the paramount importance of pleasure within the ethical/ political framework of Aristotle’s philosophy and its association with the ultimate destination of human life – which is to fully realise our human potential and function according to our nature. As such, Aristotle’s view of pleasure and happiness may provide some key insights for understanding – and perhaps redirecting – the pursuits of the tourist. Keywords:   Pleasure · hêdonê · Happiness · eudaimonia · Work · ergon · Human nature

All people strive for happiness, in all times, in all epochs. The desire for “happiness” is also behind the travel of today’s tourists, who believe that happiness can be found in pleasurable, fulfilling moments. This basic need is common to all human beings, regardless of culture, origin, and time, social and historical context, also regardless of whether you are an ancient philosopher or a contemporary tourist. The main difference, however, lies in how you define “happiness,” and what content you give it. An indispensable part of happiness is the pleasure and satisfaction that one feels in the state of happiness. One does many things to attain that state and avoids that which does not bring pleasure. The modern tourist travels and gets to know a lot of new things: new places and landscapes, new people and cultures, the things that make these cultures

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M.-É. Zovko, J. Dillon (eds.), Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36659-8_3

33

34

M. Liatsi

special – their habits and customs, their food and drink, their art and music, etc. The satisfaction of the senses and of curiosity, new insights, various agreeable impressions and experiences during the trip – all this serves to arouse pleasurable feelings and create an experience of happy moments. One may even get the impression that the tourist has thereby reached a state of happiness. However, the concept of happiness and the pleasure associated with happiness is conceived of differently by Aristotle. In the following, we will see that Aristotelian “happiness” is not a fleeting state and that the concept of happiness is much less related to feelings and the more fleeting moments of happiness than to character and constant behaviour that always considers others and the common good. In ancient Greek thought, the final destination of the journey of human life has been traditionally named εὐδαιμονία, the so-called “happiness.” Aristotle, following this tradition, says that eudaimonia is the highest “final end,” the ideal “final goal” (τέλος) that human beings can achieve on their life journeys. However, eudaimonia has a very special characteristic, like human life itself. It is not a status, a momentary achievement, or a matter of good luck (cf. NE 1.9, 1099b24–25); it does not exist for the sake of something else (cf. NE 1.7, 1097a33–34), nor is it aristocracy, wealth, beauty or political power1; it is not identical with “virtue” (ἀρετή) (cf. NE 1.8, 1098b30–1099b29). Eudaimonia is, according to Aristotle, a continuous “activity of the soul according to complete aretê.”2 This definition is related to the specific nature of the human being, i.e. it depends on the particular function, on the “work” (ἔργον) that a person has to fulfil because of their nature, just like the eye’s particular function is to see.3 The proper function of the human being is the rational activity of the soul. This activity is best p­ erformed when an excellence of its aretê is added to it.4 What is more, as Aristotle argues, this is something that spans an entire lifetime. A person cannot be said to have reached their final destination, to be happy, if this happens just once or just a few times.5 One must be active constantly and repeatedly (cf. NE 2.4, 1105a32–33). Hence, eudaimonia, as it is defined by Aristotle, derives from the very nature of human beings and as such, it is not only a right but also a kind of duty to try to realise and fully activate the natural human potential. The vehicle to this final destination, every single time, is the practice of aretê; and only the “good man,” the ἀγαθός, can be eudaimôn. Only he can reach the best, the highest good in life, which is also the most beautiful and most pleasant. For a “happy” life has no need of pleasure (ἡδονή) that is superadded to it, like an ornament that gets fastened on, but has its pleasure within itself; it is an intrinsically pleasant life (NE 1.8,

 While in Homer, e.g., possessing great political power was the paragon of aretê, the pattern of the best possible way of life (cf. Iliad 6.476–478). 2  NE 1.12, 1102a5–6: ἐστὶν ἡ εὐδαιμονία ψυχῆς ἐνέργειά τις κατ’ ἀρετὴν τελείαν. Cf. NE 10.7, 1177a12. On this definition, see e.g. Purinton 1998. Cf. Heinaman 2007. On eudaimonia in Aristotle’s ethics, see e.g. Hardie 1965; Ackrill 1974; McDowell 1980; Kraut 1989, esp.15–77; Kenny 1991; Lear 2004, esp. 37–71; Irwin 2012. 3  Cf. Wedin 1981; Whiting 1988; Gomez-Lobo 1991; Lawrence 2006. 4  NE 1.7, 1098a10–11: προστιθεμένης τῆς κατὰ τὴν ἀρετὴν ὑπεροχῆς πρὸς τὸ ἔργον. 5  NE 1.7, 1098a18–20: ἔτι δ’ ἐν βίῳ τελείῳ. μία γὰρ χελιδὼν ἔαρ οὐ ποιεῖ, οὐδὲ μία ἡμέρα⋅ οὕτω δὲ οὐδὲ μακάριον καὶ εὐδαίμονα μία ἡμέρα οὐδ’ ὀλίγος χρόνος. Cf. 2.4, 1105a33. 1

3  Pleasure and “Happiness” in Aristotle: A Key to Understanding the Tourist?

35

1099a15–16). In order to understand properly these important conceptions of Aristotle, we need to remember and analyse a few things. Aristotle does not reject traditional values. He recognises their importance and presupposes and uses them as the starting point of his thoughts, but he goes far beyond them as he adds an ethical meaning to the notions of aretê and agathos. Of course, he accepts that the aristocrats, the rich and powerful people, deserve some honour and could easier reach happiness, although only the true agathos actually deserves honour and can be truly happy. An agathos, according to Aristotelian truth (κατ’ ἀλήθειαν), is only someone who demonstrates complete aretê (cf. NE 4.3, 1124a21–30). Nobility, great wealth, political power, beauty are, as Aristotle argues, some of the very useful and indeed welcome, so-called “external goods” (ἐκτὸς ἀγαθά). These “goods” make life easier, while merely providing support to the practice of aretê, even if it has to be admitted that sometimes this “external” support may play a decisive role in achieving the desired outcome. It is precisely these “goods” that made up the content of traditional aretê.6 For Aristotle, they are good indeed, nonetheless, they are unequivocally not enough to characterise someone as agathos. One needs to have nobility, political power, wealth, and necessarily above all aretê, in order to be agathos, i.e. in order to be happy and to feel real pleasure. What is then the new meaning of aretê? What does Aristotle say about it? First of all, we have to understand that Aristotle transforms the meaning of aretê, concerning human beings, from a mainly corporeal, material, acquired excellence into an excellence of the soul (ψυχή), that is, into an excellence of the character or of the brain (cf. NE 1.13, 1102a16–17). We have to summarise here the most significant features of Aristotelian aretê, for what needs to be understood is that every form of an activity, on the way to the realisation of its final aim, i.e. of happiness, is concerned with the demonstration of the corresponding aretê. So, we have to briefly consider the Aristotelian view of aretê7: 1. Aretê is to do the right thing, the good thing, for the sake of itself.8 So, for example, when the Aristotelian agathos shows courage in battle, he does it for the sake of the good (NE 3.7, 1115b23–24). That means for him that he wants to display bravery (ἀνδρεία) and, if needed, die on the field of battle, not primarily to confirm, in this way, his individual bravery or personal excellence, but because he is convinced that this personal act is καλόν (1115b21). Because it is taken to be the highest possible contribution towards the community, i.e. towards the common good, and only indirectly towards himself too. The Homeric agathos, for example, fights primarily with the intention to prove his aretê, to preserve and even grow his timê, and to ensure his fame and reputation (cf. Iliad 22.304–305). This gives him pleasure. His andreia is the result of a very competitive, “egoistic” perception of aretê, while the Aristotelian agathos, who cannot be perceived outside the frame of the polis, is supposed to  Cf. also NE 10.6, 1176b18–19: οὐ γὰρ ἐν τῷ δυναστεύειν ἡ ἀρετὴ οὐδ’ ὁ νοῦς, ἀφ’ ὧν αἱ σπουδαῖαι ἐνέργειαι. 7  Cf. Liatsi 2022. On ‘virtue’ in Aristotle’s ethics, see e.g. Hutchinson 1986; Sherman 1991; Gottlieb 2009; Lorenz 2009. 8  Cf. NE 4.1, 1120a24–25: αἱ δὲ κατ’ ἀρετὴν πράξεις καλαὶ καὶ τοῦ καλοῦ ἕνεκα. 6

36

M. Liatsi

practise an aretê which, without ceasing to be competitive, takes much more into account the common good, that is, the good for others. It is not by accident that the aretê of justice (δικαιοσύνη), an aretê which is par excellence relative to others and their benefit, comes to be considered by Aristotle as one of the most important aretai. 2. Aretê is to always do the right thing: at the right moment, in the right circumstances, in the right place, towards the right people, for the right reason, in the right way.9 This can, of course, be very difficult, for there are many ways to do the wrong thing, but only one way to do the right one (NE 2.6, 1106b28–31). In other words, aretê is a kind of mean (μεσότης): in each case the median proportion of anything (e.g. of rage, fear, courage, joy, hate, desire, jealousy, pity, etc.); not too much (ὑπερβολή) and not too little (ἔλλειψις).10 3. Aretê is to consciously and deliberately do the right thing and be aware of the alternatives or of the consequences of an action and despite that to decide to do this and not something else, for instance, something more convenient or more profitable, because one knows that this is, according to the circumstances, the best thing to do, the best action per se, not for the sake of anything else.11 In short, aretê has to be the result of a prohairesis.12 Aretê is also to do the right thing constantly and not only sometimes (cf. NE 2.4, 1105a28–33). It is obvious that the role of orthos logos, of rational thinking, guides one throughout the procedure of making the right decision (what ought to be done, 1143a8–9) and of practising aretê. There is no real ethical aretê without the cooperation of “practical wisdom” (φρόνησις), i.e. without one of the most important dianoêtikai (“intellectual”) aretai, but also vice versa: it is impossible to be phronimos without being agathos (NE 6.12, 1144a36–37; cf. 12, 1144a7–9).13 That means the real agathos, which is the one who shows real aretê and is really happy, does not have any conflicts between their desire on the one hand and the prescriptions of their rational mind on the other when they do the right thing; they act in this way, because they really want to, not because they are somehow dictated to do this. 4. Aretê has to provoke pleasant feelings in the one who is exercising it. A person who is agathos is happy to do a good thing since actions according to aretê contain pleasure in themselves (cf. NE 1.8, 1099a13–16). The person who does not enjoy performing noble actions is not good. A person can be called just who enjoys performing just actions, and generous the person who enjoys performing generous ones. The pleasure (ἡδονή) or displeasure (λύπη) that follows an action is an indicator (σημεῖον) of whether this action is the effect of an aretê or a kakia. “For one who holds back from bodily pleasure and enjoys doing so is a moderate person, while one who is upset at doing so is self-indulgent; and one who withstands frightening  Cf. NE 2.6, 1106b21–23: τὸ δ’ ὅτε δεῖ καὶ ἐφ’ οἷς καὶ πρὸς οὓς καὶ οὗ ἕνεκα καὶ ὡς δεῖ, μέσον τε καὶ ἄριστον, ὅπερ ἐστὶ τῆς ἀρετῆς. 10  Cf. Hardie 1977; Urmson 1980; Wolf 2006. 11  NE 2.4, 1105a32: προαιρούμενος δι’ αὐτά (scil. τὰ κατὰ τὰς ἀρετὰς γινόμενα). 12  Merker 2016; cf. Charpenel 2017, 186–208. 13  Russell 2014. Cf. Cooper 1996. 9

3  Pleasure and “Happiness” in Aristotle: A Key to Understanding the Tourist?

37

things and enjoys doing so, or at least does so without distress, is a courageous person, while one who is distressed by them is cowardly” (NE 2.3, 1104b3–9). Therefore, it is not enough to prefer the best possible thing and to make this intention come true. It is also necessary for one’s actions to be accompanied by the most agreeable feelings for having acted in this way. The abstinence, for instance, from fattening foods, alcoholic drinks, or excessive sexual pleasures is not a real aretê, unless it makes one feel happy. Otherwise, it is only an exercise of “self-restraint” (ἐγκράτεια), i.e. it is only a preparation for the real aretê, in which case it would be so-called “temperance” (σωφροσύνη). 5. Having pointed out the main features of aretê, it is almost superfluous to stress the role of action (ἐνέργεια) and the act (πρᾶξις) in relation to aretê; nonetheless, we still have to underline it, as Aristotle himself did.14 It was never sufficient, either prior to or after Aristotle, that someone knew what aretê is or even for them to possess it. This, in turn, meant that no one was supposed to be agathos and happy if they did not demonstrate and prove their aretê in diverse operations, and put it into action (cf. Iliad 9.440–443). This idea is also ever-present throughout the Ethics of the Stageirian philosopher; only if someone makes use of his aretê can they become an agathos and a happy person (cf. e.g. NE 10.9, 1179b2–4). Aristotle recognises that man has to compete, to fight, against his own nature in order to achieve moral aretê15; that is, the moderation between the two extremes, the “too much” and “too little.” Aristotle does not deny that it is a difficult job trying to pinpoint the correct moderate amount of everything.16 That is why he suggests that a person, whose goal is the right amount, has to fend themselves off from that which is more inimical and choose that which is less malevolent. They have to discern towards which direction they are more inherently inclined, and if this natural inclination is wrong, they need to pull themselves in the opposite direction, as when carpenters “straighten warped timber.”17 That this procedure is something utterly difficult and one, in such a case, has to forfeit what brings pleasure, is something that Aristotle acknowledges and does not suppress. He admits it is not an easy job to fight systematically against one’s own pathê (e.g. rage, fear, jealousy), i.e. against one’s own emotions, instincts, and desires (epithumiai). Yet it is even harder, as he says, to fight against hêdonê.18 What does this mean exactly? When a person does something good and, consequently, they feel good, or when a person avoids a bad act and feels pleasure about this, then this good feeling comprises the good hêdonê. On the contrary, hêdonê is the reason for doing something bad. The person who acts having hêdonê as a main criterion  Cf. Flannery 2013.  On the following views, see Liatsi 2020. 16  Cf. NE 2.9, 1109a28–35. 17  Cf. NE 2.9, 1109b1–7: σκοπεῖν δὲ δεῖ πρὸς ἃ καὶ αὐτοὶ εὐκατάφοροί ἐσμεν⋅ ἄλλοι γὰρ πρὸς ἄλλα πεφύκαμεν⋅ τοῦτο δ’ ἔσται γνώριμον ἐκ τῆς ἡδονῆς καὶ τῆς λύπης τῆς γινομένης περὶ ἡμᾶς. εἰς τοὐναντίον δ’ ἑαυτοὺς ἀφέλκειν δεῖ⋅ πολὺ γὰρ ἀπάγοντες τοῦ ἁμαρτάνειν εἰς τὸ μέσον ἥξομεν, ὅπερ οἱ τὰ διεστραμμένα τῶν ξύλων ὀρθοῦντες ποιοῦσιν. 18  Cf. NE 2.3, 1105a7–9: ἔτι δὲ χαλεπώτερον ἡδονῇ μάχεσθαι ἢ θυμῷ, καθάπερ φησὶν Ἡράκλειτος, περὶ δὲ τὸ χαλεπώτερον ἀεὶ καὶ τέχνη γίνεται καὶ ἀρετή. 14 15

38

M. Liatsi

either does something bad – in order to feel hêdonê – or keeps their distance from a good act and then feels good, they taste hêdonê.19 Hence, the human struggle in everyday life is not only the continuous effort to bring passions, i.e. bad desires, under control and master them with the help of the rational part of the soul (logos), but also something much more formidable: to achieve a harmony between appetite, desire, and logos. If someone succeeds in erasing the conflict between these two parts of the soul and the good act that they do is exactly what they deeply wanted to do, and for this reason, this good act provokes a deep pleasure, then they succeed in becoming a really good person, a phronimos, and that means a really happy person.

3.1 Pleasure and “Complete Happiness” Aristotle says that pleasure completes (teleioi) the activity (NE 10.4, 1174b23) and that the greatest pleasure is the pleasure that corresponds to the activity proper to every living being according to its nature. This is the activity of the soul in accordance with reason, as we have seen. When an excellence of the aretê of the soul is added to this activity, then we have the best performance of it. This is the action which is natural and best, proper to human beings and their “final end” and aim (telos), which is the natural prerequisite for them to achieve the greatest possible fulfilment of their natural capacities. By analogy with the telos as it is defined by Aristotle for every living being, “complete happiness” (teleia eudaimonia) is the natural telos of the activity of the soul in accordance with reason and excellence of aretê (NE 10.7, 1177b24–25; cf. 1.7, 1098a7– 8). In other words, the proper natural telos of the human being is complete, perfect happiness. The fact that this supreme eudaimonia is almost never or only rarely reached and by very few is another matter. In the passage 10.5, 1175b24 – 1176a29 of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle comes to the conclusion that supreme, complete happiness consists in the activity or activities of the perfect man (teleios anêr), whose activities are perfected by the pleasure proper to them. Up to this point, Aristotle does not explain in more detail what he means by either the activity of the perfect man or by the pleasure proper, congenial (oikeia) to it.20 This will be done in the following chapters, to which we have to refer later very briefly, in order to see what Aristotle regards as the teleia eudaimonia. But let us now see which are the logical steps of Aristotle’s syllogism in the above-mentioned passage. This syllogism, in connection with the arguments put forward both in Book VII and Book X,

 That is why Aristotle agrees with Plato that the right education consists of feeling joy or pity towards the right things. This, according to Aristotle, is how we must be raised from childhood onwards. The ἀρετή, appropriate education from an early age can teach people, as Aristotle points out, how important is to be pleased with the right activities and similarly how meaningful it is to be sorry in case they resort to unenviable activities. See NE 2.3, 1104b3–13, esp. 1104b11– 13. Cf. Plato, Politeia 401 E – 402 A; Nomoi 653 A – C. 20  Cf. also Wolfsdorf 2013, esp. 130–133. 19

3  Pleasure and “Happiness” in Aristotle: A Key to Understanding the Tourist?

39

leads to the most important conclusion and the summit of his thought, which is explained in more detail in the discussion that follows. 1. Aristotle classifies the activities as well as their corresponding proper pleasures into two main categories: good (epieikeis) and bad (phaulai). In addition to this classification, he clearly declares that the good activities and good pleasures are to be chosen, whereas one should avoid the bad activities and bad pleasures. 2. The second point is that, because the pleasures are so closely connected with the activities and so indefinite in nature, this creates the controversy whether activity and pleasure are one and the same thing. His position is that this is impossible. We see in these lines that Aristotle distinguishes two classes of activities and pleasures: those referring to the intellect (dianoia) and those referring to the senses (aisthêseis). So, there are bodily and intellectual activities and, thus, bodily and intellectual pleasures.21 The activities, whether bodily or intellectual, are not identical, according to Aristotle, with the pleasures proper to these activities. 3. As there is a differentiation between pleasures proper to the intellect and pleasures proper to the senses, there is also such a differentiation within each of these two categories (e.g., within the category of the intellectual pleasures: it is one thing to think of a beloved person and get pleasure from this thought, and it is a different thing to get pleasure from the solution of a mathematical or astronomical problem). 4. For each animal kind, there is a proper and definite pleasure, since there is also a proper and special function (ergon) of each kind. As the function of each animal kind is different, so the pleasure proper to each kind of animal differs. The activity and the pleasure within the same animal kind do not differ, they are the same for all the individuals belonging to the same kind (e.g. within the species of dogs, horses, donkeys, etc.). 5. However, within humankind, there are huge differences regarding both activities and pleasures among individuals. What is good and pleasant for one may be bad and unpleasant for another. The pleasant or unpleasant depends, on the one hand, on the idiosyncratic characteristics of the individuals, or, on the other hand, on the conditions in which an individual exists. 6. As there are deviations in the nature of both plants and animals, so there is a deviation in the nature of the human species, and this deviation can be seen in the corrupt character and nature of individuals. Thus, bad activities and bad pleasures are preferred and chosen only by ethically ruined men, by men whose true nature has been destroyed (hois parekbebêken hê physis tropon tina). That is why bad pleasures should not be called “pleasures” at all. Therefore, bad activities are only a corruption of the true human nature, which is actually and initially good. 7. Which is the proper activity for the human species and its proper pleasure? Which pleasure corresponds mainly (kyriôs) to a human being’s full nature? To answer this question, Aristotle takes as a criterion the “complete man” (teleios anêr) and his  The pleasures of the body are closely related to desires, to epithumiai. Aristotle does not reject them, but he disapproves of pleasures that exceed moderation and lead to excess (hyperbole). These are harmful and thus should be kept at bay since they destroy eudaimonia. 21

40

M. Liatsi

aretê. That means the teleios anêr represents and incorporates the teleia physis, the real and full nature of humankind. Of course, Aristotle takes into account in his treatment of pleasure, on the one hand, the bodily-biological pleasures of human beings insofar as these are also animals and, in this respect, similar to each other, so e.g. the pleasures of eating, drinking, having sex. On the other hand, he takes into account the variety of human activities and their corresponding pleasures in respect of which human individuals differ from each other. E.g. one likes music, another the art of theatre, another geometry, etc. That all means that Aristotle takes into account the various human activities and their corresponding pleasures which are mere symbebêkota (accidental, secondary) for humankind. But what he is really and finally interested in is to find out the activity or pleasure that is essential for humankind. 8. Aristotle concludes that of the good pleasures, the ones appropriate to humankind are those which perfect the activities of the complete and supremely happy man (teleios kai makarios anêr). The pleasure/pleasures which are essential for humankind are those which fulfil the activities chosen by the “complete man” and, therefore, by the supremely happy man (makarios). With this, Aristotle’s final conclusion, we are back to our starting point. What is the content of this supreme happiness? In other words, which is the supreme activity and supreme pleasure proper to the “complete man,” which is also the proper activity and the proper pleasure par excellence of humankind? Aristotle gives the answer in the following chapters. There he reminds us that happiness is the activity of the soul according to the teleia aretê (NE 10.7, 1177a12).22 As Nous is the most divine element of our soul,23 the activity of the Nous according to its own supreme aretê is the perfect, complete happiness. This activity is a theoretical activity24 and it refers not only to a human life according to reason but according to reason in its best, its supreme form.25 It is called “theoretical life” (bios theôrêtikos) by Aristotle, the life of “contemplation” (θεωρία), and it resembles the divine way of life,26 which consists of the absolute, ideal happiness, but only for a short period of time.27 We could say that it is the unimpeded activity of the action of perfection of the human mind. It is the most pleasant activity, since, as Aristotle says, the most pleasant of the activities according to aretê is the activity according to  See. n. 2.  Cf. Met. Λ 9. 1074b16: δοκεῖ μὲν γὰρ εἶναι τῶν φαινομένων θειότατον. 24  On the different aspects of the relation between eudaimonia and theôria in Aristotle’s ethics, see Destrée and Zingano 2014. 25  NE 10.7, 1177a16–18: ἡ τοῦ (scil. τοῦ νοῦ) ἐνέργεια κατὰ τὴν οἰκείαν ἀρετὴν εἴη ἂν ἡ τελεία εὐδαιμονία. ὅτι δ῾ ἐστὶ θεωρητική, εἴρηται. / Cf. NE 10.8, 1178b32: ὥστ᾽ εἴη ἄν ἡ εὐδαιμονία θεωρία τις. Cf. Protreptikos fr. 87: “Complete and unimpeded activity contains within itself pleasure, so that the activity of theoretical intellect must be the most pleasant of all.” 26  Cf. Long 2011. 27  NE 10.8, 1178b21–23: ἔτι δὲ μᾶλλον τοῦ ποιεῖν, τί λείπεται πλὴν θεωρία; ὥστε ἡ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐνέργεια, μακαριότητι διαφέρουσα, θεωρητικὴ ἂν εἴη: καὶ τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων δὴ ἡ ταύτῃ συγγενεστάτη εὐδαιμονικωτάτη. Cf. Met. Λ 7, 1072b14–16: διαγωγὴ δ᾽ ἐστὶν οἵα ἡ ἀρίστη μικρὸν χρόνον ἡμῖν οὕτω γὰρ ἀεὶ ἐκεῖνο: ἡμῖν μὲν γὰρ ἀδύνατον, ἐπεὶ καὶ ἡδονὴ ἡ ἐνέργεια τούτου. See Liatsi 2016. 22 23

3  Pleasure and “Happiness” in Aristotle: A Key to Understanding the Tourist?

41

wisdom.28 This kind of theoretical activity is the most enduring (synechestatê, 1177a21– 22), and is characterised by self-sufficiency (autarkeia, 1177a27–28), i.e. it does not aim at another end outside of itself, and the pleasure proper to it “co-augments, increases” (synauxanei) the activity of the Nous (1117b21), that is, it makes the activity of the Nous even better and bigger. If Nous is divine, then the life according to its activity is divine. But at the same time, Nous is more than anything else human. Since that which is proper to each thing is by nature best and most pleasant for each thing,29 then the life according to Nous (ho kata ton noun bios) is best and pleasantest. The attitude of Aristotle toward the nature of humankind is a very positive, moreover a very loving and optimistic one. His own doctrines are the best argument for this. In my opinion, what Aristotle is saying is that complete, supreme happiness, which is associated with the supreme pleasure, proper to supreme activity, namely, the theoretical activity of Nous, is a divine thing (theion ti). Human striving toward teleia eudaimonia is endless, it is a way toward an infinite direction. Each time the “good man” (spoudaios kai agathos anêr) achieves eudaimonia  – i.e. pleasure, since pleasure embodies an integral part of eudaimonia, for example, eudaimonia within a practical and political life – he achieves only a certain degree of eudaimonia. But that doesn’t exclude the possibility of achieving a higher step towards divinity, which is only another degree. There is always this possibility for human beings; the wiser one is, the higher the degree of divinity they achieve (1177a33–34: ὅσῳ ἂν σοφώτερος ᾖ, μᾶλλον). The nearer a human being approaches this ideal divine life, the more they fulfil their activity and pleasure proper to their human nature. And the other way round: the more we human beings reach and fulfil our real human nature, that is, the more we become, thanks to the power of Nous, what we are by nature, i.e. human beings, the more our life resembles, even just for a while, the life of God.30 In this way, we can attain a kind of divine “happiness” and the corresponding best and deepest kind of pleasure. This is the way to achieve an earthly immortality in life, as far as this is humanly possible.31 To conclude: after all that has been said regarding Aristotle’s view of pleasure and eudaimonia, what would Aristotle’s recommendations be regarding tourism? Aristotle would certainly recommend to today’s tourists to develop more mental activities during their travels and to care more for that part of their soul which is related to the spirit or intellect. Furthermore, he would recommend that tourists improve their attitude as a tourist, by being more attentive and respectful towards themselves and towards others, or in a way that demonstrates an active character of virtue. Such behaviour would have the possible effect of gratefully responding to analogous behaviour. This could then help to give the tourist’s journey a deeper and more lasting meaning than the fleeting moments of sensual pleasure and supposed happiness that accompany it.

 NE 10.7, 1177a23–24: ἡδίστη δὲ τῶν κατ’ ἀρετὴν ἐνεργειῶν ἡ κατὰ τὴν σοφίαν.  NE 10.7, 1178a5–6: τὸ γὰρ οἰκεῖον ἑκάστῳ τῇ φύσει κράτιστον καὶ ἥδιστόν ἐστιν. 30  It is somehow the Aristotelian version of Plato’s “resemblance to God”, (ὁμοίωσις θεῷ, Theaitetos 176b1), as the way for human beings to reach eudaimonia in life. Cf. Sedley 2017. 31  NE 10.7, 1177b33–34: ἐφ᾽ ὅσον ἐνδέχεται ἀθανατίζειν καὶ πάντα ποιεῖν πρὸς τὸ ζῆν κατὰ τὸ κράτιστον τῶν ἐν αὑτῷ. 28 29

42

M. Liatsi

References Ackrill, J.L. 1974. Aristotle on Eudaimonia. Proceedings of the British Academy. 60: 339–359. Charpenel, Eduardo. 2017. Ethos und Praxis: Der Charakterbegriff bei Aristoteles. Freiburg: Verlag Karl Alber. Cooper, John. 1996. Reason, Moral Virtue, and Moral Value. In Rationality in Greek Thought, ed. Michael Frede and Gisela Striker, 81–114. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Destrée, Pierre, and Marco Zingano, eds. 2014. Theoria: Studies on the Status and Meaning of Contemplation in Aristotle’s Ethics. Louvain-La-Neuve: Peeters. Flannery, Kevin L. 2013. Action and Character According to Aristotle: The Logic of the Moral Life. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press. Gomez-Lobo, Alfonso. 1991. The Ergon Inference. In Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy IV: Aristotle’s Ethics, ed. John P. Anton and Anthony Preus, 43–57. Albany: SUNY Press. Gottlieb, Paula. 2009. The Virtue of Aristotle’s Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hardie, W.F.R. 1965. The Final Good in Aristotle’s Ethics. Philosophy 40: 277–295. ———. 1977. Aristotle’s Doctrine that Virtue is a ‘Mean’. In Articles on Aristotle II: Ethics and Politics, ed. Jonathan Barnes, Malcolm Schofield, and Richard Sorabji, 33–46. London: Gerald Duckworth and Company. Heinaman, Robert. 2007. Eudaimonia as an activity in Nicomachean Ethics 1.8–12. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 33: 221–254. Hutchinson, D.S. 1986. The Virtues of Aristotle. London: Routledge\Kegan Paul. Irwin, Terence H. 2012. Conceptions of Happiness in the Nicomachean Ethics. In The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle, ed. Christopher Shields, 495–528. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kenny, Anthony. 1991. The Nicomachean Conception of Happiness. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy Supplemental Volume: 67–80. Kraut, Richard. 1989. Aristotle on the Human Good. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lawrence, Gavin. 2006. Human Good and Human Function. In The Blackwell Guide to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, ed. Richard Kraut, 37–75. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. Lear, Gabriel Richardson. 2004. Happy Lives and the Highest Good. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Liatsi, Maria. 2016. Aristotle’s Silence about the Prime Mover’s Noêsis. In Aristotle’s Metaphysics Lambda – New Essays, ed. Christoph Horn, 229–245. Berlin: De Gruyter. ———. 2020. Natural Inclination to Ethics in Aristotle. In Ethics in Ancient Greek Literature, ed. Maria Liatsi. Berlin: De Gruyter. ———. 2022. Agôn: An Aristotelian Way of Life. In The Agon in Classical Literature: Essays in Honour of Professor Chris Carey eds. Michael Edwards, Athanasios Efstathiou, E. Volanaki, and Ioanna Karamanou. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Supplements 146. London: Institute of Classical Studies. Long, A.A. 2011. Aristotle on eudaimonia, nous and divinity. In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics: A Critical Guide, ed. Jon Miller, 92–114. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lorenz, Hendrik. 2009. Virtue of Character in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 37: 177–212. McDowell, John. 1980. The Role of Eudaimonia in Aristotle’s Ethics. In Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics, ed. Amélie Oksenberg Rorty, 359–376. Berkeley: University of California Press. Merker, Anne. 2016. Le Principe de l’action humaine selon Démosthène et Aristote: Hairesis – Prohairesis. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Purinton, Jeffrey S. 1998. Aristotle’s Definition of Happiness (NE 1.7, 1098a16–18). Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 16: 259–297.

3  Pleasure and “Happiness” in Aristotle: A Key to Understanding the Tourist?

43

Russell, Daniel C. 2014. Phronesis and the Virtues (NE vi 12–13). In The Cambridge Companion to the Nicomachean Ethics, ed. Ronald Polansky, 203–220. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sedley, David. 2017. Becoming Godlike. In The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Ethics, ed. Christopher Bobonich, 319–337. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sherman, Nancy. 1991. The Fabric of Character: Aristotle’s Theory of Virtue. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Urmson, J.O. 1980. Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean. In Essays in Aristotle’s Ethics, ed. A.O. Rorty, 157–170. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wedin, M. 1981. Aristotle on the Good for Man. Mind 90: 243–262. Whiting, Jennifer. 1988. Aristotle’s Function Argument: A Defence. Ancient Philosophy 8: 33–48. Wolf, Ursula. 2006. Über den Sinn der Aristotelischen Mesoteslehre. In Aristoteles. Nikomachische Ethik, ed. Orfried Höffe, 83–108. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Wolfsdorf, David. 2013. Aristotle on pleasure and activation. In Pleasure in Ancient Greek Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Maria Liatsi is Professor of Classics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, and Apl. Professor of Philosophy at the University of Braunschweig, Germany. She is the author of several books and articles on Aristotle, Plato, Peirce, Ancient Medicine, and the Ancient Greek Novel. Her most recent book is Irdische Unsterblichkeit. Die Suche nach dem ewigen Leben in der Antike, De Gruyter, Berlin/Boston 2021.  

Chapter 4 The Interior Tourist: Travel, Tourism, and the Path to Self-Discovery from Platonism to the Pandemic Marie-Élise Zovko1 (*) 1 

Institute of Philosophy, Zagreb, Croatia

Abstract.  Our journeys are never only to the exterior: the interior journey of the traveller has a long tradition, witnessed in travel writings of authors like Montaigne and Unamuno, and in the history of literature as a whole understood as a hodoeporics. We ceaselessly pursue things which give us pleasure and fulfil our needs, including the specific kind of enjoyment that travel and tourism afford. The desire to travel is closely tied to an original kind of nostalgia, the desire for self-discovery. Hailing from Heraclitus, Socrates, and the sayings of the Seven Wise Men of Delphi, this desire manifests itself as a fundamental motivating force of travel and tourism. Although we humans tend to “grow our desires big,” like the tyrant in Plato’s Republic, the pursuit of tourism is not to be equated with mere self-indulgence. The tension between a life of physical enjoyment and the life of the mind, a life of action and a life of contemplation, is decisive for proper understanding of the phenomenon of tourism, and in the history of Western philosophy is perhaps most pronounced in Plato and the philosophy of Platonism. Plato and Plotinus recommend an integrative view of their relationship  – while gently steering us away from the tyranny of unbounded pursuit of our every drive and lust. To achieve proper balance in tourism, it is necessary to take account of humans’ natural drives. Properly fostered and cultivated, these can provide the basis upon which our second, higher nature can begin to unfold. Keywords:  Plato · Platonism · Travel · Tourism · Pleasure · Good · Self-knowledge

Humans are by nature explorers, sightseers, inquirers, thrill seekers. We investigate our surroundings to ensure the means of our survival – but also for the sheer pleasure of the quest and of learning something new. In Aristotle’s view, the desire to know is a universal trait of human nature. As he observes in Book Alpha of the Metaphysics, all people, by nature, desire to know. For this reason, they esteem the senses, above all sight, since sight affords the greatest diversity of impressions and enables us to recognise the greatest number of distinctions.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M.-É. Zovko, J. Dillon (eds.), Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36659-8_4

45

46

M.-É. Zovko All men naturally desire knowledge. An indication of this is our esteem for the senses; for apart from their use, we esteem them for their own sake, and most of all the sense of sight. Not only with a view to action, but even when no action is contemplated, we prefer sight, generally speaking, to all the other senses. The reason of this is that of all the senses sight best helps us to know things, and reveals many distinctions. (Metaphysics 980a)

It is interesting to note that Aristotle sees the pleasure of knowledge as “disinterested,” insofar as it is not necessarily tied to the attainment of some end by action. One is tempted to find here a possible explanation for our pleasure in sightseeing – which need have no other end beyond the seeing of the sights themselves to afford adequate cause and justification of our pleasure in its pursuit. On our journey through life, we ceaselessly pursue the things which give us pleasure and fulfil our needs. To satisfy any need or desire, to achieve any aim, we must move beyond the immediate sphere of our own physical self-containment – even if the satisfaction of need, desire, and lust can now be accomplished in virtual space or in the meta-verse. Mobility, locomotion, actual physical displacement from one location to another are a normal part of human existence but have also come to represent a seemingly indispensable aspect of our nature and as such something we desire for its own sake – a fact brought home rather painfully by weeks and months of forced immobility during lockdown under the auspices of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Travel,” as Leed put it, “is as familiar as the experience of the body, the wind, the earth…” (Leed 1991, 4) When we are deprived of travel it is as though we have been deprived of an essential part of ourselves, our birthright, something which has belonged to us from the beginning and which in some indelible manner determines who we are and what we are to become. The history of travel and of human mobility1 is at the same time a history of human transformation, set in motion by events which come to define the structure of both the external journey and the inner life of the individual traveller. Travel, for this reason, has served throughout the history of human culture as “the most common source of metaphors used to explicate transformations” of all kinds: We draw upon the experience of human mobility to define the meaning of death (as a “passing”) and the structure of life (as a “journey” or pilgrimage); to articulate changes of social and existential conditions in rites of initiation (of “passage”). (Leed 1991, 3)

The “transhumances” that mark the stages of human evolution are “often hidden beneath the metaphors and myths of the oral traditions” (Monga 1996, 7), and it is not by chance that travel became a permanent topos in literary texts of the world’s cultures. In a certain sense, as Monga puts it, “all literature is hodoeporics.” This is because travel serves as “a metaphor for human life” and for “our journey along the road of self-­ knowledge” (Monga 1996, 6; 7; 8). It is as natural, then, for us to travel as it is to move and breathe. Yet, since the publication of The Mind of the Traveller (Leed 1991), certain aspects of our existence have changed dramatically and irreversibly. An ever-greater number of activities whose

 Cf. Monga 1996, 7: “Travel began early in human history. Great mass movements were caused by the evolution of the diet of homo erectus from vegetarian to omnivorous and by the typically human characteristic of aggression against other individuals of the same species.” 1

4  The Interior Tourist: Travel, Tourism, and the Path to Self-Discovery…

47

accomplishment once required our physical displacement from one location to another can now be carried out through our own peculiarly contemporary mode of actio in distans. Where it was once the exception for the average human to “eat, sleep, work, and play in the same place” (this being, as Leed saw it, the very “definition of confinement and unfreedom” [Leed 1991, 4]) the pandemic made it, at least for a time, the norm, contributing thereby to an exponential increase in the number of people staying in one place to achieve all the things that once required their transportation from one physical location to another. Thus, we have distance learning, online shopping, work from home, online medical care, internet gaming, virtual meetups and social events, “streaming” of entertainment, online fitness activities, and even virtual participation in travel, tours, adventure sport, and outdoor activity in the company of countless “untethered” YouTube influencers and vloggers. But forced immobilisation led also to increased isolation of a large portion of the world’s population and thereby to a global mental health crisis. Mobility, travel appear in light of these developments to be in some sense necessary for our well-being – and in this regard desirable or pleasurable in themselves rather than merely for the sake of achieving some unrelated aim. This brings us to the next point. For to travel for the sake of pleasure, in other words, to locomote from one point to another not merely to perform a specific task, but for its own sake, without any further motive than the enjoyment of the activity itself and a temporary sojourn at a chosen destination, is to participate in that now ubiquitous phenomenon known as tourism. This form of travel might be compared to the intentionally aimless stroll of the nineteenth-century “flâneur,” a “passionate spectator” and “lover of life,” who “makes the whole world his family,” and whose joy it is “to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite.” The flâneur aims “To be away from home and yet to feel … everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world.” (Baudelaire 1986, 9). Despite the apparent aimlessness of his wanderings, the urban flâneur is above all an observer of his surroundings and the humans who populate it – and this characteristic brings an important aspect of tourism into play, namely the connection between leisurely travel and the desire for knowledge, and between the desire for knowledge and the desire for self-knowledge. Our peregrinations as tourists are never only to the exterior. To travel to unfamiliar places, to seek out and discover new and exhilarating things, gives us pleasure – but at the same time expresses a deeper urge, summed up perhaps most succinctly in Heraclitus’ apophthegm: “I went in search of myself” (ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν, Heraclitus B101, Diels-Kranz I, 1985, 173). Travel writer Michael Crichton puts it in modern terms when he explains: Often I feel I go to some distant region of the world to be reminded of who I really am. There is no mystery about why this should be so. Stripped of your ordinary surroundings, your friends, your daily routines, your refrigerator full of your food, your closet full of your clothes – with all this taken away, you are forced into direct experience. Such direct experience inevitably makes you aware of who it is that is having the experience. (Crichton 1988, x)

Despite not feeling his travels were genuine adventures, Crichton found himself struggling with his fears and limitations, learning whatever he could – and writing about

48

M.-É. Zovko

what he calls “inner travel,” experiences belonging to the psychic, spiritual, and transpersonal realm, as a complement to his account of his “outer travels” (Crichton 1988, x). Our thirst for knowledge and discovery of new things through travel is thus intimately tied to a thirst for knowledge and discovery of ourselves - and the tourist is similarly in some sense always an explorer of herself. The call to know oneself traces in the Western tradition to the sayings of the Seven Wise Men inscribed at the temple of Apollo at Delphi, to Heraclitus, and to Socrates, but is not necessarily connected with travel. Nonetheless, this connection seems to be a natural one, as intimated in the epic tale of the Iliad and the Odyssey. To travel is to depart and to return – even if only in one’s phantasies, memories, or dreams. This is ultimately the meaning of the term nostalgia. To a greater or lesser degree, each of us interiorises our experiences of the things we encounter on our travels, transforming what is new or unfamiliar into something specifically our own. As tourists, we long to visit places unknown to us, which attract us specifically because of their foreignness, or places we know indirectly, to experience them first-hand, or even places we are already familiar with, to revisit and get to know them better, or to relive cherished memories. Sometimes we desire to travel merely for a change of scenery, to escape boredom or dissatisfaction in our daily lives. And just as a distant country, whose sights and scenery, people and customs are unknown to us, can arouse in us that strangely inverted form of nostalgia the Germans call “Wanderlust” or “Fernweh,” so the intimation of our true selves reflected in an “eye seeing an eye seeing our eye seeing ourselves seeing it” (cf. Plato, Alcibiades 132d-133b, where Socrates uses the example to illustrate the possibility of self-knowledge), that paradoxical opacity and reciprocity of the “other” which is at once an intellectual being like ourselves, arouses in us the original form of nostalgia (derived from νόστος, the Homeric word for homecoming, and ἄλγος Greek for “pain” or “ache”; cf. Sedikides et  al. 2008, 304). This feeling of “Heimweh” or homesickness is most of all an expression of our desire to return to a place where we belong and a “community of interpretation” by whose interpretation of our individual selves as “signs” we first come to truly know and recognise ourselves for who we are (cf. Royce 1914, vol. 2, 57; cf. Zovko and Zovko 2012, 38–43).2 This dual longing leads us, then, both outwards in search of new places and new things, and inwards, to reflect on our experiences, opening to us interior landscapes and pathways into an ever-­

 Royce, in The Problem of Christianity, ties the fate and redemption of the otherwise hopelessly lost individual to the fate and redemption of the “universal community of interpretation,” contrasting the distinct minds and selves of individuals, whose individual feelings, thoughts, ideas, and decisions are separated from and impenetrable to those of other selves, with the mental life of the community, which grounds in mutual interpretation of “signs” expressive of mind or quasi-­ mind. The community of interpretation, made up of a community of memory and a community of expectation, has its own history: past, present, and future, with respect to which individual self-consciousness and self-understanding are constituted. In isolation from a community of interpretation individuals are unable to establish their identity, for knowledge of self depends on knowledge drawn from the community of interpretation, and only by participating in the ongoing process of interpretation of shared memories and expectations in the history of time and the universe can I come to understand the truth about my own being (cf. Royce 1914, vol. 2: 18,19, 22–25, 29–30, 36–42; 114–117; 325). 2

4  The Interior Tourist: Travel, Tourism, and the Path to Self-Discovery…

49

deepening understanding of ourselves as travellers and sightseers on the journey through our lives. No matter how far afield we travel and what experiences we seek, we cannot leave ourselves behind. This simple fact may provide us with important insights into the deeper purpose of our vocation as tourists. But can Fernweh and Heimweh, the desire to travel for the sake of travel and the desire to “return home” to our true selves, ultimately be reconciled? Can travel to the exterior truly lead to a deeper knowledge of ourselves? In traditions of religious mysticism, travel for its own sake is often viewed as vanity, and as dangerous for the integrity of the soul. St. Augustine, in keeping with the Christian tradition of Platonism, advises us in De vera religione not to go forth, but to turn inwards and seek the truth which dwells within “in the inner man,” and by transcending our mutable nature and in the end even our rational intellect, strive toward the source from which the light of intellect is kindled: Noli foras ire, in teipsum redi; in interiore homine habitat veritas; et si tuam naturam mutabilem inveneris, transcende et teipsum. Sed memento cum te transcendis, ratiocinantem animam te transcendere. Illuc ergo tende, unde ipsum lumen rationis accenditur. De vera religione XXXIX, 72–3 Do not go abroad. Return within yourself. In the inward man dwells truth. If you find that you are by nature mutable, transcend yourself. But remember in doing so that you must also transcend yourself even as a reasoning soul. Make for the place where the light of reason is kindled. (Augustine 1959, XXXIX, 72, p. 69)

Similarly, in De imitatione Christi, the fifteenth-century mystic and disciple of Devotio Moderna, Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471) admonishes us to seek within rather than outside ourselves inner peace from the sufferings and temptations of this earthly existence. For though “the eye is not satisfied with seeing and the ear with hearing” (Eccl. 1, 8), the things of the world are passing away. We should reject therefore the vanities of this life (riches, honours, desires of the flesh, long life, transient things) (à Kempis, 1886, Book 1, Chap. 1, 5, 5 f.), and “live as becomes a pilgrim and a stranger on earth,” not by travelling about, but by withdrawing from exterior life, for “he who travels about, rarely achieves sanctity” (“qui multum peregrinantur, raro sanctificantur,” à Kempis 1840, Liber 1, Caput 23, 4, p. 58). The topos that “there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9–10) and that pursuit of knowledge is vanity, is closely tied to the idea that to grasp for knowledge is to transgress the boundaries set to God’s creatures. In the book of Genesis, Eve’s violation of God’s command not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is the source of original sin – resulting in a loss of innocence (viz. “blissful ignorance”), and in expulsion from the Garden of Eden, that is, in the “Fall” of nature and humanity from the state of grace. With that mythical step beyond the bounds of Eden, humankind embarks on the path on which it still journeys today, and which should eventually lead it back to its original state of grace. From this standpoint, the original tourists might be seen as setting forth on a journey of purification and sanctification – rather than one of pleasure and self-discovery. Examples of pilgrimage (perigrinatio) as a symbol of inner transformation appear throughout the history of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. The pilgrimage of God’s

50

M.-É. Zovko

people begins with Yahweh’s call to Abram to go forth from the land of his fathers to found a great nation (Gen 12:1). In the books of the first covenant, the journey of Israel continues as a communal act of obedience to God’s call, unfolding throughout their history in periods of enforced wanderings, exile, exodus, and homecoming (Gen 39:1; Ex 3:11; Ex 6:8). The monumental transitions of its journey serve as metaphors for Israel’s disloyalty and disobedience, atonement and forgiveness. The book of Exodus can thus be read as a “travel narrative of a wandering people, called to move about to maintain the purity of an idea.” (Monga 1996, 10). From Augustine’s designation of God as our one true resting place (“You have made us for yourself our hearts are restless until they rest in you” – cor nostrum inquietum est donec requiescat in Te. Cf. Confessiones1:1; De Civitate Dei 19:18), to Dante’s journey to hell and back in the Divine Comedy, Guillaume de Guillevielle’s Pelerinage de l’homme (fourteenth century), Langland’s Piers Plowman (fourteenth century), or the peregrinatio spiritualis of the works of sixteenth and seventeenth century like Teresa of Avila’s Camino de perfección (1570) and John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678), works of the Judaeo-Christian religious and literary tradition remind us of our condition as exiles from our true homeland on the path toward the Heavenly Jerusalem. As opposed to the mystical and ascetic views of these religious thinkers, the desire to know and understand oneself reveals itself in travelogues like those of Montaigne and Unamuno as a fundamental motivating force behind the pursuit of travel. In the case of Montaigne, the pleasure of travel is interchangeable with the desire for knowledge and self-knowledge. The pursuit of enjoyment and pleasure is correspondingly one of the primary motivations of Montaigne’s travels, whether physical or purely intellectual. Unlike the devotee of devotio moderna, it is knowledge of the “new and the unknown” (948B, cf. 973B) of which Montaigne is most desirous, and the love of displacing himself to other locations is symptomatic of this desire. From this perspective, the desire to displace oneself and to become acquainted with new and strange things is natural and a universal characteristic of the human condition and not therefore to be condemned as vanity: Parmy les conditions humaines, cette-cy est assez commune: de nous plaire plus des choses estrangeres que des nostres et d’aymer le remuement et le changement (948B)

This universal and natural connection between the desire for knowledge and the desire for travel speaks in favour of the view that we are all tourists by nature. Consideration of the connection between pleasure and goodness, pleasure and beauty in Plato’s dialogues can aid in illuminating the natural relationship between travel for its own sake and the journey of self-discovery. In Plato’s Symposium, all people desire good things for the sake of happiness, whereas the force which attracts us to good things is the pleasure we experience in the encounter with beauty (204a, 203b). The desire for the things that satisfy or please us is thus closely tied to the love of beauty, which in its highest form as love of the fairest things is the equivalent of love of wisdom, and hangs suspended between beauty and goodness, spanning the gap between knowledge and ignorance in helping us to attain our goals, that is, the objects of our desire (203e-204c). The natural tendency of our desire for good and beautiful things is to desire to possess the objects which give us joy and pleasure always. This is the definition of immortality, which humans strive to achieve in a variety of ways: by physical procreation, by amassing of honours, and, finally – which in the estimate of Diotima

4  The Interior Tourist: Travel, Tourism, and the Path to Self-Discovery…

51

and Socrates is the only correct means of attaining that goal and the expression of love in its highest sense – by cultivation of their souls and intellect through the pursuit of virtue and wisdom, which is true insight into the Beautiful itself and the Good itself, the ideas by participation in which all beautiful things are beautiful and all good things good (cf. Symposium 205a-d; 206a-207a). If we take Plato at his word, all humans desire the good for the sake of happiness, and it is love of beauty which draws them to the things they perceive as good. Only at its highest stages, however, is love of beauty capable of leading us to our proper good. The tourist’s pursuit of pleasure and her journey of self-discovery are closely related to this association of our striving for beauty and the good as described in the speech of Diotima, insofar as they propel us beyond a mere striving for self-preservation to a higher level of enjoyment and self-realisation. Consideration of the relationship of pleasure and the good in the practice of tourism meanwhile raises questions as to the nature of pleasure generally and its role in human existence. Here one must distinguish between a quantitative account of pleasure such as that given in Bentham’s An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, Ch. 4 (Bentham 2017, 21–23), and a qualitative account, which distinguishes between pleasures of different kinds, as, for instance, between mere physical pleasure, or pleasure as sensation, and emotional or even intellectual pleasure. Heraclitus, for example, distinguished between the pleasure of a horse, dog or ass and that of a human being, emphasising with his customary dose of irony the specifically human connection of pleasure to happiness, and chiding humans for mistakenly thinking physical pleasures will provide it: For a horse, a dog and a human being have different pleasures; asses prefer straw to gold, since asses find food sweeter than gold. (Fragment B10, Diels-Kranz) If happiness consisted in the pleasures of the body, we should call oxen happy whenever they come across bitter vetch to eat (Fragment B4, Diels-Kranz) Pigs delight in the mire more than in clean water. (Fragment B13, Diels-Kranz)

Plato continues the legacy of Heraclitus by distinguishing different kinds of pleasure, making a distinction between good and bad, better and worse, higher and lower forms of pleasure, and identifying the virtues of temperance and wisdom with the ability to forego certain lower forms of pleasure for the sake of higher ones. For Plato, no less than for Heraclitus, all pleasures are not created equal; that is why, for Plato, a pleasure calculus based on a quantitative view of pleasures is untenable. In the philosophy of Plato and Plotinus, pleasure is seen as stimulating our striving for the good, whose objects, like pleasures, can be differentiated according to a hierarchical order or scale of value. Pleasure and the good are closely related in Plato, the pursuit of pleasure leading toward the goods we desire and the attainment of those goods forming the condition of our happiness, whereby true happiness depends on our being able to distinguish among the types of pleasure according to a scale of value and to accustom ourselves to pursuing those pleasures which lead us to the goods proper to our nature. In other words, pleasure stimulates us to strive for certain objects we perceive to be good for us in some regard, whereby some goods are more worthy of our effort than others. Our “love” for the objects of our striving (for the goods which bring

52

M.-É. Zovko

us satisfaction or pleasure) can thus also be differentiated into kinds according to their relative value with regard to a certain standard (which turns out to be the good itself). We strive for the good for the sake of happiness, a fact which needs no further explanation (Symposium 205a). To strive for what appears to them to be good is as natural to humans as it is to other living beings and is the motor which ensures our survival, but this does not in itself qualify our striving as love in the truest sense of the word and is not as such worthy of our admiration (Symposium 205b). Plato considers the relationship of pleasure and the good in a variety of contexts. Specifically, the association of these concepts is discussed in the dialogues Protagoras, Gorgias, Phaedo, Republic, Philebus, and the Laws (for an illuminating exposition cf. Hermann 1972). In the Protagoras, Socrates appears to defend a purely quantitative understanding of pleasure. In the so-called “hedonistic passage” (351b3–359a1; cf. Hermann 1972, 11–12), Socrates and Protagoras discuss what people call “being overcome by pleasures” (τῶν ἡδονῶν ἡττᾶσθαι 352a), which they identify as seeing what they know to be good, but choosing what is evil, for example, indulging in momentary pleasures (“the pleasantness of food, drink or sexual acts”) that later bring greater pains (“diseases and poverty” and other such ills). The relationship of pleasure (ἡδονή) and pain (λύπη) appears here to parallel that of good (ἀγαθόν) and evil (κακόν) – we call certain things good if they end in pleasures and others bad if they end in pains (cf. 354a-­ d); but the two are not identical. For, as Protagoras ventures, not all pleasant things are good and not all painful things are bad; rather, “some pleasant things are not good, and … some painful things are not bad, … while a third class of them are indifferent—neither bad nor good.” (351d). The discussion revolves around the role of knowledge (ἐπιστήμη) and wisdom (φρόνησις, prudence) in the choice of pleasures. People believe the problem to be that knowledge is unable to govern our susceptibility to pleasures effectively. In Socrates’ view, however, the problem is one of our not measuring the relative pleasure and pain to be had correctly – when, for example, a pleasure that is further away, appears to be smaller – and this is, in fact, the greatest ignorance (357e). No one chooses evil willingly, that is knowingly (358c); and the art of measuring (ἡ μετρητικὴ) the greater or lesser in relation to pleasure is, in fact, a kind of knowledge. In the end account, it is the relationship of knowledge to the good which determines the best choice of pleasures. The measure Socrates is suggesting is, I believe, however, not merely one of magnitude – at least not of this only – but also of kind. In the Republic, goods and pleasures are ordered according to separate but interrelated hierarchies. In reframing the objections of Thrasymachus from Book 1, Glaucon in Book 2 differentiates three types of goods: goods we desire for their own sake, those we desire for their own sake and for their consequences, and those we desire only for their consequences (357b–c). Among the first kind, he counts “joy and such pleasures as are harmless,” from which “nothing results… afterwards save to have and hold the enjoyment.” (357b) Under the second kind, goods we love for their own sake and for their consequences, he includes understanding (phronein), sight, and health (357c). The third kind, goods we find in themselves “laborious and painful,” although we love them for their consequences, includes things like the art of healing and making money (357c–d). Socrates places the life of justice in the category of goods one loves for their own sake and for their consequences, and correspondingly those which provide true

4  The Interior Tourist: Travel, Tourism, and the Path to Self-Discovery…

53

pleasure and happiness (358e), although it will take the remainder of the dialogue to provide Glaucon and Adeimantus with the arguments required to defend this proposition. In a later passage, Plato differentiates three kinds of pleasures, corresponding to the three parts of the soul (580d– 581e). The epithumetikon, or desiring part, strives for sensual pleasure and material wealth; the thumoeides or volitional part, strives for honour and fame, and the logistikon, the reasonable or rational part, strives for pleasures of the intellect. These different forms of pleasure, like the different forms of life associated with them, compete with one another for the title of being most pleasant and free from pain. The correct decision as to which is to be preferred can only be made based on adequate education, experience, and argument. Elsewhere (Republic 583d, cf. Gorgias 493e–494c, Philebus 42c, 53c), Plato distinguishes between pure or positive and impure or negative pleasures. The latter result from relief of desire or pain, such as eating to relieve hunger or drinking to relieve thirst and so on for other sensual pleasures. Pure or positive pleasures are pleasures of the soul or intellect and are independent of sensual desire, such as the pleasure which arises from study or contemplation of the Forms. While the satisfaction which arises from the pursuit of necessary goods is beneficial insofar as it ensures our continued existence and establishes the condition for our enjoyment of higher pleasures and goods (Republic 558e–559a), pursuit of certain kinds of sensual pleasure is unnecessary (559a); and exaggerated or exclusive pursuit of sensual pleasure results in enslavement to the tyranny of our competing lusts by undermining the harmony and proper ordering of the parts of the soul. Accordingly, the desire to eat for the sake of health is proper and should be cultivated, whereas to the extent that the appetite exceeds the needs of the body it should be corrected by training from our youth since it is “harmful to the body and a hindrance to the soul’s attainment of intelligence and sobriety” (559a–559b; 559b–559c). Unfortunately, poor breeding and education can lead to stoking of the wrong sorts of appetites in the wrong proportions and to inordinate preoccupation with the means of ensuring their fulfilment, undermining the health of mind and body. Socrates compares the resulting degeneration to the progressive degeneration of healthy constitutions (559e–560c). Corresponding to the three parts of the soul are namely three types of lives: the life of reason or pursuit of knowledge and understanding, the life of honour and pursuit of fame, and the life of sensual pleasure which entails the pursuit of material wealth. The just man according to the Republic is the one who ensures the proper ordering of these three parts and cultivation of the corresponding way of life, while corruption of the soul manifests in proportion to the excessive favouring of one of the lower parts of the soul over the higher. Plato compares the resulting forms of corruption to corrupt constitutions: timocracy, oligarchy, democracy (by which Plato means something closer to the rule of the mob than to a modern-day republican ideal of democracy with its division of powers, representative government, and rule of law), and tyranny. The condition of one whose soul has succumbed to this sort of anarchy is dire. Sometimes a relative may intervene and, by their admonition, succeed in motivating the affected person to restore a modicum of order, in which case, for a time

54

M.-É. Zovko the democratic [viz. anarchical] element retires before the oligarchical [the element leaning towards a sense of honour], some of its appetites having been destroyed and others expelled, and a sense of awe and reverence grows up in the young man’s soul and order is restored (559e)

But without proper training, it can easily happen that another brood of desires akin to those expelled are stealthily nurtured to take their place, owing to the father’s ignorance of true education, and wax numerous and strong. … And they tug and pull back to the same associations and in secret intercourse engender a multitude… And in the end, … seize the citadel of the young man’s soul (τὴν τοῦ νέου τῆς ψυχῆς ἀκρόπολιν), finding it empty and unoccupied by studies and honorable pursuits and true discourses, which are the best watchmen and guardians in the minds of men who are dear to the gods. (κενὴν μαθημάτων τε καὶ ἐπιτηδευμάτων καλῶν καὶ λόγων ἀληθῶν, οἳ δὴ ἄριστοι φρουροί τε καὶ φύλακες ἐν ἀνδρῶν θεοφιλῶν εἰσι διανοίαις. 560a-c)

With the acropolis of the soul abandoned, “false and braggart words and opinions charge up the height and take their place and occupy that part of such a youth. …close the gates of the royal fortress within him.” (560d) In such a state, the youth will not give ear to the advice of older friends but will call reverence and awe folly, temperance a “want of manhood,” moderation and orderly life “rustic” and “illiberal,” availing himself of a whole “gang of unprofitable and harmful appetites” to drive such virtues into exile (560d), admitting instead “insolence and anarchy and prodigality and shamelessness,” which he celebrates by euphemistically calling “insolence ‘good breeding,’ licence ‘liberty,’ prodigality ‘magnificence,’ and shamelessness ‘manly spirit.’” (560e-561a). This process of degeneration results from neglecting to restrain and moderate according to due measure the necessary desires, on the one hand, and from liberating, on the other, unnecessary and harmful desires, in consequence of which the youthful guardian “in his subsequent life… expends money and toil and time no more on his necessary than on his unnecessary pleasures.” In later life, once “the fiercest tumult within him passes,” the unfortunate youth “maintains all his pleasures on a footing of equality,” relying for the governance of his soul on precisely the kind of pleasure calculus which Socrates according to the hierarchical proportion of the soul’s capacities must reject: turning over the guard-house of his soul to each as it happens along until it is sated, as if it had drawn the lot for that office, and then in turn to another, disdaining none but fostering them all equally. (561b)

The truth, however, which the corrupt youth no longer desires to hear, is that …some pleasures arise from honorable and good desires, and others from those that are base, and that we ought to practise and esteem the one and control and subdue the others… (561c)

It should not surprise us that Plato, with his picture of the degenerate youth and the disarray into which his lack of proper breeding and education in the moderation of his desires has led him, has provided us with the spitting image of the present-day party tourist. Temperance and wise moderation of one’s appetites were no more popular in

4  The Interior Tourist: Travel, Tourism, and the Path to Self-Discovery…

55

Plato’s day than they are in ours – as can be seen by Glaucon’s rebuttal of the image of the healthy state as a city of pigs in the second book of the Republic (372d-c). The “democracy of appetites” and associated pleasure calculus, which forms the habitus of would-be rulers whose nature or education has failed them, bears an uncanny resemblance to the pleasure calculus promoted by most popular forms of tourist experience and consumerism in general. Oscillating incessantly between over-indulgence and self-­ denial, the “devotee of equality” of appetites finds him(or her-)self subjugated to the yo-yo effect that results from failing to distinguish between better and worse, more and less worthy forms of pleasure: …day by day indulging the appetite of the day, now wine-bibbing and abandoning himself to the lascivious pleasing of the flute and again drinking only water and dieting; and at one time exercising his body, and sometimes idling and neglecting all things, and at another time seeming to occupy himself with philosophy. And frequently he goes in for politics and bounces up and says and does whatever enters his head. And if military men excite his emulation, thither he rushes, and if moneyed men, to that he turns, and there is no order or compulsion in his existence, but he calls this life of his the life of pleasure and freedom and happiness and cleaves to it to the end… (561c-e)

It is undeniable that we humans tend to “grow our desires big,” like the tyrant in Plato’s Republic, who subjects family and kingdom to the servicing of the endlessly escalating array and quantity of his desires – and is eventually destroyed by the tyranny of  his undifferentiated lusts. This sort of primal self-indulgence is nevertheless as untenable as a pleasure calculus based on a merely quantitative exchange of pleasures. The attainment of enjoyment and pleasure is necessarily limited by an entire range of physical, emotional, and intellectual factors, by the competing needs and wants of others, and by the limited resources available for their satisfaction. While the eliciting of various kinds of pleasures depends at least in part on a necessary mechanism, insofar as the sensation of pleasure arises involuntarily based on the fulfilment of one’s natural drives and inclinations, and while the question of what sort of things please us may be a matter of natural disposition, nonetheless, our disposition and the manner in which we pursue the satisfaction of our desires are also shaped by nurture and education. Although we cannot be held entirely responsible for the former or the latter, it remains in some respects a matter of choice whether, to what extent, and under what circumstances we indulge our desires and inclinations – and the responsibility of educators to ensure the best possible conditions for their healthy regulation and balance. One of the central aims of Plato’s model of the just state and the education of its future rulers is to provide a paradigm for proper governance of the soul. The failure of its educational program to insulate the rulers from corruption confronts us with the question of whether a simple maximisation of pleasure can serve as a sufficient guide for balancing the pursuit of pleasure with attainment of what is truly good for us as individuals, as part of nature and as members of a global community, in other words, whether the unavoidable selection among pleasures can be reduced to a matter of arbitrary preference or whether it constitutes a matter of moral significance which pleasures are to be pursued under what circumstances. In the case of tourism, whose primary motivation lies in the number and variety of pleasures it can afford to the tourist as consumer, when one considers the detrimental effects indiscriminate indulgence of our

56

M.-É. Zovko

appetites can and does have upon the individual, society, and the limited resources upon whose availability the survival of human and other species depends, the conclusion appears inevitable that our choice of pleasures, as well as of the circumstances of their indulgence necessarily requires exercise of moral judgment and cultivation of certain morally justifiable habits of behaviour. There is no question that the attraction of specific pleasures plays a central role in the practice of tourism. The question is whether tourists might be stimulated to apply some sort of moral compass in their selection and indulgence of pleasures and whether raising the bar in the realm of cultural tourism might play a constructive role in achieving this – for example by raising awareness of the crucial importance of the self-examined life in a Socratic and Platonic sense to the achievement of true happiness, but also by attuning our souls to the finer sorts of pleasure afforded by intelligible beauty – and to our ultimate purpose in life. In Plato and Plotinus, beauty plays a specific role in mediating the good and hence in the education of moral judgment to distinguish the kinds of pleasures we should value more from those which should play a lesser role in determining our pursuits. The attraction to and love of beauty serve thereby as a guiding thread in reorienting the soul toward the kinds of goods most in accord with our true nature. As with the good, the various kinds and levels of beauty form a hierarchy with respect to their value, with corporeal beauty belonging to the lowest and the idea of Beauty to the highest level. Beauty, as elaborated by Diotima in the Symposium, can belong to bodies, but also to customs, sciences, and virtues. The recognition of a kinship of beauty among bodily things leads the soul to gradually separate itself from particular beautiful things in the physical world and the pleasure they elicit and to ascend via beautiful practices and customs to preoccupy itself with beautiful studies and knowledge until in a transcendent vision it finally gains insight into beauty itself. Beauty thus describes the essence of that which arouses pleasure, whether sensual or intellectual, while the idea of Beauty as principle of all that is beautiful transcends the individual beautiful things that participate in it. The challenge is to determine in what way the ascent via a hierarchical ordering of beautiful things, practices, virtues, arts, and sciences to Beauty itself as a metaphysical principle is related to and affirms the soul’s true nature – and how this might be applied in an educational context to help motivate us to make better choices. In other words, if we take beauty in a Platonic sense to be the essence of what attracts us to specific pleasures, and the various kinds of beauty to be ultimately related, forming a hierarchical order, how might the love of beauty ultimately succeed in directing the soul (and the tourist in us all) towards its proper good? To attempt an answer to this question requires that we examine more closely how beauty acts as the motivating force of pleasure. Plotinus discusses beauty in Enneads I 6 and V 8. I confine myself here for reasons of space to Ennead I 6. As in Plato, in Plotinus, our perception of beauty is first occasioned by sensual things. These on closer examination appear to share in a kindred nature, but it is not clear in what that kinship consists, for no general category, quality, or characteristic can be said to define the beautiful. In Ennead I 6, Plotinus rejects the Stoic definition of beauty as consisting in good proportion of parts to the whole with the addition of good colour (I 6. 1, 20–25). Otherwise only composite things would be beautiful, but simple things, such as colours,

4  The Interior Tourist: Travel, Tourism, and the Path to Self-Discovery…

57

sounds, light, or even a single stone – can also be beautiful. In complex things, beauty penetrates both the whole and its parts. And a well-proportioned face can at times appear beautiful and at times ugly. In considering virtue, ways of life, or expressions of thought, laws, studies or branches of knowledge, or intellect alone, although these may also be said to be beautiful and indeed in a higher manner than corporeal things, again it is impossible to determine in what way good proportion could be the cause or basis of their beauty. Our experience of beauty is intuitive and cannot be derived from a formula; for we recognise beauty momentarily, without needing to be convinced by argument. For this reason, Plotinus calls us to examine more closely the intuition of beauty as it appears in bodily and intellectual reality and to try to discover the likeness which connects them (I, 6, 2). In keeping with his Platonist convictions, he sees the kinship among beautiful things and between intellectual and physical beauty in their being dominated by divine form and unified by that formative power into a whole, such that individual beautiful things are penetrated completely by beauty: …beauty rests upon the material thing when it has been brought into unity, and gives itself to parts and wholes alike. When it comes upon something that is one and composed of like parts it gives the same gift to the whole; as sometimes art gives beauty to a whole house with its parts, and sometimes nature gives beauty to a single stone. (I 6, 2, 23–28; cf. V 8.8)

Beauty in physical things, then, is not merely a matter of symmetry or proportion among the parts of a whole, but a matter of agreement with a form and intuitive knowledge of that agreement. The question is how beauty in external things is brought into relationship with the beauty of interior and intellectual things. Plotinus sees this as a function of the formative power of inner form, which soul when it perceives a beautiful thing by sense-perception connects with its interior life and inner truth and “as something in tune with it and fitting it and dear to it” (I 6. 3, 10–15). Thus, the architect can declare a house beautiful by fitting it to the form of the house within him because the external house manifests the inner form “without parts but appearing in many parts”: When sense-perception, then, sees the form in bodies binding and mastering the nature opposed to it, which is shapeless, and shape riding gloriously upon other shapes, it gathers into one that which appears dispersed and brings it back and takes it in, now without parts, to the soul’s interior and presents it to that which is within as something in tune with it and fitting it and dear to it; just as when a good man sees a trace of virtue in the young, which is in tune with his own inner truth, the sight delights him. Ὅταν οὖν καὶ ἡ αἴσθησις τὸ ἐν σώμασιν εἶδος ἴδῃ συνδησάμενον καὶ κρατῆσαν τῆς φύσεως τῆς ἐναντίας ἀμόρφου οὔσης καὶ μορφὴν ἐπὶ ἄλλαις μορφαῖς ἐκπρεπῶς ἐποχουμένην, συνελοῦσα ἀθρόον αὐτὸ τὸ πολλαχῇ ἀνήνεγκέ τε καὶ εἰσήγαγεν εἰς τὸ εἴσω ἀμερὲς ἤδη καὶ ἔδωκε τῷ ἔνδον σύμφωνον καὶ συναρμόττον καὶ φίλον· οἷα ἀνδρὶ ἀγαθῷ προσηνὲς ἐπιφαινόμενον ἀρετῆς ἴχνος ἐν νέῳ συμφωνοῦν τῷ ἀληθεῖ τῷ ἔνδον. (I 6. 3, 9–17)

So also, the “simple beauty of colour comes about by shape and the mastery of the darkness in matter by the presence of light which is incorporeal and formative power and form” (I 6. 3, 17–19); and the “imperceptible melodies” in sounds which make beautiful sounds perceptible “make the soul conscious of beauty in the same way, showing the same thing in another medium” (I 6. 3, 28–31).

58

M.-É. Zovko

These beauties in the realm of sense are, however, for Plotinus, no more than images and shadows that “sally out and come into matter and adorn it and excite us when they appear” (I 6. 3, 34–36). The “beauties beyond” are not visible to the senses. Rather, “the soul sees them and speaks of them without instruments” (ψυχὴ δὲ ἄνευ ὀργάνων ὁρᾷ καὶ λέγει, I 6. 4, 2–3). To consider these beautiful things, “we must go up to them and contemplate them and leave sense to stay below.” (I 6.4, 3–4) And just as it is impossible for someone born blind to speak of the visible beauty, so it is impossible for people to speak about the beauty of ways of life and kinds of knowledge “who have never even imagined how fair is the face of justice and the moral order” (I 6. 4, 11–12). In Plotinus’ estimate, there are people who are more delighted and overwhelmed and excited by beauties of the intellectual kind than by beauties in the realm of sense, and this is understandable, since “it is true beauty they are grasping” (I 6. 4, 13–15) He describes the experience of intellectual beauty in the same terms as one might describe the experience of sensual beauty. When such a person encounters a beautiful thing in the intellectual realm, she experiences “wonder and a shock of delight and longing and passion and a happy excitement” (θάμβος καὶ ἔκπληξιν ἡδεῖαν καὶ πόθον καὶ ἔρωτα καὶ πτόησιν μεθ᾿ ἡδονῆς, I 6. 4, 17–18) Although “practically all” souls experience this at one time or another, it happens particularly to those who are more enamoured of invisible beauty than sensible. This does not imply that bodily and intellectual beauty are unrelated. The experience of pleasure in the encounter with physical and intellectual beauty can provide a means of gradually educating the soul to love of higher things and to a balanced ordering of her inner life. Plotinus indicates how this might occur when he addresses the experience of pleasure that lovers of what is outside sense experience when they encounter beauty in ways of life, habits, virtuous activities, beautiful souls, and our own inward beauty. For such persons, it is “Not shape or colour or any size, but soul without colour,” possessing a moral order and virtues, which stirs them to “wild exultation” to the point that they long to be with themselves, gathering themselves together away from their bodies. They experience this when they see in themselves or someone else greatness of soul, a righteous life, a pure morality, courage with its noble look, and dignity and modesty advancing in a fearless, calm, and unperturbed disposition, and the godlike light of intellect shining upon all this (I 6. 5, 13–17)

These are the things that deserve to be called beautiful in the truest sense, just as dissoluteness, injustice, disorderly behaviour, immoderation, cowardice, jealousy, meanness, impurity all deserve the name of ugliness. For Plato and Plotinus, the life of intellect is preferable to the life of sense, as that which is most in agreement with the nature of the soul and provides it with the greatest self-sufficiency and happiness. Yet why would anyone be convinced that this is the case and that one should rather neglect the pleasures of the body than those of the soul if one wishes to achieve true satisfaction and happiness? The explanation lies in the attraction of the specific kind of beauty and enjoyment which is native to the human soul and to the human mind, and in the fact that the good proper to human beings is that which corresponds to these higher capacities. Plotinus follows Plato in Ennead IV 5.12, in pointing out that it is the Good and oneness with the Good which provides us with complete fulfilment of desire and as such ensures our happiness. Yet beyond stating that it is that

4  The Interior Tourist: Travel, Tourism, and the Path to Self-Discovery…

59

toward which all our longing and effort aim and all that exists aspires, Plotinus, no more than Plato, provides a definition of what constitutes goodness itself (cf. Plato, Republic 505d). This has to do with the position of the Good and the ideas generally as principles and source of knowledge and existence beyond being and knowledge, as elaborated in the Analogy of the Sun (Republic 508a-509b), which prevents their being the subject of propositional knowledge. Our individual human intellects and soul are “like the Good” (ibid. 509a) in this, since they too, in their unique singularity, escape categorical definition. For one who has grasped the kinship of soul to the highest principle and to the realm of intellect and the ideas, abstention from bodily pleasures as required for moderation of one’s desires (σωφροσύνη), fearlessness in the face of death, which is separation of mind and body, as required by courage (ἀνδρία), disregard for and turning away from the things below as required for greatness of soul (μεγαλοψυχία), and for wisdom (φρόνησις) as the intellectual activity which leads the soul above (νόησις ἐν ἀποστροφῇ τῶν κάτω πρὸς δὲ τὰ ἄνω τὴν ψυχὴν ἄγουσα, I 6. 6, 14; cf. 5–12) are as natural as breathing and moving about in the realm of sense are to the body. The virtues are themselves a purification which beautifies the soul, for soul when it is purified becomes form and formative power, altogether bodiless and intellectual and entirely belonging to the divine, whence beauty springs and all that is akin to it (I 6. 6, 13–16)

Raised to the level of intellect, the soul “increases in beauty,” that is, in that particular kind of beauty which belongs to her nature, for “Intellect and the things of intellect are its beauty, its own … and not another’s, since only then …is it truly soul.” In becoming good and beautiful in this way, soul which is a “divine thing and a kind of part of beauty” is “being made like to God” from whom “beauty and all else which falls to the lot of real beings” comes. In God, Beauty and Goodness are one, since, as the Absolute simple and singular, God has no qualities. After the One comes Intellect, which is beauty itself, and soul, which receives its beauty from intellect. Everything else: actions, ways of life, bodies are “beautiful by the shaping of soul.” (I 6. 6, 25–33). While the “fundamental force” which expresses itself in bodily and intellectual desire is the same, the direction its activity takes determines whether it can realise the proper aim of human existence (cf. Sivaratnam 2001, 80). When one ascends to the good “which every soul desires,” stripping away “what we put on in the descent” and all that is alien to God “one sees with one’s self alone That alone, simple single and pure, from which all depends and to which all look … for it is the cause of life and mind and being” (I 6. 7, 1–2; 5–6; 8–12). The difference between the experience of one who “has seen” the Good and one who has only indirect knowledge of it is described by Plotinus as the contrast between one who is carried away by passion and one who only intellectually assents to the desirability of the Good: If anyone sees it, what passion will he feel, what longing in his desire to be united with it, what a shock of delight! The man who has not seen it may desire it as good, but he who has seen it glories in its beauty and is full of wonder and delight, enduring a shock which causes no hurt, loving with true passion and piercing longing; he laughs at all other loves and despises what he thought beautiful before… I 6.7, 13–19

60

M.-É. Zovko

This feeling of wonder and delight, of passionate longing, and deep pleasure, which arises from the encounter with absolute beauty and the Good itself, surpasses every feeling one may experience in the encounter with sensible beauties – and provides the key to redirecting our impulses from pursuit of sensual pleasures, which can only temporarily satisfy, to a striving for the pleasures which alone provide true and lasting satisfaction. As Plato recognised, the ascent from admiration for particular beautiful things via admiration for beautiful actions, virtues, and ways of life, to love of beautiful studies, sciences, and contemplation of the highest realities describes the path to happiness in the truest sense. In the process, as Plotinus explains, “primary beauty… makes its lovers beautiful and lovable” (I 6, 28–30). This is for Plotinus the one true form of success; the one who attains the vision of beauty itself and the good itself is truly blessed, and one who fails to do so has “failed utterly.” For one does not fail “if he fails to win beauty of colours or bodies, or power or office or kingship,” but only if he fails to win “this and only this.” (I 6. 7, 34–37). Applied to the practice of tourism, a redirection along the lines of the “higher love” described by Plotinus would require that tourists recognise in themselves the path of ascent inherent to their nature and find in themselves the motivation to embark on the inward journey of the interior tourist parallel or alternatively to their outward travels. In contrast to attractive geographical destinations and the external pleasures and goods promoted as part of their tourist offerings, it is the inner encounter with beauty and goodness that according to Plotinus is most in accord with human nature and whose pursuit promises ultimate happiness. Instead of running after beautiful bodies, we must recognise that these are merely “images traces, shadows” of true beauty and “hurry away to that which they image.” (I 6. 8, 6–9) For if we cling to beautiful bodies, and attempt to catch the “beautiful reflection playing on the water,” like Narcissus we will sink down, “in soul, not in body,” “into the dark depths where intellect has no delight.” (I 6. 8, 9–16) In other words, the exclusive or near-exclusive pursuit of bodily pleasures necessarily leads to a crippling of our inner life and undermines our complete satisfaction and pleasure, and ultimately our happiness. Plotinus’ advice is thus that we should seek “our way of escape,” and “fly to our dear country.” To do so, we must “put out to sea, as Odysseus did, from the witch Circe or Calypso—not content to stay though he had delights of the eyes and lived among much beauty of sense.” (I 6. 8, 16–21) The only real way to satisfy our nostalgia and our longing to discover the new and unknown is to embark on the journey of self-discovery. By this path, we shall come to recognise our true homeland and discover the path of return which lies within. Every journey which leads us forth outside ourselves can only fulfil its purpose by being united to this inward path, for Our country from which we came is there, our Father is there. How shall we travel to it, where is our way of escape? We cannot get there on foot; for our feet only carry us everywhere in this world, from one country to another. You must not get ready a carriage, either, or a boat. Let all these things go, and do not look. Shut your eyes, and change to and wake another way of seeing, which everyone has but few use. (I 6. 8, 22–28)

4  The Interior Tourist: Travel, Tourism, and the Path to Self-Discovery…

61

It is unlikely that the average tourist will choose this route as an alternative to their travels abroad. But if tourists could be helped to recognise the inner motivation that awakens their longing for travel and drives them forth, they might find more time and space in their journeys to reflect on the true source of their longing and their ultimate destination. Wherever our paths may lead us during our lifetimes, the journey homeward is inevitable. Making space for reflection an integral part of tourist offerings, as mediated by visits to cultural attractions or encounters with natural beauty, or even as a part of wellness or spa tourism might move more tourists to discover the tourist within – and help them grow to understand the lasting beauty and goal of our interior journey.

References Augustine, Aurelius. 1959. Of True Religion. Ed., Mink, Louis O., and Transl. Burleigh, John H.S. South Bend, Ind.: Gateway Editions. ———. 1963. De vera religione liber unus, cura et studio K.-D. Daur. In Sancti Aurelii Augustini de doctrina christiana. De vera religione, Aurelii Augustini Opera. Pars IV,1, CCL 32, 169–260. Turnholti: Brepols. Baudelaire, Charles. 1986. The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays. New York, N.Y: Da Capo Press. Bentham, Jeremy. 2017. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation ed. Jonathan Bennett. Crichton, Michael. 1988. Travels. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. de Montaigne, Michel. 1875. Les Essais. Paris: Librarie des bibliophiles. Fuentenebro, F. de Diego, and C. Valiente. 2014. Nostalgia: A Conceptual History. History of Psychiatry 25 (4): 404–411. García, Llorens, and Ramón F. 2016. Landscapes of the Soul: Unamuno’s Travel Writing. Ιn A Companion to Miguel de Unamuno. Eds. Biggane, Julia and John Macklin. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer; Tamesis an imprint of Boydell & Brewer, 209–228. Green, Virginia M. 1994. Montaigne’s Vanity: Reading Excursions While Traveling. Renaissance and Reformation /Renaissance et Réforme, New Series /Nouvelle Série. 18, No. 4 (FALL / AUTOMNE). Hermann, Alf. 1972. Untersuchungen zu Platons Auffassung von der Hedoné. Ein Beitrag zum Verständnis des platonischen Tugendbegriffs. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Leed, Eric. 1991. The Mind of the Traveler: From Gilgamesh to Global Tourism. New York: New Basic Books. Magowan, Robin. 2001. Writing Travel. Southwest Review 86 (2/3): 174–185. Monga, Luigi. 1996. Travel and Travel Writing: An Historical Overview of Hodoeporics. Annali d’Italianistica, Vol. 14, L’Odeporica/Hodoeporics: On Travel pp. 6–54. Plato, 1955, 1966. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 8 translated by W.R.M.  Lamb. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd.; Vol. 1 translated by H. N. Fowler; Introduction by W. R. M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. Royce, Josiah. 1914. The Problem of Christianity: Lectures delivered at the Lowell Institute in Boston, and at Manchester College, Oxford, vols. 1, 2. New York: Macmillan.

62

M.-É. Zovko

Sedikides, Constantine, Tim Wildschut, Jamie Arndt, and Clay Nostalgia. 2008. Past, Present, and Future. Routledge Current Directions in Psychological Science 17 (5): 304–307. Sivaratnam, Sumi. 2001. Pleasure and the Plotinian Good, in Dirk Baltzly, Douglas Blyth and Harold Tarrant, eds., Power and Pleasure, Virtues and Vices (Prudentia, Supplement ISBN: 0-9582211-5-4): 75–88. Thomae à Kempis. 1840. De imitatione Christi libri IV. Ad optimarum editionum fidem accurate editi. Lipsae: Car. Tauchnitii. ———. 1886. The imitation of Christ: Four books by Benham, William, 1831–1910; Thomas, à Kempis, 1380–1471. London: J. C. Nimmo. Van Riel, Gerd. 2000. Pleasure and the Good Life: Plato, Aristotle, and the Neoplatonists. Leiden/Boston: Brill. Zovko, Jure, and Marie-Élise Zovko. 2012. The Metaphysical Character of Philosophy. In Metaphysics, ed. M.  Pestana, 9–44. Rijeka: InTech. http://www.intechopen.com/books/ metaphysics/metaphysical-­character-­of-­philosophy. Marie-Élise Zovko, née Deslattes, from Ithaca, New York, is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy, Zagreb, and doctoral thesis advisor at the University of Zadar, Humanities Studies, Dept. of Philosophy. Her areas of specialisation include Ancient Greek philosophy, Platonism/Neoplatonism, Mysticism, Spinoza, Kant, German Idealism, German Romantic philosophy, Schelling, Franz v. Baader, metaphysics, theory of mind, philosophising with children/ philosophising in life contexts. She is the author of two books, co-editor of three volumes of proceedings, and has published numerous scholarly articles.  

Chapter 5 Ancient Ideas of Leisure and Contemplation in Francesco Petrarch’s Ascent to Mont Ventoux Renate Kroschel1 (*) 1 

Margarete Ruckmich Academie (1990–2013), Freiburg i. Br., Germany [email protected]

Abstract.  Travel in leisure and for the sake of peaceful contemplation is more the exception than the rule in the age of busy, bustling mass tourism with its all-inclusive deals to ever further destinations. The same is true for a meditative walking tour and leisurely stroll – without a fitness meter which counts our steps, measures calorie consumption, and drives us to ever more intensive performance. The concept of a contemplative leisure can provide the impetus for a new reflection on individual travel and walking as a way to self-discovery. Ancient thoughts of leisure and contemplation regain their relevance in this context, and it is against this background that I would like to revisit Francesco Petrarch’s (1304–1374) famous description of his ascent to Mont Ventoux. Keywords:  Leisure · Contemplation · Petrarch · Mount Ventoux · Mass tourism · Mindfulness

A leisurely voyage for the purpose of tranquil contemplation is more likely than not an exception in the age of bustling mass tourism with its all-inclusive offers to destinations lying ever further afield. The same is true for a contemplative hike and for a leisurely walk without a fitness watch which counts our steps, measures calorie consumption and drives us to ever higher levels of performance. Both are currently giving rise to new reflections regarding individual travel and discovery hiking. Ancient thoughts on leisure and contemplation are gaining in relevance again, and in this context, I would like to recall Francesco Petrarch’s (1304–1374) famous description of his ascent to Mont Ventoux. To begin, I would like to make reference to the large-scale collaborative research centre of the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg im Breisgau: “Leisure: Concepts, Spaces, Figures.” Since 2013, in addition to the Faculty of Philosophy, other faculties such as the faculties of theology, philology, medicine, psychology, and sociology have been participating in this collaborative research centre.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M.-É. Zovko, J. Dillon (eds.), Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36659-8_5

63

64

R. Kroschel

The common goal of all of the centre’s projects is to reflect on alternative concepts of education, work, and leisure through scientific examination of concepts of leisure in tradition and the present. The unifying fundamental approach of all research activities is to consider work and leisure not as a pair of opposites but in their integral functioning. One crucial area of life concerns us all: places of education such as school and university. Thus, a sub-project, initially under the direction of Joachim Bauer and Stefan Schmidt (psychiatry/psychosomatics), is concerned with leisure in the school context, where pressure to perform and stress are increasingly prevalent. Here we should again recall the original meaning of school in the ancient Greek word s c h o l é. By practising mindfulness, a new relationship to the phenomenon of leisure is attempted. To this end, courses in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) are offered in schools for students and teachers. Ongoing research results are published, among others, in the series ‘Otium’. Studien zur Theorie und Kulturgeschichte der Muße (‘Otium’. Studies in the Theory and Cultural History of Leisure), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen. For example, volume 2 (2016) ‘Die Raumzeitlichkeit der Muße’ (The Space-Time of Leisure), edited by Günter Figal, Hans W. Hubert, and Thomas Klinkert, reproduces the results of a conference of the same name. The individual contributions show how the experience of space and time changes with the state of leisure. Of interest in our context is also volume 8 (2018) by Andreas Kirchner: Dem Göttlichen ganz nah. Muße und Theoria in der spätantiken Philosophie und Theologie (Very Near to the Divine. Leisure and Theoria in Late Antique Philosophy and Theology). With regard to Petrarch, a few brief remarks on leisure and contemplation in antiquity and late antiquity will suffice as introduction. Leisure (skholê, otium) and contemplation (theoria, contemplatio) have been closely connected since ancient Greek philosophy. Skholê means, first of all, being free from public and everyday occupations, which are called non-recreation, a-skholía, neg-otium. To have leisure, skholên agein, in this sense means to have free time for other things, free time to have celebrations, to hold conversations, to devote oneself to contemplative activities. Skholê also refers to the place of free activity, the school. (Cf. Martin 1984, 257–258). For Plato (427–347 B.C.), leisure is a prerequisite for a free life in the service of philosophy. Only one who is truly “educated in freedom and leisure” en eleuthería te kai skholê (Theaetetus 175e1; Plato 1914, 175) can pursue philosophical activity. Places of leisure for philosophical conversation are also of great importance to him. For example, in the Phaedrus 230 b, Socrates describes the path to a quiet and lovely grove outside the city, which favours conversation and prompts Socrates to conclude with a philosophical prayer: O beloved Pan and all ye other gods of this place, grant to me that I be made beautiful in my soul within, and that all external possessions be in harmony with my inner man. (279 b5–c6; Plato 1914, 577–579)

For Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) also, leisure is an essential aspect of theoria, free contemplative thinking, which is directed toward the beautiful and divine (Nicomachean Ethics 1177a13ff.; Aristotle 1934, 612–617).

5  Ancient Ideas of Leisure and Contemplation in Francesco Petrarch’s Ascent…

65

It is opposed to the busy losing of oneself in the manifold. Through leisure, thought takes itself away from that which is foreign to it in order to gather itself into that which is proper to it, into the ground of its self. (Beierwaltes 1981, 12; English by MEZ).

Contemplative thought is for Aristotle the “most pleasurable and best” – he theoría to hêdiston kai ariston (Metaphysics 1072b 24; Aristotle 1935, 150). For Aristotle, the truly happy life consists in leisure: eudaimonía en tê skholê einai (Nicomachean Ethics 1177b4; Aristotle 1934, 615). For Epicurus (341–270  B.C.) and his disciples, the Kepos, a garden in Athens, becomes a place of leisure, of cheerful tranquillity and reflection, a place of friendship and simple living. In Sentence 14, Epicurus admonishes us that we are born only once and will not be again throughout eternity: But you are not master of tomorrow, and are always postponing what is pleasant. Life passes with procrastination, and each of us dies without having found leisure. (German by Olof Gigon 1983, 106–107; English by MEZ).

In the Stoa, especially Seneca (4 BC–65 AD) emphasises the importance of leisure and the now for a happy life. Busyness, being preoccupied with many things, prevents leisure and keeps us from what is proper to us. This is why Seneca rejects the complaints of busy people, the occupati, at the end of life about too short a life. They have not lived, they have only been there for a long time. “Those alone have leisure who devote their time to wisdom, they alone live.” Soli omnium otiosi sunt qui sapientiae vacant, soli vivunt. (De brevitate Vitae XIV 1; Seneca 1932, 332–333; English translation by MEZ). For Seneca, much travel to ever new destinations can also be an expression of lack of freedom and busyness, a flight from oneself without being able to escape oneself. (De tranquilitate Animi II, 13–15; Seneca 1932, 220–221). For Plotinus (205–270) busyness, polupragmosune (e.g. Ennead V3,3,17; Plotinus 1984, 78), and lack of leisure, askholía, characterise the soul which turns outward, scattering itself into the many. The soul only finds leisure and rest (hêsukhía) in the turning back (epistrophé) to its interior life, the divine Intellect (Nous), its true self. In touching the One, however, the soul has no leisure (to speak): But it is enough if the intellect comes into contact with it; but when it has done so, while the contact lasts, it is absolutely impossible, nor has it time (leisure), to speak; but it is afterwards that it is able to reason about it… and this is the soul’s true end, to touch that light and see it by itself, not by another light, but by the light which is also its means of seeing. (V3 17, 26–27 Plotinus 1984, 134–135; quoted in Beierwaltes 1991, 65).

Augustine (354–430) adopted the Platonic-Neoplatonic idea of regression into oneself, the reditio in seipsum, in a Christian context. His much-quoted exhortation from De Vera Religione 39,7 (1986, 486): “Do not go outward, go back into yourself. In the inner man dwells truth” (Noli foras ire, in te ipsum redi. In interiore homine habitat veritas), is decisively influenced by the “Libri Platonicorum” and by the Plotinian imperative to “climb up to That one” (anábaine pròs ekeinon, Ennead V1,3,3; Plotinus 1984, 18), as well as to “desist from everything” (aphele panta, V3,17,38; Plotinus 1984, 135). In order to live in leisure (otiose vivere, Augustine Confessiones VI, 15 [24]; 2014, 284), Augustine withdrew with friends to Cassiciacum. In Confessiones VII, 10 (16)

66

R. Kroschel

(2014, 326), he relates a deeply moving report about his “inner ascent” to the experience of the divine reason, the “unchanging divine light” (lux incommutabilis), which for Augustine constitutes the highest form of happiness in the realm of finitude. Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374) is very familiar with these thoughts from Augustine’s Confessiones. His long-time friend, the learned Augustinian monk Dionigi da Borgo San Sepolchro gave him a small edition of the Confessiones, which Petrarch always carries with him and which he takes with him on his hike to Mont Ventoux on April 26, 1336 as his only reading. He also reports to this friend in the most famous of all letters from the letter collection Epistolae familiares, the Books of Confidences IV, 1 after returning from his undertaking – the same evening, as Petrarch claims, but probably years later. (Latin text from: Steinmann 1995; cf. Widmer 2005, vol. 1, 180–188; English translation by MEZ). Since his early youth, the “Wind-endowed one,” the 1912-meter-high Mont Ventoux had been a place of longing for Petrarch. It is always before his eyes, and for years its ascent has been on his mind, “out of the mere desire to get to know it in its exceptional height” (sola vivendi insignem loci altitudinem cupiditate, ascendi, IV,1,1). Petrarch carefully plans his journey. It is very important for him to have a suitable companion who would not disturb his leisure in wandering. Hardly any of his friends seems to him to be quite suitable: One was too sluggish for me, the other too lively, one too slow, again another too fast, this one too melancholy, that one too easy-going; one was also too foolish, one cleverer than was right for me, here one’s taciturnity frightened me, there another’s garrulity … (IV,1,4).

After much deliberation, he chooses his younger brother, who is delighted to be both brother and friend (IV,1,5). On the appointed day, the two brothers set out, undeterred by the warnings of an aged shepherd. However, the first tremendous effort is quickly followed by fatigue and they stop to rest on a rock (IV,1,9). The younger brother then walks with purpose, taking a shorter path toward the heights, Petrarch, on the other hand, repeatedly strays from the right path. He makes long detours and wanders below along the mountain slopes, hoping for a gentler and easier ascent to the summit. The arduous ascent is thus only more protracted and Petrarch notes disgruntledly: “… it is quite impossible for anything physical to descend to the heights” (ad alta descendo, IV,1,11). He compares this experience with the difficult ascent to the blessed life (accedentibus ad beatam vitam, IV,1,12): The life we call blessed lies on the heights, and narrow is – as it is said – the way that leads up to it. Many humps lie before it, and from virtue to virtue one must advance as on marvellous steps. On the summit is for everyone the end and goal towards which our ­wandering is directed (in summo finis est omnium et vie terminus ad quem peregrinatio disponitur, IV,1,13).

This consideration (cogitatio) fortifies Petrarch in soul and body for the remainder of the ascent, and he hopes that he can accomplish with his soul as well that wandering for which he has been longing day and night, just as he has accomplished the day’s wandering with his body’s feet. In fact, the wandering of the soul should be much easier, since it requires no change of place, but takes place “in the twinkling of an eye” (in ictu trepidantis, IV,1,15).

5  Ancient Ideas of Leisure and Contemplation in Francesco Petrarch’s Ascent…

67

With these cares weighing on his heart, Petrarch arrives at the summit of Mont Ventoux. The strange air and the unobstructed panorama overwhelm him. He stands deeply agitated and “like one stunned” (stupenti similis, IV,1,17). The clouds are at his feet and he turns his gaze wistfully towards Italy, the homeland he loves above all else. An indescribable longing to see friend and fatherland again seizes him (IV,1,18). Then a new thought leads him from the contemplation of space to the contemplation of time – nova cogitatio atque a locis traduxit ad tempora, to the recollection of the beginning of his life’s journey, of his years of study in Bologna and of all the struggles between the opposing aspirations within him during the past decade (IV,1,19). Petrarch then turns his thoughts anxiously to the present. He laments his imperfection on the path to the longed-for virtue, almost forgetting about the place he is in and the reason he came here in the first place (et quem in locum, quam ob causam venissem, IV,1,24). It is only when the evening sun begins to set and he thinks of his urgent departure that he is torn from his obliviousness of time and place, and he gazes in wonder toward the west, at the expanse of the sea, the mountain ranges, and the Rhone River directly beneath their eyes (IV,1,25). He is torn between admiration of earthly beauty and the elevation of his soul to higher things (animum ad alteriora subveherem). Then he remembers the Confessiones of Augustine and reaches for the little volume “of infinite sweetness” (infinite dulcedinis) to read it to his brother (IV,1,26). The passage from the tenth book (X 8) on which Petrarch seemingly by accident fixes his eyes seems to have been written all for him alone: There now men go to admire the height of the mountains, the mighty floods of the sea, the rivers flowing broadly, the circumference of the ocean, and the courses of the heavenly bodies, and lose themselves in the process. Et eunt homines admirari alta montium et ingentes fluctus maris et latissimos lapsus fluminum et oceani ambitum et giros siderum, et relinquunt se ipsos. (IV,1,27)

Petrarch is immobilised by these few words and does not want to continue reading despite the request of his brother’s curiosity. He closes the book, angry with himself that he even now “admired earthly things” (terrestria mirarer). He should have learned long ago  – even from the pagan philosophers  – “that apart from the soul nothing is wonderful, and apart from its greatness nothing is great” (nihil praeter animum esse mirabili, cui magno nihil est magnum, IV,1,28). Petrarch has now contemplated the mountain enough and turns his inner eye upon himself (in me ipsum interiores oculos reflexi, IV,1,29). On their return, he doesn’t utter a single word, until their arrival at the mountain’s base. Silently, he reflects on how noble the human soul is in respect of its origins, and how people, for lack of insight, “disregard the noblest part of their self” (nobilissima sui parte neglecta), in order to scatter themselves in the manifold and lose themselves in vain visitations (inanibus spectaculis), because they “seek outside what would be found within” (quod intus invenire poterat, querentes extrinsecus; IV,1,32).

68

R. Kroschel

On their journey home, Petrarch turns back frequently to look up at the mountain peak – it now seems to him as small as a cubit compared to the “height of human contemplation” (altitudine contemplationis humane, IV,1,33). Petrarch’s long-awaited ascent to the mountain’s summit in the hope of attaining a unique experience of nature has been transformed from outward contemplation of nature into an inward contemplation of self, his outer seeing into inner seeing. The ascent becomes an analogy of the ascent of the soul to God. This transformation is reminiscent of Bonaventura’s Itinerarium mentis ad Deum, which he wrote in 1257 after his trek to the Alverna Mountains. Bonaventura’s Itinerarium, like Petrarch’s Ascent to Mont Ventoux, is indebted to the Platonic-Christian idea of ascent (ascensus) of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, Petrarch’s relationship to the world as the experiential space of the self is different. The Mont Ventoux experience and all his other numerous travelogues show Petrarch as a thinker at the beginning of the modern age, crossing the boundary between an ancient Christian understanding of the world and its subjective appropriation in Modernity. Petrarch is eager to appropriate the world more and more, especially by hiking, travelling, and moving around. Thus, after his ascent of Mont Ventoux, he will undertake countless more hikes and journeys to beautiful places, out of pure curiosity and the desire to see and discover new things. I don’t know where it comes from, but I know what kind of curiosity is innate in souls, especially in nobler spirits, to seek out unknown places and wander from region to region. That one has to limit and restrain it with reason, I do not deny; but believe me …: There is something pleasurable and at the same time annoying about this curiosity to roam whole provinces (Petrarch, Familiares XV, 4, 14, in Widmer 2009, 406; English translation by MEZ).

In one of his letters, Petrarch recommends travel to a sick friend as a cure for his mental distress. He praises the beauty of Parma, Padua and Venice, of Milan and Genoa, of Lake Como, Lake Garda and the Alps: When we are satiated by this piece of earth, Padua will be no less a calm and pleasant place for us… And near us will be the most wonderful of all the cities that I have seen – and I have seen almost all of them that are the pride of Europe – Venice. So then, when uniformity, the mother of discontent, announces itself, there will always be the best medicine against weariness, that is variety. And what arduous things creep up, we will chase away by mutual conversation and by changing the place of residence. (Petrarch Familiares VIII, 5, 8ff. in Widmer 2005, 427; English translation by MEZ).

Travel becomes for Petrarch one of the main themes of his life. As Thomas Leinkauf notes, “Almost infinite (are) the passages in his prose and poetry in which Petrarch reflects on his travelling, wandering, contemplating being-in-the-world and highlights its attractiveness” (Leinkauf 2017, 290n116). Place becomes increasingly important for his individual space of experience, for his “being-with-self,” the secum esse, always in connection with cultivating friendships, “being-with-friends,” and orientation towards the highest goal of his life, “being-with-God.” All three dimensions are mutually dependent and signify for Petrarch blissful peace of mind and true leisure (Cf. Leinkauf 2017, 267ff.).

5  Ancient Ideas of Leisure and Contemplation in Francesco Petrarch’s Ascent…

69

References Aristotle. 1934. Aristotle. Volume XIX. Nichomachean Ethics. Loeb Classical Library 73. Trans. H. Rackham. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ———. 1935. Aristotle in Twenty-Three Volumes. Volume XVIII. Metaphysics, X–XIV. Trans. Hugh Tredennick, Oeconomica. Magna Moralia. Trans. G. Cyril Armstrong. Loeb Classical Library 287. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Augustine. 1986. De vera religione/ Über die wahre Religion. Latin/German. Ed. and trans., with notes by Wilhelm Thimme. Epilogue by Kurt Flasch. Ditzingen: Reclam. ———. 2014. Confessiones. Volume I.  Books 1–8. Loeb Classical Library 26. Ed. and trans. Carolyn J.-B. Hammond. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Beierwaltes, Werner. 1981. Regio Beatitudinis. Zu Augustins Begriff des glücklichen Lebens. Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Klasse, Bericht 6. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag. ———. 1991. Selbsterkenntnis und Erfahrung der Einheit. Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann. Epikur. 1983. Von der Überwindung der Furcht. Trans. Olof Gigon. Munich: DTV Klassik. Figal, Günter, Hans W.  Hubert and Thomas Klinkert. 2016. Die Raumzeitlichkeit der Muße. Otium. Studien zur Theorie und Kulturgeschichte der Muße, vol. 2. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Kirchner, Andreas. 2018. Dem Göttlichen ganz nah. Muße und Theoria in der spätantiken Philosophie und Theologie. Otium. Studien zur Theorie und Kulturgeschichte der Muße, vol. 8. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Leinkauf, Thomas. 2017. Grundriss Philosophie des Humanismus und der Renaissance 1350–1600. Vol. 1. Hamburg: Meiner. Martin, Norbert. 1984. “Muße,” in: Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie. Eds. Joachim Ritter, Karlfried Gründer, and Gottfried Gabriel, vol. 6. Mo-O Basel: Schwabe AG. Petrarch, Francesco. 1995. Die Besteigung des Mont Ventoux. Lat./dt., trans. and ed. Kurt Steinmann. Stuttgart: Reclam. ———. 2009. Familiaria. Bücher der Vertraulichkeiten. vol. 1, Books 1–12. German trans. Berthe Widmer, vol. 1 Berlin: de Gruyter 2005; vol. 2, Books 13–24. Berlin: de Gruyter. Plato. 1914. Plato. Euthyphro. Apology. Crito. Phaedo. Phaedrus. Trans. Harold North Fowler. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Plotinus. 1984. Plotinus in Seven Volumes. Volume V. Enneads V. 1–9. Trans. A. H. Armstrong. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Seneca. 1932. Moral Essays Vol. 2. De Consolatione ad Marciam. De Vita Beata. De Otio. De Tranquillitate Animi. De Brevitate Vitae. De Consolatione ad Polybium. Loeb Classical Library 254. Trans. John William Basore. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Renate Kroschel studied Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophy with Werner Beierwaltes in Freiburg. From 1990 to 2013, she was a teacher of philosophy at Margarete Ruckmich Academy in Freiburg, where she has striven to mediate the central insights of Platonic thoughts to future teachers. From 1974 to 2012, Renate Kroschel directed, together with her husband Benno Kroschel, the unique one-room elementary school Stohrenschule in Münstertal/Stohren in the Upper Black Forest. In this school, based on her insights and experience, Renate Kroschel practised philosophising with children as a method of teaching. In 2006, she co-founded, together with Marie-Élise Zovko, the international project on philosophising with children: Project Stohrenschule. Repeatedly students of the Institute of Philosophy Zagreb came with Marie-Élise Zovko to Stohren, to develop, together with the German pupils, concrete models of instruction, as in 2008 about Virtue, Beauty and Happiness. Renate Kroschel is a violist and permanent member of the Chamber Orchestra Stohren.  

Chapter 6 From the Grand Tour to the Virtual Tour: Dreaming of the Classical Between Past and Present Francesca Iannelli1 (*) Roma Tre University, Rome, Italy [email protected] 1 

Abstract.  The purpose of this essay is to investigate the various reasons, not only cultural, for the attraction that pushed many great philosophers and intellectuals – from Winckelmann to Goethe, from Vischer to Freud up to Henrich  – to travel toward the South, in particular to Italy and Greece, to visit the mythical places of the origin and the classical. Another tendency will also be considered that of “non-­ travel” that interested both Winckelmann – who never reached Greece – and Hegel, who approached the South mainly through erudite and virtual approximations. The objective is therefore to take stock of the need to travel from the countries of the North to the Mediterranean: from the times when travel was a risky adventure for a few, to the turning point of the 1840s when, following the construction of the main railway lines in Europe, the South became closer and was looked upon with disenchantment, up to the trivialisation of classic places in over-tourism. Paradoxically, the sudden and abrupt turn of “non-tourism” caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has brought back into vogue the virtual tourism already practised by German intellectuals, for example by Hegel himself, and perhaps, unwittingly, has increased the desire to reach the South, contributing to the dreaming of southern lands, which suddenly became too far away for many. Keywords:  Virtual tourism · Non-tourism · Bel paese · German travellers · Classical · Approximations

Let us start our exploration from far away, namely from the attraction for the South shared by some of the most important German intellectuals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. One would be tempted to categorise this fascination under the macro-­ label of the “Grand Tour,” coined by Richard Lassels (1603–1668) in The Voyage of Italy (published posthumously in 1670) to indicate that educational journey of young English scions in continental Europe which culminated in Italy with a visit to Rome (see Black 1992). And yet it will be noted that this label, however extensible, and therefore however generically valid, is too strict; in fact, for German intellectuals of the second half of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century, the journey to Italy held deeper meanings, sometimes strongly contradictory, which were not easily

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M.-É. Zovko, J. Dillon (eds.), Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36659-8_6

71

72

F. Iannelli

separable from those of another place, whose significance was not as much geographical as of the soul – that is, Greece, which remained for a long time a mirage. In the first part of this paper (Sect. 6.1.1), we will investigate what Greece represented for German intellectuals between the mid-seventeenth century and the 1830s; we will then consider more specifically the significance attributed to Italy by Winckelmann and Goethe (Sect. 6.1.2); and finally, we will analyse Hegel’s indirect approximations of the bel paese (Sect. 6.1.3). In a very different political, cultural, and social scenario  – following the construction of railway networks throughout Europe and the spread, from the mid-1830s, of a lively tourism industry – the South began to be perceived as closer and more accessible to the masses, not only for the elite. Italy and Greece became lands to be explored and not just skies to be dreamt about. In the second part of this paper, we will consider the insatiable hunger for the South – not without disillusionment  – that characterised the young F.  Th. Vischer (Sect. 6.2.1), and then move on to investigate Freud’s conflicting and passionate desire for Rome and Athens as archaeological sites of psychoanalytic “excavation” (Sect. 6.2.2), and finally consider Dieter Henrich’s fascination with the South (Sect. 6.2.3). In the conclusion (Sect. 6.3), a provisional stocktaking will be made of the transformations that have affected the journey to the South up to the virtual tourism of the pandemic days.

6.1 Dreaming of the South from Winckelmann to Hegel: Shifting Between Imagination and Reality 6.1.1 Impeded Journeys to Greece from Winckelmann to Hegel As paradoxical as it may seem, as much as Winckelmann, Kant, Hölderlin, Goethe, and Hegel admired Greece, none of them ever set foot on Greek soil. Many among them – like Goethe and Hegel – travelled with curiosity, whereas others, such as Kant, travelled by studying geography attentively. Still, others preferred to embark on their journeys through space and time in the poetic imagination, as Hölderlin did under a false name, especially during the long years when he was locked in the tower in Tübingen. In fact, it was only a few years after Hegel’s and Goethe’s deaths (1831 and 1832, respectively) that the real exploration of that mythical land began, which seemed to have been denied to the great philosophers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It was above all Winckelmann who saw in Greece, without ever reaching it, the land where good taste had its origin. The founder of Art History and Archaeology lived in Rome like a Greek, as Walter Pater (2010, 31) states, but Athens, which should have been his chosen adoptive home, never became a site of his real experience as a traveller. Although in 1755 he had written in his Gedanken that one must go to Athens to enjoy “the purest wellsprings of art” (Winckelmann 2013a, 32), it was clear from the beginning that the new Athens was to be sought above all in Germany (Winckelmann 2013a, 32). Nevertheless, Winckelmann continued to plan a series of trips to Greece from 1756 to 1768, which did not take place for various logistical and financial reasons.1 1

 On Winckelmann’s omitted journeys, cf. Décultot 2011, 125–140.

6  From the Grand Tour to the Virtual Tour: Dreaming of the Classical Between…

73

Resolutions were followed by plans that were subsequently discarded and redesigned, which could lead to the suspicion that it was not, or could not become, his real desire to see Greece with his own eyes, because he subconsciously feared that encountering the real Greece would be an obstacle to the construction of that Philhellenism that Henry Thode was to call a typically German invention. Curiously, Winckelmann’s “non-voyages” gradually became a paradigm: this attitude influences the future reception, not only of the virtual “distant” view of Greece, but above all of the evaluation of Italy as a proxy for Greece and of some German cities as a further substitute in the second degree. One of the most significant examples of virtual travel certainly goes back to Hölderlin, who, with an exclusively topographical knowledge of the country, described Greece with such empathetic enthusiasm and poetic abandon that he made visible not only what he himself had not directly experienced, but above all what could no longer be experienced, namely the non-existent. But Winckelmann’s non-voyages also provided a contribution to a journey of the imagination that led to the substitute Parnassus offered by la Bella Italia (Maurer 2015, 145– 149). The value of this scenery as a projection surface, as well as the great remoteness that prevented its accessible enjoyment, increased the creation of additional illusory oases in Germany to facilitate the reception of antiquity. This was already clear before Winckelmann arrived in Rome  – as the reference to Dresden as Athens on the Elbe confirmed in his Gedanken – and became increasingly clear to Goethe after his trip to Italy, such that Joseph Rückert described Weimar in 1799 as a German Parnassus inhabited by Wieland, Goethe, and Herder as the supreme gods (Rückert 1969, 5–6). Hegel, on the other hand, was the most sober and moderate devotee of Greece among the great intellectuals who made up the golden age of classical German philosophy. Not only did he never undertake a journey to Greece, but he also never set foot on Italian soil (as we shall see in 6.1.3). Nevertheless, his conception of classical beauty is paradigmatic: ancient Greece remains the guardian of the highest beauty, even though modern Greece, which fought the War of Independence against Ottoman rule from 1821 to 1830, was going through a difficult time. An undated note by Hegel attests to his sympathy for the revolutionary events and his hope for a rebirth of the Greek people: Auferstehn, ja auferstehn wirst du Mein Griechenland! (Hegel 2013, 200)

Nevertheless, Hegel was aware of the fact that despite the eternal fascination emanating from antiquity, the truth of the modern individual is to be sought under a different sky and no longer, as Winkelmann wanted, under the blue Greek sky, but not even under the Italian one. 6.1.2 Winckelmann and Goethe’s Italy Between Aesthetic Projections and Literary Transfigurations If from Winckelmann to Hegel, Greece – for various reasons (psychological, economic, logistical) – remained an impossible destination to reach, Italy appeared as a must. In the Treatise on the Capacity for Sensitivity to the Beautiful in Art and the Method of Teaching of 1763, addressed to Baron von Berg of Livonia, Winckelmann wrote that the capacity to understand beauty is not at all as widespread as it would seem, but rather a

74

F. Iannelli

gift that requires much exercise and education. However, erudition alone is not enough; it is necessary to train the imagination because beauty is without “any sense of life” (Winckelmann 2013b, 152) and must be revived in fruition. Whereas the domain of beauty was the undisputed privilege of the ancients, for the moderns, such a goal is a rarity to be conquered through imitation; but to better refine the aesthetic sensitivity that makes one capable of enjoying beauty, not all places are equivalent: “the Beautiful in art is only rarely to be found elsewhere and that sensitivity to it can only become perfect, correct, and refined in Rome. This capital city of the world remains still today an inexhaustible source of beautiful artistic things” (Winckelmann 2013b, 160). For Winckelmann, Italy as a place of self-education was not, however, the promised land for every young intellectual or artist of his day; the bel paese was rather the resonance chamber of the ancient, where what was lost (i.e., the origin and the original) could only be re-exhumed through a receptive, delicate, and imaginative gaze. When Winckelmann, in his Thoughts, sang the praises of classical Greece and raised the imitation of antiquity to the level of a norm, he did so without ever having seen it and even before arriving in Rome, where he spent 10 years living what he called the happiest years of his life as a Greek. This dissociated existence, in which a real place is transfigured to the point of being mystified, made it impossible for him to truly fit into the Italian cultural milieu, so much so that even in 1766, after 11 years in Italy, he perceived himself as a guest under a beautiful but foreign sky (Winckelmann 1956, 152). His first fragmented image of Greece took shape far away from the landscapes of the South, in a much more circumscribed and asphyxiated space (i.e., in the rooms where the Roman copies kept in Dresden were exhibited). Even though he had read numerous reports by English travellers, Winckelmann’s Greece is first and foremost vague and incomplete. The construction of a mythical Greece, whose distant forefathers who inhabited the Greek islands were “older than the moon” (Winckelmann 2013a, 34), takes place through a play of projections in which Italy, as a reflection of its celestial origin, plays a central role in this secular cult of beauty, despite the fact that the initial impact with the bel paese – and especially with Rome – was somewhat disappointing. Nevertheless, Italy – and above all the Eternal City – quickly became a privileged place, from which it was only possible to contemplate classicism indirectly. From Italy, as a middle ground, it was possible to give free rein to the imagination and codify a new canon, inventing the classical as a containing myth for unsatisfied heirs (Winckelmann 2002, 838–839) and creating the conditions for the Greco-mania that later bewitched Goethe, Schiller, and Hölderlin (see Heß et al. 2009). Italy, in fact, appears to be the land of shadows, from which it is less risky and burdensome to look at the lost model, in which one can easily get lost, mistaking Roman copies for Greek originals. In this Italic kingdom of copies, one could therefore move with greater interpretative ease than in the ideal and archetypal world of Greece, where Winckelmann not only never arrived, but perhaps one should say, never wanted to arrive, because he was aware of its hypothetical certainty, if not its radical artificiality (Winckelmann 2002, 838–839). Winckelmann even went so far as to say that the only place in the world where one could write about the ancients was Rome (Winckelmann 1954, 56). The bel paese then becomes a sort of noble substitute for the origin, as if it were the backdrop of an imaginary theatre on which Stendhal’s Art Historian reinvents the ancient (Winckelmann 2002, 838–839). Winckelmann’s passionate approach to Roman copies, considered

6  From the Grand Tour to the Virtual Tour: Dreaming of the Classical Between…

75

irreplaceable surrogates, also infected Goethe during his Italienische Reise. There were certainly elective affinities between the two personalities, even if their goals differed. For Winckelmann, Italy was the ideal place to mould the myth of the classical and offer it as a psychic containment and aesthetic construct to a disorientated and dissatisfied generation2; whereas for Goethe it was the place of self-revelation, transfigured and made legendary through the power of literature. As soon as he arrived in Rome, Goethe obtained the Italian edition of Winckelmann’s Geschichte der Kunst (1764), translated in 1783–1784 with the title Storia delle arti del disegno presso gli antichi by Carlo Fea, and adopted Winckelmann’s intuitive view of the different styles of the various populations. Nevertheless, Goethe retained a certain freedom of interpretation and never adopted Winckelmann’s legacy and artistic judgment in a servile way. One reason for this is that Winckelmann’s Italy (1755–1768) was not the Italy that Goethe encountered and described on his journey between 1813 and 1829. Goethe himself was the first to distance himself from Winckelmann when he chose the title Winckelmann and His Century for an essay he wrote in 1805. This “his” has given rise to much discussion. Which is Winckelmann’s century, if not the eighteenth, from which Goethe himself came? But in 1805, a distance becomes clear to the poet, and he no longer refers to Winckelmann’s epoch as his own. The perception of antiquity had changed, as had the geo-political balance. The Italy in which Winckelmann arrived in 1755 was under the rule of the popes and cardinals: the Roman stay of the erudite intellectual from Stendhal, who had converted to Catholicism on June 11th 1754, even before his departure, gives us a clear example of this. The extent to which his studies of antiquity depended on the receptivity and patronage of the popes can be seen in a letter from Winckelmann to Hieronymus Dietrich Berendis from July 1756 (Haufe 1965, 12). Within a few years, however, Winckelmann was to recognise the fragility of the papal apparatus, and in some letters addressed to Stosch from the 1760s, he expressed all his doubts about the health of the Catholic Church (Pommier 1995). It is therefore easy to imagine that the only religion Winckelmann really believed in was that of art (see Kasperowicz 2011; Meier et al. 2010). Goethe arrived in the eternal city about 20 years after Winckelmann was murdered in Trieste in 1768. Although the memory of the famous art historian was always present to him, especially during his daily explorations, Rome began to distance itself, albeit slowly, from Winckelmann’s image of the city, both from a cultural and political point of view. Thanks to the cultural zeal during the pontificate of Pius VI (1775–1799), a patron of the arts who financed excavations, archaeological discoveries and finds in Rome increased steadily, which at the same time increasingly limited the possibility of imagining the face of antiquity, which was admittedly often mutilated. Ancient Rome visibly took shape and overlapped, even frustrated, the imagination and fantasy, while modern Rome had remained almost unchanged in the preceding decades. The revolutionary storm that was to lead to the arrest and expulsion of the Pope a few years later,

 On the need to “construct” protective and containing paradigms that offered an illusion of stability in a time shaken by profound political, social and technological revolutions, see Lepenies 1976. On neo-Hellenism as a response to an identity crisis in eighteenth-century Germany, see Bernal 1987. 2

76

F. Iannelli

with the proclamation of the Roman Republic, was still brewing. When Goethe returned to Germany in June 1788, the French Revolution was not far off. Even if he remained deeply silent on political matters and appeared indifferent and distant, this event would also shake him. Everything was in a constant state of flux. The Italy in which Goethe gathered his travel experiences was also undergoing profound changes. Many of the art treasures that Goethe had been able to admire in situ were packed up a few years later and taken to France. The Laocoon and the Belvedere Apollo that Winckelmann had loved so much also made the journey to Paris, where, in their exile, they were to help consecrate the newly built Louvre. The sacred body of antiquity was desecrated, the living museum that had been Rome was dismembered. Was it still well worth the journey to Italy? 6.1.3 Hegel and Italy: Between Approximations and Farewells If there is an immense amount of literature on the Italy of Winckelmann and Goethe, the chapter “Hegel and Italy” is instead a long-forgotten chapter in the history of German Idealism. While much has been written about the reception of Hegel’s philosophy in Italy, very little has been written about Hegel’s interest in Italy. In fact, the question seems at first to be quickly dismissible, given that Hegel never set out on the Grand Tour route that would have taken him to Italy and to Rome. Yet Hegel’s philosophy is full of references to Italian art and culture. If it seems odd that Hegel visited Holland, France, and Austria, and neglected the motherland of art, it will be necessary to retrace some of the fundamental stages of Hegel’s confrontation with Italy – always indirect and at a distance – in order to hypothesise the reasons for his “non-voyage” to the bel paese. In his Diary of a Journey in the Bernese Alps, the young Hegel noted in 1796 that he had left the road to the Gotthard and Italy on his right-hand side (Hegel 1989, 395). That path would remain unexplored forever, even though the philosopher planned to travel to Italy a few years later, as we learn from his correspondence with Schelling (Hegel 1984, 67). In 1803, the intense Zusammenarbeit between the two of them came to an end, and the plan to travel to Italy was also abandoned. However, Hegel never completely forgot it, at least until 1827, as we learn from a letter written from Paris to his beloved wife Marie.3 What made Hegel abdicate his intention, we will soon discover. It is worth recalling some of the Italien-Bilder that Hegel built up through numerous readings, encounters, and visits to galleries and art collections. First, we should mention Georg Forster’s Ansichten von Niederrhein (1791), which he read in Berne, and which gave the young man much to think about Italian painting. As far as significant encounters are concerned, mention must be made of the friendship with the poet and translator of Tasso and Ariosto, Johann Dietrich Gries, with whom Hegel lived for several months in Jena at Klipstein’s house. In Jena, he had conversations with a connoisseur of Italian culture, Carl Ludwig Fernow, who had lived in Italy from 1794 to 1803, mostly in Rome, and had published important works on Aesthetics and Art History in 3

 On Hegel and his wife Marie, see Iannelli 2021.

6  From the Grand Tour to the Virtual Tour: Dreaming of the Classical Between…

77

the Neuen eutschen Merkur, which Hegel read. It was in Nuremberg (1808–1816), however, that the references to Italy became more evident: it was in this stronghold of Protestantism that Hegel admired the extremely rich art collections in Nuremberg and in the Weißenstein Castle in Pommersfelden, where he could view numerous masterpieces of Italian painting (Vieweg 2019, 356–359). The period spent in Heidelberg (1816–1818) was also fundamental for the musical approximations of Italy, especially thanks to the musical evenings organised by his friend, jurist and musicologist, Anton Thibaut (1774–1840), who had founded an amateur Singverein in which a cappella music was studied and Italian sacred music was favoured. This musical experience had obvious resonances in Hegel’s later lectures in Berlin on Aesthetics. The Boisserée Art Collection also provided decisive stimuli to develop the “konkrete Philosophie der Kunst” (Pöggeler 2011, 313) that Hegel elaborated in his Berlin courses. It was in fact the Berlin years (1818–1831) that crowned this filtered comparison with Italy, when the philosopher did not fail to approach the land of art, albeit in a virtual way, through repeated Kunstreisen undertaken at the height of his fame. It was certainly no coincidence that on August 27th 1820, Hegel celebrated his fiftieth birthday with the poet Karl Förster and his friend and pupil Friedrich Förster in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden. While his companions did not learn of the philosopher’s birthday until after the Kunstrunde, there is no doubt that Hegel wanted to enjoy a memorable day in a place full of Winckelmannian resonances, as he stood for the first time in front of Raphael’s legendary Sistine Madonna (Nicolin 1970, 213–214), about which he would later tell his Berlin students, almost literally recalling Winckelmann’s words in his Gedanken (Hegel 2015, 165). Although Hegel had not travelled South when he delivered his first Berlin course in Aesthetics in the winter semester of 1820–1821, he had already been confronted with several pictorial masterpieces by the great Italian masters, even though he had not been to Italy: this was undoubtedly made possible by the Kunstreise that took him to Dresden in 1820 (and again in 1821 and 1824). The memories of the trip to Dresden are amply tangible in the lectures, especially in the section on painting, where references to Italian artists are numerous: first and foremost to the works of Raphael (Hegel 2015, 35, 136, 139), but also to those of Correggio (Hegel 2015, 166, 168, 171, 174), the Carracci brothers and to Francesco Albani (Hegel 2015, 224), which Hegel contemplated in the Gemäldegalerie. However, Hegel’s approximations of Italy were not limited to painting. During 1820– 1821, Hegel also mentioned some well-known Italian singers, such as the contralto Gentile Borgondio (1780–1830) and the world-famous soprano Angelica Catalani (1780–1849). The former was praised by Hegel during 1820–1821 because “apart from the fact that she sings distinctly, she does not present the content as passionately as our singers” (Hegel 2015, 224, my translation). Catalani was a prominent figure on the musical scene of the time whom Hegel had the pleasure of not only listening to but also frequenting the Berlin salons of the Beer and Parthey families, and then following her enthusiastically on her European tours in the newspapers (Hegel 2013, 116–117). Always being particularly sensitive to the artistic suggestions of his time, Hegel recalled this star of his day during his first course in Berlin Aesthetics, creating a superb interweaving of painting, music and Italian literature, in the name of “serenity as peace” (Heiterkeit als Friede), of “bliss and love that is for oneself” (für sich seyende Seeligkeit und Liebe), of self-enjoyment (Selbstgenuß, Hegel 2015, 163).

78

F. Iannelli

A few years later, at the Vienna opera house, Hegel had the pleasure of hearing some of the legendary voices of his time, including the tenors Battista Rubini, Giovanni David, Domenico Donzelli, and the bass Luigi Lablache, who decreed his appreciation of Rossini. In Breda, he believed he had admired a monumental artwork by Michelangelo in 1822,4 while in Bruges in 1827 he contemplated a marble Madonna and Child by the great master in the Liebfrauenkirche, about which he wrote to his wife Marie in a letter from Brussels. In Paris, he had the opportunity to marvel at paintings by extraordinary Italian artists in the Louvre and to hear the contralto Benedetta Rosmunda Pisaroni at the Théâtre Italien. These impressions resonated in his last course in Berlin on the Philosophy of Art in the winter semester of 1828–1829, where references to Italy increased exponentially. Despite his great fondness for Italian art, especially music, Hegel’s relationship with Italy was nevertheless not without ambiguity, which culminated in a symbolic farewell. In order to understand the reasons for this, the Philosophy of History comes to our aid, most significantly the Berlin course of 1822–1823, where Hegel links the destinies of Italy and Germany, which were as disjointed as they were fragmented (Hegel 2011, 472), so much so that they shared the same political destiny since the principle of singularity was in force in both. Italy, however, as a Romanic nation, was overwhelmed by the secular dynamics of the Church and the spirit of corruption that was spreading through it and was unable to abandon itself to the freedom of spirit that flourished in a nation like Germany in the sixteenth century thanks to the Reformation. Hegel’s judgement of Italy is therefore markedly bipolar: it is presented as the realm of chaos and lawlessness, where the logic of deception and oppression dominates, but it is also the cradle of “lovely individuality” and fine art as well as the guardian of “beautiful piety” and the “flowering of ethicality” (Hegel 2011, 472). In Hegel’s opinion, Italy “does not succeed at defining itself through thought, through the universal” (Hegel 2011, 472). In the bel paese there is an abundance of “all that is sweet and mild,” as well as “all that is uncivilised” (Hegel 2011, 472) to the point of degenerating into “exuberant sensuality” (Hegel 2011, 484). Germany, on the other hand, is considered by Hegel to be an eminently spiritual, intellectualistic and intrinsically philosophical nation. It is therefore easy to imagine that each could see in the other what it lacks, in search of an impossible totality in which the mundane and the spiritual are in perfect balance. On one hand, the relationship between Germany and Italy appears to Hegel as a conflictual struggle with the Otherness that one wants to assimilate for one’s own benefit, both politically and symbolically. In fact, Germany and Italy remain tragically dependent on their own Other, which  – through assimilation or emulation  – constitutes an essential point of reference, albeit denied, in a dialectic between the proper and the foreign that recalls that of ancient Greek tragedy (Hegel 2011, 485). On the one hand, Italy has a vibrant artistic heart: it was “the land of antiquity” (Hegel 2011, 484), the custodian of the shadows and ghosts of the classical and the mother of so many brilliant artists who, from Humanism onward, have marked the visual history of the West. Art, as Hegel reiterates, being steeped in Sinnlichkeit, is unable to emancipate the country from its

 This was the tomb of the Duke of Nassau-Orange (wrongly attributed to Michelangelo) described in the letter of 7. 10. 1827, cf. Hegel 1984, 662. 4

6  From the Grand Tour to the Virtual Tour: Dreaming of the Classical Between…

79

theoretical-religious shortcomings (Hegel 2011, 501–502). Italy, in fact, is not only the pleasurable land of art; it is also the seat of the Catholic Church, with which Germany, despite having become independent, continues to relate in markedly oppositional terms (Hegel 2011, 484). To suggest that this antithesis between nations may have tacitly influenced Hegel’s existence may perhaps seem overstated, but that the philosopher still meditated in his heart about a possible journey to the motherland of art is true at least until 1827. At that time, a trip to Italy had become such a “must” that in the Allgemeine deutsche Real-­ Encyklopädie für gebildeten Ständen one could find all the information necessary for a successful journey, such as choosing the right season or suggestions for carriages and guesthouses. But Hegel’s misgivings about travelling to southern Europe were political and cultural, not pragmatic. The eighteenth century can in fact be considered the century of artificial creations, for a series of inventions – including that of the panorama – that enjoyed enormous success and popularity until the 1840s (see Traeger 1997). Hegel, too, was not resistant to such inventions; on the contrary, he was fascinated by them. After his stay in Paris in 1827, his youthful dream of travelling to Italy was finally shattered, as can be seen from his correspondence with his wife Marie, where Hegel recounts having enjoyed a sensational experience: he had been a spectator in Paris at the first neorama. Hegel wrote to his distant family: “While you in Berlin have been working on a house for [Karl Gropius’s] Diorama for a half-year, the Parisians have long gone beyond that. The newest thing is the Neorama, very beautiful, quite perfected” (Hegel 1984, 661). It was a type of panorama drawn on a cylindrical surface depicting the interior of a building, enlivened by the presence of figures that gave vitality to the spectacle, conceived by the brothers Jean-Francois (1783–1858) and Jean Alaux (1786– 1864). What is remarkable is that the interior of the Alaux neorama exhibited in Paris could be admired precisely inside St. Peter’s Basilica. Hegel could therefore have at least a virtual experience of the atmosphere that could be perceived in “the most beautiful building in the world,” as Winckelmann had defined it, who indicated the Basilica as “the essence of the beautiful in architecture” (Winckelmann 2013b, 161). The fact that Hegel felt guilty for not having yet made the legendary Italienreise, with its inevitable stop in the eternal city, is latently perceived between these lines written to his wife: “Now I do not need to travel to Rome to see this Basilica and the Pope with his cardinals and so on worshiping St. Peter on their knees” (Hegel 1984, 661). The journey to Paris thus appears as a propitious surrogate that allowed him to put a stop to the youthful project he once shared with Schelling. At this point, Hegel felt liberated and wrote that he no longer “needed” to visit the eternal city, having seen it thanks to new technologies and with a bit of imagination thanks to the Alaux brothers’ neorama. The reason for this torpidity, however, is not aesthetic, as if Hegel had already had his fill of Italian art, but socio-political. In all likelihood, Hegel renounced his trip to Italy also – though not only – because of a sense of intolerance of the religious scene that would have welcomed him in what was not only the land of art but also of Catholicism. On one hand, whereas Winckelmann had abandoned the Protestant denomination to convert to Catholicism and to live in Italy – and in Rome – without problems, Hegel did not seem at all attracted by the idea of walking in a city that, although a custodian of precious reproductions of the classical world, was now in the hands of the priests. On the other hand, it should be added that the so-called “constellation of Romanitas” became

80

F. Iannelli

increasingly obscured in Hegel’s eyes (see Rocco Lozano 2011). In fact, he looked with suspicion not only at the clerical Rome of his day but also at ancient Rome, given that he had progressively overlapped ancient Rome with the Empire so that it represented politically ante litteram the France of his time (see Rocco Lozano 2015). Hegel’s Italy, therefore, remained an aesthetic construct crossed by disenchantment, an imaginary land of art, a de-romanticised aesthetic fiction whose European artistic resonances Hegel had admired everywhere, but which politically and spiritually remained a land of the past and not of the future. St. Peter’s Basilica thus becomes a symbol of the decadence of customs, the place of the apocalypse that is more reassuring to watch from a distance, in the Paris neorama, than to visit in person (Hegel 2011, 498). Despite his reverential attraction to Italian art, music and culture, Hegel never set out on a journey to an “inactual” land of the Weltgeist, which evoked an inner struggle that was not entirely pacified and which he simply contemplated in approximations, in the knowledge that the time of the classical period had ended and would never return.

6.2 Travelling South, from Vischer to Henrich: Between Imagination and Reality Gustav Nicolai (1795–1868) published a curious report in 1834 titled Italien wie es wirklich ist, which was reprinted in an expanded edition in 1835 (see Agazzi 2011). The intention was to destroy the mawkish idea of Italy as Goethe had delivered it and to replace it with a real one in which the dark sides of the bel paese were at last openly shown, without the fear of thereby offending one of the contemporary authorities. A short time later, Christian August Gottlob Eberhard (1769–1845) published an equally polemical pamphlet against the stereotypes of the Italian idyll in the Heynemann Verlag in Halle, titled Italien, wie es mir erschienen ist. It was 1839, the year in which a young, hypochondriac Hegelian like Friedrich Theodor Vischer was to dismiss all his phobias and set off on a journey to the South, to places where none of the great intellectuals, among whose heirs he counted himself, had dared to go, throughout Italy and all the way to Greece. Sigmund Freud did the same in the early twentieth century, as did Dieter Henrich in the 1950s, but let’s proceed in order. 6.2.1 Vischer on His Way to the South: Between the Search for His True Self and Disillusionment With Vischer, we are abruptly thrown into a completely different context that allows us to explore a phase that Hegel historically did not have the opportunity to live through. While Hegel’s time was – for many – one of imaginary journeys and, for a few, one of arduous real journeys, from the 1840s onward, there was a radical revolution in travelling, following the construction of the main railway lines in Europe. This different scenario gives us a better understanding of Vischer’s eagerness to travel South, especially to Italy, where he arrived in 1839. As witnesses to this legendary event, his brilliant circular letters have been preserved, which the thirty-two-year-old Vischer sent to

6  From the Grand Tour to the Virtual Tour: Dreaming of the Classical Between…

81

family and friends in Tübingen. Their tone is, as always, ironic. In the very first newsletter from northern Italy, he jokingly reports that he noticed that the Italians in Trento do not speak German! Nevertheless, there is no lack of critical remarks about the noise of the melon, peach, and lemon vendors in the streets, the dilapidated houses, the mistreatment of animals and the immoralities in Italy (Vischer 1907, 1121). The trip to Italy in 1839–1840 was one of many for Vischer,5 while the crossing to Greece was to remain the only one, which is why it left no less an impression on the young aesthete’s interpretation of the world. The spell and the taboo were finally broken. Greece was no longer just a poetic-philosophical fiction, but an accessible destination. When Vischer arrived in Greece in April 1840, it was not only the transport connections that had changed radically but also the theoretical-philosophical structure that culminated in the codification of the classical. Although the young philosopher’s gaze is sometimes reminiscent of that of a pilgrim visiting sacred places, it does not lack historical-archaeological acuity. In Mein Lebensgang, an autobiographical piece of writing from 1874, the now aged philosopher also recalls the impressions of his travels and describes how he had even gone in search of the place where, according to the legend, Oedipus had killed his father, and how he had ridden to Delphi and drunk from the Castalian spring, together with the classical philologist from Jena, Karl Wilhelm Göttling (Vischer 1922b, 478). It was now possible to face reality and deconstruct the myth of origin. This myth, which now stood before its demise, had been erected piece by piece with great care, beginning with Winckelmann’s Thoughts in 1755 and ending with Hegel’s Lectures on Philosophy of Art (1818–1829). As Vischer and his contemporaries were well aware, the epoch of the epigones had begun in the 1840s, who gradually developed their doubts about the salvific qualities and interpretive capacity of a systematic philosophy. Similarly, the 1840s saw the beginning of the crisis of the panorama, diorama, and neorama, as the distant lands of the South could now be observed with one’s own eyes in an unstoppable process of disenchantment. That the Greece of which Winckelmann had spoken no longer existed, or had never existed, was perfectly clear to the young Vischer. Returning home, he began to smile about antiquity and to view the end of this distant world with relief: “you are dead, quite properly dead, it is provided for, it is quite certain, there is no danger at all of Miltiades coming to the Italian opera with an umbrella, Themistocles in a tailcoat, Pericles with a lorgnette, Alcibiades with gloves, Sophocles with glasses and opera goggles, Plato with a snuffbox” (Vischer 1922a, 22; my translation). Vischer had realised that the Greek heavens were empty, devoid of any deities. Polluted by modern people, the ancient gods and the ancient Greeks could only find shelter in the depths of collective memory: only there could they save themselves and continue to work as poetry and memory kept them alive. As if in a vision, Vischer imagines making eye contact with the past in the ocean waves as he senses its appearance on the seabed (Vischer 1922a, 22). Walking on the mythical land of origin during the trip to Greece thus allowed the young Vischer to develop the first seeds of an aesthetic of dissonance that he would later elaborate. The trip to Italy was not only an artistic and a cultural journey, it was also a self-revelation: the German philosopher perceived Italy as his elective land from which

5

 More on this in Iannelli 2016.

82

F. Iannelli

he was condemned to live far away. He would spend his entire life feeling as if banished from his proper homeland, the native land of the beautiful, as if Tübingen were hell and paradise was elsewhere, far away in the deep South. As is well known, Goethe also confessed to Eckermann that he was never happy again after his trip to Italy. What had both projected onto the land beyond the Alps? A possible answer is provided by another exceptional traveller, Sigmund Freud, who shared a deep love for the South with Goethe and Vischer.6 6.2.2 Existential Geographies: Freud in Italy and Greece In 1899, Freud wrote to Wilhelm Fliess that true happiness consisted in the fulfilment of a childhood wish (Freud 1962, 242). For Freud, this wish was to travel. It was thus apparently an innocent wish, but nevertheless, it contained a sharp, nonconformist critique, because in travelling Freud was renouncing his past, the economic hardship in which he had spent much of his life, from his childhood to his early professional years. The journey was thus a cry of protest, the beginning of a progressive emancipation from his parents, whom he blamed for all his unhappiness, and especially from his father. That this inner need to travel is tied to the father figure is certainly true for Goethe, but in a way, it is also true for Vischer. Freud travelled to distance himself from his father Jakob, Goethe to rediscover – in the difference – a relationship with his father Caspar, who had undertaken a journey to Italy before him, in 1740, but also to overtake his father. Vischer travelled to free himself from the haunting of his father, the Protestant pastor and archdeacon who had died suddenly in 1814, devastating the childhood and youth of his then seven-year-old son. Due to the premature death of his father, the family suffered economic hardship and Vischer was forced to give up his greatest desire, to become an artist. The Italian journey would enable him to acknowledge this wounded and repressed part of himself, the sincere and still living love of art and beauty. Each trip to Italy, from the first (1839–1840) to the last (1887), which tragically remained unfinished, was intended to help take some of the weight off the renunciation of his youth, and to free him gradually, more or less consciously, from the chains that bound him to the past. Freud also dealt with the father figure by travelling South. For Freud, the most seductive destination, but at the same time most difficult, was the Eternal City. The journey did not take place until 1901, when Freud succeeded in overcoming a series of phobic erotic and non-erotic symptoms that had previously hindered him. In his self-­ analysis, he came to the conclusion that he had identified with Hannibal, a hero who had been very dear to him in his school days, but who had never got beyond Lake Trasimeno. Rome is the symbolic city of Catholicism which Freud perceives as hostile to his Jewish origins. The journey to Rome is therefore particularly painful, but once it is realised, Freud even dreams of spending his old age in the Eternal City. It is once again the father figure that returns in the journey to Athens in 1904, when in front of the  Between 1895 and 1923, Freud made no fewer than fifteen trips to Italy (see Tögel and Molnar 2002). His favourite destination was, in the end, Rome, whose topography he had obsessively studied before arriving (Freud 1986, 363). 6

6  From the Grand Tour to the Virtual Tour: Dreaming of the Classical Between…

83

ruins of the Acropolis and at the foot of the Parthenon, Freud feels a deep sense of loss and equally of surpassing his father, who would not have had the opportunity to physically go to Greece and, given his lower cultural level, would not have been able to fully appreciate the destination of the trip. Freud’s experience of Athens is anything but balanced, as the mood of his 1936 letter to the French novelist Romain Rolland confirms: “one feels like a hero who has accomplished incredibly great deeds” (Freud 1950, 256). It is not only a difficult childhood and a conflictual relationship with the father figure that connects Freud to Vischer. Both were passionate about archaeology and collecting, and this combination could only culminate in a violent passion for the South. Vischer loved to surround himself with plaster casts of famous artworks that decorated his house, not without a touch of kitsch. But Vischer was interested not only in collecting, like many of his contemporaries but also in archaeological excavations. In the summer of 1863, he had seen excavated finds and tools of ancient pile settlements in Zurich, and it made him realise how ephemeral everything was and how each century imagined that it had reached the pinnacle of civilisation. This thought recurs in the pile-dwelling story in Auch Einer, but other sections of this original work also reveal a strong interest in the past and above all the fascination that emanated from the buried ancient city of Pompeii, where his alter ego A. E. imagines he will be able to wander after his death (Vischer 1879, 535–536). These were old fantasies that blossomed in Vischer during his very first trip to Italy (Vischer 1907, 131). This astonished, but also ironic, view of the Pompeian cast by Vischer allows us to make a comparison with Freud, whose collecting-mania lasted for over 40 years. As the latter admitted, his obsession with ancient art was only surpassed by nicotine (Schur 1972, 247). The father of psychoanalysis also felt a deep connection to Pompeii: it was a place rich in symbolism, buried under lava for centuries and therefore difficult to access, just like the unconscious in the human being, to which Freud devoted his studies. A fragment of a Pompeian fresco that reminded him of Italy (Freud 1962, 283) was particularly dear to his heart. But he was even more attached to a plaster cast he had bought in the Vatican Museums and then proudly displayed in his Vienna practice. It was a relief of the young woman at the centre of Wilhelm Jensen’s 1903 story Gradiva. A Pompeian Fantasy. One can imagine the emotion Freud felt when he came face to face with this artwork on one of his many trips to Rome. The desire to own a copy of the Gradiva – or many other artworks in his rich collection – thus also arises from the almost physical desire to be close to the past, to relive it in the imagination, to turn back time and revive it, be it within the four walls of his own practice in Vienna. Freud, too, had an unusual inner relationship to artwork; the love that was already felt in Winckelmann, Goethe, and even more explicitly in Vischer expresses itself in a tenderly ludic tone in Freud when he writes to his friend Wilhelm Fliess in 1899 that he is concluding his work on the dream under the protection of his “gods,” as if there were well-meaning, even miraculous beings there with him (Freud 1962, 248). It is therefore not so bizarre that Freud took selected objects from his collection with him every year during the summer holidays, as his housemaid Paula Fichtl reported (Berthelsen 1987). Moreover, Freud had a passion for archaeological studies in common with Vischer, Goethe, and Winckelmann. In a letter to Stefan Zweig in 1931, he confessed that he had read more books on archaeology than on psychology! (Freud and Freud 1980, 399). He

84

F. Iannelli

had a predilection for texts that brought him closer to the psychic roots of humanity (Freud 1962, 236, 238, 242). Out of love for art and archaeology, Freud followed Evans’s excavations on Crete (Freud 1962, 286) with interest and built up a collection of about 3000 objects from various excavations throughout the world: Greek, Etruscan, Roman, Egyptian, Indian, and Chinese. He saw a great similarity between the work of archaeological excavation and the metaphorical work of the psychologist, and his patients often had the impression of being in a museum or in the study of an archaeologist. This strange dependence can most likely be explained by a great emptiness that needed to be filled. Barely two months after the death of his father Jacob, in 1896, Freud began to acquire the first objects of antique art, from which one can conclude that he began the heterogeneous collection, which consisted mainly of sculptures from around the world, as a reaction to this painful loss and as a mitigation of mourning. In the first years of the twentieth century, his collecting activity increased, and he sought out antique dealers more frequently. In the following decades, the collection continued to grow through gifts from close friends and even patients. One could imagine that something similar provoked Vischer’s unconditional love for Italian art. The reproductions that adorned his own home functioned as a substitute, though not for the cherished father figure that Vischer had lost at a tender age, but rather for that life-sustaining, longed-for beauty and harmony that he could never get enough of in his defiantly beloved homeland. 6.2.3 Constellations of the Soul and Excavations of the Spirit: The South by Dieter Henrich A similar interweaving of archaeology, research, and life can be found in Dieter Henrich’s existential constellation. Although Henrich claims that his love for the South “was not inherited,” but rather “arose on its own,” it was his mother who facilitated this love, allowing the first trip to the bel paese as Henrich himself recounts: “In 1951 I came straight to the centre of Rome as a Protestant in a small group of Catholic students at Easter of the Holy Year. The opportunity was provided by my mother who managed to get an incredibly cheap trip as a reward for my promotion by catching a random offer: just 120 marks included a round trip, full board and a private Easter audience with the Pope as well as another day in Florence. The overall impression was overwhelming!”7 This first dazzling experience was followed by many other encounters in Germany with Italian students who came to meet his mentor, Hans Georg Gadamer, including a great Hegel scholar like Valerio Verra: “As long as he lived, he was a good friend of mine. He disclosed to me non-stop Italian life in all its colours, fields and regional variations – from the right way to cook spaghetti al dente to Leopardi, an expression of a typically Italian joie de vivre unknown to most intellectuals.” So began Henrich’s study trips to Italy, the first in Ravenna on the recommendation of Karl Löwith: “It was the beginning of my amateur studies on the History of Italian Architecture, followed by further study sojourns in which an appreciation of the works first of Brunelleschi and then of Borromini arose, and the understanding that neither Renaissance nor Baroque  All statements by Dieter Henrich quoted here are based on discussions – held between 2018 and 2021 – between the author and the German Philosopher. 7

6  From the Grand Tour to the Virtual Tour: Dreaming of the Classical Between…

85

architecture could be admired anywhere in Germany in their true power. Similar learning stages took place during numerous museum visits to admire Italian painting from Giotto to Caravaggio. Equally, however, I was accompanied by the joie de vivre that spreads in the pleasant atmosphere of the squares of Italian cities.” Then came the time for Greece, beginning with an island tour in 1957 and then in 1958, which included a stay in Crete and Patmos, which was also full of artistic-­ philosophical stimuli: “I had a private guided tour of the museum in Heraklion by its director, who was then called Nikolaus Platon. And I went with him by omnibus without windows over the mountains (with chickens tied together and clucking) to Phaistos. There I had the loudest night of my entire life in a wooden house isolated in the archaeological zone: the cicadas chirped all night, a motor generated droning electricity, and a storm made the shutters and doors rattle loudly. I had by now heard about the decipherment of Linear B and the surprise that it was a variant of Greek. In my student days, the difference between the scripts was known, but none had yet been deciphered. Even today, ‘Minoan’ is one of the unknown languages, of which about 7,000 are still spoken at present. What an enormous mystery the history of ‘mankind’ alone is to us! My philosophy is probably still co-determined by the study of prehistory.” Henrich’s engagement with Greece was enthusiastic, but certainly much more sober and scientific than that of his predecessors. Greece, of course, remained the scene of great historical-archaeological events, but it was not to be approached simply with veneration; rather, it had to be studied with expertise. There is no lack of unforgettable moments, but what touches the philosopher most is the juxtaposition of the present and the past; that is, the non-existent, as Henrich himself notes: “In Athens, I was most touched by standing in the barren place where Plato’s Academy is said to have once stood.” In any case, an effective antidote to any exaggerated nostalgia for lost Greekness was the intellectual legacy of Professor Gero Merhart von Bernegg, who taught prehistoric archaeology at Philipps University in Marburg from 1928. It was here that the young student Dieter Henrich experienced one of those defining academic moments that are remembered for a lifetime, as the archaeological method that Henrich learned in the Merhart School in the 1940s was to be decisive for him a few decades later when he set out on the difficult challenge of reconstructing the early history of German Idealism. As Henrich himself recalls, there were philosophical, one might say “Hegelian,” traits in the style of the Marburg prehistorian. What Merhart taught was, above all, the ability to discover the depth of thought and subjectivity behind every cold and seemingly inanimate find, and then to think on a large scale, as he does in the work Daljóko (1959), the title of which is the term for an “indefinable unit of measurement” used to orient oneself in the boundless landscapes of North Asia. However, it was not the excavations in the earth, but rather those in the spirit, that interested Henrich. In addition, much that was personal, not written but lived, is hidden in the shadow of Dieter Henrich’s genetic and archaeo-philosophical writings and is also illuminated by his journeys to the South. For a long time, travelling was in fact for various reasons forbidden: “In my childhood, my parents had to expose me to the salty sea air of the North as often as possible because of a chronic illness. In my youth, which coincided with Hitler’s domination, foreign travel was almost impossible. At the Gymnasium, however, the New Humanist tradition was still alive: The country one should seek with

86

F. Iannelli

all one’s soul was the land of the Greeks, which, however, had been conquered by the Wehrmacht along with Crete. We read Latin authors all the time.” Since the 1950s, when it was again possible to travel freely, there followed many Sternstunden abroad: on Italian soil, in Rome, in Elea and Syracuse, or further afield in Patmos. This syncretism has nourished like a lifeblood the constellation research of a philosopher who has always been interested in an intercultural and interdisciplinary perspective and who can passionately say about the South: “Finally, from around 1965, I was able to extend my car journeys to long stays in the old Greek regions of Italy, from a month in Paestum to several trips to Sicily. The nostalgia for Greece could thus even merge with the love of Italy!”

6.3 Conclusion: Toward the South Today: Between Virtual Travel and Pandemic With Dieter Henrich’s voyages of discovery in Italy and Greece in the 1950s and 1960s, we are still a long way from the excesses of the hit-and-run mass tourism of the 1980s that culminated in the over-tourism of the early twenty-first century, in which the main goal seems to be selfies taken in the cult sites of the classic, to which beautifying filters are applied before being shared proudly on social media (Gunthert 2015). Dieter Henrich’s travels still testify to the capacity of travel to offer a scientific (as it did for Winckelmann), existential (as it did for Vischer and Freud), and liberating (as it did for Goethe) experience that the acceleration of recent decades has made impossible. The 2020 pandemic has suddenly dilated geographical distances and made travelling more difficult and risky, making us fall precipitously from over-tourism to “non-­ tourism” (Gössling et al. 2021). The first evaluations (see Amaro 2021) that have been drawn during 2021 on the resilience with which some countries of southern Europe – such as Italy and Greece – have faced the “exocrisis” (De Sausmarez 2007) show that the pandemic has paradoxically been a golden opportunity for a re-articulation and a re-assessment of tourism. Greece and Italy have always been privileged destinations of tourism for educated travellers and others, and therefore they are the countries that have fought more and are continuing to struggle to remain in the ranking of the most visited countries in the world. On one hand, this is another reason why it is essential to identify new strategies, even by looking to the past and re-evaluating little-known destinations (as suggested by the numerous trips of an Italy-lover like Vischer) or more authentic and exclusive experiences of tourism (as was the case with Freud and Dieter Henrich). On the other hand, between border closures, lockdowns, quarantine, and mandatory vaccine pass, many potential travellers, especially those who have not been vaccinated or the most fragile people, have been forced once again to imagine the landscapes of the South through “virtual tours,” a bit like Hegel did. Even if virtual reality tourism will never completely replace the real one, it has undoubtedly supported the expansion of a sector in crisis through new immersive proposals (see Sarkady et al. 2021). Above all, the strange slowdown in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic has perhaps, unintentionally, increased the desire to explore the

6  From the Grand Tour to the Virtual Tour: Dreaming of the Classical Between…

87

landscape and artistic treasures of the South and contributed to the dreaming of forgotten lands and the most iconic places of the classic to be able to visit them – sooner or later – in person. In any case, it is undeniable that the pandemic has drastically reduced the consumerist delirium of over-tourism, restoring dignity and value to travel, which had become a ravenous, unsustainable, compulsive business. Considering its high risk and, at times, real impossibility, travelling has once again become an endeavour for a select few, and as such, it has become even more coveted, meditated, and precious (Hildebrandt 2021, 135–140).

References Agazzi, Elena. 2011. “Italien wie es wirklich ist”. Rolf Dieter Brinkmanns Rom, Blicke als Tagebuch einer schwierigen Zeit in Wort, Bild und Dokument. In Ruinen in der Moderne. Archäologie und die Künste, ed. Eva Kocziszky, 359–379. Berlin: Reimer. Amaro, Dina. 2021. Crisis Management and Resilient Destinations During Covid-19  in the Southern European Countries. In Pandemics and Travel: COVID-19 Impacts in the Tourism Industry, ed. Cláudia Seabra et al. Bingley: Emerald Publishing. Bernal, Martin. 1987. Black Athena. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP. Berthelsen, Detlef. 1987. Alltag bei Familie Freud. Die Erinnerungen der Paula Fichtl. Hamburg: Hoffman & Campe Verlag. Black, Jeremy. 1992. The British Abroad. The Grand Tour in The Eighteenth Century. Phoenix Mill: Sutton Publishing. De Sausmarez, Nicolette. 2007. Crisis management, Tourism and Sustainability: the role of indicators. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 15 (6): 700–714. Décultot, Elisabeth. 2011. Erlebte oder erträumte Antike? Zu Winckelmanns geplanten Griechenlandreisen. In Ruinen in der Moderne. Archäologie und die Künste, ed. Eva Kocziszky, 125–140. Berlin: Reimer. Freud, Sigmund. 1950. Brief an Romain Rolland. Eine Erinnerungsstörung auf der Akropolis. In Gesammelte Werke XVI, Werke aus den Jahren 1932–1939. London: Imago. ———. 1962. Aus den Anfängen der Psychoanalyse: Briefe an Wilhelm Fließ: Abhandlungen und Notizen aus den Jahren 1887–1902. Frankfurt a. M: Fischer Verlag. ———. 1986. In Briefe an Wilhelm Fließ 1887 bis 1904, ed. Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson. Frankfurt a. M: Fischer Verlag. Freud, Ernst L., and Lucie Freud. 1980. Sigmund Freud. Briefe 1873–1939. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer. Gössling, Stefan, Daniel Scott, and C.  Michael Hall. 2021. Pandemics, tourism and global change: a rapid assessment of COVID-19. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 29 (1): 1–20. Gunthert, André. 2015. L’Image Partagée. Paris: TEXTUEL. Haufe, Eberhard, ed. 1965. Deutsche Briefe aus Italien von Winckelmann bis Gregorovius. Leipzig: Koehler & Amelang. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1984. In The Letters, ed. Clark Butler. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ———. 1989. Frühe Schriften, I.  In Gesammelte Werke, ed. Friedhelm Nicolin and Gisela Schüler, vol. 1. Hamburg: Meiner. ———. 2011. Lectures on the Philosophy of World History. Volume 1. Manuscripts of the Introduction and Lectures of 1822–23, ed. Robert F. Brown and Peter C. Hodgson with the assistance of William G. Geuss. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

88

F. Iannelli

———. 2013. Exzerpte und Notizen (1809–1831). In Gesammelte Werke, ed. Karl Grotsch, vol. 22. Hamburg: Meiner. ———. 2015. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Kunst I.  In Gesammelte Werke, vol. 28.1: Nachschriften zu den Kollegien der Jahre 1820/21 und 1823, ed. Niklas Hebing. Hamburg: Meiner. Heß, Gilbert, Elena Agazzi, and Elisabeth Décultot, eds. 2009. Graecomania. Der europäische Philhellenismus. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hildebrandt, Ulrich. 2021. Aus Corona lernen. Berlin: Springer. Iannelli, Francesca. 2016. Friedrich Theodor Vischer und Italien. Die erlebte Ästhetik eines Augenmenschen. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. ———. 2021. Hegel’s Constellation of the Feminine between Philosophy and Life. In The Owl’s Flight. Hegel’s Legacy to Contemporary Philosophy, ed. S. Achella, F. Iannelli, et al., 239–255. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter. Kasperowicz, Ryszard. 2011. Johann Joachim Winckelmann as the founder of the myth of the “religion of art”. Ikonotheka 23: 66–78. Lepenies, Wolf. 1976. Das Ende der Naturgeschichte. München: Hanser. Maurer, Golo. 2015. Italien als Erlebnis und Vorstellung. Landschaftswahrnehmung deutscher Künstler und Reisender 1760–1870. Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner. Meier, Albert, Alessandro Costazza, and Gerard Laudin, eds. 2010. Kunstreligion, Der Ursprung des Konzepts um 1800. Vol. 1. New York/Berlin: De Gruyter. Merhart, Gero. 1959. Daljóko. Bilder aus sibirischen Arbeitstagen. Tirol: Ladis. Nicolin, Friedhelm, ed. 1970. Hegel in Berichten seiner Zeitgenossen. Hamburg: Meiner. Pater, Walter. 2010. In Winckelmann, ed. Hans-Günther Schwarz. Stendal: Winckelmann-Gesellschaft. Pöggeler, Otto. 2011. Hegel und die Geburt des Museums. In Kunst als Kulturgut, ed. Annemarie Gethmann-Siefert, Bernadette Collenberg-Plotnikov, Elisabeth Weisser-Lohmann, vol. I, Die Sammlung Boisserée, 301–315. München: Fink. Pommier, Édouard. 1995. Winckelmann et la religion. In Winckelmann et le retour à l’antique, ed. Jackie Pigeaud and Jean-Paul Barbe, 13–31. Nantes: Entretiens de La Garenne Lemot. Rocco Lozano, Valerio. 2011. La vieja Roma en el joven Hegel. Madrid: Maia Ediciones. ———. 2015. Le dodici tesi di Hegel sulla Romanitas. Philosophical Readings 7 (3): 7–14. Rückert, Joseph. 1969. In Bemerkungen über Weimar, 1799, ed. Eberhard Haufe. Weimar: Kiepenheuer Verlag. Sarkady, Daniel, Larissa Neuburger, and Roman Egger. 2021. Virtual Reality as a Travel Substitution Tool During COVID-19. Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism: 452–463. Schur, Max. 1972. Living and Dying. New York: International Universities Press. Tögel, Christfried, and Michael Molnar. 2002. Unser Herz zeigt nach dem Süden. Reisebriefe 1895–1923. Berlin: Aufbau Verlag. Traeger, Jörg. 1997. Grenzformen der Kunst in der Goethezeit. Zur Ästhetik des Künstlichen. In Daniel Chodowiecki (1726–1801). Kupferstecher  – Illustrator  – Kaufmann, ed. Ernst Hinrichs and Klaus Zernack, 181–226. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Vieweg, Klaus. 2019. Hegel. Der Philosoph der Freiheit. München: Beck. Vischer, Friedrich Theodor. 1879. Auch Einer. Eine Reisebekanntschaft. 2 Bände. Stuttgart/ Leipzig: Hallberger. ———. 1907. In Briefe aus Italien, ed. Robert Vischer. München: Kastner & Callwey. ———. 1922a. Aus einer griechischen Reise [1844]. In Kritische Gänge, ed. Robert Vischer, vol. 6, 3–38. München: Meyer & Jessen. ———. 1922b. Mein Lebensgang. In Kritische Gänge, ed. Robert Vischer, vol. 6, 439–536. München: Meyer & Jessen.

6  From the Grand Tour to the Virtual Tour: Dreaming of the Classical Between…

89

Winckelmann, Johann Joachim. 1954. In Briefe. Kritisch-historische Gesamtausgabe, ed. Walther Rehm, vol. II, 1759–1763. Berlin: de Gruyter. ———. 1956. In Briefe. Kritisch-historische Gesamtausgabe, ed. Walther Rehm, vol. III, 1764–1768. Berlin: de Gruyter. ———. 2002. Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums, Text: erste Auflage Dresden 1764; zweite Auflage Wien 1776. In Winckelmann. Schriften und Nachlaß, ed. Adolf H. Borbein et al., vol. 4. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern. ———. 2013a. Thoughts on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and the Art of Sculpture. In Johann Joachim Winckelmann on art, architecture, and archaeology, ed. David Carter. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer. ———. 2013b. Treatise on the Capacity for Sensitivity to the Beautiful in Art and the Method of Teaching. In Johann Joachim Winckelmann on art, architecture, and archaeology, ed. David Carter. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer. Francesca Iannelli is an Associate Professor at Roma Tre University in Italy, where she lectures on Aesthetics, Philosophy of Taste, and Didactics of Philosophy. She was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the DLA in Marbach (2010), DAAD Research Fellow at the Humboldt Universität Berlin (2015), and IZEA Research Fellow at the Universität Halle (2017-2018). In 2004, she was awarded the Italian House of Representatives Philosophy Prize for the best PhD dissertation, and in 2014, the DAAD Ladislao Mittner Prize. Among her publications and editions are: “Das Siegel der Moderne. Hegels Bestimmung des Hässlichen in der Vorlesungen zur Ästhetik und die Rezeption bei den Hegelianern,” Fink 2007; “Friedrich Theodor Vischer und Italien” Peter Lang 2016; “Hegel und Italien - Italien und Hegel” (ed. with F. Vercellone and K. Vieweg), Mimesis International 2019; “The Owl’s Flight. Hegel’s Legacy to Contemporary Philosophy,” De Gruyter 2021 (ed. with S. Achella et al.).  

Part II

Aesthetic and Cultural Aspects of Tourism in Philosophical Perspective

Chapter 7 Do We Need a Philosophy of Tourism? Jure Zovko1 (*) 1 

University of Zadar, Zadar, Croatia [email protected]

Abstract.  In this paper, I would like to give some reasons why we absolutely need a philosophical approach to tourism. Hegel understood philosophy as “its own time, comprehended in thoughts” (Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of the Right [1821] TWA 7: 26, cf. Hegel 1991, 21). We are presently living under conditions of constant uncertainty in a fluid, globalized society which lacks thoroughgoing and homogenous ethical norms, but which is nevertheless characterized by universal wants and needs. Tourism is one of the crucial features of our global society of consumerism. Postmodern global citizens affirm their identity as tourists by hedonistically pursuing the fulfilment of their excessive desires at popular vacation resorts. Others increase their reputation by booking flights to elite or esoteric destinations and accommodation in expensive hotels. Travel, tourism, and leisure are considered basic human rights – although a large part of the world’s population has no access to these amenities and hardly any prospect of ever benefiting from them. These contradictory phenomena of our contemporary human existence require closer examination. If we want to grasp our time in thoughts or form an appropriate judgment about our epoch, then we need to reflect also on tourism, because it is one of the fundamental, inescapable determinants of our present life-world. Keywords:  Tourism · Life-world · Globalization · Philosophy · Consumerism

Zygmunt Bauman, a Polish-British sociologist and philosopher, sees our present age as characterized by a kind of irreligious pilgrimage embodied by tourism in its various forms and manifestations. Tourism is one of the ubiquitous characteristics of the current affluent society. It has almost become a form of life in Wittgenstein’s sense (cf. Wittgenstein 1958 § § 19, 23, 241, 345). Postmodern citizens determine their status in society by their selection, among other consumer products, of their tourist destinations. Their aim may be to take a break from the stress of everyday life, or as pensioners to embrace the final chapter of their lives as a reward for their professional activity – the aim in any case is enjoyment. In a certain sense, the (post)modern tourist is like Benjamin’s flaneur, who enjoys travel for its own sake, as though taking a stroll through the global city. In the eighteenth century, walking through the countryside was a desirable form of leisure for the educated, one closely linked to the production and enjoyment of art and literature. In the period of rapid urbanization of society and the emergence of large cit© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M.-É. Zovko, J. Dillon (eds.), Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36659-8_7

93

94

J. Zovko

ies, cultivation of idleness in the form of flanerie became fashionable among the urban elite, while in the phase of so-called late capitalism the form of travel known as tourism became characteristic of industrial society as a whole. Bauman compares the modern tourist to a kind of contemporary pilgrim who is not motivated by religion or faith, but by the desire to simply enjoy travel and touring. Thus, tourism is a special form of consumerism. The pilgrim has a desire for something beyond travel itself and beyond this life: The pilgrim’s life is a travel-towards-fulfilment, but “fulfilment” in that life is tantamount to the loss of meaning. Travelling towards the fulfilment gives the pilgrim’s life its meaning, but the meaning it gives is blighted with a suicidal impulse; that meaning cannot survive the completion of its destiny. (Bauman 2005, 157)

Bauman traces the descent of modern tourism from religious pilgrimage. Tourist vagrancy has a pseudo-eschatological component in the life of the adveniat: To put it in a nutshell: procrastination derived its modern meaning from time lived as a pilgrimage, as a movement coming closer to a target. In such time, each present is evaluated by something that comes after. […] By itself, the present time is meaningless and valueless. It is for that reason flawed, deficient and incomplete. The meaning of the present lies ahead; what is at hand is evaluated and given sense by the noch-nicht-geworden, by what does not yet exist.” (Bauman 2005, 156).

According to Z.  Bauman, our age can be defined as liquid modernity, a concept which focuses on the transformations affecting human life with regard to formulation of standards of behaviour. “Liquid life is a precarious life, lived under conditions of constant uncertainty.” (Bauman 2005, 2; cf. Bauman 2000, 160). In a world in flux without stable orientation, experiences are, according to Bauman, the only thing that can produce reliable guidelines for behaviour. Bauman uses the German term Erlebnis (experience) and attempts to show how this concept has become the fundamental basis of consumerism in society. In a life determined by consumerism, individual experiences are at the centre of events; they establish the existential constants and embody for the consumer the actual meaning of life. Living in a “liquid” society means that our identities are no longer grounded in long-standing social norms and meanings, but are instead transforming at a rapid pace, making us “tourists” in search of many fly-bynight social experiences. According to Bauman, the most important object of the dispute between the representatives of modernity and its postmodern critics is the definition of the term identity: Indeed, if the modern “problem of identity” was how to construct an identity and keep it solid and stable, the postmodern “problem of identity” is primarily how to avoid fixation and keep the options open. In the case of identity, as in other cases, the catchword of modernity was creation; the catchword of postmodernity is recycling. (Bauman 1996, 18)

Tourism as a peculiar form of irreligious pilgrimage is one of the most important life experiences of people in postmodern society. Tourism has become a universal world phenomenon, and while the primary aim is enjoyment, enjoyment can take many forms, and so we find an equally large variety of motives for which travellers travel. One of the main motives of tourism is curiosity, a desire to know and to see things for oneself. Another is the desire to be admired and esteemed by others for one’s accomplishments,

7  Do We Need a Philosophy of Tourism?

95

and to be identified with those who have the wealth and power to travel the world and “see the sights.” Another is to experience a sense of awe and admiration for things of great grandeur and beauty. People thus travel to get to know world-renowned cities, well-known cultural monuments, and naturally beautiful places. Charming islands known to ordinary people from movies, such as the Maldives, Bali, Capri, Fiji, Galapagos, Bora Bora in French Polynesia, Crete, the Dalmatian islands, are priorities on the lists of tourist agencies and popular destinations for travellers. The same can be said for famous beaches, which are also special attractions for tourists (Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro, Santa Monica, Waikiki in Honolulu, the beaches of the Bahamas, Mosquito Bay – Vieques in Puerto Rico, Spiaggia Grande in Positano, Elafonísi near Crete, the Golden Horn on Brač). Cultural tourism is representative of a higher, educative dimension of the desire for travel. Thus, interest in visiting cultural monuments, historically significant places, or places that were once the focus of cultural and artistic activity (Athens, Florence, Weimar, Paris, Rome, Istanbul, St. Petersburg) can sometimes be motivated by a desire for knowledge in a deeper sense, for example, for the purpose of understanding the complexities of human history and civilization. World-famous monuments (the Pyramids, the Eiffel Tower, Neuschwanstein Castle, the Taj Mahal, the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, the Temple of Confucius in Qufu, the Kalighat Kali Temple in Kolkata, the Daigo-Ji Temple in Kyoto) attract millions of tourists from all over the world. The preserved cultural heritage, meanwhile, risks being carelessly sacrificed in the face of mass cultural tourism, as UNESCO leaders frequently point out in their warnings against the threat of destruction of World Heritage sites. To prevent cultural tourism from its own self-destructive tendencies, cultural monuments need to be carefully protected and preserved from excessive traffic and exploitation. As those managing such sites have learned, while cultural heritage and monuments are an invaluable asset to their economies, they need to be treated carefully and sensibly if they are to survive and continue to produce jobs and revenue. Thus, in recent years responsible authorities in some destinations (the Sistine Chapel, Venice, Dubrovnik, Athens, Machu Picchu, Angkor Wat, Taj Mahal, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the ancient city of Damascus, the ancient city of Hatra in Iraq) have begun to recognize the inescapable necessity of limiting the number of tourists visiting these sites daily. Venice may serve here as an example of the urgency of the problem. One of the most iconic and popular destinations of urban heritage in the world, Venice has been severely threatened in its existence due to the fragility of its physical infrastructure and the overwhelming influx of tourists. According to the latest analyses, the situation in Venice is dramatic, the overloaded infrastructure is endangering its culture and heritage. Among European cities that, due to their cultural history, have become destinations for overtourism, Venice is the most endangered. A change in policy is absolutely necessary in this regard, and in fact, steps have already been taken by the Italian government to ban cruise ships and other large vessels from the city’s lagoon (the basin of St. Mark’s and the Giudecca canal; cf. Buckley 2021a). Venice aims to become a “capital of sustainability” and an example for other overcrowded tourist destinations on the Adriatic, according to Valeria Duflot, founder of social enterprise Venezia Autentica (ibid.). Unfortunately, plans to build a new cruise ship terminal at Marghuera are progressing

96

J. Zovko

slowly, and loss of jobs and revenue due to the COVID-19 pandemic have meant that some big cruise ships will return at least temporarily to the lagoon this season. (Buckley 2021b). UNESCO has also warned the Croatian Ministry of Culture on several occasions that Lake Plitvice and Dubrovnik will lose their status as UNESCO World Heritage sites because of the authorities’ failure to adequately regulate and control the effects of mass tourism. Just as with the city of Venice, these sites are under acute physical threat because of the enormous number of visitors. Other iconic cultural monuments which are endangered at present include the town centre of Vienna and the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. The term “overtourism” has come to be associated with many such worthwhile destinations, and the question arises again and again whether it is even moral to visit such fragile cultural heritage sites. Despite their continuous calls for a more modest and responsible form of cultural tourism, it is undeniable that UNESCO World Heritage lists have themselves contributed to the phenomenon of overtourism, by attracting even greater numbers of visitors to sites than would otherwise be the case, raising the justifiable claim of UNESCO’s shared responsibility for the blight of overtourism on these sites (cf. De Marchi and Manente 2019). Pilgrimage tourism is another significant form of modern tourism, and pilgrimage destinations are plagued by much the same difficulties to those of other tourist destination, sometimes exacerbated to an extreme degree. The Kumbh Mela pilgrimage in Hinduism, for example, one of the largest gatherings for religious reasons in the world, with its traditional bath in the Ganges river, carries with it all the ills of overcrowding and overtourism that secular gatherings bring, and perhaps even more so, as the festival is both attractive as a spectacle in itself, and desirable and incumbent on devotees as a way of ensuring salvation. The dangers of this particularly uncritical form of overtourism became acutely apparent in the wake of the 2021 Kumbh Mela, when painfully inadequate infrastructure provisions and complete disregard for epidemiological precautions led to its role as a superspreader event of unprecedented proportions, contributing significantly, along with huge election rallies organized by Prime Minister Modi, to the vastly devastating second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in India (cf. Khare 2021). It is telling that in 2017, Kumbh Mela was inscribed on the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage. Other major world religions also have their famous destinations where believers meet or arrive on pilgrimage. Jews, Christians, and Muslims pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Catholics to Rome, Muslims to Mecca, Hindus to Char Dham, and both Hindus and Buddhists to Bodh Gaya. The pilgrimage to Mecca, as one of the five pillars of the Islamic religion, plays a central role in the life of Muslims the world over. Analysts of the phenomenon of overtourism point out that the Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, has become a huge problem for hosts due to overcrowding of pilgrims and congestion problems (cf. Qurashi 2019). In the years of the pandemic, visitors had to be severely limited and traffic strictly controlled. In Christianity, the journey to the Holy Land with Jerusalem or to Rome is not obligatory, but they are the main pilgrimage destinations, while shrines like Lourdes, Santiago de Compostela, and Medjugorje serve as famous Marian pilgrimage destinations. Until the pandemic, these destinations suffered from much the same woes as other famous tourist destinations, along with a

7  Do We Need a Philosophy of Tourism?

97

few specifically their own, such as the banalization and trivialization of the objects of religion that come with their commodification. Forty years ago, for example, Medjugorje was just a small village in Herzegovina. In recent years, however, the number of pilgrims from all over the world who visit there has grown to 2 million pilgrims annually – and the throngs of visitors are only outdone by the glut of tasteless kitsch souvenirs which leave little to the imagination of the faithful as to the object of their devotion. The remarkable idea that all mortal beings are tourists is derived by Bauman from the writings of Saint Augustine. He refers to Augustine’s characterization of the human being in the world (mundus) as a temporary tourist (peregrinus, originally “foreigner, one from abroad,” in the Early Roman Empire, between 30 BC and 212 AD, a provincial subject who was not a Roman citizen (Lewis and Short 1879)) who is searching in vain for his earthly home. St. Augustine often uses the expression “advenae et peregrini sumus in mundo” in his writing, describing our human life in the world (mundus) as that of strangers and foreigners. This is actually a reference to the First Epistle of Peter (1 Petr 2:11, “Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul,” King James Bible). In his famous essay, “From Pilgrim to Tourist—or a Short History of Identity,” Bauman explains how the roots of tourism as a secular pilgrimage lie in the religious conception of man on earth that St. Augustine developed: When Rome lay in ruins  - humbled, humiliated and sacked and pillaged by Alaric’s nomads – St. Augustine jotted down the following observation: “[I]t is recorded of Cain that he built a city, while Abel, as though he were a merely a pilgrim on earth, built none.” “[The] True city of the saints is in heaven”; here on earth, says St. Augustine, Christians wander “as on pilgrimage through time looking for the Kingdom of eternity.” (Bauman 1996, 19–20)

According to St. Augustine, our pilgrimage on earth should be a life of contemplation and abstinence. This life was interpreted by St. Augustine in the Platonic sense as the return of the soul to God in the kingdom of eternity. In Augustine’s view, while we are still here on earth, we should strive to achieve a timeless form of life, as recommended by the writers of the Platonic tradition who influenced him. The ultimate goal of human life according to Plato is “assimilation to God as far as it is possible” (ὁμοίωσις θεῷ κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν, Theaetetus 176b–e; cf. Republic 613a7–b1). To become like God is “to become righteous and holy according to wisdom” (ὁμοίωσις δὲ δίκαιον καὶ ὅσιον μετὰ φρονήσεως γενέσθαι). This idea of assimilation to God (homoiōsis theōi) later became the central notion of Neoplatonic ethics (cf. Plotinus 1964. Ennead I.4). For Augustine, the essential elements of Platonic doctrine are in harmony with the substantial determinations of Christian doctrine. Platonic ethics declares that only the rational and intellectual soul is capable of finding eternal life through the torments of earthly life (cf. Augustine 1963, De vera religione, III, 3). If Plato were to return to earth, Augustine believes, he would supplement his teaching with the view that through the Incarnation, God has lowered the authority of divine reason to the human body (Augustine, De vera religione, IV, 7). In early Christianity since the third century, life in the desert established itself as a contemplative way of life. Augustine himself recommends living in the desert as a pilgrim on earth, as a condition of attaining the Kingdom of God in heaven after death. In

98

J. Zovko

his treatise De Vita eremitica, St. Augustine proclaims “Omnes peregrini sumus. Patria nostra sursum est, ibi hospites non erimus.” (We are all foreigners. Our fatherland is above where we will no longer be guests. Cf. Augustine 1841, Sermones, 10, 111, 2; PL 38,642 f). The Latin word hospes means: guest, visitor, stranger, foreigner. Augustine was influenced in this view by the work of Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria Vita Antonii, which describes the ascetic life of the hermit Saint Anthony. In his portrayal of his Christian protagonist, Athanasius follows the example of lives written by pagan philosophers like Porphyry, whose Life of Plotinus serves as an introduction to his edition of Plotinus’ works, and Iamblichus, who describes the life of Pythagoras as a model of the happy life. It is curious how Athanasius, as an educated bishop of Alexandria, portrayed his Christian hero, who could neither read nor write (cf. Vita Antonii, Ch. 1), as a happy man who united the Platonic virtues with Christian values: For what does it avail us to possess what we cannot take with us? Why not rather possess those things which we can take along with us—prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude, understanding, charity, love of the poor, faith in Christ, meekness, hospitality? Once we possess these we shall find them going before us, preparing a welcome for us in the land of the meek. (Athanasius of Alexandria 1978, 35; cf. Bartelink 1984)

The Life of St Anthony was translated into Latin in 373 by Evagrius of Antioch and left a deep impression on Christians in the western part of the Roman Empire. The hermit St. Anthony of the Desert (251–356) held the leading position on the scale of saints up to the time of the Reformation. The temptations of St. Anthony described in the Vita Antonii have had a particularly fruitful reception in European cultural history, in art and literature. Despite all temptations, St. Anthony spent over 80  years in the Eastern desert. His sojourn as a pelegrinus on the journey to achievement of his eternal home obviously lasted longer than he expected! Saint Augustine claims that through baptism we Christians have been received into the communion of saints and as such we are preparing to enjoy eternal life proclaimed to us as the kingdom of God. Every earthly pleasure is temporary, whereas eternal life will be a permanent enjoyment of God (frui Deo). Our homeland is not civitas terrena, any state on earth, but God’s state (Civitas Dei). However, our heart is attached to the sinful civitas terrena, to the earth state, and we strive to spare it from all utopias of salvation. We are rightly sceptical about a new will that will not lead us to sin (Augustine, De Civitate Dei XXII, 30: “novissimum liberum arbitrium non posse peccare”). According to the sociologist Max Weber, Protestants transformed the conception of being a hermit: “they became inner-worldly pilgrims” (Bauman 1996, 21). They invented the possibility of making a pilgrimage without leaving home, or of being a hermit without becoming homeless. This change in the zeitgeist of modernity also meant a transformation of the Augustinian universality of pilgrimage, which was equated with the Christian religion. Hegel criticized this Protestant interpretation of pilgrimage as subjectivity driven to the extreme. According to Hegel, Protestantism is dominated by subjectivity, in which beauty and truth are represented in feelings and attitudes, in love and understanding. The religion of Lutheran Protestantism builds its temples and altars in the heart of the individual; God is worshipped in feelings in individual prayer (Hegel 1986, TWA 2: 289).

7  Do We Need a Philosophy of Tourism?

99

The age of secularization has changed the way we look at ourselves as travellers and strangers in this world. In the secular age, the tourist becomes the external counterpart of the Protestant spiritual hermit who has made an inner conversion in his own soul. No longer are all people peregrini, as in the philosophy of Augustine, but only the privileged who have money to travel. In addition, there are now a large number of “undesirable peregrini,” refugees who are forced to migrate from poor countries to wealthy ones, from war-torn countries to more peaceful regions. Here we are confronted with a strange form of forced tourism. If, as Hegel believes, the history of humankind is progress in the consciousness of freedom, tourism may be viewed as a life form of realized freedom, a lifestyle in which travelling as an aim in itself and fulfilment of one’s desire for new experiences at famous tourist destinations is a major determining factor in affirming that freedom. In the period of modernity, human beings have been defined and their lives determined by work and its products. Pleonexia, the desire for ever more things, is the main virtue of laisser-faire capitalism, which presupposes producing more and more, wanting to have more and more, and consuming as much as possible. In tourism, we may appear to be striving to be released from this endless cycle. On closer examination, however, tourism reveals itself as a disguised form of consumerism, which takes the hedonism inherent in consumerism in a wide range of variations to an extreme. At first sight, tourism enriches our life-world by a dimension of leisure (“Muße,” skholê); but the leisure at which contemporary tourism aims doesn’t remain at the level of contemplation. Rather, in the pursuit of “leisure,” the contemporary tourist slips into an even more hectic form of busyness and a more aggregate pursuit of pleasure. It is a peculiar conglomerate of physical pleasure, consumption of products and services, and contemplation in the traditional sense of theoria. This is the sabbath of the worker who wants to “enjoy” in every way possible his time of rest. Yet despite the hectic business of pleasurable consumption by every and any possible means, holiday travel and tourist visits to prestigious destinations continue to be popularized and promoted as the most enjoyable (if not very restful) time of life. While religious trust and confidence were constitutive for the Christian epoch of faith in transcendence, risk and uncertainty are today the hallmarks of fluid modernity. Bauman prefers to use the German word Unsicherheit. Loss of meaning (Sinnverlust) as one of the most important determinations of modernity (Blumenberg 1987, 57) has unfortunately also led to the establishment of superficiality as the primary characteristic of our life world – and superficiality is also a hallmark of the enjoyment characteristic of tourist travel and activities. To avoid sinking into superficiality and missing out on the genuine value of leisure in a life-world determined by work, the attempt is, of course, sometimes made to give tourism a deeper dimension, in which the tourist explores the cultural background of tourist destinations in depth and searches for a more lasting appreciation of the cultural content they offer. But cases like this remain the exception. It seems that Walter Benjamin was right when he asserted that capitalism is not only destined to be a “world view” (Weltanschauung) of the twentieth century, but also a form of universal religion. In his brief and unpublished text entitled Capitalism as Religion (1921), Benjamin defines capitalism as a “cultic religion” (Kultreligion) of modernity: “Capitalism is a purely cultic religion, perhaps the most extreme that ever

100

J. Zovko

existed.” Benjamin compares this capitalist religion with pagan cults, which were also “immediately practical” and without “transcendent” aspirations. Capitalism as a religion is actually a substitute for the loss of transcendence or “detranscendence” of the Weltanschauung of modernity. The foundation of this unusual religion is the Greek idea of pleonexia. Benjamin does not say this expressis verbis, but from the context of his argumentation it is clear that he thought so. Nietzsche translated the Greek word pleonexia as “das Immer-mehr-haben-wollen,” the “always wanting-more,” while Plato understood pleonexia as a counter position to justice and eudaimonia. Today, consumerism has become the pivot of our lives. The basic motto of the society of consumerism has become “wanting more and more.” Although capitalism has no dogma, it has established a rite analogous to traditional religions. The extreme nature of capitalism as a religion is that it offers us a state of “sans trêve et sans merci” leading to our permanent indebtedness. For perhaps the most important characteristic aspect of capitalism as religion is its guilt-producing character: “Capitalism is probably the first example of a cult which is not expiatory but guilt-producing” it creates guilt and debt, not atonement [nicht entsühnenden, sondern verschuldenden]. (cf. Benjamin 2002, 288–291) The cornerstone of Benjamin’s reasoning is the equivalence between moral guilt (Schuld) and economic debt (Schulden), terms that in German are condensed in the same word. The theses which emerge from these notes are clearly laid out. Capitalism is a “cultic religion” that manifests itself as a pure rite. It is a religion that never rests (“money never sleeps,” one of the catchiest slogans of financial capital, was around long before it became the title of Oliver Stone’s 2010 movie). It does not bring redemption but brings debt and a sense of guilt, while the God of this indebting religion remains hidden. His new name, “Invisible Hand,” introduced by Adam Smith, has now become more famous than the name from the Exodus, “I Am Who I Am” – “Ehjeh ascher ehjeh” (Exod. 3:14). In other words, the utilitarian practices of capitalism – capital investment, speculation, financial operations, stock-exchange manipulations, the selling and buying of commodities – have the status and significance of the practices of a religious cult, minus the requirement of explicit adherence to a particular creed or dogma. Capitalism does not require the outward acceptance of a creed, doctrine, or theology. What counts are actions, which take the form, in terms of their social dynamics, of cult practices. The cult of consumerism, paradoxically, ensures its survival only as long as it successfully ensures that the needs of its members remain unsatisfied. Every wish must immediately generate the next wish. The circulation of goods between assembly lines, shops, and garbage dumps must never come to a standstill. Everything depends on speed, surplus, and waste. The life expectancy of wishes, meanwhile, is constantly being shortened, as is the time it takes to fulfil them, and the time between fulfilment and disposal of the goods. On the market, consumers acquire possessions that increase their attractiveness and thus market value, making them the object of envy by others, and generating thus the motive of further competitive desires. One who lives in a beautiful villa, drives an expensive automobile, and leads a luxurious life, portrays an identity of higher rank which is the motor for competition of others for these goods and for their ever greater production and more frequent exchange for ever more luxurious and extravagant forms of the same products (witness the growing market for super yachts, or the competition among the super-rich to become the first space tourists and to own

7  Do We Need a Philosophy of Tourism?

101

the first companies to make this commodity available on a wider scale, such as Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, or Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic). For the average consumer, shopping centres have become new meeting places where postmodern humans celebrate their holidays as entia consumans and admire like flâneurs the prices of the goods and articles on display which they cannot buy because they cannot afford them. As average consumers, we increase our reputation by saving up to book flights to attractive tourist destinations and luxury accommodations. Consumerism – and tourism as one of its prime commodities - has thus become a universal religion (katholikos) from New York to Beijing, from Riyadh to Oslo. The modern tourist as a successful performer of the religion of capitalism can pray like the Old Testament psalmist: “The Lord is my shepherd; I lack nothing” (Psalm 23). While in the rich, the need for enjoyment and the pursuit of pleasure increase exponentially and conspicuous consumption becomes a goal in itself; in the poor, the lack of buying power makes one feel guilty or discriminated. In death, we all become equal, and only monuments in cemeteries will remind us of the pecking order of the beloved life of consumerism. Tourism, in my opinion, is too important a phenomenon for us as philosophers to continue to neglect it. As Hegel maintains in his Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Minerva’s owl begins its flight at dusk. The darkness of the present stage of consumer society is certainly a big challenge for Minerva’s owl. The satirist Aristophanes is credited with the saying that it is superfluous to carry the owls to Athens, itself renowned as centre of wisdom. In the age of consumerism and trivial tourism, it would be wise to bring the owl as a symbol of wisdom and prudence not only to Athens, but to all famous destinations of tourist pilgrimage. Hvar, the town where we met to discuss these topics, is also one of those attractive destinations. It is a town with a long historical and cultural tradition, extending to Ancient times and – with the Hvar culture, the most highly developed Neolithic culture in Europe – even to the Prehistoric period. The original settlement of Pharos on the island of Hvar was established in the time of Aristotle. Influences of the Italian Renaissance are present in the towns of Hvar and Stari Grad (Cittàvecchia), where the poets Petar Hektorović (1487–1572) and Hannibal Lucić (1485–1553) lived. The town of Hvar is home of the oldest preserved covered theatre and the oldest communal theatre in Europe (founded in 1612). Nowadays, however, it seems as if tourism has abandoned this cultural tradition. Unfortunately for Hvar, the town has become a Facebook/ Instagram travel destination primarily sought after for indulgence of physical lust and the pursuit of erotic hedonism, as embodied in the name of Hvar’s famous disco “Carpe Diem” (“Seize the day”). A tourist population comprised primarily of young tourists comes to Hvar mainly to frequent the beaches, disco bars, and outdoor raves  – and scarcely take notice of the cultural “backdrop.” From Plato’s work Symposium, we can learn that there are different levels of Eros and that love reduced to sexual pleasure is the lowest on the scala amoris. Through education and upbringing, through moral life practice, however, we can learn and reach higher levels of love. Since Plato, philosophers have explored the question of which form of life brings true happiness and success (eudaimonia). In a time when tourism has become primarily a hedonistic life form, we need to ask with Plato, “What does the right ἡδονή (hêdonê) mean?” (Philebus, 11d).

102

J. Zovko

Hêdonê as goddess of the good life should not be interpreted and understood primarily from the position of consumerism and a life of physical pleasure. There are higher forms of pleasure and forms of life that offer greater satisfaction in the long run than the life of the consumer. Modern tourists as global flâneurs lack more than ever a sense of the need for a cultural education (Bildung), through which they could discover a deeper form of life of tourism, and also find an unknown, new dimension of happiness. A philosophical turn in the analysis of the forms of life that make people happy could be achieved through philosophical and cultural education. For this reason, and because we ourselves are all tourists, many of us living in popular tourist destinations, tourism should also be made an object of sustained philosophical analysis, reflection and investigation. We should ask how tourism can be improved as a way of life and permanent phenomenon of human culture, and how culture and cultural education and upbringing can be integrated into this way of life. Therefore, we need a philosophy of tourism and we cannot do without it.

References Athanasius of Alexandria. 1978. The Life of St Anthony. New York: Newman Press New York. Augustine, Aurelius. 1841. Sermonum classes quatuor (Patrologia Latina 38), eds. Jacques-Paul Migne. Paris. https://patristica.net/latina/ ———. 1963. De vera religione liber unus, cura et studio K.-D.  Daur, in: Sancti Aurelii Augustini de doctrina christiana. De vera religione, Aurelii Augustini Opera. Pars IV,1, CCL 32, 169–260. Turnholti: Brepols. Bartelink, G.J.M. 1984. Echos aus Platons Phaedon in der Vita Antonii? Mnemosyne 37: 145–147. Bauman, Zygmunt. 1996. From Pilgrim to Tourist – or a Short History of Identity. In Questions of Cultural Identity, ed. Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay, 18–36. London: SAGE Publications Ltd. ———. 2000. Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. ———. 2005. Liquid Life. Cambridge: Polity Press. Benjamin, Walter. 2002. Capitalism as Religion. In Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, 1: 1913–1926, ed. Marcus Bullock and Michael W.  Jennings, 288–291. Cambridge (Mass): Harvard University Press. Blumenberg, Hans. 1987. Die Sorge geht über den Fluß. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag. Buckley, Julia. 2021a. Venice Finally Bans Cruise Ships from its lagoon. CNN, April 1, 2021. https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/venice-­cruise-­ship-­ban/index.html ———. 2021b. Cruise Ships Head Back to Venice despite ban. CNN, April 16, 2021. https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/venice-­cruise-­ships-­back/index.html De Marchi, Damiano, and Mara Manente. 2019. Key Themes for Tourism Development Management. In Overtourism: Tourism Management and Solutions, ed. Harald Pechlaner, Elisa Innerhofer, and Greta Erschbamer, 125–134. London: Routledge. Hegel, G.  W. F. 1986. Werke in zwanzig Bänden. Theorie-Werkausgabe (TWA), ed. Eva Moldenhauer und Karl Markus Michel. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag. ———. 1991. Elements of the Philosophy of Right. (Cambridge texts in the history of political thought), ed. Allen W. Wood, transl. H. B. Nisbet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Khare, Vineet. 2021. India’s Kuhmbh Festival Attracts Big Crowds Amid Devastating Second Covid Wave. BBC, April 17, 2021. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-­asia-­india-­56770460

7  Do We Need a Philosophy of Tourism?

103

Lewis, Charlton T., and Charles Short. 1879. Peregrinus. In A Latin Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Plotini Opera. 1964. (Editio minor in 3 vols.) eds. Paul Henry and Hans-Rudolf Schwyzer. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Qurashi, Jahanzeeb. 2019. The Hajj: crowding and congestion problems for pilgrims and hosts. In Overtourism, ed. Rachel Dodds and Richard W. Butler, 185–198. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1958. Philosophical Investigations. Transl. G.E.M.  Anscombe. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Jure Zovko is a Professor of Ontology at the Department of Philosophy, University of Zadar. From 1993 to 2000, he was Deputy Minister for Science and Technology of the Republic of Croatia. He has been a guest professor in Vienna, Mainz, Tübingen, Münster, Sarajevo, and Shanxi Normal University (Xi’an). He is co-editor, with Andreas Arndt (Berlin), of the international philosophical journals Studia hermeneutica (Parerga Berlin), Studia philosophica Iaderensia (Wehrhahn Hannover), Hegel-Jahrbuch (Walter de Gruyter; Duncker & Humblot/ Berlin), Hegel-Forschungen (Walter de Gruyter, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin), and Philosophy in International Context (Lit Münster). He is president of Institut international de philosophie (Paris) and L' Académie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences (Bruxelles), and a member of the Steering Committee of FISP (Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie). He is vice president of the Internationale Hegel-Gesellschaft. His research specialisations include Hermeneutics, Ancient Greek Philosophy, German Idealism, Philosophy of Science.  

Chapter 8 The Seriousness of Play Douglas Hedley1 (*) 1 

University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK [email protected]

Abstract.  Regarding the question of why it is that people feel the need to travel for recreational purposes, I suggest that the answer might be found in the concept of “play.” In my paper, I consider the seriousness of play as represented in the work of Johan Huizinga, who held that play lies at the very source of culture, and the novels of Hermann Hesse, in light of Joseph Pieper’s reflections on leisure and the ludic in relation to the contemplative. In the Christian humanistic tradition, to which Hesse and Huizinga belong, play is identified with freedom and affirmation of the life of the mind, in contrast to the materialist ideal of work promulgated by the Industrial Revolution, whereas the opposing Christian tradition represented by Tertullian and Kierkegaard, attacked the culture of play. Pieper’s reflections on the relationship between leisure and liturgy add emphasis on the feast or festival as an occasion for affirmation of the contemplative, eternal, and transcendent over the temporal and transitory of everyday life. Keywords:  Play · Seriousness · Culture · Leisure · Ludic · Contemplative · Festival · Huizinga · Hesse · Pieper

Meanwhile, while our Plato discusses often in a hidden manner the duty belonging to mankind, it sometimes seems as though he is joking and playing. But Platonic games and jokes are much more serious than the serious things of the Stoics.1

What is tourism? Let us define it as leaving home for recreational purposes. Such a definition is sufficiently broad to cover the requisite range of instances. In the eighteenth century, European men of letters and aristocrats went on a Grand Tour, primarily to explore the monuments of Classical Antiquity. With Greece under Ottoman rule, the final stop was usually Naples, with the ruins of Pompei nearby offering a magnificent conclusion.

 Marsilio Ficino, in the Preface to his commentaries on Plato’s dialogues, quoted in Denis Robichaud, Plato’s Persona, Renaissance Humanism, and Platonic Traditions, University of Pennsylvania, 2018, 54. 1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M.-É. Zovko, J. Dillon (eds.), Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36659-8_8

105

106

D. Hedley

Social and economic developments since the late nineteenth century have facilitated a democratisation of such journeying. School trips and educational travel have enabled generations in the Western world to tour and travel to far-flung regions. The ecological crisis has, in the meantime, raised questions about sustainability, and the cost of carbon-­ based travel on the environment. Perhaps, one might ask, we should analyse and reconsider the hedonism of tourist culture, a busy-idle and indulgent longing for new “sights and sounds,” and reflect upon more sustainable forms of recreation? These are critical questions in the contemporary environmental debate, and one can only begin to “scratch the surface” of some of the issues. However, one might consider some of the underlying problems. Why do human beings feel the need to explore and indulge their curiosity without any economic or scientific aims or objectives? In this paper, we shall suggest the beginnings of an answer by looking at the notion of “play.” I will start by distinguishing between “play” and “games.” Play is the more primordial form: we find it among animals and infants. Games we take to be complex and rule-bound activities that emerge out of the spirit of play. The homo faber is a critical aspect of homo sapiens, but we should not underestimate the significance of homo ludens. If this is true, it may be the case that tourism is not an activity whose purpose is to distract, a release from the monotony of a working life, but a well-grounded part of a balanced and healthy life. In this paper, I wish to look at the thesis of Huizinga about the homo ludens in relation to the Swiss German novelist Hermann Hesse, on the one hand, and the philosopher Josef Pieper and his defence of leisure in his book Leisure: The Basis of Culture, on the other. Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) and Johan Huizinga (1872–1945) are two writers who meditated on the idea of play. Both writers were painfully conscious of the decadence of European civilization in the wake of the great achievements of the Enlightenment and Romantic eras. Serio ludere, to play seriously, the motto of many Renaissance Neoplatonists, is a fitting maxim for these philosophical men of letters. There are numerous parallels in their lives, even though they were rather different personalities. Neither is merely whimsical or frivolous. The German was a poet, an autodidact, and a bohemian exile, the Dutchman a learned professor writing ex cathedra. In 1938, only a few years before the publication of Hesse’s novel The Glass Bead Game, Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga published his classic study Homo Ludens, in which he argues that play is essential not just for understanding the behaviour of children or adult sport, but for understanding higher cultural expressions such as poetry, the arts, the law, religion, and philosophy, as well. In their response to the spiritual crisis of the European mind in the twentieth century, both Huizinga and Hesse were deeply influenced by the Indian tradition and by a ­radical Protestant piety. At the same time, both were immersed in European aesthetic and philosophical culture, and shaped by the brutal force of two world wars. It is not my intent to offer a detailed analysis of either writer. Rather, I wish to present both as offering a vantage point from which to consider the question of the seriousness of play. Huizinga presents play as the very motor of culture while offering a savage critique of the “puerilism” of his age, which he defines as a “blend of adolescence and barbarity” (Huizinga 1967, 205), particularly the propaganda culture, spectacles, and joyless conformism of communism and fascism. The motto of The Glass Bead Game, meanwhile, is taken from the fictitious German scholastic Albertus Secundus:

8  The Seriousness of Play

107

Nothing is harder, yet nothing is more necessary, than to speak of certain things whose existence is neither demonstrable nor probable. The very fact that serious and conscientious men treat them as existing things brings them a step closer to existence and to the possibility of being born. (Hesse 1990, 28)

Huizinga notes that the word “illusion” means etymologically “in-play,” from inlusio, illudere or inludere. Play is in this sense an intimation of the sacred, since it is in the world but not quite “of it.” Huizinga was criticised for his emphasis upon the sacred dimension of play, but I claim that this dimension can be defended. Hesse’s novel, similarly, is itself the depiction of an imaginary world; yet it constitutes a serious enterprise, especially given that Hesse was writing through the period of dire convulsions of Europe during the two world wars of the twentieth century. The German philosopher Josef Pieper reinforces this sense of the serious dimension of the ludic and contemplative in human culture.

8.1 Huizinga on Play Johann Huizinga was a cultural historian. While he is best known as a medieval historian, he started his career reading philosophy in his hometown of Groningen and studied Sanskrit in Leipzig. He became a Sanskrit scholar and wrote his doctoral thesis on the notion of the Vidushaka, the clown or jester in Sanskrit drama. Huizinga’s knowledge of the tradition of drama in Indonesia seems to have stimulated his sensitivity to the dramatic and play dimension in the Burgundian court of the late Middle Ages and in human society more generally. Both Huizinga and Hesse were arguably influenced by the great tradition of play in the Indic tradition and the Sanskrit notion of līlā. Līlā is not a product of Vedic thought, which revolves around the idea of sacrifice. The cosmic dance is a recurring idea in Indian thought, especially the dancing Shiva or the devotional tradition of Radha-­ Krishna. Līlā, for the creature, is the awareness of existence as a free gift. To engage in the play of creation, like Krishna and the Gopis, is the vocation of the spiritual life. Rāsa, a term used for aesthetics in the Sanskrit tradition, means taste or juice. The rāsa-līlā is linked to Mathura, known as the city of divine love and the birthplace of Lord Krishna. Mathura, as a spiritual centre, is the earthly counterpart of the heavenly abode where Krishna is in constant play-sport. It is close to Vrindavan, where Krishna performs rāsa-līlā with Radha and other Gopis. In this play, the Divine Spirit is reflected in matter and the sacred play of the devotees is an image of the love of God. Homo Ludens belongs to the end of Huizinga’s career as a scholar and was composed in the harrowing period of European history in the 1930s, when fascism and communism were in ascendancy. Huizinga can be viewed as belonging to the tradition of the Dutch humanist Erasmus and the idea of the serio ludere and in the German humanist tradition of a figure like Friedrich Schiller who once said: “Man only plays when he is in the fullest sense of the word a human being, and he is only fully a human being when he plays.” (Schiller 1943, XX, 359/ Schiller 1993, 131) One might say that his approach is philosophical rather than sociological. Huizinga’s work is a critique of

108

D. Hedley

materialistic-deterministic visions of society which stress the economy or politics sub specie ludi. As a historian, Huizinga stressed an imaginative and anti-positivist view of the past. For Huizinga, play is a fundamental category. He defines it in relation to seriousness, but this relation is complex and even paradoxical, resisting exact analysis. “We might, in a purely formal sense, call all society a game, if we bear in mind that this game is the living principle of all civilization.” (Huizinga 1967, 100–101.) This seems to be a strikingly counterintuitive thesis. Nonetheless, it is based upon a reflection about the pivotal role of play in the emergence of civilisation. Play is older than culture, for culture, however inadequately defined, always presupposes human society, and animals have not waited for man to teach them their playing (Huizinga 1967, 1)

Huizinga insists that his book is about the play element of culture, not in culture. That is to say that “play” is not, for Huizinga, an isolated aspect of human culture, but lies at its source. Play is at the source of culture and yet transcends it. Huizinga does not provide an exhaustive analysis or definition of play. Instead, he highlights certain fundamental characteristics of play. The first of these, freedom, is paramount. From the point of view of a world wholly determined by the operation of blind forces, play would be altogether superfluous. Play only becomes possible, thinkable and understandable when an influx of mind breaks down the absolute determinism of the cosmos (Huizinga 1967, 3).

Secondly, play involves a stepping outside the realm of ordinary reality into a world of make-believe – but one valued in its own right, without being secondary or inferior. In Huizinga’s view, The inferiority of play is continually being offset by the corresponding superiority of its seriousness. Play turns to seriousness and seriousness to play. Play may rise to heights of beauty and sublimity that leave seriousness far beneath (Huizinga 1967, 8).

Play occurs within a peculiar space and time, structured by arbitrary rules (which also serve as limits), and nevertheless inhabits a realm beyond the constraints of necessity or material utility. Thus, play is defined by an area or domain cut off from “ordinary” life spatially and temporally. This creates a magical area, whereby a spoilsport is often considered worse than a cheat. It is an activity which proceeds within certain limits of time and space, in a visible order, according to rules freely accepted, and outside the sphere of necessity or material utility. The play-mood is one of rapture and enthusiasm, and is sacred or festive in accordance with the occasion. A feeling of exaltation and tension accompanies the action, mirth and relaxation follow (Huizinga 1967, 132).

Though often competitive, play is disinterested. Often, there is a lack of profit or immediate benefit to be gained from play. And although play elicits some amount of pleasure, joy, or enthusiasm, it is frequently defined by some sort of tension (thesis and antithesis, serious vs childish). Play is often creative and imaginative, but not always, and replicates, imitates or satirises some aspect of “ordinary” life.

8  The Seriousness of Play

109

Huizinga distinguishes between childlike play (paideia) and contest (agon). Some languages reflect this difference, while others do not. Huizinga sees a deep link between play and the agonistic principle, which he sees at the basis of phenomena like warfare and politics (cf. Huizinga 1967, 28–45). Huizinga reflects upon paradoxical parallels between the playground, the law court, and the battlefield. The law court is “a sacred spot cut off and hedged in from the ‘ordinary’ world.” (Huizinga 1967, 77) Lawyers and judges take part in a game or contest of wits with the goal of winning. Huizinga dwells, for example, on the wigs worn by judges in British courts as evidence of the play element in the legal proceedings. The wigs are evidently ludicrous in the familiar, quotidian world. However, the apparently ludicrous nature of the wigs is paradoxically an indicator of the special seriousness of the law court. He notes the irony that the supreme age of genius, the seventeenth century, the age of Descartes, Newton, Leibniz and Spinoza “should also be the age of that comical object, the wig!” (Huizinga 1967, 185), whereas the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution reinforced democratising trends, including the end of the wig. Huizinga uses chess as another example of serious play (Huizinga 1967, 6). Chess is clearly a game lacking utility, and nevertheless, all chess players are characteristically serious. An even better instance is that of music. Music is a serious concern for both listeners and performers, but music is “played.” While the capacity to create music and to appreciate it requires learning and abiding by its “rules,” such as scales and modes, at the same time music is directed to the internal goods of aesthetic joy and acoustic beauty. While much music is blithe and gleeful, it still demands exceptional skill and accomplishment, but Huizinga places a particular emphasis upon music and dance as play. Various scholars have objected to Huizinga’s attempt to explore the play element of culture. A key objection to Huizinga’s account is that of essentialism. Does not “play” become a timeless category that he uses in a Procrustean manner to explain a wide array of cultural phenomena? This generates a sweeping and simplistic account. One response to this critique of Huizinga can be drawn from neuroscience. Huizinga notes that play is shared with other animals. The Estonian-American neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp was able to show that the play impulse belongs to a primitive part of the brain shared by all mammals and many other animals. He coined the term “affective neuroscience” to refer to the tracing of emotional systems in animals (Panksepp 1992, 1998). Panksepp performed a series of experiments on rats and discovered that the play instinct is a deep aspect of the evolutionary process in rats. He removed the outer cortex of the brains of young rats. Notwithstanding the excision of the outer cortex, the rats continued to play. This suggests that the play instinct is a primordial part of the evolutionary process. These results of neurophysiological research suggest that Huizinga’s attempt to place play in a fundamental position in the explanation of culture has a prima facie plausibility. If play is a deeply rooted feature of mammal behaviour, there is evolutionary support for adducing play as an essential part of the human condition. One can go further. Robert Bellah, in his Religion in Human Evolution, sees religion as a product of play. Bellah follows Huizinga when he argues that the concept of play is not just important for understanding child play and adult sports, but higher forms of culture, especially religion. Unlike Schiller, who is primarily concerned with play and

110

D. Hedley

human culture, Bellah is interested in the particular bond between play and religion. Huizinga insists that play is not a distinctively human trait (Huizinga 1967, 1). For Bellah, religion emerges from parental care: the mammalian “play” instinct, “sheltered … from selectionist pressures.” Ritual provides a crucial social adhesive, generating larger social groups key to human development. The origins of Greek drama, of plays, in which the relation between actors and the audience was very intense, is very close to ritual. One might think here of Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy, 1872. (Cf. Bellah 2011).

8.2 The Christian Critique of Play Huizinga is drawing upon a Christian humanistic tradition that stresses play as freedom, as one can find in authors such as Erasmus and the broader Renaissance tradition of the serio ludere “to play seriously.” There is, however, a critical tradition within the Christian West, and Huizinga is conscious of the Christian tradition or reserve towards play or the game. He writes of games and sport: “The Christian ideal left but little room for the organized practice of sport and the cultivation of bodily exercise, except insofar as the latter contributed to gentle education.” (Huizinga 1967, 196) Indeed, there is a strand of radical critique of play within the Christian tradition. Tertullian in De spectaculis, written between 197–202 AD, produces a powerful critique of the circus or the theatre or amphitheatre and their links to pagan rites and idolatry. This is mirrored in the modern period by Pascal’s justly celebrated critique of the balls and hunts and games of the French elites as a form of distraction that reveals the spiritual malaise of the human being. Kierkegaard would regard the play culture extolled by Huizinga as abiding merely on the level of the aesthetic, as opposed to the ethical and the religious. Kierkegaard diagnoses boredom, anxiety, and despair as the major threats to the human psyche. For the aesthete, boredom is the greatest terror (Cf. Kierkegaard 1988a, b). Huizinga, however, is not suggesting that play is an unmitigated good. Indeed, he observes that play can be negative. On occasion, play can degenerate, as in the case of medieval tournaments and jousts: Play, we began by saying, lies outside morals. In itself it is neither good nor bad. But if we have to decide whether an action […] is a serious duty or is licit as play, our moral conscience will at once provide the touchstone (Huizinga 1967, 213).

8.3 The Platonic Dimension of Play We continue to speak of Literature, incorrigible Neo-Platonists as we all are, as an essentialism, and of literary culture as a group and élite culture behind and above general civilisation. (Huizinga as cited in Otterspeer 2010, 72).

The references to Plato in Huizinga’s Homo Ludens are varied, frequent, and always illuminating. His intellectual kinship with Plato is evident. Huizinga liked to compare

8  The Seriousness of Play

111

and contrast Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle’s account of mimesis was significant for him, but Huizinga stressed that mimesis had a much broader meaning than “representation,” indeed imitation was pointing beyond nature to God. Plato turned matters around: it was not man but God who was the artist, and He played His game with the people…Man was God’s plaything. Even Luther said that all creatures were masks of a hidden God, for whom the world is a theatre. (Otterspeer 2010, 71)

Huizinga is also sensitive, in this respect, to the broader Platonic tradition. He notes that Renaissance drama compared culture to play. “Drama,” he writes, in a glittering succession of figures ranging from Shakespeare to Calderon to Racine, then dominated the West. It was the fashion to liken the world to a stage on which every man plays his part. Does this mean that the play-element in civilisation was openly acknowledged? Not at all. On closer examination this fashionable comparison of life to a stage proves to be little more than an echo of the Neo-Platonism that was then in vogue, with a markedly moralistic accent. It was a variation on the ancient theme of the vanity of all things (Huizinga 1967, 5).

There is a tradition deriving from the Platonic doctrine in the Timaeus of the creative divine principle as the being without envy and creation as an act of generous giving (Tim. 29d7–30a2). This Platonic sense of the goodness of God finds vivid expression in the work of Meister Eckhart: Now all things are alike in God and are God himself. Here in this sameness God finds it so pleasant that he lets his nature and his being flow in this sameness in himself. It is just as enjoyable for him as when someone lets a horse run loose on a meadow that is completely level and smooth. Such is the horse’s nature that it pours itself out with all its might in jumping about the meadow. So, too, does God find delights and satisfaction where he finds the sameness. He finds it a joy to pour his nature and his being completely into the sameness, for he is this sameness himself. (Eckhart 1986, 269)

8.4 The Glass Bead Game Hermann Hesse drew upon his own deep theological inheritance, especially the Swabian Pietism of his native region and the inheritance of parents both maternal and paternal – a missionary family. His grandparents and parents had worked as missionaries in India, and Hesse had a fascination for Hindu and Buddhist thought. His mother was born in India and Hesse was sent to Maulbronn, the elite Swabian seminary where Kepler and Hölderlin had studied. Hesse’s short stay at Maulbronn was personally disastrous, but it left a lasting impression on the writer and became a paradigm for an intellectual community in the novels of his maturity, especially in The Glass Bead Game. Hesse travelled to Asia in 1911, albeit largely Indonesia and only peripherally in India. His novels Journey to the East, 1932, and Siddhartha, published in 1922, were the fruit of his fascination for India. Hermann Hesse’s final novel, The Glass Bead Game of 1943, might be seen as a critique of an elevated sense of the play-spirit. It is an allegorical novel, constructed as

112

D. Hedley

a fictional biography of the master of the Game or Magister Ludi Josef Knecht, and set in Castalia, or the “Pedagogic Province,”2 a place devoted to the cultivation of human knowledge (the name Castalia refers to the nymph of the prophetic springs of Delphi). The Game is fundamental to the form of life in Castalia. The game is played in public at the annual festival with great ritual care. The “Magister Ludi,” the Master of the Game in these ceremonial Games, is compared to a high priest. (Hesse 1990, 43) The novel is a fictional biography, set in an imagined future Europe, whereby the province of Castalia is dedicated to the “life of the mind.” There, an elite scholarly order has been established to maintain mankind’s intellectual heritage, from mathematics and music to philology and art, and plays the enigmatic Glass Bead Game. Joseph Knecht is scouted by one of the Order’s Masters on a school visit. Hesse’s novels usually contain two characters representing distinct types, usually the extrovert and the introvert, the worldly and the otherworldly. In this case, Plinio Designori, a “hospitant”– a brilliant aristocratic boy sent to the elite school – represents the former. Plinio develops a cynical attitude towards the Glass Bead Game as a form of escapism as a “sheer irresponsible playing around with an alphabet.” Knecht, by contrast, embodying the latter, is a staunch defender of the Castalia. The discussion with Plinio sows the seed of doubt about the Glass Bead Game. The theme of renunciation or affirmation of the world is a principal theme of the novel through the relation of Castalia to other provinces. The Glass Bead Game is a profoundly elaborate game whose rules and structure are not defined. The Game is a blend of music, mathematics, and philosophy. There is, moreover, a contemplative dimension to the game, which prevents “the hieroglyphs of the Game… from degenerating into mere empty signs” (Hesse 1990, 39). Hesse is clear that Castalia has a theological dimension: “It represented an elite, symbolic form of seeking for perfection, a sublime alchemy, an approach to that Mind which is beyond all images and multiplicities, is one within itself  – in other words, to God.” (Hesse 1990, 40). Hesse describes Castalia’s development as it emerged in the aftermath of the “Age of the Feuilleton,” a phase of cultural decline. This was an age lacking intellectual depth, a lack compensated for by general cultural conversation and amusement. These served as a form of escapism in a tumultuous setting, and one where the creative phase of the culture was extinguished. Hesse alludes repeatedly to Nicholas of Cusa, especially Cusa’s De Ludo Globi, the Game of the Sphere. The dialogue revolves around a game where each player attempts to throw an odd-shaped ball or globe in a straight line. The game is an image of the paradoxes of conjectural or symbolic theology and a metaphor for life, thought, and contemplation. The magister ludi is a term for a teacher in Latin, and Knecht is a teacher. The word “ludus” could refer to a school, game, or sport. The gladiatorial contests were “ludi.” The name Knecht is deeply suggestive. It means servant or slave or labourer. It may even possess connotations of the Master/Slave (Herr/Knecht) dialectic of Hegel. Knecht

 The expression “Pädagogische Provinz” is derived from Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister and was subsequently used in German literature. 2

8  The Seriousness of Play

113

is both a master and a servant. Indeed, the Christian dimension of the term, i.e., the Christ-like aspect of the suffering servant, may well be deliberate in Hesse. Whereas Huizinga stresses the fertility of play, Hesse presents the erudite game played in Castalia as bereft of creativity. The protagonist Joseph Knecht is the magister ludi. Nevertheless, the bond between play and education, purpose and pointlessness, delight and instruction is a central theme of the novel. Hesse’s earlier novel, the historical “tale” of Narcissus and Goldmund, provides a significant backdrop to The Glass Bead Game. The contrast of the Apollonian and the Dionysian is expressed in the opposition of the ordered life of the monk Narcissus and the Dionysian artist Goldmund. These are portrayed as two young men in medieval Germany who encounter each other in a monastery called Mariabronn (a pun on Maulbronn, the seminary that Hesse himself attended). Narcissus is the older man, a scholastic and mystic, and he has a mentoring role towards the sensual and artistic Goldmund. Indeed, Narcissus recommends that Goldmund withdraw from the monastery and pursue his artistic vocation. Goldmund undertakes a roving existence, encountering various erotic experiences and becoming an artist and a sculptor. He also encounters much suffering, especially through the Plague. Eventually, Goldmund returns to the monastery and renews his friendship with Narcissus, now the Abbot of the Mariabronn. Narcissus is a prototype of the figure of Knecht, just as Goldmund bears a resemblance to Plinio. At one point in the novel, Goldmund says of art: It was the overcoming of the transitory. I saw that something remained of the fools’ play, the death dance of human life, something lasting: works of art. They too will probably perish some day: they’ll burn or crumble or be destroyed. Still, they outlast many human lives; they form a silent empire of images and relics beyond the fleeting moment. To work at that seems good and comforting to me, because it almost succeeds in making the transitory eternal (Hesse 1968, 268–269).

Goldmund pursues this theme of the ephemeral and transitory nature of life compared with the abiding quality of art when he speaks of “the ‘fools’ play, the death dance of human life,” where he is broaching the theme of life as play, albeit a macabre version. In the novel, Goldmund is ensnared in sordid and violent existence. He kills a man who was attempting to rape his young companion, Lene. While Goldmund saves Lene, she dies from the plague. He has an affair with the mistress of a nobleman and is condemned to death. Goldmund is saved by Narcissus and proceeds to produce two major works of art, one is a creation and gospel depiction and the other is a statue of Mary. Narcissus replies: You spoke of ‘basic images’, of images that exist nowhere except in the creative mind, but which can be realized and made visible in matter. Long before a figure becomes visible and gains reality, it exists as an image in the artist’s soul. This image then, this ‘basic image’, is exactly what the old philosophers call an ‘idea’… (Hesse 1968, 269).

Narcissus continues: Well, now that you have pledged yourself to ideas and to basic images, you are on mind-­ ground, in the world of philosophers and theologians, and you admit that, at the centre of the confused, painful battlefield of life, at the centre of the endless and meaningless death dance of fleshly existence, there exists the creative mind (Hesse 1968, 270).

114

D. Hedley

Notwithstanding the “meaningless death dance of fleshly existence,” the artist can draw upon a vision that transcends temporal existence, like a Platonic Form. This is composed of images that exist in the mind of the artist prior to their realisation in the artwork. There is much of the romantic exaltation of the artwork in Hesse’s novel. The playful artwork serves to offer consolation and stability amidst the transience of life threatened by decay and death. However, in The Glass Bead Game, the status of Castalia as a locus of the spirit is ambiguous. In fact, the protagonist leaves the stronghold of the game and dies almost immediately. Unlike Narcissus and Goldmund, The Glass Bead Game is written from the perspective of the contemplative figure of Knecht who ultimately leaves the citadel dedicated to the Muses, for a mandarin domain of contemplative leisure detached from the brutality of politics and the banality of the journalistic. Hesse, mauled in public for his alleged anti-German sentiment, seems to oscillate between recommending retreat from the domain of the diurnal and then criticising the sterility of the purely intellectual life as presented through the image of the Glass Bead Game.

8.5 The Political Dimension of Homo Ludens The critique of the mandarin culture of the Glass Bead Game that one finds in Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game might be countered by Huizinga’s argument in Homo Ludens. Huizinga evidently believes in play and contest as a civilizing function, and this is linked to what he calls “the imperishable need of man to live in beauty. There is no satisfying this need save in play.” (Huizinga 1967, 63) In another passage, he writes of the play-spirit as tied to a spirit that strives for honour, dignity, superiority and beauty. Magic and mystery, heroic longings, the foreshadowings of music, sculpture and logic all seek form and expression in noble play. (Huizinga 1967, 75)

Huizinga, contrasting this civilising aspect of play with the barbarism that he saw overtaking Europe in the 1930s of the twentieth century, viewed the spirit of communism and fascism as expressing the spiritual exhaustion and apathy of an age of anxiety. He writes: Things have now come to such a pass that the system of international law is no longer acknowledged or observed, as the very basis of culture and civilised living. As soon as one member or more of a community of States virtually denies the binding character of international law and, either in practice or in theory, proclaims the interests and power of its own group – be it nation, party, class, church or whatsoever else – as the sole norm of its political behaviour, not only does the last vestige of the immemorial play-spirit vanish but with it any claim to civilization at all. Society then sinks down to the level of the barbaric, and original violence retakes its ancient rights (Huizinga 1967, 101).

These words are directed at the erosion of the play spirit in the totalitarian regimes of the 1930s, “the spectacle of a society rapidly goose-stepping into helotry.” (Huizinga 1967, 206).

8  The Seriousness of Play

115

His work, In the Shadow of Tomorrow, published in 1935, established Huizinga as one of the most prominent critics of totalitarian Europe. It is easy to forget just how fragile parliamentary democracy was in 1938. The subtitle was “A Diagnosis of the Modern Distemper.” As he remarked in Homo ludens A cant phrase in current German political literature speaks of the change from peace to war as “das Eintreten des Ernstfalles” – roughly, “the serious development of an emergency”. In strictly military parlance, of course, the term is correct. Compared with sham fighting of manoeuvres and drilling and training, real war is undoubtedly what seriousness is to play. But German political theorists mean something more. The term “Ernstfall” avows quite openly that foreign policy has not attained its full degree of seriousness, has not achieved its object or proved its efficiency, until the stage of actual hostilities is reached. The true relation between States is one of war…I know of no sadder or deeper fall from human reason than Schmitt’s barbarous and pathetic delusion about the friend-foe principle (Huizinga 1967, 208–209).

This is a visceral critique of Carl Schmitt’s neo-Hobbesian concept of the Ernstfall, which envisages politics as the strife between friend and foe. Huizinga views this viewpoint as the foundation of the murderous doctrine that man’s nature is essentially predatory, and that conquest is the justification of the state. Huizinga wrote before the publication of Homo Ludens: It would seem more logical to replace the friend-foe opposition with that of the weak-­ strong, for friend means nothing in this opposition and foe simply means opponent. In the long run, however, there can be no permanent equality of opposing forces in any conflict. Thus it appears that this thesis implies the unqualified recognition of the principle: Might is Right. (Huizinga 1964, 121–122)

Huizinga was arrested by the Germans in 1942, and after some months in a prison camp, he was placed under house arrest until his death in the early phase of 1945.

8.6 Pieper on Leisure Johann Huizinga was descended from Baptist pastors. As a cultural historian, he stressed the religious dimension of play, especially ritual, which he sees as the “primordial ground of play.” Life, for Huizinga, is ritual, and ritual is play. The religious aspect of play is ubiquitous for Huizinga: the identification of play and the sacred. Huizinga was particularly fascinated by what he called the “play-festival-rite complex.” He writes: All true ritual is sung, danced and played. We moderns have lost the sense for ritual and sacred play. Our civilisation is worn with age and too sophisticated. But nothing helps us to regain that sense so much as musical sensibility. In feeling music we feel ritual. In the enjoyment of music, whether it is meant to express religious ideas or not, the perception of the beautiful and the sensation of holiness merge, and the distinction between play and seriousness is whelmed in that fusion (Huizinga 1967, 158–159).

116

D. Hedley

Josef Pieper, I wish to suggest, is a kindred spirit to Huizinga. Pieper published Muße und Kult (München: Kösel-Verlag) in 1948, 10  years after the publication of Homo Ludens. The book was translated as Leisure: The Basis of Culture. The English title of the book is a paraphrase rather than a translation. The German words are both loan words with a clear provenance in Greek and Latin. The antique meanings of these words are of direct relevance for the argument of the book. The word “leisure” in English has neutral associations: leisure refers to the realm of not working that can stretch from indolence to spirited cultivation of the arts. The “leisured classes” are those groups who are absolved from toil by their wealth. The German Muße is derived from the Greek Μοῦσα. It means leisure, and even idleness, but has connotations of a more positive state, and of the inspiration of the Divine, the Muse in English. Kult is borrowed from the Latin cultus. The word cultus denotes a system of worship and devotion, and the German derivative, Kult, preserves this emphatic religious dimension. It is easy to overlook the astonishing phenomenon of a book about the centrality of contemplation after the devastation of Germany in the wake of the Second World War. It is a critique of the idolatry of work prior to the great achievement of the Wirtschaftswunder of the 1950s and 1960s in Western Germany. The original German title makes rather more sense. In opposition to the desecration of life by fascism and communism, Pieper defends the humanities as the affirmation of the created order and links this to the justified longing for a principle of transcendent order. Pieper’s book, Leisure: The Basis of Culture, is an apology for play in this broader sense. Far from celebrating sloth or acedia, leisure in this sense (Muße) affirms “man’s happy and cheerful affirmation of his own being, his acquiescence in the world and in God—which is to say, love.” (Pieper 2009, 45) [i]t is, in the first place, an attitude of mind, a condition of the soul, and as such utterly contrary to the ideal of “worker” […]: work as activity, as toil, and as social function…. [L]eisure implies […] an attitude of non-activity, of inward calm, of silence; it means not being “busy,” but letting things happen. Leisure is a form of silence, of that silence which is the prerequisite of the apprehension of reality… (Pieper 2009, 46).

Muße, translated as leisure, is the non-instrumental avowal of life, the appreciation of life as a gift, the gratitude for this gift, rather than doing as such. This “condition of the soul,” as a “cheerful affirmation” of life and “inward calm” is linked by Pieper to contemplation. It has obvious links to σχολή, “skholê,” from which we derive the word “school.” Aristotle writes that we work in order to have leisure: ἀσχολούμεθα γὰρ ἵνα σχολάζωμεν (Ethics X 71177b5). Cicero’s depiction in De Oratore I.1 of the retirement of the successful man as otium cum dignitate is related to this antique conception of a dignified leisure in contrast to the forced labour of the slave. This is certainly not leisure as idleness but contemplation and devotion (in the etymological sense). Pieper is attacking an idolatry of work as the obsession with productivity, whether in the Weberian sense of the Protestant work ethic or the glorification of work for the benefit of the State in twentieth-century totalitarianism. He is contrasting such idolatries of work with the broadly Catholic vision of the feast and the festival as a profound affirmation of the human as participating in the divine:

8  The Seriousness of Play

117

The festival is the origin of leisure, and [its] inward and ever-present meaning…in celebrating, in holding festivals upon occasion, man experiences the world in an aspect other than the everyday one (Pieper 2009, 49).

If Muße or leisure is the position of a positive attitude toward the world, the festival is an expression of the joy emerging therefrom. It provides the foundation for fulfilled work. Work derives its significance from the sense of intrinsic value in the world. The Feast is not “everyday life” but affirms the meaning of life: “if real leisure is deprived of the support of genuine feast days and holy-days, work itself becomes inhuman” (Pieper 2009, 69). Celebration, for Pieper, culminates in worship. Human beings celebrate various goods, but the liturgy of worship is the celebration of the Divine creation: “The most festive festival it is possible to celebrate is divine worship,” since “we cannot conceive a more intense affirmation of the world than […] praise of the Creator of this world.” (Pieper 2009, 65). If leisure embodies the attitude of acceptance of the world, liturgy is the assertion of transcendence, the expression of gratitude and joy: it is the thanksgiving for the world in relation to the supreme reality beyond it. Muße in German, unlike the English word “leisure,” has associations with inspiration and the Muses, those Greek goddesses who administered the arts. In worship, the proper attitude for Pieper is participation, as well as praise. In the liturgy, one participates in the Divine life, and this renews one’s vocation and infuses the profane life of toil and sustenance with something more than survival. Life itself becomes meaningful as the human being humbly offers up gifts in return for the gift of creation: “the liturgy knows only feast days, even working days being feria,” since every moment in a “liturgical life” is one of affirmation and celebration (Pieper 2009, 73). In the liturgical calendar, time is ordered by the feast, the realm of being is viewed in terms of eternity rather than the fleeting and the temporal.

8.7 Conclusion Johann Huizinga writes in the tradition of Erasmus and the Renaissance Humanists of serio ludere, of serious play. In Dante’s Divine Comedy or Shakespeare’s fool, we find playful engagement with sacred themes. Huizinga stresses the paradoxical nature of play as grounded in the animal nature of humans and yet sees the highest forms of culture as possessing a play element. Whether as law or war, as art, philosophy, poetry or music, culture manifests play. He also emphasises the civilising aspect of play. Play is not, as it were, merely a residual aspect of deep evolutionary processes; it is a key to the most elevated aspects of human experience. We said at the beginning that play was anterior to culture; in a certain sense, it is also superior to it or at least detached from it. In play, we may move below the level of the serious, as the child does; but we can also move above it – into the realm of the beautiful and the sacred (Huizinga 1967, 38). Hesse’s philosophical novel The Glass Bead Game can be seen, we have argued, as a presentation of the ambivalent dimension of the play aspect of culture in its mandarin form. Pieper’s book Leisure: The Basis of Culture, by way of contrast, is a resolute

118

D. Hedley

affirmation of play as contemplative enjoyment of the world. There is a Puritan strand in Anglo-American culture that is suspicious of leisure. This can be compounded by the grievance culture of those modern Jacobins who challenge the artes liberales as the product of social oppression and unjustifiable privilege. The works of Huizinga, Hesse, and Pieper, emerging from the anguish of the rise of totalitarianism and the agonies and hardship of war and post-war reconstruction, continue to instruct and delight on the lasting importance of play and leisure for the cultivation of human individuals and for humanity as a whole.

References Bellah, Robert N. 2011. Religion in Human Evolution. Cambridge: Harvard University. Meister Eckhart. 1986. Meister Eckhart, Teacher and Preacher. Edited by Bernard McGinn, with the collaboration of Frank Tobin and Elvira Borgstadt. Preface by Kenneth Northcott. Mahwah: Paulist Press. Hesse, Hermann. 1968. Narcissus and Goldmund. Trans. Ursule Molinaro. New York: Bantam Books, Inc. ———. 1990. The Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi). Trans. Richard and Clara Winston. New York: H. Holt. Huizinga, Johan. 1964. In the Shadow of Tomorrow. New York: W.W. Norton. ———. 1967. Homo Ludens. A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Boston: Beacon Press. Kierkegaard, Søren. 1988a. Kierkegaard’s Writings III, Part I: Either/or. Part I. Edited and translated by Howard and Edna Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 1988b. Kierkegaard’s Writings IV, Part II: Either/or. Part II. Edited and translated by Howard and Edna Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Otterspeer, Willem. 2010. Reading Huizinga. Trans. Beverley Jackson. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Panksepp, Jaak. 1992. A critical role for “affective neuroscience” in resolving what is basic about basic emotions. Psychological Review 99 (3): 554–560. ———. 1998. Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions. New York: Oxford University Press. Pieper, Josef. 2009. Leisure: The Basis of Culture. San Francisco: Ignatius Press. Robichaud, Denis J.J. 2018. Plato’s Persona, Renaissance Humanism, and Platonic Traditions. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania. Schiller, Friedrich. 1943. Schillers Werke, Nationalausgabe. Edited by Julius Petersen et al., 43 vols., Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger. ———. 1993. Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man. Trans. Elizabeth M. Wilkinson and L.  A. Willoughby. In Essays, ed. Daniel O.  Dahlstrom and Walter Hinderer. New  York: Continuum. Douglas Hedley is a Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge and Director of the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Platonism. He is Principal Investigator on the AHRC grant The Cambridge Platonists at the Origins of Enlightenment: Texts, Debates, and Reception (1650–1730). He was a Directeur d'études invité at the EPHE, Sorbonne (2002); Alan Richardson Fellow, Department of Theology, Durham University (2004); Templeton Fellow, Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Notre Dame (2013–2014). He is  

8  The Seriousness of Play

119

co-chair of the Platonism and Neoplatonism section of the American Academy of Religion, a past Secretary of the British Society for the Philosophy of Religion, and a past President of the European Society for the Philosophy of Religion. He edits, with Lieven Boeve and Wim Drees, the Series “Studies in Philosophical Theology” (Peeters: Leuven). He was the Teape lecturer in Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata, and Hyderabad (December 2006).

Chapter 9 Journey in Music: Journey in Space and Time Vladimir Stoupel1 (*) 1 

Concert Pianist and Conductor, Berlin, Germany [email protected] “Das Wandern ist des Müllers Lust” (Wandering is the miller’s dream) Franz Schubert, “Die schöne Müllerin”

Abstract.  Long before mass tourism, there was travel. Travel was always associated with discoveries. While most people spent their lives in the same place, travelling only in spirit, musicians tended to travel not only for performances or due to the quest for a position but also for the purpose of learning from other musicians, as with Johann Sebastian Bach who in 1705 requested four weeks’ leave for a study trip to study with master organist Dietrich Buxtehude. One hundred years later, the Russian composer Mikhail Glinka undertook numerous journeys to foreign countries, which permitted him to become acquainted with various musical languages and styles. The list of musical works which have to do with travel through space and time is endless. The program presented at the conference was devoted to only a few facets of the repertoire: the longing and decisiveness of the wanderer in Schubert; a retrospective by Schulhoff on the fate of the pianist Otakar Hollmann, who lost his right arm in the First World War; and the tragedy and transfiguration of Shostakovich, who wrote his important Second Piano Sonata while under forced evacuation during the Second World War. Keywords:  Musicians · Travel · Musical styles

The topic of this concert-lecture is a journey in music. Because this is an extremely large field, the concert program is narrowed down to three pieces. One is the very well-­ known Wanderer Fantasy by Franz Schubert. Another, the Suite for the Left Hand by Erwin Schulhoff, is almost unknown. In the second part of the concert, the Second Sonata by Dmitri Shostakovich. This choice was dictated by several ideas. While the topic of the conference is “Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective,” it is difficult for a professional musician to talk about tourism. A musician is rarely a tourist in the strict sense of the word. If he travels somewhere, he does it for professional purposes: to play or listen to a concert, conduct an orchestra, or teach a masterclass. But in a certain sense, we are tourists as well, because at the same time, like other tourists, we enjoy visiting the places we travel to for work. We enjoy looking at the beautiful buildings, going to the museums, and doing the usual things tourists do. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M.-É. Zovko, J. Dillon (eds.), Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36659-8_9

121

122

V. Stoupel

This is how the musician’s journey and tourism come together, though the musician’s journey predates tourism in the usual sense. Long before there was mass tourism, there was travel. Travel was done mainly on foot, sometimes by horse or by boat. Somewhat later also by train – which, by the way, resulted not only in the musical tempos becoming considerably faster but also in numerous pieces dedicated to this fascinating way of travelling, for instance works by Glinka or Honegger. Travel was always associated with discoveries; and curiosity about all things foreign drove people (albeit at the time relatively few) to travel to distant countries, which for today’s circumstances are not far away at all. Most people, to be sure, spent their lives in the same place, if they were not musicians. They travelled in spirit, though, by reading travel accounts or listening to music which told of exotic lands. Already 300 years ago, however, travel was an important part of the professional life of a musician. Not only because of concert performances or the quest for a permanent position but also for the purpose of learning from and hearing other musicians, as Johann Sebastian Bach did in 1705. He asked for four weeks sabbatical for a study trip to visit master organist Dietrich Buxtehude in Lübeck. Four weeks grew to four months, however. Bach’s lords and patrons took offence at his long absence and after his return reproached him his “complicated” chorales, which they feared would “unsettle” the congregation. Similarly, a 100 years later, the Russian composer Mikhail Glinka undertook numerous journeys to foreign countries. His travels afforded him the opportunity to become acquainted with various musical languages and styles, which proved to be extremely influential in his compositional development. The list of musical works which have to do with travel in the broadest sense of the word – through space and time – is endless. For this reason, the program presented at the conference was devoted to only a few facets of the repertoire: the longing and decisiveness of the Wanderer, who strides through space, in Schubert; the retrospective by Schulhoff on the fate of the pianist Otakar Hollmann, injured in the First World War; as well as the tragedy and transfiguration of Shostakovich, who wrote his important Second Piano Sonata while in forced evacuation during the Second World War. The idea of industrial tourism is a fairly new one; whereas the idea of going somewhere in order to learn something, especially about our own personality, as well as about foreign habits, is a very old idea. I think nothing illustrates this better than the Wanderer Fantasy, written by Schubert in 1822 shortly after he abandoned work on his famous Unfinished Symphony, one of his greatest pieces. The Wanderer Fantasy by Schubert is based on his Lied “Der Wanderer,” which he composed in 1816. The German word “Lied” can be translated into English as “song,” but because the word “song” has gained a totally different connotation in recent years, the term Lied is preferable in this context, as a term for this type of classical ­composition setting poetry, in particular Romantic poetry, to music. For his Lied, Schubert uses the poetry of Johann Gottlob Schneider from Lübeck. The entire Wanderer Fantasy, a fantasy in four movements without interruptions between the movements, is based on the original Lied. Each movement begins with a variation of the opening phrase of the Lied, while the original theme of the Lied can be heard in the second movement. The movements transition into each other without a definitive ending, building a cycle of variations, which reflect the wanderer’s attempt to pass through the world, and through different phases of life.

9  Journey in Music: Journey in Space and Time

123

The beginning is extremely powerful and forcefully driven. The English translation “wayfarer” comes closest to expressing the meaning of the German word “Wanderer.” The wayfarer is going away, but why? Why is he driven? What is driving him? What inspires him to get out and to go somewhere else? This is a big question. People have been moving since the dawn of human history, leaving the place they used to inhabit, in order to go somewhere else. They do this for a wide variety of reasons: because of poverty, war, hunger, or because they are in search of happiness. But the hero of Schubert’s Lied, the wanderer, the wayfarer, is looking for something else. He is looking for a country that speaks his language, for someone who speaks his language. I have spent nearly 39  years of my life abroad, after having spent 22  years in the Soviet Union, where I was born. I had the good fortune to leave that country for political reasons. I feel very close to this idea of this Wanderer, this Wayfarer, who always asks the same question: where can I go, where am I going to be understood? (Das Land, das meine Sprache spricht, O Land, wo bist du?) The redundant question of the wayfarer “where can I find happiness and where can I find somebody who speaks my language” doesn’t mean that he is looking for someone who speaks German; he is looking rather for somebody who understands the meaning of what he is saying. He is looking for somebody who would have with him the relationship of souls, in German Seelenverwandtschaft. This is an extremely important point and explains why he is driven from one place to another, without being able to find what he is looking for: “Ich bin ein Fremdling überall” – I am a stranger everywhere. The end of this Lied is stunning and frightening. The wanderer is constantly asking “Where is happiness?” and all of a sudden, a ghost gives him the answer: “There, where you are not, is happiness!” This terrible answer does not indicate a geographical location but alludes rather to the idea of death. “There, where you are not, is happiness!” In the other world, we will find happiness. But interestingly, Schubert remains very optimistic in this piece and the end of the Wanderer Fantasy, despite its tragic content, is ultimately optimistic. The final movement, which is a fugue, is extremely optimistic and even a little bit aggressive. A fugue is a very good way of showing the will to continue and to fight, it bears a lot of energy. It is possible that with this fugue, Schubert expresses his own hope for the happiness that he might finally find somebody who speaks his language and understands what he was talking about. This last movement, the Fugue, is also very demanding, musically, and technically. Schubert himself, running aground at a performance of his own work, reportedly exclaimed that the Devil should play it, it is so difficult and so demanding. This remark recalls another composer of Schubert’s time, Niccolo Paganini who was called the Devil’s violinist to better promote his concerts. Schubert, on the other hand, honestly thought his Wanderer Fantasy was too difficult, questioning even his own ability to play it (cf. Duncan 1905, 165). The next stop on our musical journey is the Suite for the Left Hand, written by the Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff in 1926 and premiered by Otakar Hollmann in 1927 in Belgrade. As an artist, one should always ask oneself about the reasons for playing a particular piece. This is a very important question, requiring the artist to establish a very clear relationship with the composition. This piece by Erwin Schulhoff spoke immediately to me because it bears, in many ways, an enormous musical and historical potential. One

124

V. Stoupel

of the most gifted composers of his generation, Schulhoff was killed in a Nazi concentration camp because he was Jewish. He did everything possible in order to escape, even acquiring Soviet citizenship, but it was all in vain. One of the big stars during the ’20s in Berlin, he was the very first pianist to play a live broadcast on the radio in Berlin. Although many radio recordings were lost in Berlin during WWII, some of them survived, showing us that music can travel not only through space, but also through history, through time. Schulhoff’s Suite for the Left Hand thus also shows us a path through history, a history, which is extremely tragic in one respect, and hopeful in another. The Suite relates to the First World War, which was the beginning of much bigger disasters of the twentieth century. The First World War provoked tragic losses, not only among the population but also among artists. Many musicians were killed, some came back wounded, and some of them without their right arm. One of these became very well known – the Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who asked several composers to write a piano concerto for him. He asked Prokofiev, Ravel, Korngold, and Hindemith, among others, four of the most important composers of his time. The only piano concerto that Wittgenstein finally chose to play was the famous concerto for the left hand by Maurice Ravel which is now an integral part of the musical canon. Prokofiev received a pretty harsh answer from Wittgenstein regarding the work he composed for Wittgenstein. He told Prokofiev that he did not understand his 4th Piano Concerto but would someday play it; he never did so. He later stated that, “Even a concerto Prokofiev has written for me I have not yet played because the inner logic of the work is not clear to me, and of course I can’t play it until it is.” (cf. Reich 2002) Prokofiev’s concerto (number four) eventually found its way into the repertoire of some pianists, but it is very seldom performed. (cf. Brofeldt 2012). The much lesser-known Czech pianist Otakar Hollmann, who also came back with his right arm badly injured, asked Erwin Schulhoff to write a piece for him. The result was the Suite for the Left Hand. This suite is a kind of journey, a journey through the dances and reflections of this time. Some of the harmonies are reminiscent of Czech folk songs. Some are reminiscent of Bartók or Kodály. Schulhoff was also extremely interested in jazz. He wrote jazz suites and studies in the jazz style for piano, although he didn’t use any jazz material in this suite. In his Suite for the Left Hand, however, Schulhoff achieved his aim, which was to make the piano sound like it would be played with both hands. This makes this piece technically extremely demanding, very much like the Wanderer Fantasy. Fortunately, many of Schulhoff’s works are still performed, such as his piano concerto, which I have also played, and many other pieces. His sonata for violin and piano is extremely beautiful and energetic; but this Suite for the Left Hand owns a special place in his opus. If the Suite for the Left Hand is about the First World War, the Second Sonata by Shostakovich is about the Second one. It is an important piece in the long list of works by this composer, written in 1943 in memory of his piano teacher Leonid Nikolayev. The news of Nikolayev’s death reached Shostakovich in the city of Kuybyshev (today Samara) where he was living at this time. Because of the Second World War, he had been evacuated from Moscow to Kuybyshev. Although Shostakovich loved travelling – he travelled the Soviet Union at a very young age and was always eager to encounter

9  Journey in Music: Journey in Space and Time

125

different cultures – this journey was not voluntary. It was forced travel, like the journeys of so many who must take flight due to wars and armed conflict. Shostakovich writes his Second Sonata 10 years after he wrote the 24 Preludes for Piano. For 10 years, he hadn’t composed a single piece for piano, which is why this Sonata is so important. There are several connections between Schubert and Shostakovich regarding this piece. One connection is the use of variations. The Wanderer Fantasy by Schubert is a variation cycle on his Lied, “Der Wanderer”. Shostakovich writes the final movement of his Second Sonata also as a cycle of fifteen variations. Another connection is the polyphonic one. For Shostakovich, polyphony was the summit of free writing and free thinking. The Soviet culture was a system which forced Shostakovich (and everybody else in the Soviet Union) to write music according to the ideas of the communist party, which were constantly changing. Ironically, one could say that the line of the communist party was an extremely straight one if you don’t take the curves into consideration. The artists and the composers had to adapt to the daily changes very quickly, because if not, they would lose either their life or their freedom. It is frightening to see how even in today’s Europe the Polish and Hungarian governments are trying to re-establish this kind of absolute control over the arts. Shostakovich wrote polyphonic works all his life, the 24 Preludes and Fugues being the most significant. He used polyphonic language extensively in his other works because this language is so abstract that even the Communist Party couldn’t accuse him of wrongdoing. Nevertheless, when he wrote his 24 Preludes and Fugues, the party accused him of writing something that people would not understand. This draws a parallel to the famous accusation which was put forward against a certain Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig. The city administration and the church administration of Leipzig accused Bach of writing totally weird preludes, which were confusing the churchgoers. Shostakovich admired Bach. After the Second World War, Shostakovich went to Leipzig as a member of the jury at the Bach Competition. It inspired him so much that, following the Master, he wrote 24 Preludes and Fugues (although Bach himself wrote forty-eight.) Shostakovich used and wrote polyphonic styles, especially in the last movement of this Second Sonata, which is, as I already mentioned, a cycle of fifteen variations, culminating in a Passacaglia. The first movement of the Sonata is also very polyphonic: it is like a two-voice invention recalling, once again, Johann Sebastian Bach. Furthermore, Shostakovich uses some very special composition techniques, especially in the slow movement: the dodecaphonic system he invented himself, without really having studied the Second Viennese School, Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg. These were forbidden in the Soviet Union, so he probably had insufficient access to it. The abstract nature of the slow movement brought Shostakovich a lot of criticism from the authorities. Shostakovich’s Second Sonata illustrates once again a special way to travel in time, dating back to this dark period of his forced exile to Kuybyshev. There is also a legitimate question regarding the relationship between Shostakovich and the Soviet power, which used to be the main focus of endless biographies and books about him: What happens if we try to take the politics out of his music? What is left if we know nothing about Shostakovich as a prisoner of the system who is trying to protest against it in his

126

V. Stoupel

music? What remains in the Second Sonata is very human: la solitude, the fear of death, sadness due to the loss of his teacher, the love, and the hope he expresses through his music. In sum, this sonata is a portrait of this profoundly tragic époque in Shostakovich’s personal and historical journey as a composer. There is one more thing we should not forget: music itself is also a vehicle which enables us to travel through time. It propels us from the present moment into the future and the past, and lets us experience a whole life in a span of a concert. It builds bridges in this manner between the past and the future and remains with us forever, even after the last note has faded away. These three fascinating composers, each in his own way, convey an idea of an entire era. It is up to the audience to dive into the atmosphere of this era and be touched by the music. And it is up to the musicians to accomplish the noble task of guiding the audience on this journey.

References Brofeldt, Hans. 2012. Piano Music for the Left Hand Alone. http://www.left-­hand-­brofeldt.dk. Accessed 23 Apr 2022. Duncan, Edmondstoune. 1905. Schubert. New York: J. M. Dent & Co. Reich, Howard. 2002. Rediscovered score pianist’s last legacy. Chicago Tribune, August 11, 2002. Vladimir Stoupel is an internationally acclaimed pianist and conductor well-known and respected for his insightful interpretations of Russian and French music, as well as composers of the twentieth century. In 2022, he was awarded the French Order of “Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.”  

Chapter 10 Architecture and the Question of Historicity in the Context of Tourism and Culture Nives Delija Trešćec1 (*) 1 

University of Zadar, Zadar, Croatia

Abstract.  The so-called “spatial turn” in the humanities in the twentieth century, and the postmodernist thesis of the primacy of space over time in today’s “epoch of space,” serve here as a point of departure for questions about architecture as an art form and its relation to historicity. With the end of philosophical modernity and its concept of historicity, the era of space gained ascendancy. With reference to the modernist concept of historicity, I address the question of how the ascendancy of space influences the concept of historical temporality, and how this development manifests itself in contemporary architectural theory and practice. By considering historicity in this light, it is possible to understand both the architecture of modernism and its dehistorization. Despite postmodernism’s doubts regarding the meaningfulness of the humanities and the concept of history (temporality) as a model for understanding our experience of human existence and culture, I consider aesthetic questions about architecture as an objectification of the human spirit in historical time. In this way, we can understand innovations and changes and the new experience of space in modernist and contemporary architecture. Finally, I consider the implications of this experience of architectural space for tourism in general and cultural tourism today. Keywords:  Architecture · Historicity · Spatial turn · Era of space · Culture · Tourism

The fact that we, on the one hand, as tourists, visit historical urban areas and their historical and contemporary architectural works as “sights” to be “seen” as if frozen in time, and on the other hand, in the framework of the humanities, analyse and contextualise these works as quasi-permanent objects of study, provides the occasion for the present reflection on architecture as an art form which is in a specific manner significant for tourism. In this paper, I consider modernist architecture insofar as it announces a new vision of space and a global world of “ahistoricity.” I attempt thereby, in the spirit of Hegel’s philosophy, to find out whether modern architecture reflects the contemporary state of the world as characterised by “ahistoricity” and “abstractness.” In other words, my aim is to discover to what extent the spirit of specificity, locality, and

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M.-É. Zovko, J. Dillon (eds.), Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36659-8_10

127

128

N. Delija Trešćec

historicity is absent from our encounter with modernist architecture – and I consider what implications this may have for the modern concept of “cultural tourism.” I believe it is possible, in this regard, to uncover the reasons why the humanities study cultural monuments in the way they do. It will become clear in the course of these reflections that these reasons are partially tied to the nature of tourism and tourism’s interest in architecture – an interest which remains, however, at a pre-reflexive, unscientific level. Architecture, as monumental heritage, reflects the living world of a specific time or period and is a manifestation of its uniqueness, yet it is raised to a level of universal value by our reflection on it. If we apply Hegel’s famous definition of philosophy from the Philosophy of Right (“philosophy is its own time comprehended in thoughts,” Hegel 1991, 21) to the built art form as an expression of human culture, then our study and experience of architecture as an object of cultural tourism might be said to embody a specific historical context as apprehended by our reflection on and contemplation of its monuments. But how does this fit into the philosophical understanding of modernity and post-modernity? When the epoch of modernity as an epoch of time and the historical world came to an end, the era of space set in. The postmodern epoch establishes itself through its prominent authors as an epoch of space which represses history and even temporality and time itself  – something also evidenced in Fredric Jameson’s work The End of Temporality, which begins with the words: After the end of history, what? No further beginnings being foreseen, it can only be the end of something else. But modernism already ended some time ago and with it, presumably, time itself, as it was widely rumored that space was supposed to replace time in the general ontological scheme of things. (Jameson 2003, 695)

In a lecture about the concept of “heterotopia” held by Foucault for a group of architects in 1967, which had a great impact on the theory of architecture and urban planning in the subsequent years (Dehaene and De Cauter 2008, 4), Foucault foresaw that, while history was the great obsession of the nineteenth century, the present epoch would come to be seen mainly as one of space. The nineteenth century found the quintessence of its mythological resources in the second law of thermodynamics. Our own era, on the other hand, seems to be that of space. We are in the age of the simultaneous, of juxtaposition, the near and the far, the side by side and the scattered. A period in which, in my view, the world is putting itself to the test, not so much as a great way of life destined to grow in time but as a net that links points together and creates its own muddle. (Foucault 1997, 350)

Foucault states that space, which looms on the horizon of contemporary preoccupations, theories, and systems, has its own history in the Western world. The medieval “space of localisation” with its hierarchical system of places was from Galileo onwards replaced with “extension.” The contemporary concept of space taken over from the concept of extension can be understood in Foucault’s view, as an “arrangement”: “it is defined by relationships of neighbourhood between points and elements, which can be described formally as series, trees and networks.” (Foucault 1997, 350) In other words, “in our era, space presents itself to us in the form of patterns of ordering.” (Foucault 1997, 351).

10  Architecture and the Question of Historicity in the Context of Tourism…

129

The modern concept of time, particularly historical time, is suppressed by the postmodern paradigm of space when the conviction of the failure of modernity’s ways of thinking emerges and weaknesses of discourse in modernity’s humanities are critically transcended and dismissed. Postmodernism’s dispute with the idea of modernity and the range of phenomena to which it may be applied includes among other things a critique of the ideals of the Enlightenment, in particular humanism and the fundamental principles and values of the nineteenth century, which can be roughly characterised as outcomes of the philosophy of absolute idealism, dialectics, historicism, and idealistically understood humanism. Postmodernism’s thoroughgoing doubt with regard to the traditional epistemological and methodological concept of historicity leads to its rejection of modernity’s conceptualisation of the past. In the preceding, the so-called “spatial turn” in the humanities of the twentieth century and postmodernism’s challenges to the epistemology and ideas of modernity were highlighted here solely for the purpose of drawing attention to questions regarding the modernist understanding of architecture as an artistic and cultural form, as well as the interpretation of modern architecture at the dawn of the epoch of space. If we understand works of architecture as an expression of the “spirit of the times,” that is, in this case, of modern society as marked by rationality, “abstractness,” and “ahistoricity,” then the humanities and the philosophical aesthetics of modernity can still provide a suitable framework for understanding architecture that is, after all, in a substantial way, spatially and temporally situated in the historical world. Despite postmodernist doubts about the purpose of the humanities and the concept of historicity as an orientational model in the understanding of human beings, life, and human culture, it seems to make sense to consider architecture from the perspective of historicity and the aesthetics of modernity. If we take Hegel’s history of art, his theory of the Ideal, and of forms of art as a guide, architecture can be seen as an objectivization of the human spirit in historical time. Although according to Hegel art reached its fullness at a certain point in the past and now no longer constitutes the highest need of the spirit (Hegel 1975, 10–11), it nevertheless continued to evolve and came to express the rationalist spirit of modernity, turning towards modern human beings and their needs as the “new holiness” of the secular world. Once its cultic dimensions were “abolished” (in Hegel’s sense of having been “sublated,” meaning both superseded and at the same time preserved and incorporated into a higher manifestation), art thus at least retains its hermeneutic and interpretative function. In this regard, modernist architecture of the first half of the twentieth century resolutely announces a new understanding and design of space. This new understanding of architectural design is increasingly led by the needs of a global world in which the historical meaning of time is suppressed in favour of a new paradigm of space. In what follows, I consider some of the indicators of modernist architecture’s “liberation” from historicity, in order to see how much of that process is itself fundamentally historical. It seems that human culture and the objectivization of the human spirit cannot in fact step out of historical time, nor can they be adequately understood without the concept of historicity. In the context of this interpretative approach, I attempt to understand why we, as tourists, inhabit and visit historical city centres and historical and contemporary buildings. Does the need to visit and be in a historical building representative of a specific period or era come only from a prosaic need for entertainment,

130

N. Delija Trešćec

rest, superficial education, and feelings of excitement at encountering a famous building? Artistic heritage, which by default includes works of architecture, is systematically restored, conserved, catalogued, and theoretically processed by curators and scholars, as well as by the institutions, agencies, and legal entities entrusted with their protection, preservation, and maintenance. As a branch of art, architectural heritage is of great importance for human beings’ existential experience and their cultural articulation, for their understanding of themselves and the world. Such statements can be considered from the viewpoint of philosophical aesthetics, keeping in mind in particular the Hegelian historical and hermeneutic function of art.

10.1 Architecture Besides architectural theory, whose earliest beginnings are found in The Ten Books on Architecture by Vitruvius and which enjoys periods of great productivity in the Renaissance and again in the twentieth century, one can hardly speak of a rich tradition of philosophy of architecture or of architecture as a significantly represented subject of interest in the history of philosophical thought. Engagement with architecture as an art form and as a phenomenological theme is certainly present in Western philosophy. However, even this emphasis isn’t widely represented in philosophical research, most likely due to the nature of architecture itself, whose purposes and characteristics fall outside the realm of art. In comparison with other art forms, architecture is distinguished specifically by its functionality. Vitruvius articulated three essential stipulations for architectural design: firmitas, utilitas, and venustas (Vitruvii 1912, 13). According to Vitruvius, buildings “must be built with due reference to durability, convenience, and beauty.” (Vitruvius 1914, 17) A successful architectural work needs to include all three elements, only one of which is aesthetic and that is beauty. Here, beauty is determined by proportion, symmetry, and eurythmy. Apart from beauty (venustas), architecture necessarily entails a structural and physical aspect or “durability” (firmitas) and a utilitarian aspect of function or “convenience” (utilitas). Let us assume that, in accordance with the traditional philosophical aesthetics of modernity, beauty is what qualifies architecture as an art form. Uncertainties about the purity and autonomy of architecture as an art form arise, however, from its being determined by function, insofar as functionality, together with structure, is inseparable from the very essence of architecture. Normally, for something to be considered art, it must be divested of function and of all unartistic purposes and goals. Function, however, remains a fundamental purpose of architecture. It is evident that ongoing discussions regarding architecture as an art form stem from such contradictions. In his essay, Functionalism Today, Adorno analyses the functionalist imperative of Adolf Loos. As Leach summarises in his introduction, Adorno was convinced that The purposive and the purpose-free arts […] can never be absolutely separated. They are held in a dialectical relationship. Purpose-free arts often have a social function, while there can be no ‘chemically pure’ purposefulness. Thus functionalism in architecture can never

10  Architecture and the Question of Historicity in the Context of Tourism…

131

be pure functionalism. ‘The absolute rejection of style’, Adorno concludes famously, ‘becomes itself a form of style’. (Leach 1997, 5)

In the history of philosophy, German Classical Idealism, which is often accused of historicism, totalitarianism, and ideologizing, offered the first systematic philosophical and aesthetic interpretations of art and the beautiful, and of art forms which necessarily included architecture as an equal and indispensable part of art as a whole. Vitruvius’ concept of architecture, based on the qualities of durability, utility, and beauty, remained dominant over the course of the following centuries, including during the pre-Kantian period of the eighteenth century. According to Paul Guyer, Kant’s aesthetic presents a sort of turn in the philosophy of architecture and, as such, it significantly affects the aesthetic of the following epoch. This turn is from a primarily Vitruvian conception of architecture based on the principles of utility and beauty “to a cognitivist or expressivist conception of architecture, in which, like other forms of fine art, architecture is thought of as expressing and communicating abstract ideas, not just aiming for beauty and utility.” (Guyer 2011, 7) The crucial thesis in this turn is “Kant’s thesis that all art involves the expression of ‘aesthetic ideas’, that is, the expression of rational ideas in a form that yields inexhaustible material for the play of the imagination.” (Guyer 2011, 7) As Paul Guyer writes: Kant concludes that, in architecture, utility, or in his own terminology ‘objective purposiveness’, is always essential, but that the presentation of aesthetic ideas is also always some part of its beauty. Aesthetic ideas are in turn the expression of ‘rational’ ideas, so Kant’s position might seem to prepare the way for something closest to Hegel’s position, that architecture, like other arts, always aims at the expression of metaphysical ideas, although even with this addition, Kant clearly remains closer to the Vitruvian paradigm than do Schelling, Schopenhauer, or Hegel by ultimately insisting that suitability to intended use is essential to the success of architecture. […] Thus, while himself assuming that architecture must express moral ideas, Kant prepares the way for the different ideas that architecture should express – ideas of its own function (Schelling), ideas of the nature of physical forces and its own construction (Schopenhauer), or metaphysical ideas (Hegel). (Guyer 2011, 17)

In Hegel’s philosophy, art not only has a logical and metaphysical meaning, it also plays an integral role in the dialectic of Absolute Spirit, and articulates itself as such, both as regards its content and its form, in a fundamentally historical manner. Even though for Hegel architecture is the type of art in which it is most difficult for the idea to find adequate expression, architecture is undoubtedly understood in his philosophy as an art form in which Absolute Spirit manifests and realises itself in accordance with the historical moment. The way in which, in Hegel’s case, art expresses an idea can be understood with the help of the notion of the artistic Ideal, which is closely connected with the content of art and its “historical function.” Art, through an Ideal as artistic realisation of an idea in a specific cultural and historical epoch, expresses or mediates the Idea itself as highest truth of the Spirit. Art thus has the historical and hermeneutical function of interpreting the worldview of a historical epoch (cf. Gethmann-Siefert 2010, 34–36). Speaking of Hegel’s aesthetics, Hans Belting states that art was based on historical circumstances and the materials it had access to in order to express a “Weltanschauung”:

132

N. Delija Trešćec

The idea of a history of art as a history of the function of art in human society has been subsequently disparaged as an “aesthetic of content”. And yet, provided that it is severed from its dogmatic mooring in Hegel’s “system”, it remains very much pertinent. (Belting 1987, 9-10)

The idea that “art, as a projection of a Weltanschauung, is inextricable from the history of culture” (Belting 1987, 9) represents another contribution of modernist thought to the philosophy of art which can show that architecture as an art form is cognitively relevant, historically understood, and acknowledged as a hermeneutic organon of historical reality. According to the postmodernist idea of the epoch of space, the world becomes an unhistorical, abstract global world of space, stripped of historical temporality. Prior to this, history in Western culture was understood to have an interpretative and orientational function of preserving and conveying meaning, establishing an identity for and a means of comprehending human beings, their experiences, and culture. Historically conceptualised temporality includes the interrelation of the past, present, and future and enables, in the words of Foucault, a “critical awareness of the present” and an “anticipation of the future or promise of a return.” (Foucault 1970, 367) Criticising such a concept of history, Foucault believes that this is a history which is imagined as a “great cosmic chronology” or as a uniform history in each of its points which would be equal for all beings, all people, and things and would bring them into the same cycle. Precisely such a unity of history was fractured at the beginning of the nineteenth century in the “great upheaval that occurred in the Western episteme” when a dimension of historicity intrinsic to nature was discovered in the form of evolution. It was shown then that strictly human activities contain a dimension of historicity that cannot be explained using conditions shared by humans and things (Foucault 1970, 367). Humans as such no longer have history. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, they appear as “dehistoricized” and “emptied of history.” (Foucault 1970, 369). In the epoch of space, the world is deprived of historical temporality in favour of a concept of uniform space that is mathematically measurable, completely global, and unsusceptible to historical conditions. The world of abstract, ahistorical space is a world without any characteristics to distinguish among places, insofar as places are understood as temporal, i.e., historically determined states. Contemporary forms of global communication and unified systems of providing for human beings’ needs have contributed to a globalisation of space and the temporal synchronicity where a reduced abstract understanding of space is created, which certainly lessens the primacy of place, place-related differentiation, and locality. In sum, the cultural and historical configuration of place as a locus of recollection and cultural memory is eliminated. How can one understand architectural works in a world in which place doesn’t have a historical dimension? Does architecture as art again reflect, in accordance with Hegel’s aesthetics, a general state of the world (der allgemeine Weltzustand) in a historical moment? I believe that in the interpretation of architecture, as well as in the interpretation of other art, the hermeneutic and interpretative nature of art comes to expression. Architecture as an art likewise expresses the historical state of the world, including at the historical moment when the so-called “spatial turn” and primacy of space over time arises. As justification for this point of view, I also take into consideration the thesis that after Kant, architecture has an expressive value. It expresses,

10  Architecture and the Question of Historicity in the Context of Tourism…

133

namely, the state of the world in accordance with Hegel’s notion of the Ideal in art. Indeed, in different epochs, each art form can achieve this goal to a certain extent, both as regards the epochal articulation of content and as regards the limitations of certain art forms with respect to their form and materials. When it comes to the contemporary state of the world, the contemporary theoretical conceptualisation of space reduces space to mere “extension” or even to what Foucault calls “arrangement.” This is a global space purged of meaning, deprived of historicity, measurable only quantitatively and filled only with relations between units that occupy a certain point in space. In keeping with this conceptualisation of space, modernist architecture of the first half of the twentieth century clearly heralds a new vision of space and a world bereft of historical dimension. As such, it reflects the qualities of an epoch marked by confidence in natural sciences, technological advancement, complete rationalisation, and socio-economic liberalism. Modern architecture in its inception, towards the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, first foretells (cf. Viollet-le-Duc 1959; Sullivan 1892), and then, in its ripe post-war form, confirms the concept of dehistorization. Architecture as art – understood from a classic idealistic perspective – has the ability to express an idea that is reflective of the spirit of the time. Interpreting and experiencing such architecture makes it possible to gain specific insights into the historical and cultural state of the world. As such, architecture is understood precisely in a historical sense. Modern architecture in the epoch of abstract geometric space and dehistorization can be understood as an objective expression of an idea using an Ideal as an artistic representation of a corresponding historical worldview. In this case, it is a world of modern rationality and domination of space. In Europe and America, the architecture of the modernist movement emerges with the advent of new materials, engineering solutions, and above all, the need to abandon traditional models of design. It is guided by the basic principles of functionality, utility, abstract and geometric purity, as well as the principle of dehistorization, which manifests itself, for example, in the demand for emancipation from ornament. The architect and architectural theoretician Adolf Loos clearly expresses this in his essay Ornament and Crime (cf. Loos 1971). It can be said that modernist architecture, in the entirety of its historical span, displays characteristics of dehistorization, a fact which is in complete conformity with the vision of a global reality and the ascendancy of the paradigm of space as ahistorical. In architectural practice and its shaping of space, detemporalization and ahistoricity present themselves as new modalities of understanding space. The process of ­dehistorization in the architecture of the twentieth century can be diagnosed, meanwhile, by means of at least two straightforward methods: first, by considering modernist architecture’s understanding of place, and second, by considering its treatment of ornaments.

10.2 Place In the epoch of modernism, the concept of place is understood in keeping with the demand for functionality, geometric purity, and dehistorization. Place gradually loses its historical distinctness and is understood abstractly. Modern buildings, while taking

134

N. Delija Trešćec

into account, on the one hand, the natural configuration of the landscape, and on the other, the socio-economic conditions of the community, increasingly provide an experience of place as a geographical position or a relation among points on a geometric grid defining its location in an urban space. Places become thereby as good as qualitatively the same. In other words, they are not determined by a cultural and historical dimension or identified by their role in the historical and cultural memory of a community. The differences between places in an abstract space are more quantitative in nature than qualitative. Processes of globalisation and cosmopolitan ideas of modern times are reflected meanwhile in the principle of standardisation in architecture and the practice of unified construction in an abstractly understood space. This can be observed in architecture arising from the two modernist movements Bauhaus and Werkbund, which, besides being based on the principles of functionality and rationality, advocated the principle of standardisation through the mass construction of uniform residential blocks. In this vein, Walter Gropius proposed the mass construction of standardised residential blocks for factory workers. In presenting the principles of New Architecture, Gropius particularly emphasised the principles of standardisation, uniformity, and rationalisation. He says, for example: As the basic cellular unit of that larger unit the street, the dwelling-house represents a typical group-organism. The uniformity of the cells whose multiplication by streets forms the still larger unit of the city therefore calls for formal expression […] The unification of architectural components would have the salutary effect of imparting that homogeneous character to our towns which is the distinguishing mark of a superior urban culture. (Gropius 1965, 37)

In global space, architecture is no longer determined by the “aura” of a place because place is abstract, without situatedness in historical time, which has the effect that the same building could exist anywhere in the world. Likewise, modern utilitarian and functional settlements can be built anywhere. Much like Sullivan’s early modernist catchphrase form follows function, modern architecture follows the imperative of functionality, and its products are classified based on the principles of function and utility, which leads to the emergence of functionally classified settlements, and thereby also of abstract, that is, culturally and historically neutral places. This results in the creation of typified residential, worker, commercial, and industrial settlements as a complete negation of the traditional city as it once developed in its historical time. To explain the “urban artefact,” Aldo Rossi developed a special concept of the “locus” that he defined as a “relationship between a certain specific location and the buildings that are in it. It is at once singular and universal.” (Rossi 1982, 103) The locus isn’t determined just by space, but also by time, as well as, “by its topographical dimensions and its form, by its being the seat of a succession of ancient and recent events, by its memory.” (Rossi 1982, 130) In accordance with this, Rossi views the city as “the collective memory of its people, and like memory, it is associated with objects and places. The city is the locus of the collective memory.” (Rossi 1982, 130). The standardisation and unification of architectural construction according to universal principles of geometry and abstract purity, particularly from the middle of the twentieth century, communicates the experience that neither is place determined by

10  Architecture and the Question of Historicity in the Context of Tourism…

135

history nor is architecture essentially determined by a historically conceived place. An indicative example is Le Corbusier’s post-war architecture in the form of the building for shared housing (Unite d’Habitation) or Cité Radieuse, as well as his earlier advocacy of “new urbanism” and city planning. Commenting on Hegel’s concept of “separation” as constitutive for modern society, Joachim Ritter singled out Hegel’s statement that civil industrial society is based only on “human being’s natural relationship which is mediated by need and work.” Hegel recognised that modern society is the “potential society of humanity,” but it is marked by abstractness which is based on its limitation to a system of needs. Such a society becomes the “power of separation and difference” that constitutes itself in the discontinuity with respect to the spiritual world and thus with respect to the “history of descent generally.” This limitation to the “‘abstract’ nature of human beings’ needs” that stands apart from all “historical and moral structures that otherwise encompass it” is the basis of the “abstractness” of society that is at the same time also “the power of separation.” Although for Hegel such a society has great historical and political significance, insofar as it ensures the equality of people, it rests on the assumption of “‘separation’ by which modern society separates from itself historical meaning which cannot be identified with it.” In the expansion of such a civilisation, in which “the same cities, the same forms of work and life, communication, education” are created, “the real societal deprivation of history becomes visible” (Ritter 1974, 25–26). Hegel recognised the future potential and the globalising character of this process of “separation” and homogenisation of modern civilization, which is significantly marked by ahistoricity (cf. Hegel 1991, §247). It is hard to ignore the anticipatory character of Hegel’s position when we observe the historical and political developments of the twentieth century and the global culture of homogeneity and unification. Likewise, it is impossible not to recognise the artistic, i.e., in this case architectural, reflections of the “ahistorical” state of the world, above all with regard to modern architecture’s emphasis on purposefulness, functionality, standardisation, and abstractness. Apart from the abstractness of form in the sense of geometric purism, we can also speak of the abstraction and alienation from situatedness in a historical origin and its “spiritual relations.” With regard to tourism and interest in visiting historical places and buildings, the concept of separation (abstraction from or loss of place and historical determination of place) can help us to understand tourists’ need to visit a historical place. This need has to do in particular with the connection of a place with the cultural and historical memory of a given environment, with its “aura” and its uniqueness, which was above all in the past historically determined. The experience of such a place, whose original life form has in the meantime become extinct, establishes – with the help of imagination and a certain pre-existing knowledge of history – a certain connection to the spiritual world and the culture of the historical community that inhabited it. In this manner, architectural monuments and historical places still evoke the spiritual and moral substantiality of the society of a specific epoch. They preserve the historical connections of the world and the spiritual life of the community which was present there at one time. This experience of the past becomes itself an object of curiosity, and as such comprises one of the main reasons why contemporary consumers of so-called cultural tourism visit historical architecture and cities. In other words, interest in cultural tourism and in

136

N. Delija Trešćec

particular architectural artworks appears to be a reaction to and an attempt to compensate for loss of place and historically determined place. It is significant in this regard that tourism as a civil practice comes into existence during the same cultural epoch of the nineteenth century when disciplines such as history of art and archaeology were gradually being established. The historical understanding of art and cultural heritage, as represented in the humanities, clearly has important implications for the popular, unscientific (touristic) perception of cultural heritage. The only reason tourism’s relationship to cultural heritage isn’t purely one-­ sided is due to the fact that the pioneers of the aforementioned disciplines produced their descriptions and theoretical systematisations based on their insights gained during their travels while visiting historical remains, archaeological findings, and art collections. An early example are Winckelmann’s travels to Italy in the eighteenth century, specifically his visits to the Herculaneum, during which he produced the first serious systematisations of art history. In later centuries, with its marketing strategies, tourism contributes to the popularisation of certain monuments and urban environments and even to the “mythologising” of certain sites.1

10.3 Ornament In his famous essay Ornament and Crime from 1908, architect and architectural theoretician Adolf Loos advocates the radical removal of all ornaments from architecture. Writing about modernism, he also provided an account of global cosmopolitanism, i.e., “the new European cosmopolitan order.” His writings influenced architects of high modernism, such as Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius (Purdy 2006, 41–42). Earlier, Louis Sullivan, one of the most influential American architects, published his essay “Ornament in Architecture” in which, calling upon “the voice of our time,” he assumes “our culture” has advanced so far that imitative and reminiscent art no longer satisfies it because of the desire for spontaneous expression. He advocates a turn to nature and its rhythmic quality, and instead of the previous use of ornaments, he advocates the abstract ornament or an “organic system of ornamentation” (Sullivan 1892, 188–189). The echo of Sullivan’s catchphrase “form ever follows function” (Sullivan 1896, 409) spread through the space of modernism during the entire following century in the works of the most prominent architects of the epoch. Likewise, apart from the principles of functionality and utilitarian deliberations of architecture, the principle of dehistorization, which manifests here in the form of a pure liberation from associative ornament in favour of abstractness, constitutes one of the most remarkable factors determining twentieth-century architecture. In this connection, the concept of purism becomes a postulate par excellence of high modernism, acquiring the status of a worldview and

 Editor’s note: It would be interesting to explore how this process relates to phenomena like the popularization of film locations (Dubrovnik for the Game of Thrones, the island of Vis, Croatia for Mamma Mia, The Beach, Thailand, etc.). 1

10  Architecture and the Question of Historicity in the Context of Tourism…

137

theoretical articulation in Parisian avant-garde circles following the First World War, particularly in the writings of Le Corbusier. The concept of purism in architecture reflects a preoccupation with science, particularly mathematics, which also enabled artists to confirm their position and prove their contribution to a society that highly values science in the process of “becoming modern” (Loach 2018, 207). Purism in architecture, which Le Corbusier carries over from the field of fine arts and painting, emerges thus on the basis of scientific and mathematical interests. The geometric precision and abstract purism of this type of architecture are, in any case, deprived of historical references. Purism, based on a mathematical and scientific paradigm as well as the idea of complete dehistorization in the form of deprivation of ornamentation and any kind of historical or cultural identification, contributes to the new utilitarian, functional, and geometric understanding of place. Places no longer acquire their distinguishing character as rooted in the historical and cultural development of a city and a community that lives in it and whose city is a place of collective memory and historical self-­ understanding. The same buildings and the same settlements can be anywhere. In architectural practice and theory, wherever ornament is removed as a symbolic element of the human world of meaning, and where any reminiscence of tradition and cultural affiliation is removed, historicity itself is removed. Yet however unquestionable the value of modernist architecture’s opposition to imitation and mere reconstruction of historical forms, its eradication from a historical and cultural context in favour of homogeneity, abstractness, and utilitarianism triggers a need to experience even this period of art and architecture within a historical context. From a historical perspective, contemporary culture appears as global, and the imperatives of utilitarianism, homogeneity, and abstractness which govern it as above locality, origin, and historical and spiritual substantiality. The architectural greats of high modernism, such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier, negate ornament and any historical association for the purpose of pure and abstract utilitarian simplicity. Mies van der Rohe sees his “time” as one which is turned towards “secularism.” He justifiably opposes mere repetition and copying of historical forms and states: The whole trend of our time is toward the secular…Despite our greater understanding of life, we shall build no cathedrals. Nor do the brave gestures of the Romantics mean anything to us, for behind them we detect their empty form. Ours is not an age of pathos; we do not respect flights of the spirit as much as we value reason and realism. The demand of our time for realism and functionalism must be met. (Mies van der Rohe 1924, in Johnson 1947, 186)

In the same context in which he quotes St. Augustine that “Beauty is the splendor of Truth,” (Mies van der Rohe 1938, in Johnson 1947, 195) Mies van der Rohe speaks about function being the basis of form and that: The idealistic principle of order, however, with its over-emphasis on the ideal and the formal, satisfies neither our interest in simple reality nor our practical sense. So we shall emphasize the organic principle of order as a means of achieving the successful relationship of the parts to each other and to the whole. (Mies van der Rohe 1938, in Johnson 1947, 194)

138

N. Delija Trešćec

Le Corbusier also rejects ornament and the traditional matrix and keeps and celebrates eurhythmics and geometric perfection. However, eurythmy and geometry have always been, in a Hegelian sense, determinants of form in architecture, which is nicely evidenced, for example, in the Greek temple. But modernist architecture places function and utilitarianism ahead of form. Thus, Mies van der Rohe opposes all formalism and considers form to merely be a result not an aim of action and also believes that “form, by itself, does not exist.” (Mies van der Rohe 1923, in Johnson 1947, 184). Eternal and invariable perfection, expressed here as an organic principle and geometric (rational) model or platonic proportion and eurhythmy, is that which always remains as an invariable structure and is discovered anew. On the other hand, throughout historical epochs ornament and style have been elements to be rejected, changed or articulated to reflect a particular time and the state of the world and its self-­interpretation. In the modernist epoch, style and ornament became geometric, organic, rational, and abstract in accordance with the worldview of modern rationalism and cost-effectiveness and in accordance with the scientific and technological image of the world. Here, the insights of idealistic philosophy and the influence of Hegel’s aesthetics according to which art has a historical and cultural role of interpreting historical reality are made evident once more. Mies van der Rohe said, “Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space” (Mies van der Rohe 1924, in Johnson 1947, 186). He created architecture for a technological society, and buildings needed to clearly reflect the worldview of their times. Hegel’s aesthetics, which in a certain way sum up the results of the aesthetics of classical idealism and give an important tone to the aesthetics of modernity, showed that modern time and what follows is a time of rationality and the abstract nature of human beings’ needs, which constitute a system in discontinuity with historical and spiritual substantiality. In modern times, the humanum becomes a new holiness and the artist’s personal nature becomes evident. After abolishing its cult dimension, architecture expresses the spirit of modern rationality and socio-economic relations and adapts to the needs of the bourgeoisie. In terms of cultural tourism, it should be noted that the interest of visitors isn’t directed only to older, historical architecture and cities, but also to modernist architectural works which already in and of themselves in their epochal role became classics of architectural art. As such, they are considered within the framework of a historical understanding, i.e., their historical and cultural epochal relevance. Additionally, contemporary architectural works and contemporary urban environments are recognised as tourist attractions, particularly as part of more and more popular architectural tourism. A striking example of a contemporary architectural landmark is the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, which is not only provocative for criticism and architectural theory and practice but also attracts millions of tourists from around the world. It is not only a question of the attractiveness of the museum’s holdings and contemporary art exhibits, but the building itself as an architectural work arouses the interest of the professional populace and “regular” visitors. In addition, this architecture in a certain way redefines the classical concept of an art museum and, with its architectural construction, contrasts with a traditional type of art museum building. This, according to many, deconstructivist architectural work, its positioning in a specific urban landscape, and its influence on the socio-economic dynamic of the environment turned a traditionally industrial city into one of the most successful cultural tourism destinations and is known as the Bilbao

10  Architecture and the Question of Historicity in the Context of Tourism…

139

effect. This often criticised “iconic architecture” with all its accompanying effects found itself at the centre of debates about the commercialisation of culture in favour of economic and tourism interests. The ahistorical and therefore abstract understanding of a place is reflected in attempts to capitalise on culture through spectacular iconic architecture that aims to produce socio-economic benefits for a given locale or region. Such strategies of cultural development that are connected with tourism are compatible with the idea of historically neutral places, i.e., abstractly understood places where architecture isn’t conditioned by the historical and cultural context of an environment in the manner of older or indigenous cultural and historical heritage. The idea of ahistoricity mentioned earlier in connection with the question of uniqueness and the historical specificity of a place extends to the question of the uniqueness and the difference of tourist destinations. Regarding this topic, the interesting term “McGuggenheimization” appears in the literature, referring to the “serial reproduction of culture” (Richards and Wilson 2007b, 1), as inspired by the obvious success of the Guggenheim project, a strategy which could be applied to any region or town where this effect is desirable. The interest of tourists in modern and contemporary architecture and built environments can thus also be considered within the framework of a historical understanding. Even though the experience of contemporary architecture is without historical distance, it achieves authenticity as such in its original historical time. One of the attractions of contemporary architecture is precisely the impressiveness of contemporary architectural questioning of form and the specifically contemporary construction, understanding, and articulation of space. The visitor sees and experiences this in the current time of a global culture of ahistoricity as an authentic inhabitant of their own era with an express interest in artistic objectivization of lived spiritual currents. Our task as scholars of the humanities, in our reflection on the relationship of culture and tourism, is to understand art in a historical context, because in its expressive and communicational function it is the language of its era and – according to the Hegelian understanding – an expression of the general state of the world in a particular epoch and its worldview. One doesn’t have to believe in the historicity of reality, cognition, and dialectics as Hegel structured them in his metaphysics; however, I remain convinced of the sustainability of one of the most valuable insights of his idealistic aesthetics, and that is that art, and thereby architecture, has a hermeneutic, interpretative value – one that situates it firmly in a historical context. This is in keeping with the position that art is a representation of the worldview of an epoch, with the help of which one can understand historical changes in the world and in worldviews. When we speak of the Hegelian approach towards tradition, one needs to emphasise that this approach does not a­ dvocate the idea of repetition and reconstruction of a movement or style which has achieved a certain fullness of its creative potential and which now “belongs to the past.” It is a question rather of integrating historical and cultural traditions into our understanding of them. I believe that our need, as tourists, to visit historical cities and historical and contemporary architecture lies precisely in this connection of tradition to the contemporary moment and is indebted to philosophers’, scholars’, artists’, and architects’ efforts at its understanding. With the help of their reflections, we educate ourselves, and in encountering historical buildings and architectural monuments of a specific period, we recognise the power of art to express the spirit and worldview of an epoch. If we observe art through its hermeneutic function, then we see that through artistic achievements, we can understand the historical state of the world of a certain culture.

140

N. Delija Trešćec

References Belting, Hans. 1987. The End of the History of Art? Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dehaene, Michiel and De Cauter, Lieven. 2008. Heterotopia in a postcivil society. In Heterotopia and the City: Public Space in a Postcivil Society, ed. Michiel Dehaene and Lieven De Cauter, 3–9. London: Routledge. Foucault, Michel. 1970. The Order of Things. New York: Random House. ———. 1997. Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias. In Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory, ed. Neil Leach, 350–356. London: Routledge. Gethmann-Siefert, Annemarie. 2010. Interpretation as Cultural Orientation: Remarks on Hegel’s Aesthetics. In Interpretation: Ways of Thinking about the Sciences and the Arts, ed. Peter Machamer and Gereon Wolters, 31–43. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Gropius, Walter. 1965. The New Architecture and the Bauhaus. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Guyer, Paul. 2011. Kant and the Philosophy of Architecture. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 69 (1): 7–19. Hegel, G.  W. F. 1975. Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art. Trans. T.  M. Knox, vol. I, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hegel, G.  W. H. 1991. Elements of the Philosophy of Right. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, ed. Allen W.  Wood, Trans. H.B.  Nisbet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Jameson, Frederic. 2003. The End of Temporality. Critical Inquiry 29 (4): 695–718. Johnson, Philip C. 1947. Mies van der Rohe. New York: The Museum of Modern Art. https:// assets.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_2734_300062055.pdf. Leach, Neil. 1997. Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory. London: Routledge. Loach, Judi. 2018. Architecture, Science and Purity. In Being Modern: The Cultural Impact of Science in the Early Twentieth Century, ed. Robert Bud, Paul Greenhalgh, Frank James, and Morag Shiach, 207–244. London: UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781787353930. Loos, Adolf. 1971. Ornament and Crime. In Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture, ed. Ulrich Conrads and Trans. Michael Bullock, 19–24. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig. 1923. Aphorisms on Architecture and Form. In Johnson, Philip C. 1947. Mies van der Rohe. New York: The Museum of Modern Art. ———. 1924. Architecture and the Times. In Johnson, Philip C. 1947. Mies van der Rohe. New York: The Museum of Modern Art. ———. 1938. Inaugural Address as Director of Architecture at Armour Institute of Technology. In Johnson, Philip C. 1947. Mies van der Rohe. New York: The Museum of Modern Art. Purdy, Daniel. 2006. The Cosmopolitan Geography of Adolf Loos. New German Critique 99: 41–62. Richards, Greg, and Julie Wilson. 2007a. Tourism, Creativity and Development. London: Routledge. ———. 2007b. Tourism Development Trajectories: From Culture to Creativity? In Tourism, Creativity and Development, ed. Greg Richards and Julie Wilson, 1–33. London: Routledge. Ritter, Joachim. 1974. “Die Aufgabe der Geisteswissenschaften in der modernen Gesellschaft.” Subjektivität Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Rossi, Aldo. 1982. The Architecture of the City, Trans. by Diane Ghirardo and Joan Ockman. Cambridge: MIT Press. Sullivan, Louis H. 1892. Ornament in Architecture. The Engineering Magazine (August): 187–190. https://www.readingdesign.org/ornament-­in-­architecture Accessed 27 Sept 2019.

10  Architecture and the Question of Historicity in the Context of Tourism…

141

———. 1896. The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered. Lippincott’s Magazine (April): 403–409. https://archive.org/details/tallofficebuildi00sull/page/n1. Accessed 29 Sept 2019. Viollet-le-Duc, Eugène-Emmanuel. 1959. Discourses on Architecture. Trans. Henry van Brunt. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vitruvii. 1912. De architectura libri decem, ed. F. Krohn. Lipsiae [Leipzig]: B.G. Teubner. Vitruvius. 1914. The Ten Books of Architecture. Trans. Morris Hicky Morgan. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nives Delija Trešćec born in 1974, earned her diploma in Philosophy and History of Art (1999) at the Philosophical Faculty of Zadar, her Master of Arts in Philosophy (2003), and her PhD in Philosophy, with the thesis The Reception of Hegel’s Thesis on the End of Art, at the University of Zagreb, Croatian Studies, Dept. of Philosophy (2009). She is an Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophy, University of Zadar, where she teaches Ontology, Philosophy of Culture, and Philosophy of Mind. Her research interests are philosophy of art, philosophy of culture, Plato, and German Idealism. She is the author of the book Platonova kritika umjetnosti (Plato’s Critique of Art, 2005) and of a number of articles, including “Interpreting Classical Greek Sculpture in the Context of Plato’s Theory of Art and Beauty” (2021), “Mimesis and Visual Arts in Platonic Paideia” (2022), and “The Ideal of Kalokagathia in Greek Culture” (2022).  

Part III

Postmodernist and Phenomenological Aspects of Travel and Tourism

Chapter 11 Overtourism and the End of Hospitality Ching-Lam Janice Law1 (*) and Jean Jaurès2 2 

1  Université Toulouse, Toulouse, France Université Catholique de Louvain, Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

Abstract. Tourism has become one of the world’s largest economic sectors. Overtourism is not a new problem, it has already manifested in anti-tourism demonstrations which have been occurring for some time already in many popular tourist destinations. These phenomena have led me to rethink the possibility of hospitality in reference to Derrida’s analysis of hospitality: the relation between host and guest, between local and tourist; and has led me to explore the solutions for the problem of overtourism. Keywords:  Jacques Derrida · Overtourism · Hospitality · Tourists

Every one of us, living in this twenty-first century globalized world, is affected by tourism. I, as a Hongkonger, can feel it deeply. Hong Kong, where I live, is a tiny city with a population of seven million. It is also one of the world’s most popular destinations, which attracted over 29 million tourists in 2018, something which creates pressure on this already overcrowded city. The tourism industry is one of the major pillars of the economy of Hong Kong, which contributes 12% in 2019 to local GDP (World Travel and Tourism Council 2021a). But the sector relies heavily on tourists from mainland China (over 75% in 2017), popularly known as among the world’s worst tourists. Our everyday life is heavily affected by these tourists, which leads to the growth of anti-­ mainland-­ tourists-sentiments, manifested in protests.1 Nevertheless, Hongkongers themselves are the world’s most well-travelled citizens, having an average of 11.4 trips per person per year. A Hongkonger, on one hand, as a local, suffers a lot from tourism; on the other hand, as a tourist, they may cause others to suffer. This double status raises my concerns about tourism and the overtourism problem. Tourism does not at first appear to us as a problem, i.e., the overtourism problem. Tourism or travel for leisure has evolved from an experience reserved for very few: royalty, the upper classes in the past, into something enjoyed by many nowadays. It’s

 Some may argue these manifestations are the result of the political conflicts between Hong Kong and mainland China. However, it is also the result of cultural and social conflicts. These conflicts appear not because of cultural differences, but rather because of their “uncivilized behaviours” (for example, street defecation), a violation of ideologies or even ethical values. 1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M.-É. Zovko, J. Dillon (eds.), Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36659-8_11

145

146

C. J. Law and J. Jaurès

hard to trace back the birth of tourism. But in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, known as the Age of Enlightenment, tourism became popular among young English elites in the form of the Grand Tour: these young men of privilege spent a few years travelling around Europe in an effort to broaden their horizons and learn foreign languages, culture, geography, etc. We may consider the Grand Tour as the beginning of Modern Tourism. Because of the industrial revolution and the development of the railway system, Cook Travel Agent, the first leisure travel agency, was established in 1841 and the first commercial packaged tour was held in 1855. This event marks the beginning of tourism as a business, and the advent of the tourism industry. The modern evolution of transportation, such as from steamships, like Charlotte Dundas, to diesel ships, from steam aircraft, like the Éole, to jet aircraft, like Airbus A380, has further increased human mobility, sped up the development of tourism, and contributed to a rise of global tourism. Nowadays, tourism has become one of the world’s largest economic sectors, which generates a mighty 10% of the world’s gross domestic product: in 2018, travel and tourism contributed nearly US$8.8 trillion to the global economy (World Travel and Tourism Council 2019). As a result, some countries begin to rely heavily on the tourism industry. For example, in Macau, the contribution of travel and tourism to local GDP was 83.9% in 2019 (World Travel and Tourism Council 2021b). However, tourism is a double-edged sword, which brings us good and also evil: on one hand, it brings economic prosperity and positive social impact, e.g. it creates job opportunities, grows both global and local economies, encourages (traditional) arts and culture, etc.; on the other hand, it also brings the problem of overtourism, which is described by the Collins Dictionary as “the phenomenon of a popular destination or sight being overrun by tourists in an unsustainable way” (2019b) and thus leads to negative social impact e.g. burdening local resources, negative effects on locals’ everyday life due to culture clashes, or it even causes confrontation between tourists and locals, leading to public disorder. As a result of overtourism, the quality of life or experience of local inhabitants in popular tourist destinations has deteriorated unacceptably. Overtourism is not a new problem, having already awakened the phenomenon of “tourism-­phobia.” Thus, anti-tourism demonstrations are becoming ever more frequent in popular destinations, like “Tourist go home” slogans in Barcelona, or the motto “Free Venice” in Venice since the summer of 2017. This has become a global problem – not one related only to big cities. It also occurs in wilderness areas, national parks, small villages, etc. Overtourism is a problem confronted by every one of us who lives in this twenty-first century globalized world. No one can escape it. It is common to encounter claims that overtourism problem occurs due to irresponsible tourism. Irresponsible tourism refers to any tourist’s activity or product (e.g., ride elephant, drink Luwak coffee) that brings serious impacts on the destinations, such as any kind of exploitations and pollutions. If the problem of overtourism is due to irresponsibility, whose lack of responsibility is it, who is to be blamed? From past to present, hospitality has always existed parallel to tourism. The term “hospitality” first appeared in the late fourteenth century and derives from the old French ospitalité (hospitality, hospital) and Latin hospitalitem or hospitalitas (friendliness to guests) and hospes (guest, host). It can be understood as the act of being hospitable from hospitable to individual, family, group, and country. Commercialisation in tourism yields a commercialisation in hospitality. The tourism industry transforms “hospitality” (the act of

11  Overtourism and the End of Hospitality

147

being hospitable) into the hospitality industry. The hospitality industry offers services like accommodation, food and transportation that are essential to the tourists. As a result, hospitality has become more about business and less about ethics. In this paper, I connect the overtourism problem in the context of hospitality, or more precisely, the loss of hospitality, that is, the loss of an ethics of hospitality. The French Philosopher Jacques Derrida devoted himself to the philosophical idea of hospitality very intensively2 in his later work. Hospitality contains an unresolvable paradox and is one of what he calls the “possible-impossible aporias”3 that he aims to reveal through deconstruction. Derrida asserts that the condition of hospitality’s possibility is at the same time the condition of its impossibility. In other words, the concept of hospitality is inconceivable without inhospitality, and the concept of inhospitality is inconceivable without hospitality. He argues that hospitality presupposes borders between the familiar and unfamiliar, and its counterpart – between the foreign and non-­ foreign. Thus, the concept of hospitality is constituted by irresolvable aporias. Derrida’s philosophy of hospitality leads me to rethink what hospitality is and the possibility of hospitality in such an overtourism-plagued world. Hospitality nowadays is no longer a custom, it has become an industry. In order to grasp what hospitality is, it is necessary to trace it back to its cultural roots. Derrida investigates the hospitality customs in the Western Tradition, i.e., the Greco-Roman tradition and the Judeo-Christian tradition. Hospitality in the Greco-Roman tradition is described in The Odyssey, which is the guest-friend relationship, or xenia. According to this social norm, travellers receive hospitality from others in the form shelter, food, and protection. Without such hospitality, travellers would not have been able to continue their long travels from island to island or might have even been captured or killed by native tribes. Travel could be very dangerous in the ancient world. Therefore, such hospitality is what made traveling possible. Such conditions could not have been fulfilled by the travellers themselves, but only by both the travellers and the host. The Greeks and Romans believed that the obligation of providing hospitality was a test from the gods. In Book XIV of The Odyssey, Eumaeus says, “for it is Zeus who sends to us all beggars and strangers; and a gift, however small, means much when given by a man like me…”. In the tradition of the ancient Greeks, Zeus demands magnanimous hospitality from all mortals, including human beings. The host could in no way know whether the visitor is Zeus or not, so he was forced to treat every visitor as Zeus. Thus, the hospitality of the Greeks was not solely the result of their goodness, but also the result of their faith, or their fear of the gods. Another example of ancient customs of hospitality can be found in the Judeo-­ Christian tradition, in the visit to Abraham by messengers of God. In Genesis 18:1,1– 16, Abraham greets three strangers, “My Lord, if now I have found favour in Your sight

 cf. Derrida develops the question of hospitality can be found in the following texts: Derrida 1999a, b, c, 2000a, b, 2005, 2002, 2021. 3  Aporia (ᾰ̓πορῐ́ᾱ), was originally a Greek term meaning “a puzzlement occasioned by the raising of philosophical objections without any proffered solutions.” cf. Collins Dictionary. “Aporia.” Accessed Oct 10, 2019a. 2

148

C. J. Law and J. Jaurès

please do not pass Your servant by. Please let me bring you some water; bathe your feet and rest under the tree. And I will bring a piece of bread, that you may refresh yourselves; after that you may go on, since you have visited your servant.” The visit of the three men to Abraham turns out to be a test from God. At the beginning of Genesis 18:1,1, it says that “now the Lord appeared to [Abraham] by the oaks of Mamre” as these three men. Hence, the hospitality of Abraham is not solely the result of his goodness, but also the result of his faith. The visitors are a manifestation of the Lord himself, who was testing Abraham’s piety. Abraham’s pious hospitality toward them is rewarded with the gift of a son, although his wife Sarah is barren. The story of Abraham and the three visitors is further evidence that, in the ancient Mediterranean world hospitality is what made travelling possible. Such hospitality customs can be found also in Asian Traditions. In China, the visitor is encouraged to make himself at home. The host treats him with the utmost respect. The host offers tea to the visitor immediately after his arrival, which is the tea serving etiquette. Throughout these hospitality customs, the object of hospitality is a foreigner, a visitor, not a neighbour. Here, the right of a foreigner to be a guest, to be welcomed is established. Hospitality accepts and reaffirms the roles of the participants: “The host remains the master in the house, the country, the nation, he controls the borders, and when he welcomes the guest(,) he wants to keep the mastery” (Derrida 1999a, 69). These hospitality customs also have a strong ethical dimension: we have a moral obligation to be hospitable. Such customs create the rituals of hospitality, which reflect the right to hospitality and the duty to offer hospitality to the guest, and place terms and conditions on hospitality. Derrida (2000a, 59) concludes, “Hospitality, the reception, the welcome offered, have to be submitted to a basic and limiting jurisdiction”. In accordance with this principle, all hospitality must be limited and conditioned, no unconditional hospitality can be exercised. The guest cannot stay forever, “if a guest stayed longer, he would become a burden to the host, conversely, if the host kept the guest longer, this could be interpreted as hostility” (Vogels 2002, 166). Here, Derrida first illustrates the tension between the rights and duties contingent on conditional and unconditional hospitality. Conditional hospitality in the ancient world appears because there is already the law of hospitality given by the gods in the Greco-­ Roman tradition, and by God in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The law of hospitality calls for an unconditional welcome to others, and brings us the moral obligation to be hospitable. This moral obligation is absolute and unconditional. I do not “ask the other, the newcomer, the guest, to give anything back, or even to identify himself or herself” (Derrida 2000a, 70). I just “open up my home and I give that not only to the foreigner, but to the absolute, unknown, anonymous other, … I give place to them, …I let them come, … I let them arrive, and take place in the place I offer them, without asking of them either reciprocity (entering into a pact) or even their names” (Ibid. 25). This is what Derrida calls unconditional hospitality, which is an unconditional welcome to the other who is a stranger to the host. Derrida makes a special reference to Immanuel Kant’s definition of “Universal Hospitality” (cf. Kant, Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch, AA 8, 357), in which Kant (1912/23) limits the right to hospitality, to a “right of visit” in virtue of an initial common possession of the surface of earth, not to a “right of residence” (Dausner 2018, 54), and claims that the concept of hospitality rests on an aporia, an unresolvable para-

11  Overtourism and the End of Hospitality

149

dox between conditional and unconditional hospitality. Conditional and unconditional hospitality are heterogeneous and irreducible; however, they are inseparable. What does this mean? On one hand, unconditional hospitality is what makes conditional hospitality possible, which Derrida concludes from a comparison of hospitality customs in various traditions  – Greco-Roman tradition and Judeo-Christian tradition. The law of hospitality ordained by the God(s) in some religious translations yields the conditional hospitality practised in those traditions. However, hospitality is dictated by more than just rules or conventional norms, law, and order. It is not just about honouring a social contract or agreement, but leads us back to an immediate, accessible, absolute, and inviolable moral obligation: we are infinitely obliged to be hospitable. In this sense, hospitality is as impossible and unconditional, as if we had nothing to decide, but only to blindly follow the rights and politics of hospitality, blindly follow the rules, norms, law, and regulations instituted by our ancestors like a machine, not a human being. Also, an absolute moral obligation by definition can never really be fulfilled. Only the impossibility of hospitality can open a space for the truly other  – the unknown, anonymous other. Hospitality, in order to be “real” or “true” or “absolute” hospitality, should not discriminate, or create conditions, but it should be open to indiscriminate otherness. Thus, such hospitality involves a risk, “the risk of the other coming and destroying the place, initiating a revolution, stealing everything, or killing everyone” (Derrida 1999a, 71). Not just the guest, the host can be dangerous as well, as there is no guarantee that the other will be thankful or not harm us. Hospitality requires a kind of unconditional infinite trust between the host and the other. Here, the host no longer has autonom, rather he is subject to the rule of the other. No matter who the other is, or when the other arrives, the host is infinitely obliged to be hospitable, to welcome the other. Hospitality, if it existed in this sense, would be hospitality without any hierarchy between the host and the guest. The boundary between the host and the guest is removed. Therefore, we may say that the function of hospitality is to convert strangers into familiars, enemies into friends, outsiders into insiders. Here, we see again the tension between conditional and unconditional hospitality. Unconditional hospitality can be treated as a regulatory, ideal form of hospitality. But an ideal form by definition is abstract, ineffective, utopian, an expression of wishful thinking; in other words, it is impossible. Therefore, all hospitality must be conditioned and conditional. No unconditional hospitality can be realized in practice. On the other hand, unconditional hospitality requires conditional hospitality in order to subvert and transform it into a form of hospitality recognizable to us in practice. Unconditional hospitality is the unconditional welcome of the other; it unconditionally welcomes the infinite possibilities brought by the other, including the risk of danger. The hierarchy between the host and the guest in this sense of hospitality is unclear for a while, but only for a while, as such welcoming is possible if and only if there is the distinction between the host and the guest. Even though today the host is no longer the dominant partner in the relationship between host and guest, and even though the host is no longer autonomous, hospitality by definition accepts and reaffirms the distinction between the host and the guest, and the roles of the participants in their relationship: “The host remains the master in the house, the country, the nation, he controls the borders, and when he welcomes the guest(,) he wants to keep the mastery” (Derrida 1999a, 69). It is impossible for the guest to come to the host’s place as a visitor and stay here

150

C. J. Law and J. Jaurès

forever, it is also impossible for the host to host an infinite number of guests at once; in other words, hospitality as an empirical act must be conditioned, must be limited, conditional, not unconditional. For Derrida, whatever decision we make in relation to the arrival of a stranger, the infinite moral obligation to welcome the other, no matter who he or she is, will always exist and will exceed the apparently justified restrictions and conditions that we place on the other in his or her arrival and stay (Kakoliris 2015, 149). However, in practice, the host must exercise his sovereignty by selecting, filtering, choosing his or her guests, because of the empirical limitation, although it is his obligation to be hospitable. These are conditions which oppose and violate unconditional hospitality, for (absolute) hospitality should be open to indiscriminate otherness. The possession of a home yields the possibility of hospitality in practice  – for example, through the ever more popular modus of AirBnB offerings – but not in an unconditional form, not true or real or absolute hospitality. Derrida has to conclude that unconditional hospitality is impossible, and only conditional hospitality is possible, as every act of hospitality is conditioned by a certain degree of hostility. Take a step backward and we uncover the condition of (conditional) hospitality’s possibility is at the same time the condition of (unconditional) hospitality’s impossibility. If unconditional hospitality is impossible, what does it mean to treat unconditional hospitality as a regulatory ideal form of hospitality? After all, do we actually need a quasi-transcendental concept of unconditional hospitality? Do we rather really need a problematic ideal to guide us (as a host) to host the arrival of someone? How does this problematic ideal of unconditional hospitality motivate hosts and guests to be hospitable toward one another? In this paper, I uncover that our moral obligation to be hospitable stems from the law of hospitality decreed by the God(s) of our ancient tradition. If the ethical value of hospitality rests on a decree from God or the gods, then it cannot be strongly persuasive to us in a world in which for many “God is dead.” Certainly, Derrida doesn’t think that the ethical value of hospitality rests on a law instigated by God or the god(s). Nevertheless, he believes that the ethical ideal of unconditional hospitality still exercises a strong influence over our behaviour as hosts and guests, but that we try to flee from it, and to flee our irreducible responsibility to others. As a result, even conditional hospitality is no longer possible. Through the law of hospitality which was seen as stemming from God or the gods, ancient people recognized their moral obligation to be hospitable, to host foreigners, and trying to fulfil their irreducible responsibility to others. In an empirical world, unconditional hospitality yields conditional hospitality. However, modern human beings do not recognize their moral obligation to be hospitable to others. Although we can still see the ideal of unconditional hospitality represented in the hospitality industry, the act of hosting the guest is no longer part of our duties and responsibilities. Rather it is a paid service. The ethics of hospitality have been lost, hospitality as such has been lost. In the hospitality industry today, the relation between the host and the guest has changed irrevocably. The host is no longer master in his/her house, his/her country, his/her nation. He/she has lost his dominance over the guest. He/ she cannot select and choose what guest to serve. The guest, on the other hand, has lost his/her absolute right to be hosted by the host. He/she has to pay for the service in order to receive hospitality at all. There is also a third person who is not present. This (absen-

11  Overtourism and the End of Hospitality

151

tee) third person, in this relationship is the business owner or the investor, who is ubiquitously involved in the relation between the host and the guest. The mastery is now in the hands of this third person. The host is employed by this third person, and has become the means to make profit for the business owner. In this situation, the ostensible host won’t recognize any moral obligation to be hospitable. Responsibility to the guest is now a matter of good business practice toward a client. In other words, the host as an employee is responsible only to the invisible third person in the host-guest relationship. Since we no longer recognize any moral obligation to be hospitable, and consequently any irreducible responsibility to others, we can easily withhold our hospitality. Hospitality is no longer a custom, but an industry, which contributes to the economy and brings us wealth. The third person in the relationship between host and guest continually encourages foreigners to be the guest, and forces the host to be the host in order for the business owner to make a profit. As a result of the desire for ever greater profits, overtourism problems arise. Hospitality in today’s world is already suffering from a lack of personal responsibility, a lack of trust between the host and the guest – the trust only being built as a result of a business relation. In a world where overtourism is becoming an ever more widespread phenomenon, hospitality is no longer hospitality as such. It is merely a paid service, an industry offering goods and services to the consumer which every traveller will engage with as a customer. It is nonsense to ask for cultivation of customs of hospitality, to wish the host to be unconditionally hospitable toward us. We have irrevocably lost the value and the ethics of hospitality. Thus, the advent of the tourist industry marks the end of hospitality.

References Collins Dictionary. “Aporia.” Accessed 10 Oct 2019a. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/ dictionary/english/aporia ———. “Overtourism.” Accessed 10 Oct 2019b. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/ submission/19794/Overtourism Dausner, René. 2018. Humanity and Hospitality. Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 28: 51–67. Derrida, Jaques. 1999a. Hospitality, Justice and Responsibility: A Dialogue with Jacques Derrida. In Questioning Ethics: Contemporary Debates in Philosophy, ed. Mark Dooley and Richard Kearney, 65–83. London: Routledge. ———. 1999b. Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas. Trans. P.-A. Brault and M. Naas. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ———. 1999c. Autour de Jacques Derrida. Manifeste pour l'hospitalité. [Around Jacques Derrida. Manifesto for hospitality]. ed. M. Seffahi. Paris: Paroles l'Aube. ———. 2000a. Of Hospitality. Trans. R. Bowlby. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ———. 2000b. Hospitality. Angeloki 5 (3): 3–18. ———. 2002. Hospitality. In Acts of Religion, ed. Gil Anidjar, 358–420. New York: Routledge. ———. 2005. The Principle of Hospitality. In Paper Machine, Trans. Rachel Bowlby, 66–69. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ———. 2021. Hospitalité. [Hospitality]. Volume 1. Séminaire [Seminar] (1995–1996), ed. Pascale-Anne Brault & Peggy Kamuf. Paris: Seuil.

152

C. J. Law and J. Jaurès

Kakoliris, Gerasimos. 2015. Jacques Derrida on the Ethics of Hospitality. In The Ethics of Subjectivity, ed. Elvis Imafidon, 144–156. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Kant, Immanuel. 1912/23. Zum ewigen Frieden. In Akademie Ausgabe, Gesammelte Schriften Hrsg.: Bd. 1–22 Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Bd. 23 Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, ab Bd. 24 Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Berlin 1900ff., Bd 8, Abhandlungen nach 1781. Vogels, Walter A. 2002. Hospitality in Biblical Perspective. Liturgical Ministry 11: 161–173. World Travel & Tourism Council. 2019. Travel & Tourism: Economic Impact 2019 World. Accessed 10 Oct 2019. https://www.slovenia.info/uploads/dokumenti/raziskave/raziskave/ world2019.pdf ———. 2021a. Economic Impact Report – Hong Kong 2021. Accessed 30 Mar 2022. https://wttc. org/Research/Economic-­Impact/moduleId/704/itemId/240/controller/DownloadRequest/ action/QuickDownload ———. 2021b. Economic Impact Report – Macau 2021. Accessed 30 Mar 2022. https://wttc.org/ Research/Economic-­Impact/moduleId/704/itemId/241/controller/DownloadRequest/action/ QuickDownload

Chapter 12 Towards a Phenomenology of Dark Tourist Experiences Gregory Morgan Swer1 (*) 1 

University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa [email protected]

Abstract.  Dark Tourism represents the intersection of reflections on mortality with the commodification and consumption of death as a tourist experience. It is a complex and contested concept that has been approached from a variety of theoretical standpoints. In this paper, I suggest that a phenomenological analysis of the experiences of those who engage in dark tourism can provide a means of approaching the subject that can both accommodate the diversity of experiences sought by the dark tourist, and deepen our understanding of the nature and purpose of dark tourism. More specifically, I repurpose Cohen’s (Sociology 13(2):179–201, 1979) typology of tourist experience to suggest a phenomenological typology of dark tourist experiences. Following Cohen, I suggest that we can chart the dark tourist experience as a continuum ranging from a pleasure-seeking experience to a meaning-seeking experience, qualified by authenticity-seeking or alienation-avoiding motivations, and the individual tourist’s proximity to or distance from the “centre” of their worldview. Such an analysis allows us to differentiate between tourists whose motivations are more recreational in nature and those whose motivations are more existential. A phenomenological analysis also enables us to further differentiate amongst the different modes of existential experience sought by the “pure” dark tourist and to consider the conditions of possibility necessary for their realisation. Keywords:  Dark tourism · Phenomenology · Erik Cohen · Transcendence · Alfred Schutz

The term “dark tourism” was coined by Foley and John Lennon (1996) and has come to designate the way in which sites and experiences of death, suffering, and the grotesque have come to be increasingly commercialized and presented as tourist offerings. Academic treatment of this phenomenon has ranged from the analysis of specific dark sites and the investigation of tourist motivations to visit such sites to the categorization of the different types of dark tourism suppliers. This paper aims to facilitate the analysis of dark tourist experiences, and the role of the dark tourist site or object in structuring and facilitating those experiences by using a phenomenological approach. Erik Cohen (1979) put forward a phenomenological framework for analyzing tourist experiences. Though much discussed, Cohen’s © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M.-É. Zovko, J. Dillon (eds.), Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36659-8_12

153

154

G. M. Swer

framework has remained curiously underutilized in tourism analysis. I suggest that Cohen’s phenomenological framework, with only a modicum of adjustment, provides a particularly fecund means of analysing dark tourist experiences. To this end, I shall provide an overview of Cohen’s original phenomenological framework of tourist experiences and the framework’s various modes. I shall then explain how these modes can be used to analyse dark tourist experiences. I will explore the ways in which the dark tourist sites/objects signify within the experience of the dark tourist and will suggest that this signification can be used as a means to demarcate dark tourist experiences from other touristic experiences. Finally, I will analyse the role that transcendence plays within the dark tourist experience and argue that employing a span of transcendence, from little to great, in the analysis of the dark tourism experience can provide a minor supplement to Cohen’s framework that expands its depth of analysis.

12.1 Dark Tourism: An Overview Dark tourism refers to the types of tourism that are connected with the morbid or the macabre, from memorials to the departed to battlefields and sites of death and suffering. The term was coined by Foley and John Lennon (1996), and subsequently expanded upon in their Dark tourism: In the footsteps of death and disaster (2000). In Foley and Lennon’s original formulation the term was intended to draw attention to, and demarcate, certain forms of tourism that deviated from the presumed norm for tourism activities of recreation and relaxation. The focus here was upon the identification of sites and products that were “dark.” Foley and Lennon viewed the tourist interest in death and dying as a symptom of the postmodern condition. Seaton, in contrast, viewed the touristic fascination with death as a long-running feature of Western culture rather than a recent development. Seaton put forward the term “thanatourism” as an alternative to “dark tourism,” and shifted the focus of research from the identification and description of dark tourist sites to the description of tourists whose activities were “wholly, or partly motivated by the desire for actual or symbolic encounters with death” (Seaton 1996, 240). The emphasis here lay with the experiences and the motivations of the dark tourists rather than the features of dark sites. Subsequent research on the supply-side of dark tourism has questioned the possibility of demarcating between “dark” and “light” in a binary manner and have instead reconsidered dark tourist sites as lying along a spectrum from light to dark (Miles 2002; Sharpley 2005; Stone 2006). And research on tourist demand for dark tourist attractions have likewise moved on from the attempt to categorise a specific tourist type, the dark tourist, and now acknowledges that a multiplicity of motivations that can lie behind dark tourist activity (Stone and Sharpley 2008; Hyde and Harman 2011). One consequence of the ongoing refinement and complication of the concept of dark tourism is that it has led to a certain conceptual fuzziness. As Ashworth and Isaac note, “a quality of darkness could be attributed actually or potentially, to some extent, almost everywhere” (2015, 2). As a result, dark tourism is in danger of becoming relatively indistinguishable from other forms of tourism. In the sections below I shall use a modification of Cohen’s phenomenology of tourist experiences as a framework for the analysis of

12  Towards a Phenomenology of Dark Tourist Experiences

155

dark tourist experiences. Such a modification, I argue, can accommodate dark tourist experiences within the spectrum of typical tourist experiences, whilst at the same time allowing us to demarcate the object of dark tourists’ activities from other types of tourist activity.

12.2 Cohen’s Tourist Phenomenology In his (1979) “A Phenomenology of Tourist Experiences,” Cohen argues that, given the diversity of experiences sought by contemporary tourists, the tourist as a specific type does not exist. Drawing on the work of Edward Shils (1975), he suggests instead that the different modes of touristic experience can be understood as occupying positions defined in terms of their relation to a “centre.” This centre is not to be understood in spatial terms as demarcating a geographical region, but in spiritual terms, as the centre of a system of values and beliefs. Cohen puts forward five different modes of tourist experience: recreational, diversionary, experiential, experimental, and existential. Each mode is not intended to be self-contained, but rather mark positions along a spectrum of the tourist experience. The spectrum represents the tourist’s relationship with the social and cultural system in which they are situated. At the near end, we have the modes of experience common to those for whom the centre of their social existence and centre of their spiritual existence overlap to a significant degree. And at the far end of the spectrum, we find the modes common to those with the greatest degree of separation between the centre of their social existence and their spiritual centre. Cohen’s framework represents a synthetic response to the conflicting positions then dominant in tourist theory on the authenticity or inauthenticity of the motivations for tourist activity. On the one hand, the modern tourist, as represented by Boorstin (1964) and Turner and Ash (1975), is characterized as a superficial pleasure-seeker in pursuit of pseudo-experiences. And on the other, represented by Dean MacCannell (1999), the tourist is depicted as an alienated pilgrim in search of existential authenticity.1 Cohen’s experiential framework accommodates both characterizations, with Boorstin’s pleasure-­ seekers lying closest to the end of the experiential spectrum marking those individuals whose spiritual centre lies closest to the centre of their social existence, and MacCannell’s authenticity-seekers lying at the farther end of the spectrum amongst those for whom the spiritual centre of their existence lies at a considerable remove from the centre of their society. Cohen’s main modes of tourism experience are recreational, diversionary, experiential, experimental, and existential. The recreational tourist seeks entertainment and refreshment, rather than deeper meaning. The diversionary tourist, on the other hand, is alienated from their own social or cultural centre and engages in tourism for therapeutic purposes. As with the recreational tourist, an alternative centre of meaning is neither acknowledged nor sought. With the remaining three modes, one finds the opposite state

 It should be noted that the use of the concept of “authenticity” in tourism studies is itself extremely fluid and rather problematic. Cf. Swer 2019. 1

156

G. M. Swer

of affairs. The experiential tourist is aware of their own alienation from the centre and seeks spiritual meaning by experiencing other, more “authentic,” cultures.2 They remain, however, authenticity “voyeurs” in that they observe alternative modes of existence (where presumably the spiritual and social centres align) but do not attempt to join with them in any sustained or spiritually significant manner. The experimental tourist goes a step further and engages with the alternative way of life, but without a firm commitment to its centre. In the experimental mode, one samples from the world’s spiritual “buffet,” hoping to find the one option that speaks to us on a spiritual/existential level. The final mode, that of the existential tourist, is for the one who has made an existential commitment to an ex-centric spiritual centre. Central to Cohen’s experiential framework is the fundamental human need for a spiritual centre, a place “which for the individual symbolizes ultimate meanings” (Cohen 1979, 181). Insofar as one’s spiritual centre coincides with one’s social centre, one does not feel a need to seek a spiritual centre elsewhere, and consequently one tends to engage in tourism for recreational or diversionary purposes. It is those who feel the lack of a spiritual centre, or those whose spiritual centre is ex-centric to their social centre, that engage in tourism for more existential reasons.

12.3 Cohen’s Phenomenological Model Applied to Dark Tourist Experiences I argue that Cohen’s phenomenological framework of tourist experiences can be applied mutatis mutandis to the phenomenological analysis of dark tourist experiences. The merit of Cohen’s approach is that if one interprets tourist experiences at a spiritual level, in terms of the proximity of one’s spiritual centre to one’s social and/or cultural centre, then this allows one to engage dark tourism not as an exception to typical forms of tourism but as an extension of normal phenomenological patterns of the tourist experience. Furthermore, plotting dark tourist experiences along Cohen’s phenomenological framework allows for a more nuanced understanding of dark tourism in that it allows one to differentiate amongst the different modes of the dark tourist experience. The assimilation of dark tourism experiences to a broader phenomenology of tourist experiences allows dark tourism to appear as a less monolithic, and more heterogeneous, phenomenon. Cohen’s phenomenological framework shifts one’s attention to the purposive “in-­ order-­to” of the dark tourist, the intentional project that explains the act of visiting a tourist site (Schutz 1962, 69–72). And by so doing, it allows one to differentiate amongst tourists’ intentional projects in relation to their travel to dark tourism sites by relating

 Cohen associates this mode, and this mode only, of tourist experience with MacCannell’s account of the authenticity-seeking tourist as a pilgrim (Cohen 1979, 188). I suggest that Cohen is imposing an overly restrictive interpretation on MacCannell’s position and will argue that MacCannell’s model of the modern tourist straddles all of Cohen’s modes of the tourist experience. 2

12  Towards a Phenomenology of Dark Tourist Experiences

157

their intentions to intersubjective structures of meaning. More specifically, it relates dark tourist intentions to the location of their spiritual centre. Thus, at one end of the dark tourism framework, we would find those whose intentional encounter with death or the macabre is to be understood in relation to a spiritual centre that coincides with their social centre. And at the other, those whose intentional encounter is to be understood in relation to an ex-centric spiritual centre, whether it be sought or actual. Accordingly, a recreational mode of dark tourist experience would involve an encounter with death or the macabre that was undertaken for entertainment purposes. Such an experience would typically be a secular one, a change of scene for restorative purposes. With this mode, dark tourism is intended to produce enjoyment rather than spiritually significant experiences. It is, as Cohen puts it, based upon a “rational belief in the value of leisure activities” (Cohen 1979, 184) and does not seek an authentic encounter with death or human suffering. Indeed, an excessive level of realism would likely undermine the recreational dark tourist’s enjoyment of the experience. One can imagine that dark tourists desiring this mode of experience might well seek out the sort of dark tourist sites that Stone refers to as “dark fun factories” (2006, 152).3 The diversionary mode of the dark tourist experience would be sought by those alienated from the centre of their society but who do not seek to connect to a new or former centre of meaning. The purpose of dark tourism for such individuals would be to render their alienation tolerable, to provide a temporary respite from the unsatisfying routine of their everyday lives. Visits to dark tourism sites then might well have as their purpose the desire for an encounter with something out of the ordinary, the singular, the horrific. Something which introduces a frisson of excitement, or a feeling of something other than the commonplace or indeed nothing.4 The point again here is that nothing more is sought in this experience than at the simply sensational level. With the experiential mode of dark tourism experience, the desire for experiential authenticity becomes a more central factor in the tourist’s project. The experiential dark tourist is aware that their social centre cannot provide an adequate meaning for human death and suffering and, feeling the lack, searches for that meaning in the experiences of others. The experiential dark tourist, for whatever reason, feels a need for the experience of the deathly, and for that experience to have significance. The urge for the experience is thus connected with the need for a structure of meaning for this aspect of human existence. A dark tourist driven to seek such experiences is unlikely to be satisfied with the ersatz or overly sanitized dark tourist site, or with sites that are focused on  In this section I shall make continuous reference to Philip R. Stone’s (2006) typology of the suppliers of dark tourist products. Stone describes Dark Fun Factories as sites, tours, etc. that have an “entertainment focus and commercial ethic” and a “high degree of tourism infrastructure” (Stone 2006, 152). Though such sites may have a clear connection to the death and the macabre, the tone of the tourist attraction is kept light and playful. As instances of such attractions, one might include the London Dungeons or the Zombie Apocalypse Park in Dubai. 4  The sites preferred by those seeking this mode of experience might well include what Stone (2006) calls Dark Exhibitions. These sites combine a “commemorative, educational and reflective message” with their death-related product. Examples of such sites include museums with a focus on the morbid, such as the Shrunken Heads Room at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford and the Torture Museum in Amsterdam, and attractions like the Body Worlds exhibition. 3

158

G. M. Swer

commerce or entertainment, and will more likely seek the “real deal,” that is to say, the actual sites of death events.5 That said, it is central to the experiential mode that the encounter with the death and suffering of others remains at the observational level. The experiential tourist is not united with those observed in a shared centre of spiritual meaning. Their engagement remains at what Cohen terms an aesthetic level (Cohen 1979, 188). They may experience the death and suffering of others but, due to the vicarious nature of this experience, it does not involve a fundamental reordering of the tourist’s structures of meaning. It is not yet a being-toward-death, the affirmation of one’s own inescapable finitude that Heidegger viewed as necessary for existential authenticity, but it might be viewed as a stage on the way towards one (Heidegger 1962). The experimental mode of the dark tourist experience is characteristic of those who seek to encounter and comprehend death and suffering on an authentic level. Rather than simply observing the death and suffering of others and the structures of meaning that can be applied to them via dark sites, the experimental dark tourist seeks to share those experiences of meaning in the face of finitude. Those who experience dark tourism in an experimental mode are engaged in a project of “trial and error” to establish an authentic relationship towards death (Cohen 1979, 189). They seek a meaning structure for the experience of finitude that “speaks” to them, one that is compatible with their existential needs, but they have not yet committed themselves to one spiritual centre. In contrast, the existential mode of the dark tourist experience is characteristic of the dark tourist who has made just such an existential commitment to a spiritual centre. Whilst the experimental, and to an extent the experiential, dark tourist exhibits an awareness of human finitude and suffering, and the corresponding need to accommodate that awareness within an intersubjective structure of meaning, the existential tourist seeks dark sites in order to encounter the deathly within a specific meaning structure.6 Their commitment to an ex-centric centre of meaning informs their understanding of death and suffering and sustains their encounters with these phenomena upon their return to the centre of their social existence. This account of the relationship between profane daily existence and the sacred as represented by and accessed through the dark tourism site has, as Cohen notes, marked similarities with the traditional conception of religious pilgrimage. The difference between the pilgrim and the tourist, on Cohen’s account, is that with the pilgrim but not with the tourist, the centre sought is given rather than elected (Cohen 1979, 190). This does not entail, however, that the ex-centric spiritual centre selected by the existential dark tourist is necessarily novel. The existential mode of experience would also be characteristic of the individual who has been alienated from a traditional centre of meaning but, through visits to dark tourist sites, seeks  Such sites might include Stone’s Dark Dungeons, “sites and attractions which present bygone penal and justice codes” and typically “occupy sites which were originally non-purposeful for dark tourism” (2006, 154). These sites combine entertainment with education, both rooted in the historical authenticity of the site itself. Examples include Robben Island and the Bodmin Jail Centre. 6  Such sites might include, using Stone’s terminology, Dark Conflict Sites such as Isandlwana and Passchendaele, and Dark Camps of Genocide, such as Auschwitz-Birkenau (Stone 2006, 156–157). 5

12  Towards a Phenomenology of Dark Tourist Experiences

159

to reconnect with that centre. As Cohen puts it, “Such travellers, so to speak, re-elect their traditional centre” (Cohen 1979, 191). It should be noted that, as with Cohen’s original range of experiential modes, the modes of the dark tourist experience described above do not represent fixed types. “Any individual tourist may experience several modes on a single trip” (Cohen 1979, 192).7 Given this possibility of multiple or overlapping modes of experience, Cohen also identifies two qualifications to his modal framework, those of humanists and dualists. Humanists, on Cohen’s account, do not have one specific spiritual centre. They “entertain extremely broad conceptions of ‘their’ culture and are willing to subsume under it everything, or almost everything…” (Cohen 1979, 192). All cultural or spiritual responses to death and suffering are to them but facets of a broader human spirituality and are thus equally valid. And then there are those dark tourists who adhere to more than one spiritual centre, those who are equally drawn to the meaning structures of two different forms of life, and who are capable of experientially partaking in the meaning structures of the one without feeling alienated from the other. The above account is intended to suggest that Cohen’s phenomenological framework can be applied without much difficulty, or conceptual reordering, to dark tourist experiences. There are, however, certain areas where his account might benefit from some conceptual clarification and development in order to provide a more comprehensive grasp on the phenomenology of the dark tourist. And it is to these areas that I turn in the next section.

12.4 The Phenomenological Significance of the Dark Tourist Site A recurrent problem in contemporary analyses of dark tourism concerns the problem of demarcating dark tourism from other forms of tourist activity. Some sites seem to combine both dark and light touristic elements, for instance, and some tourist itineraries take in both dark tourist and mass tourist elements, thus making it hard to determine whether dark tourism was the primary motivation behind the individual tourist’s activity. One of the benefits of using Cohen’s phenomenological framework as a model for the analysis of dark tourist experiences, I argue, is that it can accommodate such variation in the experience of both the individual tourist site and of the overall journey, of which the visit to a particular site forms a part. The tourist’s experience of a dark tourism site can have more than one mode, as can their experience of a touristic journey in its entirety. I also suggest that Cohen’s approach points to a way of addressing the demarcation issue in dark tourism in a way that preserves dark tourism’s peculiarities with regards to more mainstream forms of tourist activities whilst at the same time treating it as an extension of “normal” patterns of tourist experiences rather than as an  This in turn raises opportunities for further research into the divergences between the dark tourist’s intended experience and the experience actually encountered at the dark tourism site. 7

160

G. M. Swer

aberration or exception. By focusing on the issue of tourist intentionality, and the role that tourist activity plays in relation to the individual tourist’s worldview, Cohen places emphasis in his analysis of the tourist experience on the issue of signification. In other words, what does this tour or this tourist site signify to the tourist? What role do they play in relation to the individual tourist’s intersubjective structures of meaning and intentional projects? Cohen’s emphasis on signification draws attention to the extent to which the tourist site is experienced phenomenologically as a sign. This is an aspect of tourism that tends to be overlooked by approaches such as EOR (engineered or orchestrated remembrance) which, by concentrating on the construction of dark tourist sites, neglects tourist intentionality. Seaton (2018) argues that the dark tourist never encounters death, but rather the engineered remembrance of mortality. Consequently, it is to the engineering of the dark tourist site that we should pay heed, not death, because there is nothing to be seen beyond the site itself. Seaton, I suggest, conflates the object of the dark tourist’s journey (the dark tourist site) with its end. As MacCannell noted in his analysis of the function of the tourist object, the tourist site serves primarily as a sign which points beyond itself to the ineffable. Cohen’s framework reminds us that the experiential significance of a tourist site, dark or otherwise, is largely contingent upon that which it signifies. And that, in turn, is contingent upon the intentional terminus of the tourist’s intentional project. For the tourist, the tourist site serves as a point of access to something that is not materially present at the site. As Schutz notes, “it is the meaning of our experiences, and not the ontological structure of the objects, which constitutes reality” (Schutz 1962, 341). In a dark tourism context, Seaton’s claim that the arrangement of the site is the key to understanding the phenomenon of dark tourism due to the fact that we never encounter death is akin to claiming that the pilgrim never encounters God or a spiritual centre on their travels, only people and sites. This in turn is a consequence of Seaton’s assumption that dark tourism is primarily concerned with recollection. If dark tourism is concerned with encountering the dead (rather than death), and if the dead cannot be encountered directly given their location in the past, then all that can be encountered is the memory of the dead. Hence dark tourism is about recollection, and analyses of dark tourism should concern themselves with the ways in which these acts of remembrance are materially organized by the tourism site. Whilst I would not wish to dispute the fact that a significant part of the dark tourist experience might well involve recollection, I do take issue with Seaton’s claim that such recollection constitutes the entirety of the dark tourist experience. If the dark tourist’s encounter with the dark tourism site can be characterized by a desire to encounter death, whether it be their own death or death in a more abstract sense as the terminal point of their culture or life on earth, then the act is fundamentally projective in nature, rather than recollective. In this sense, the dark tourist experience is marked by futurity. A further question that arises from the dark tourist site’s significative function in the dark tourist’s intentional scheme is the way in which it signifies. It has been noted that many tourist sites contain dark elements, and thus the parameters that constitute dark tourism can be drawn so broadly as to exclude very little. The phenomenological analysis of dark tourist sites as signs that play a role in the tourist’s intentional project suggests a way of demarcating dark tourist from non-dark tourist experiences by analysing

12  Towards a Phenomenology of Dark Tourist Experiences

161

the type of sign that the site represents for the dark tourist. In demarcating dark tourist experiences, one should include as dark only those touristic experiences where the site operates in a manner that is either indicative or referential. As a symbol, the dark tourist site has two components; the object or site of the event commemorated, and its pair, “an idea which transcends our experience of everyday life” (Schutz 1962, 331). The key to grasping a symbol lies in experiencing it existentially in its intentional referentiality. For those tourists who experience the site as referential, the site appears to them as a symbolic object of major relevance to which they are oriented. The significance of the dark tourist object/site lies in the way in which it points beyond the everyday world to its pair, which exists in a province of meaning that transcends the everyday world. The nature of the transcendent pair is not directly relevant, it might be an entity, an idea, a person, etc. The point is that for those tourists for whom the dark tourist site operates as a referential symbol, the transcendent pair is death-related. This last point might seem rather obvious. After all, it is the death-­ relatedness of the dark tourism site that makes it a dark tourism site. For example, it is hard to imagine how a dark tourist site featuring gallows could not refer to death or suffering. The point I am trying to make by introducing the notion of the referentiality of the dark tourist site is that the site refers symbolically to death (in some form) in the intentional project of the tourist. The alternative to sites that symbolize referentially are those that signify indicatively. In such a case, the site is likewise paired with a transcendent object, but the relationship is opaque to the tourist. The relationship to death is still present, but the tourist is not oriented towards it as an object of major relevance in their experience. For tourists for whom dark tourist sites signify in an indicative manner, the sites’ connection to death and suffering might be present to them but at a remove. It might, for instance, appear in a purely historical or factual manner, e.g., “people died here,” or even, “people die.” But it appears as a neutral feature of objective existence, something that occurs to other people, as opposed to a necessary part of one’s own existence. The site still refers to death but does so in a peripheral way. The dark tourism site might well refer in the recreational or diversionary modes of dark tourist experience to tourists visiting Stone’s dark fun factories, dark exhibitions, and dark dungeons. Or alternatively, death might be referred to by the site within the tourist’s intentional scheme, but in such an opaque way that the connection is not immediately present in the tourist’s experience. As an example, consider Raine’s category of dark tourist that they term “retreaters,” those who seek out cemeteries because they find them peaceful, a place to escape and recharge (2013, 251). Doubtless if one was to draw such a dark tourist’s attention to the presence of the gravestones, they would recall that the gravestones indicate the dead, etc. However, this referential connection, though indicated, is experienced as of minor relevance. Of course, one can imagine a situation in which a dark tourist site or object changed from indicative to referential in a tourist’s intentional scheme. Schutz describes the possibility of an experience of “shock,” a moment of radical transformation when we jolt from one province of meaning to another (Schutz 1962, 231–232, 343–344). Such an experience might occur when a dark tourist site or object ceases to merely indicate death in the background of our intentional project and moves death to the foreground. The gravestone beside us ceases to be merely an object in our visual field and becomes

162

G. M. Swer

a reference to a person who once existed, etc. Or the dark fun factory suddenly ceases to be a form of macabre amusement and instead engenders an awareness of the inevitability of one’s own demise. One can imagine several such stages of shock as a dark tourist moves through the various modes of dark tourist experience from recreational to existential. Before moving on to the issue of the transcendence experienced in the significative function of the dark tourist site, I suggest in summary that the term “dark tourism” be applied only to those tourists in whose projects the site signifies, either referentially or indicatively, death or suffering.8

12.5 The Phenomenology of Transcendence In the preceding section, I argued that the dark tourism site or object acts as a sign pointing beyond the workaday world to something that transcends it. I would now like to explore in more detail the forms of transcendence present in the touristic experience of dark sites. Following Luckmann (1990), I suggest that the forms of transcendence can be understood as lying on a range from little, to intermediate, to great. I argue that an awareness of the different kinds of transcendence present in such experiences is central to a thorough understanding of the dark tourist experience and that an awareness of their role significantly supplements the use of Cohen’s phenomenological framework for the analysis of dark tourist experiences. Transcendence, in the phenomenological sense in which it is employed here, refers to the ways in which human beings experience the boundaries and limitations of their existence. No perceptual experience is ever entirely enclosed, and we are aware at all times of things, events, etc. that occur in the world beyond the range of our current experience. Our present experience contains elements of the past that directly preceded it and anticipatory elements of the immediate future. As Luckmann puts it, “There is a ‘before’ and ‘after’ and ‘behind’ one’s ongoing actual experience, and there is a ‘before’ and ‘after’ one’s own life. We do not doubt that the world into which we were born existed long before we became aware of its existence, and we do not expect the world to end when our consciousness of it will end” (Luckmann 1990, 128). From consideration of a book that is lying beyond my sight in the next room, to concern with another’s motives, to reflections on the afterlife, human subjective experience is universally permeated by transcendences. On this account, the ways in which a dark tourist site signifies in the experience of the dark tourist are directly connected to the form of transcendence present.

 There are of course other ways in which a dark tourist site or object could signify. One can imagine a situation in which a tree was planted to commemorate a loved one, or a particular stream known from childhood held some significant reference to mortality. These “marks,” as Schutz terms them, would indeed signify but would have no meaning outside the individual’s subjective interpretational scheme (1962, 308–309). In short, they would not serve as signs in an intersubjective context of meaning. 8

12  Towards a Phenomenology of Dark Tourist Experiences

163

The first mode of transcendence concerns the little transcendences of time and space that occur within an individual’s everyday world.9 In this mode, whatever is taken to be transcending that which is concretely given in our direct experience is viewed as being of the same order. In other words, whatever it is that transcends my immediate experience is taken to be something that is or was capable of being experienced in the same way as that which is directly given. The point to stress here is that the transcendent object of experience lies just outside my direct experience, i.e. it operates at a subjective experiential level, rather than an intersubjective one, within the everyday world of meaning. Intermediate transcendences, on the other hand, involve transcendent objects of experience that lie beyond the realm of purely subjective experience and involve engagement with the alterity of other humans. For instance, however well we know another person, there will always remain an irreducible element, an aspect of their personality and inner life that cannot be brought within my grasp, “an inaccessible zone of the Other’s private life” (Schutz 1962, 326). The transcendent in this case concerns objects of human experience that I cannot and could not experience directly, namely the transcendent experiences of others. An important feature that intermediate transcendences share with little transcendences is that both involve transcendent objects that belong to the same everyday reality that we directly experience. It is with great transcendences that the transcendent object of experience cannot and could not be experienced in everyday reality. Here the immanent object points to an object that lies in a separate province of meaning beyond everyday reality. The symbol, in this instance, acts as a bridge between different horizons of meaning. With regards to the analysis of the various modes of the dark tourist experience, the modes of transcendence can be applied as follows. On the one hand, we have “this-­ worldly” transcendences, transcendences of the little or intermediate sort, and on the other, “other-worldly” or “supernatural” transcendences, transcendences of the great sort. The first this-worldly mode concerns what Luckmann terms the “minimal transcendencies of modern solipsism,” dark tourist experiences that occur at a private, subjective level (Luckmann 1990, 135). Those engaged in dark tourism at this level seek an experience within the private sphere, an emotional response or sensational effect that never moves beyond their personal field of meaning. This mode of transcendence is common with recreational or diversionary dark tourists. Intermediate dark tourist transcendences occur at the communal level and involve experiences within a shared horizon of meaning. Intermediate transcendences, like the traditional great transcendences of religion, may well involve “distinct views of a moral order,” that is to say, structures of meaning and “‘ultimate’ significance” (Luckmann 1990, 134–135). However, they remain very much at the level of everyday reality. Such transcendences may involve objects such as “nation (nationalism), social class (social mobility or the classless society), family (‘familism’), other people (‘togetherness’), and the ‘sacralized’ self (‘self-fulfilment’)” (Luckmann 1990, 135). It is with this mode

 “[W]henever anything that transcends that which at the moment is concretely given in actual, direct experience can be itself experienced in the same manner as that which it now transcends, one may speak of the ‘little’, spatial and temporal, transcendences of everyday life” (Luckmann 1990, 129). 9

164

G. M. Swer

of transcendence that we are most likely to encounter Seaton’s commemorative dark tourism, with tourist experiences where the site signifies the dead (i.e. the fact of the death of others). Although it should be noted that insofar as the dead thus signified can also signify a broader, possibly extant, category of humans to whom the tourist may belong or desire to belong to, this commemoration also contains a projective element.10 With great dark tourism transcendences, the dark site refers to something that transcends everyday reality and could not, ordinarily, be directly experienced. It is with this mode of transcendence that the dark site refers to death and human suffering at a more authentic, existential level. It is in this mode that the tourist seeks to encounter death, in the sense of absolute finitude and limitedness as opposed to the dead, and to orient themselves towards the phenomenon in a way that their experience of it is structured and made meaningful. It is this mode of transcendence, I suggest, that is either sought or encountered in the existential mode of the dark tourist experience. It should be noted that, as with Cohen’s modes of the tourist experience, the modes of transcendence have been separated for analytic purposes and, in reality, a dark tourist might experience several concurrently. MacCannell has suggested that all forms of tourism experience involve a communal dimension, and not simply in the sense that all tourist experiences are ordered by shared structures of meaning. For MacCannell, all touristic activity involves a “collective striving for a transcendence of the modern totality, a way of attempting to overcome the discontinuity of modernity” (MacCannell 1999, 13). On MacCannell’s account, regardless of which mode of transcendence one seeks or actually experiences, part of the motivation in visiting a tourist site is that one’s attendance is participatory. Even if my experience of transcendence at Robben Island is little, and yours is grand, we are both bound at the intermediate level by a shared experience of an object that is deemed to be significant. We both transcend our individuality and enter into symbolic communion with those others who have experienced Robben Island. And in so doing, we bring order to our social reality by firstly differentiating ourselves from others (those who have not experienced Robben Island), and secondly establishing a point of experiential convergence with others, on the basis of which a new social grouping may be formed (MacCannell 1999, 26–27). If MacCannell is correct, then intermediate transcendence will be experienced by dark tourists in all of Cohen’s modes of tourist experience and, by extension, all modes of the dark tourist experience.

 Though there is no space to discuss it properly here, the phenomenological analysis of dark tourism in terms of modes of tourist experience offers the possibility of moving beyond Western-­ centric forms of thanatourism and accommodating other cultural forms of dark tourism. For instance, in cultures in which ancestor worship is prevalent, the dead operate as social actors and thus could be accommodated within the intermediate mode of transcendence as contemporaries with whom we share in a communal experience via the dark tourism site (Schutz 1962, 318). 10

12  Towards a Phenomenology of Dark Tourist Experiences

165

12.6 Conclusion This paper explored the phenomenon of dark tourism by investigating the experiences of dark tourists. It argued that these experiences could be productively analysed by employing a phenomenological approach. More specifically, it proposed repurposing Cohen’s (1979) framework for the analysis of tourist experiences in order to investigate dark tourist experiences. It argued that Cohen’s understanding of tourist experiences in terms of adherence to or distance from spiritual centres also applied to dark tourist experiences. It further suggested that such a phenomenological approach could also clarify the ways in which the dark site signifies within the experience of the tourist, and that a consideration of the significatory function of the site pointed to the fundamental role of transcendence within the dark tourist experience. It used a span of modes of transcendence to supplement Cohen’s phenomenological framework. Given the complexity of the dark tourist experience, this paper can only be suggestive rather than definitive, but one hopes that the phenomenological analysis sketched here might serve for a more detailed analysis of the dark tourist experience. Acknowledgments  I am indebted to Jean du Toit of North-West University and Ewa Latecka of the University of Zululand for their comments and suggestions on this paper.

References Ashworth, G.J., and Rami K. Isaac. 2015. Have We Illuminated the Dark? Shifting Perspectives on ‘dark’ tourism. Tourism Recreation Research 40 (3): 316–325. Boorstin, Daniel J. 1964. The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America. New  York: Harper & Row. Cohen, Erik. 1979. A Phenomenology of Tourist Experiences. Sociology 13 (2): 179–201. Foley, Malcolm, and J. John Lennon. 1996. Editorial: Heart of Darkness. International Journal of Heritage Studies 2 (4): 195–197. Heidegger, Martin. 1962. Being and Time. Oxford: Blackwell. Hyde, Kenneth F., and Serhat Harman. 2011. Motives for a Secular Pilgrimage to the Gallipoli Battlefields. Tourism Management 32 (6): 1343–1351. Lennon, J. John, and Malcolm Foley. 2000. Dark Tourism: In the Footsteps of Death and Disaster. London: Cassell. Luckmann, Thomas. 1990. Shrinking Transcendence, Expanding Religion? Sociological Analysis 50 (2): 127–138. MacCannell, Dean. 1999. The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class. Berkeley: University of California Press. Miles, William F.S. 2002. Auschwitz: Museum Interpretation and Darker Tourism. Annals of Tourism Research 29 (4): 1175–1178. Raine, Rachael. 2013. A Dark Tourist Spectrum. International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research 7 (3): 242–256. Schutz, Alfred. 1962. Collected Papers I  – The Problem of Social Reality. London: Martinus Nijhoff.

166

G. M. Swer

Seaton, A.V. 1996. Guided by the Dark: From Thanatopsis to Thanatourism. International Journal of Heritage Studies 2: 234–244. Seaton, Tony. 2018. Encountering Engineered and Orchestrated Remembrance: A Situational Model of Dark Tourism and Its History. In The Palgrave Handbook of Dark Tourism Studies, ed. Philip R. Stone et al., 9–31. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. Sharpley, Richard. 2005. Travels to the Edge of Darkness: Towards a Typology of ‘Dark Tourism’. In Taking Tourism to the Limits: Issues, Concepts and Managerial Perspectives, ed. Chris Ryan, Stephen J. Page, and Michelle Aicken, 187–198. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Shils, Edward. 1975. Center and Periphery. In Center and Periphery: Essays in Macro-sociology, ed. Edward Shils, 3–16. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press. Stone, Philip R. 2006. A Dark Tourism Spectrum: Towards a Typology of Death and Macabre Related Tourist Sites, Attractions and Exhibitions. Tourism: An Interdisciplinary International Journal 54 (2): 145–160. Stone, Philip R., and Richard Sharpley. 2008. Consuming Dark Tourism: A Thanatological Perspective. Annals of Tourism Research 35 (2): 574–595. Swer, Gregory Morgan. 2019. Homo Touristicus, or the Jargon of Authenticity 2.0. South African Journal of Philosophy 38 (2): 210–218. Turner, Louis, and John Ash. 1975. The Golden Hordes. London: Constable. Gregory Morgan Swer is an Associate Professor at the School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. His present research applies critical theory and phenomenology to tourism and cultural heritage and explores the ways in which our experience of the past is mediated and modified by technology.  

Chapter 13 Charting an Invisible Domain: Travel and the Genesis of the Concept of Sexual Atrocities as Genocide Natalie Nenadic1 (*) 1 

University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA

Abstract.  In my paper, I document a “travel” journey of concept formation and its concrete expression in law, which also constituted a literal travel journey across continents. Through poetic-hermeneutical approaches to language, guided by previously existing concepts stemming from experiences of the Holocaust, communism, and African-American feminist analyses of rape as an attack on a racial/ethnic group, a previously invisible domain of the human condition was charted. Throughout history, sexual atrocities have been committed within the context of wars, but their weaponisation as acts of genocide remained unarticulated. This changed in the 1990s with Serbia-Yugoslavia’s genocidal wars against its neighbours (Editorial comment: The author uses the term Serbia-Yugoslavia to refer to the entity that succeeded the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia after Croatia and Slovenia declared independence on June 25th, 1991. The SFRY up to that point consisted of the six republics Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia (including the so-called autonomous regions of Kosovo and Vojvodina), and Slovenia. Further declarations of independence by Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina on April 27, 1992, left only Serbia and Montenegro who the same day declared themselves to be the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). In 2003, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was reconstituted as the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, which existed until Montenegro and Serbia declared their independence (on June 3rd and June 5th, 2006, respectively)). I sketch the genesis of the concept of sexual atrocities as genocide in connection with my personal journey and how it guided legal prosecution of this “new” crime. My own travel-experience began with my association with Asja Armanda, and her discovery of coordinated mass rapes, when she came to the aid of survivors fleeing the Serbian attacks on Croatia, crimes she attempted to bring to international attention to prevent their expansion into Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. Testimonials reached me in the U.S. as well. I went to Croatia to join Armanda, where we named the crime “sexual atrocities as genocide.” On the basis of this new concept, we filed a lawsuit in New York against Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić, pioneering this crime’s recognition under international law. I conclude with philosophical questions that Putin’s similar genocidal attack on Ukraine raises today. Keywords:  Travel · Life-experience · Philosophical journey · Hermeneutic · Concept formation · Rape · Genocide · Law

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M.-É. Zovko, J. Dillon (eds.), Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36659-8_13

167

168

N. Nenadic

13.1 Life-Experience, Travel, and Philosophy’s Vocation New philosophical problems reveal themselves from life-experience, including the life-­ experience of travel. Amid that web of encounters with other environments, people, events, and histories, the philosopher may discover and learn something new that shakes up and compels her to question her usual ways of going about and understanding the world. For she may glimpse a new horizon of the human condition that hasn’t been named and charted, that represents a breakthrough into a new dimension of philosophising. This glimpse signals that, here, the philosopher’s work is urgently needed to give conceptual voice to a new domain of experiences that point to a crisis of our time, one that demands to be drawn out of that invisibility and explicitly articulated. The philosopher gathers these experiences and indications, which are otherwise deemed non-existent, unreal, or unintelligible, into an infant concept that now points out new patterns of understanding and interpretation. This concept, born of a life experience to guide us to start “seeing” something there that wasn’t previously “seen,” may then take explicit root in the world to shine wider light on these experiences to help us better grasp and navigate the crisis. It may inform practical, potentially transformative responses such as precipitating changes in law. Philosophy, as such, is, as Nietzsche says, “untimely.” He means that it points to and delineates a problem that the existing cultural milieu doesn’t yet widely notice, indeed initially considering such redescription of the human condition so out of the ordinary as to be deemed unbelievable (Nietzsche and Breazeale 1997; Scharff 2014, 197). 13.1.1 Genocide and Sexual Atrocities Through a first-hand account, I sketch the life-driven philosophical journey that brought into view, named, and delineated the previously invisible domain of criminality that we as a result now variously call “sexual atrocities as genocide,” “rape as genocide,” and “genocidal rape.” I was a central figure in this journey, which is itself a type of “travel” that includes intermittent phases of literal travel-experience. The domain of criminality that we identified includes rape, forcible impregnation, and sex- and gender-based torture, killings, and other atrocities that make survivors wish they were dead, atrocities that we showed were part of a policy of destruction directed against a specific ethnic, racial, national, or religious group, in part or in whole. Throughout history, this domain of criminality remained invisible to the world until Serbia-Yugoslavia’s genocidal wars in the 1990s against neighbouring countries, first against Croatia, then Bosnia-Herzegovina, and then Kosovo. Over these years, travel encounters were a central type of experience that affected and spurred the philosophical activity of naming and conceptualising this atrocity and legally prosecuting it for the first time. These encounters were sources of an unexpectedly rich and riveting interplay among individuals from different parts of the world, with varying experiences, histories, understandings, and sources of ideas who came together to chart the common ground revealed through testimonies of the victims. Indeed, travel experience was a driver that moved the concept of “sexual atrocities as genocide” and “sexual atrocities as a crime against humanity” from being a precari-

13  Charting an Invisible Domain: Travel and the Genesis of the Concept…

169

ous, infant idea that only a handful of us were explicitly aware of and understood to its taking root and spreading in the consciousness of the public. Through a variety of persistent efforts, we sought to bring global awareness to this “new” form of oppression (Hegel 1977), in other words, to use this concept to shine wider light on these experiences. These efforts found focused expression in our filing of a precedent-setting lawsuit in New York City against Radovan Karadžić, head of the Bosnian Serbs, a case that pioneered this crime’s recognition in international law. We filed our case before the United Nations formed the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), while it was still denying what was happening, and 23 years before the ICTY finally convicted Karadžić of genocide. Overall, travel was part of that web of experiences that were sources of the original thinking and transformative practical response surrounding this contemporary crisis, namely recognising and prosecuting the sexual atrocity dimension of genocide. Because of this life-driven and travel-laden philosophical journey, the world now has a concept that makes it possible to recognise, track, and research this crime across other contexts and to prosecute it under international law. Use of this concept to identify this crime in other wars began most immediately with the Rwandan genocide in 1994, resulting, eventually, in its prosecution at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). This concept opened and guided explicit research into sexual atrocity dimensions of the Holocaust (Rittner and Roth 2012). And, most recently, it points to new facets of this crime in Putin’s and Russia’s current genocidal war on Ukraine (cf. Snyder 2022a). 13.1.2 This Philosophical “Travel” Journey In providing a sketch of some of the steps in this concept’s formation and its first recognition in law, I also draw attention to significant moments of travel-experience, as part of the wider web of experiences out of which this concept was born and grew. I begin with a brief treatment of minor philosophical aspects of my first travel-encounter with the region as a teenager a few years before the wars, as my relationship with this place would become a bridge to my involvement in the unimaginable crisis to come. That encounter was with the island of Hvar, Croatia, the place of this conference, and also the island my grandmother (Nona) is from. I then describe how Asja Armanda, a Croatian-Jewish feminist, first discerned this crime when she came to the aid of survivors who were fleeing the Serbian-Yugoslav attack and occupation of parts of Croatia, even as she herself was living through air raids and sniper fire. Out of this “ethnic cleansing” of Croatia – characterised by the targeting of civilians for mass killings and torture in and out of a system of Serbian concentration camps, the burning and razing of Croatian villages, towns, and artefacts – Armanda also discovered coordinated mass rapes and other sexual atrocities. She tried bringing these atrocities to the attention of the international community in order to stop them and prevent their spread into Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo with the predictable expansion of Serbia-Yugoslavia’s campaign there. I too discerned this crime in testimonials that soon reached me in the United States and on my ensuing trips to Croatia to join Armanda’s efforts with survivors, in what

170

N. Nenadic

would become years of back-and-forth travel between the two countries and beyond. These encounters precipitated the unfolding of testimonial evidence of their experiences. In light of these experiences and a creative rethinking of inherited concepts from the history of philosophy and thought, especially with regard to genocide, sexual and ethnic violence, and war crimes, we eventually agreed to name the crime “sexual atrocities as genocide.” Below, I describe how the formulation of this new concept ultimately led to its legal recognition through our filing of a ground-breaking New York lawsuit. 13.1.3 A Journey About Philosophy’s Vocation From the specifics of our encounter with this instance of genocide, it is possible to extract some of the general motions of doing philosophy that flowed through that experience. In doing so, I am unavoidably speaking to a concurrent crisis of our era within the very discipline of philosophy, especially in the Anglo-American world, regarding what it even understands philosophy to be (Harries 2001; McCumber 2013; Scharff 2014). For since the beginning of the twentieth century, the prevailing analytic school of philosophy has been attempting to uproot the notion that philosophical problems present themselves from the encounter with life contexts, which guides the thinker’s creative use of past thought and insights from other areas to a new articulation or concept of these experiences that is able to shed light on a new facet of the human condition. Heir to logical positivism, a development that governed Anglo-American academic philosophy for much of the twentieth century until its demise, mainstream analytic philosophy now governs the profession and continues largely to operate within logical positivism’s redefinition of philosophy. In the drive to assert itself as sole authority over the discipline, logical positivism recast philosophy as no longer about life concerns and as having no relation to its history or to other disciplines. It, therefore, left those pursuing philosophy as a vocation without any idea that these might aid in giving relevant conceptual voice to a contemporary crisis or new facet of the human condition or that philosophy might even be about this (Scharff 2014, xi–xv, 1–30). This development has marginalised philosophy from its traditionally central place in culture and in life problems. By pointing out some basic motions of philosophy in action, I am doing two simultaneous things. I am, on the one hand, contributing to writing this particular chapter of philosophy’s larger unfolding story, a chapter pertaining to the formation of the concept of sexual atrocities as genocide and to the formulation of other “universal” dimensions of this particular genocide that continue to call for philosophical articulation so that we may better understand it and its continued effects. This work overlaps with Hannah Arendt’s reflections on genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and authoritarianism (Arendt 1973, 2006). Accordingly, this chapter may establish itself as part of the repository of philosophy’s history for later thinkers to creatively draw upon as part of the original thinking that some new crisis of their time, which resonates with this one, will demand of them – just as insights from the history of philosophy and other disciplines were there for us to creatively draw upon, to help formulate the concept of “sex-

13  Charting an Invisible Domain: Travel and the Genesis of the Concept…

171

ual atrocities as genocide” and to aid in the other conceptual work surrounding this crisis (Nietzsche and Breazeale 1997). On the other hand, I am partaking in the philosophical tradition of hermeneutical phenomenology (e.g., Dilthey, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Arendt, Charles Taylor). This tradition was born of the need to push back against the trajectory that culminated in logical positivism and still governs the discipline. Like many major thinkers throughout philosophy’s history, these figures variously enact philosophy so understood. But unlike many of their predecessors, they also spell out, in varying degrees, these motions of philosophy. For in light of this exceptionally aggressive, recent routing of philosophy as such from how the discipline understands itself, there is an existential need to consciously reassert it.

13.2 Travel Experience as a Transformative Experience and as a Bridge to Philosophy as Vocation This journey, coloured and sometimes spurred by travel, began as philosophical on a personal, individual level, which soon became something of a portal to a vocational, travel-laden journey of concept formation and, therefore, something with “universal” implications. The specific travel-experience shadowing this chain of events is my first encounter with the island of Hvar, which was also my introduction to Croatia and to Europe, during the summer before my freshman year at Stanford and a few years before the wars in the region in the 1990s. Here, travel would ultimately cast me into unimaginable life paths: a transformative encounter on a personal level with Hvar would somehow tie into the transformative moments precipitated by the wars, moments that ultimately took the philosophical shape of rethinking inherited concepts and working out new ones that guided practical response, especially their codification in law. As is often the case with such a philosophical journey, one doesn’t seek it. Rather, it finds and claims one, at times violently so. Exigent circumstances pull a person into it, in this case, the life and death moral imperatives posed by Serbia and Montenegro’s1 attacks on their neighbours, that is, by the first case of genocide in Europe after the Holocaust. This first philosophical moment at issue, the encounter with Hvar, concerns travel’s philosophical potential in this individually transformative sense. Like other experiences, travel may be dislocating. It may cast us amid other, very different “worlds” and open us to new, previously unconsidered perspectives and ways of thinking. Such encounters may “trip us up” and shake us out of our usual ways of understanding and going about life. We may choose to step foot in this unexpected opening, an opening that may awaken wonder and intrigue, but that is also fraught, strange, difficult, and

 The country that was then called “Yugoslavia” at the time contained Serbia and Montenegro. After that, it was called “Serbia and Montenegro,” or specifically, the “State Union of Serbia and Montenegro.” Eventually, Montenegro separated from Serbia to become its own country. In the paper, I am referring to the entity as “Serbia-Yugoslavia.” 1

172

N. Nenadic

uncanny. For it may spur the traveller to significant self-questioning about her own comfortable, taken-for-granted ways of making sense of life and to possibly take some more active role in shaping her own path. In some small measure, this dynamic suffused that first encounter with Hvar at age 17, as I embarked on an unfolding relationship with my grandmother and with this place and people, leaving behind for a time a life lived and known from the insularity and comfort of suburban Los Angeles. That developing relationship was permeated with intrigue, wonder, and beauty – Hvar is, after all, one of the most beautiful islands in the world – but also with the utterly unfamiliar and strange. For I was navigating a new country, the first time amid such ancient places and rural landscapes, and plopped into a pre-existing familial story and relation to place and culture going back centuries with which I was largely unfamiliar. This encounter was full of disorientations and culture shocks, requiring me to relearn basic life functioning in a new environment and a language both familiar and foreign in ways which at times left me wondering what I was doing there. Gradually, though, I settled into the daily Mediterranean rhythms and cycles of Hvar life and became attuned enough to them that I felt drawn to keep coming back over years to come. The philosophical point I’m trying to convey through this specific instance is that travel has the capacity to deliver us to moments in which we become “philosophical.”2 For, as humans, we are all philosophical in the sense that we have moments, however brief or protracted, in which we reflect on our existence. The kinds of experiences that deliver us to such moments, whatever their subtlety or intensity, leave us different from how we were before they took “hold” of us. We come away affected and changed in spite of ourselves and may even significantly grow. Something about them gets under our skin and leaves us to ponder such questions as: must my place in the world be as it is? Can I shape it otherwise? This dislocative encounter with the people and place of Hvar would eventually tie into the dislocative encounter of the wars and into the existential activity of a philosopher, meaning contributing to some new understanding that illuminates the human condition. A vocational relationship with philosophy is, of course, quite different from how each of us, qua human, is philosophical. Although each of us may arrive at such philosophical moments in our lives, few are called to the vocation of philosophy. Furthermore, neither is having a job as a philosophy professor the same as having and evincing that calling. The former may or may not have any connections with philosophy as a vocation or, at times, even comprehend what that is. For those whose vocation happens to be philosophical, that individual transformative experience may find further philosophical expression by partaking in a new articulation and in concepts capable of illuminating a

 In this way, travel is very different from tourism, especially industrial tourism. We may consider the latter as distinctively and actively narrowing and closing off our possibilities of being philosophical. This is because industrial tourism tends to re-establish, in an endless variety of new, distracting, geographical locations, what is already familiar, easy, and known – essentially what is “the same.” We, therefore, have less of the kinds of encounters that might shake us out of our comfortable, safe, inherited ways of understanding the world to possibly question and chart our own, chosen, more meaningful ways through it. 2

13  Charting an Invisible Domain: Travel and the Genesis of the Concept…

173

crisis of our time that is largely invisible and, so, helps us to navigate and effectively respond to this problem of the human condition. In numerous visits over the coming years, my relationship with Hvar, driven by my relationship with my grandmother, became a journey of deepening rootedness in and solicitude for this “new world,” in relation to which I was also (re)discovering my own place. This knowledge “prepared” me in a way, such that when this “world’s” very existence was in peril during the wars in the region in the 1990s, I had a meaningful connection with it and, therefore, something of a bridge to it. Through a confluence of circumstances, I would soon find myself back in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, working with displaced persons and refugees. That work became a philosophical intervention in this crisis of our time constituted by Serbia-Yugoslavia’s campaign of “ethnic cleansing” of non-Serbs in Croatia, the region of Vojvodina, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo as well as its targeting of local Serbs who resisted that campaign, some paying with their lives for warning their Croatian and Bosnian neighbours. These attacks were characterised by mass killings, mass rapes, forcible impregnation, sadistic torture-killings, both within and outside an expanding system of concentration camps, and in the context of the destruction of villages and towns. A major outcome of the targeted attack on the Bosniak (Muslim) and Croat population, an attack that continues today  through genocide denial and an Orwellian historical revisionism, was the creation of a political entity within Bosnia-­ Herzegovina termed “Republika Srpska.”3 The central manner of this philosophical intervention was to conceptualise what, until then, was the “unknown” crime of “sexual atrocities as genocide.”4

 In 1999, NATO intervened with airstrikes against Serbia-Montenegro [editorial remark: Federal Republic of Yugoslavia] to stop this genocidal campaign, which by then had expanded against Kosovo to target the Albanian and other non-Serb populations there. That military intervention, though, wasn’t accompanied by a program analogous to the “de-Nazification” project that accompanied the military defeat of Nazi Germany, at least in West Germany. That is, there was no program of “de-Chetnikification” by which the Serbian populace would confront what many did and what was done in its name. Instead, we have rampant genocide denial and disconnection from the reality of the wars such that the perpetrators continue to imagine themselves as the victims while this fascist/Chetnik ideology thrives and continues to threaten and destabilise the region. It also drowns out and silences Serbian voices that were witnesses to and know what happened and wanted no part of it. On genocide denial and continued threats to survivors’ lives in the “Republika Srpska” entity within Bosnia-Herzegovina, see the forthcoming documentary by Ivana Ivkovic, The Forgotten Women (2023), a documentary I consulted on and was interviewed in. On a current related crisis, this one concerning Russian fascism and its genocidal assault on Ukraine see (Snyder 2022b, c). 4  This paper treats the topic of genocide. “War crimes” are a different category of crime and have been committed by the different parties in these wars. These crimes and others demand treatment, with awareness of this context of genocide and as distinct, prosecutable crimes. This important topic is beyond the paper’s current scope. 3

174

N. Nenadic

13.3 Croatia, Philosophy, and the Concept of Sexual Atrocities as Genocide 13.3.1 Asja Armanda, Zagreb, and the War The steps of this concept’s formation centre on my encounter, and ultimately philosophical journey, with Asja Armanda, a Croatian-Jewish thinker and feminist. I met her during a period of travel/study abroad, and given our mutual interests, we remained in some communication. We would soon reconnect in the most unexpected and intensive manner during the wars. Out of Armanda’s own individually transformative experience of war and genocide, came the summons to respond to it as a philosopher. She was attuned to the summons posed by her circumstances to think what this crisis demanded be thought, what was new or previously unconceptualized. That thinking would help the targeted groups and the world better understand what was happening and thereby guide effective practical responses. Armanda also ultimately understood her response to this summons to entail reaching out to me in California. She would implore me to join her efforts in the war zone to aid survivors who were fleeing unspeakable crimes and do what we could to stop those crimes. Among them were gender-specific atrocities for which there wasn’t yet a name, atrocities that therefore weren’t considered real or whose reality was minimised. During the wars in the region,5 Armanda was living in Zagreb, Croatia’s capital, surviving air raids, sniper fire, missile attacks, and other assaults on the city by Serb-led Yugoslav forces and by local Serbs from the Serb-occupied territories in Croatia. Meanwhile, the city, its surrounding areas, and most of the free parts of the country were being flooded with displaced persons and refugees fleeing the territories of Croatia, and soon Bosnia-Herzegovina, which were coming under Serbian occupation. Despite being under attack herself, Armanda, like many others, quickly came to the aid of survivors, but she also approached them with the nuanced questioning and understanding of a genuine thinker. 13.3.2 Inherited Concepts and Life Experience: The Holocaust, Feminism, and Communist Authoritarianism Armanda came to the crisis with a wide-ranging learnedness in the history of philosophy, gained largely through self-study, as well as in other disciplines she studied formally at university, providing her with an ethnographic, anthropological, and historical understanding of the peoples and cultures at issue. Hers was a situated knowledge reflective of these disciplines’ place in French philosophy, particularly through figures

 I use “war” and “wars” interchangeably. It was a war in the singular sense, in that the Serbian-­ Yugoslav attack on these places (Vojvodina, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo) reflects the same policy and aim. However, because those attacks happened at different times with some variations, they might be considered “wars” in the plural. 5

13  Charting an Invisible Domain: Travel and the Genesis of the Concept…

175

such as Claude Levi-Strauss. She also came with important life experience. All this informed and guided her conceptually generative conversations with survivors. Armanda’s on-point, experiential knowledge included a deep grasp of the communist authoritarian context that shaped the events and atrocities unfolding in the wars of the 1990s. Having lived through the period of Communist rule in Yugoslavia, she arrived at insights independently of but in line with Hannah Arendt’s thoughts on communist totalitarianism. Arendt herself was a German-Jewish thinker who fled Nazism and settled in the United States. Crucially, Armanda was independent of Yugoslavia’s communist political system,6 in that she was a democratic critic of it and, thus, without a stake in concealing its crimes. Furthermore, she grew up in a family environment marked by serious thinking about the Holocaust, a discrete atrocity against European Jews, but a topic that as such was suppressed under communist Yugoslavia.7 Armanda also had knowledge about feminism understood as an actual social movement of people freely engaging in visible activism that yielded its own body of accessible knowledge. During the communist period, she could learn about feminism only through books, and other writings, and through contacts in neighbouring democracies such as Italy and Austria, where she travelled in search of such affirming ideas and open interlocutors. There, feminism, as a real-world human rights movement among other human rights movements, was permissible. Such social movements and their visible activities require freer, more democratic political environments in order to exist in some publicly sustained capacity and be able to convey insights that can be learned by others. Feminism in this sense forms a stark contrast to what passes for representation of women or, in its more updated form, as visible “feminism” in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes such as communism. This would be of enormous significance for the efforts of Armanda and others, including myself, to bring visibility to the sexual atrocities. This is because these kinds of authoritarian regimes, in virtue of what they are, do not tolerate any real human rights activity, social organising, and movements, including feminism. Such activism contradicts the very essence of these systems and threatens their existence. Arendt has written on this larger phenomenon in The Origins of Totalitarianism. Her analysis illuminates and helps us wrap our heads around what the efforts to bring visibility to the sexual atrocities and genocide were up against. Arendt identifies and analyses the propaganda function served by the creation, in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, of such official representatives of faux human rights and women’s groups and issues and other faux social, cultural, and professional organisations, which mimic, in appearance, the real ones that we find in democracies. Part of their task in creating this type of propaganda is to actively establish contacts and relationships with their democratic counterparts in the West, permitting their representatives a kind of travel prohib-

 Croatia was part of Yugoslavia until the summer of 1991, when, together with Slovenia, it declared independence from Yugoslavia. 7  The form of suppression at work here constitutes its own distinctive typology and new chapter of Holocaust denial that demands its own philosophical treatment, especially in the way that it was deployed by Serbia-Yugoslavia in its perpetration of genocide. 6

176

N. Nenadic

ited to ordinary citizens, for the purpose of advancing disinformation about the regime’s authoritarian nature. In this manner, these regimes groom their democratic counterparts into disbelieving reality-based accounts of such regimes, conducting a kind of “inoculation” against reality. These representatives aim thereby to fool the democratic world into thinking that a given communist or fascist regime is not really what it is, but is actually just like a democracy. For it has all its visual trappings. It has the stage props of such-and-such women’s representatives, social and human rights groups, professional societies and organisations – all appearing to conduct the same business and free travel to other parts of the world as their democratic counterparts (Arendt 1973, 371–372, 367, 401). By deliberately fronting this alternative reality that masks the actual one, these “representatives” effectively mirror and serve up to Western democracies something we believe we recognise, an illusion we want to believe, and find reassuringly familiar but that is actually so deeply unfamiliar that we can’t even fathom it. In the context of the genocidal war under discussion here, such local women’s representatives used their already established and trusted relationships with women’s representatives and groups in democratically governed countries to obscure the mass sexual atrocities and obstruct information about them from reaching international women’s groups and the wider public (Nenadic 2011, 131–134). Over the years, Armanda accumulated a base of furtively and incrementally acquired feminist knowledge from actual political developments, activism, and movements in European democracies. This motivated and prepared her for a historic window of opportunity, which, given the requisite democratic changes, might make something like feminist activism possible in her part of the world. This window came with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 when the first free elections began sweeping across the communist part of Europe, including Croatia, then still part of communist Yugoslavia. Armanda took advantage of this historical moment to organise and co-found, in 1990, Croatia’s first democratic feminist group called Kareta. Its purpose was to ensure women’s active participation in the new democratic processes coming into play. This meant, among other tasks, confronting pervasive discrimination against women across society, including sexual abuse and violence against women and girls. 13.3.3 Towards a New Concept Armanda’s wealth of lived experience and repository of multidisciplinary, situated, and historical knowledge would inform her efforts to make sense of the war on non-Serbs that landed on her and on the peoples of this region the following year, in 1991, and for the immediate years to come. For Armanda, it went without saying that any original thinking about this war that discovered and gave conceptual voice to a previously concealed facet of it and of the human condition, would be born from a dialectical rapport between proximity to people’s lived experiences of the crisis and her own philosophical foundation, as well as her life experience. In assuming that a serious philosophical response to a crisis of one’s time happens like this, Armanda evinced that classic notion of philosophy that hermeneutical phenomenology had been compelled to reassert (Scharff 2014).

13  Charting an Invisible Domain: Travel and the Genesis of the Concept…

177

In Armanda’s enacting of philosophy as such, a new, infant understanding was emerging from her encounter with those who had survived and witnessed the atrocities. These revelations came through her unique manner of listening to survivors and asking on-point, non-violating questions, in good part guided by her multifaceted feminist, humanistic, philosophical, and historical background and her assumption that knowledge is situated. Her approach especially conveyed that she heard and believed survivors and, so, respected their dignity, which earned their trust. They soon began revealing traumatic experiences for which they did not yet have a language and were often blamed or not believed. Armanda’s was a multidimensional philosophical and practical rapport of humanitarian assistance centred on tending to the whole person in all her traumas and needs, especially the need to be seen and heard. In this manner, Armanda uncovered evidence of a pattern of mass sexual atrocities, across otherwise disconnected territories that were under Serbian-Yugoslav attack in Vojvodina and in the Serb-occupied parts of Croatia. She knew that, without international intervention, this coordinated aggression would expand against Bosnia-­ Herzegovina and eventually Kosovo, as indeed tragically happened. She was thereby doing philosophy understood – as per Arendt and others – as an activity of thinking and action in the world, through which she was beginning to give sustained voice to this otherwise largely hidden dimension of human existence, a dimension concealed by so many layers of inherited discrimination and active concealment. The forced “travel” of mass displacement of refugees fleeing for their lives in the war on civilians and their deportations to concentration camps foisted this philosophical problem on Armanda. It placed her discovery and treatment of it within a philosophical tradition that was spurred and shaped by a related but different atrocity. Hannah Arendt’s own displacement, for instance, gave rise to her reflections on the Holocaust and genocide (Arendt 2006, 2008). Deportations similarly affected the philosophical testimonials of survivors Viktor Frankl (Frankl 2006) and Jean Amery (Amery 2009). 13.3.4 Trying to Let the World Know: Europe Armanda tried bringing these discoveries to world awareness by contacting European women’s and international human rights groups. But she came up against institutions that remained detached from and out of touch with what was happening on the ground. These institutions operated within old paradigms that obscured current events, which instead demanded that we come up with new paradigms born of those events. Such groups deflected the impact and incredible significance of Armanda’s findings. For instance, international human rights groups, like the mainstream media, did not, at the time, address mass violations of women. Either they did not believe these atrocities were happening (e.g., “not even the Nazis did that”) or dismissed them as the inevitable “private” acts of a few rogue or “bad apple” soldiers, which kept these groups from investigating survivor and eyewitness reports. When Armanda contacted European women’s groups, she learned that they too were then not very knowledgeable about sexual violence and even less about its intersections with ethnicity. Many of these groups also had established relationships with communist Yugoslavia’s official women’s representatives. These representatives were an

178

N. Nenadic

obfuscating public face of a dictatorship, and now a genocidal regime, and as such, part of a privileged class. Many had personal or family ties to the government that was committing the atrocities, to the communist party either as members or as those deemed so unquestionably loyal to it that they didn’t even have to become party members to prove their loyalty, to the military, and to the secret police. They had a stake in preserving their privileges, even at the cost of concealing genocide. Accordingly, many of those European women’s representatives went to these familiar, go-to Yugoslav “feminist” contacts and fell into the trap of believing them instead of evaluating the evidence on their own. These Yugoslav contacts responded in ways that echoed the Milošević regime, namely the leader of Serbia-Yugoslavia and main instigator of the genocide who, years later, would be charged with genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). They denied or minimised what was happening, reversed victim and perpetrator, and attacked and smeared those who were trying to get word out about the atrocities. Their disinformation and sowing of confusion put the kibosh on these international women’s groups investigating these findings and figuring things out for themselves. Such international institutions and representatives, upon which the lives of survivors depended, were conceptually or morally ill-equipped to make sense of Armanda’s discoveries and analyses about these “new” unspeakable crimes. It soon became clear to her that the channels for getting word out and trying to stop the crimes were blocked.8 She knew she needed to bypass all of this and try to connect with those to whom matters of sexual violence, the targeting of groups for destruction based on ethnicity, and their intersections were remotely intelligible.

13.4 The United States, Philosophy, and the Concept of Sexual Atrocities as Genocide 13.4.1 Asja Armanda’s Outreach to Me Armanda persisted. She rebooted her international outreach, this time to women in Israel and to me in the United States. By then, recently out of college, I had acquired significant knowledge of feminist thought in its multidisciplinary, historical, and theoretical facets. These resources would prove crucial to helping elicit and formulate the original thinking that the crisis demanded and to imagining possible practical means of intervening to try to stop these atrocities.

 The phenomenon of Yugoslav women’s representatives obstructing news of the sexual atrocities from reaching the wider public poses its own philosophical problem. It needs to be theoretically charted, with Armanda’s insights and resources from resonant aspects of other genocides, serving to extend Arendt’s thought on this larger phenomenon (Arendt2006; Lower 2013). 8

13  Charting an Invisible Domain: Travel and the Genesis of the Concept…

179

13.4.2 Inherited Concepts from U.S. Feminism: Sexual Violence, Law, and Intersecting Racial/Ethnic Oppression Central in my acquisition of feminist knowledge was my attendance, at the end of college, of a public lecture by Catharine MacKinnon at Stanford University. MacKinnon is a major feminist theorist and attorney who was then on her way to also becoming one of the leading American legal figures of the twentieth century. That encounter just before the war would, as it turned out, be life-changing in relation to the crisis that Armanda and I would soon be facing. This lecture set me on a path to study MacKinnon’s work on my own, years before it was possible to study it in academia. I knew that these writings, treating women’s everyday experience in theoretically original ways, out of a creative rapport with the history of philosophy and thought and traversing disciplines, were of existential significance for making some sense of and navigating life as many women live it. With hindsight, I came to recognise her opus as a ground-breaking philosophical activity of hermeneutical phenomenology (Nenadic 2017). MacKinnon elicited new understanding from the discovery of women’s and girls’ widespread experiences of being targeted with impunity, for sexually intrusive, violating, and denigrating treatment such as sexual objectification, violence, and abuse. She analysed these experiences and ways of seeing females as so pervasive and normalised as to not even be visible as problematic. These perspectives were central to manufacturing and reinforcing the notion that part of being female ontologically was having little or no boundaries to one’s body and being. MacKinnon posited an original, non-exhaustive account of women’s social inequality centred on this commonality of women being disproportionately targeted for such treatment, whose harms were variously covered up. We would come to identify and, in many cases, newly name these violations that, for so long, were not considered real. They include, for example, sexual objectification, sexual harassment, child sexual abuse, various forms of rape such as rape in marriage, date rape, and acquaintance rape, trafficking in sexual slavery, and the centrality of all of these in the making of much pornography (MacKinnon 1989). MacKinnon’s analysis of these harms guided her formulation of practical legal responses, which also necessitated a hermeneutical phenomenological approach. For significant changes in law are born of an ongoing, dynamic rapport with concrete life concerns that the law doesn’t yet effectively address, if it addresses them at all. This rapport often guides creative interpretations of legal precedent to address them, bringing justice, albeit too slowly, within more universal reach of the populace. One of MacKinnon’s major initiatives was the survivor-led development of sexual harassment law (Strebeigh 1991) through her creative interpretation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, itself a culmination of the American Civil Rights movement, which prohibited racial, ethnic, national, and sex discrimination. She showed that the widespread, unchecked experiences of sexual harassment in the workplace and in higher education are in fact forms of discrimination against women, undermining their employment and educational possibilities and thus their status as equal citizens; analysis that has since reached its widest visibility through #MeToo (Bellafante 2018). She pursued a similar major initiative with the feminist thinker and activist Andrea Dworkin. They were hired

180

N. Nenadic

by Native American and other grassroots groups in Minneapolis, Minnesota to craft a legal rubric to address harms mainly, though not only, to women and girls in the making of much pornography and through its effects on how consumers see and treat them (MacKinnon and Dworkin 1998). Another part of my feminist knowledge acquisition, which would prove crucial to arriving at the concept of sexual atrocities as genocide, was African-American feminist thought, which I studied more systematically with American Civil Rights and feminist icon Angela Y. Davis, a student of Herbert Marcuse and herself involved in enacting philosophy as hermeneutical phenomenology and critical theory. This rigorous focus on new concepts of intersecting sexual and racial/ethnic discrimination included the task of grasping how attacks on people for being female can simultaneously be racially motivated, that is, how they can be a means for effectuating that racial or ethnic group’s destruction (Hull et al. 1982). In America’s history, this was most evident in the situation of African Americans during slavery. Here, rape and rape for impregnation to produce more “human property” were embedded within and at times were a de facto “policy” in the politics of securing, in the American South, via slavery, a separate white supremacist “country” within the United States. During this period, I was becoming versed in this knowledge born outside the academy by these social movements. And instinctively I locked onto its enactments of philosophy: inquiry spurred by experiential existential concerns and grounded in multidisciplinary knowledge of current and past thought, which opened a paradigm-­ shifting purchase on these experiences and on the human condition. These new frameworks gave conceptual means to henceforth see sexual abuse that has long been variously covered up and to track its elements and logic. I saw how features of this machinery can be deployed as a distinct manner of targeting a racial/ethnic group. And I was opened to discovering how law might be used for positive change that makes law more truly just. I gravitated towards places where discovery and treatment of what Karsten Harries, following Wittgenstein, calls “genuinely philosophical problems” was happening. And that wasn’t in academic philosophy (Harries 2001, 60–61). 13.4.3 The War as Seen from California and a Poetic-Hermeneutic Philosophy of Language At the beginning of the war, I followed events from afar in California. I didn’t know what I could do to best aid victims of a war whose nature, it was increasingly becoming evident, was genocidal. I reached out to local media, as part of local public protests against the war, to break through the spectacular Serbian-Yugoslav disinformation campaign that was covering up mass killings and destruction, especially by the tactic of reversing the roles of victim and aggressor.9

 This propaganda is strikingly similar to Putin’s in the war on Ukraine. Peter Pomerantsev encapsulates the latter. “[Russia] reinvents reality, creating mass hallucinations that then translate into political action…It’s like something out of a Borges story – except for the very real casualties of the war conducted in its name” (Pomerantsev 2014, 2). 9

13  Charting an Invisible Domain: Travel and the Genesis of the Concept…

181

At the beginning of the war, there would be a major learning curve paid in lives before foreign journalists got to the evidence that could start poking through that propaganda. Much of that evidence came from people fleeing atrocities in areas of Croatia under Serbian-Yugoslav occupation and the killings and deportations to concentration camps of non-Serbs, mainly Croats and Hungarians, in Vojvodina, areas from which Serbia-Yugoslavia barred foreign journalists and human rights investigators. By the time this assault expanded against the Bosniak (Muslim) and Croat populations of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the spring of 1992 across even larger territories, foreign journalists had started seeing and exposing some of the patterns of attack and disinformation. Genocide was now unfolding daily before the world’s eyes on cable news, as this, at the time, was the most televised war in history. Yet even as far as California, detailed survivor reports about what was happening across that occupation were starting to make their way over. They came through updates from foreign press offices in Zagreb and in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina’s besieged capital, which were reaching the Croatian-American and Bosnian-Herzegovinian-­ American communities in San Francisco and Los Angeles. I pored over these reports, and patterns emerged. One pattern, especially, kept emerging. It came through language that was struggling to convey something distinctive that was happening to women and girls. These indications were like “messages in a bottle,” tossed out to the world by people trapped in hell on earth to whoever out there might receive them and maybe do something to help. Those messages were pointing to something there wasn’t yet a name for or a concept through which to funnel these experiences such that they could come out the other end as intelligible. Groundedness in the history of philosophy and disciplines inextricably bound up with philosophy was a prerequisite for even noticing that there was something philosophical lurking amid these reports. Of central relevance for me personally was an amalgam of training in literature, especially the history of women’s testimonial poetry and more established canonical poetry, my knowledge of recent feminist thought on sexual violence, and knowledge of Black feminist thought about the place of sexual violence in the attack on a racial/ethnic group and generally about intersecting sex and racial/ethnic oppression. This background both attuned me to and was activated by what was stirring within the groping testimonial language in these press reports, language pointing to a largely hidden dimension of the human condition. As I came to appreciate in hindsight, a poetic approach to language meant doing philosophy of language in the spirit of hermeneutical phenomenology. This approach involves openness and attentiveness to “hearing,” grappling, and working with varied experiential and figurative verbal, written, testimonial, and other language-related means of getting at, pointing to, conveying, and at times giving exceptionally powerful incipient voice to genuinely philosophical problems, that is, problems of the human condition. A poetic-hermeneutic philosophy of language notices and tends to such indications of an existential concern that is “trying to come out” into intelligibility and communicability. That concern may be about something for which there aren’t yet words, or for which the words we have are insufficiently precise or stabilised. It may be that their current context drowns out or undermines what the words aim to convey. This philosophy of

182

N. Nenadic

language is about noticing and grappling with that unexpressed or insufficiently expressed something, in a dialectical rapport with resonant inherited concepts and insights, in my case especially about sexual and racial/ethnic violence, which then help the thinker draw out language that may better express that concern. In this way, even as far away as California, I got the philosophical motions started towards conceptualising this “new” atrocity. 13.4.4 Trying to Let the World Know: U.S.A. At the time, topics of sexual violence against women weren’t seriously covered by the mainstream media, if at all. Even in the United States, where such topics were, to a greater extent than in Europe, starting to break into the wider awareness, their treatment was largely shot through with victim-blaming biases. Like Armanda, I knew that for the sexual atrocities of this genocidal war to have any chance of becoming known, the obvious place to take this information and analysis was to feminist media outlets and groups. Here, too, I encountered similar obstructions to those Armanda did. A key one centres on America’s leading feminist publication, Ms. Magazine. One of Yugoslavia’s women’s representatives, Slavenka Drakulić, had made her way onto the magazine’s editorial board as an expert on the region. As I would eventually learn directly from the magazine’s then-editor, Robin Morgan, the editorial board vetted information they began receiving about the rapes through this trusted source. For her part, Drakulić told them the reports were fabrications made up by Croatian and Bosnian “nationalists,” thus echoing Milošević’s propaganda and a propaganda approach that Putin uses today against the victims of his genocidal assault on Ukraine (Applebaum 2022, 15). When news of the sexual atrocities finally began appearing in the mainstream media, Ms. Magazine realised how deeply Drakulić had misled them and removed her from the magazine’s editorial board (Nenadic 2011, 132). My efforts to get word out to feminist outlets came to no avail. This period was before internet self-publishing, so that wasn’t an option. Like Armanda, I faced a challenge that Hegel analysed with regard to a crisis of his time. He grappled with the problem of how an infant, fledgling concept that, newly, makes visible a current shape of oppression can become more widely understood so that it can inform practical change (Hegel 1977). I was in possession of devastating knowledge; the question was how to make it known, so as to effect practical change. The international media had already begun reporting on the genocidal nature of this war. After the Holocaust and the formation of the U.N. Genocide Convention, this concept existed to guide people through the evidence. The world also needed to know about the sexual atrocities, but because doors were closed to getting word out, this knowledge remained trapped. Only recently out of college and without the established authority and channels to break through these obstructions, I was at a loss. This was in early 1992. On a separate track, I continued to the next stage of my academic studies. I wanted to further my knowledge of Catharine MacKinnon’s opus. Through a random chain of events, which led to my briefly meeting her at a lecture she delivered at the University of California, Berkeley about the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomina-

13  Charting an Invisible Domain: Travel and the Genesis of the Concept…

183

tion hearings, I secured a Research Scholar position at the University of Michigan Law School, where MacKinnon is on the faculty. I was to start studying and working with her in August 1992. Not long before I was to leave for Michigan, however, Asja Armanda asked me to join her in Croatia to help bring visibility to the sexual atrocities happening in the region. I drove across the country and arrived just in time to drop off my stuff in Ann Arbor before flying to the war zone to meet up with Armanda.

13.5 Philosophy and Our Lawsuit Against Karadžić: Croatia, Bosnia-­Herzegovina, and New York City 13.5.1 Travelling (Close) to Hell For the next 2  months, I travelled throughout free areas of Croatia and Bosnia-­ Herzegovina, which were at times under attack, in what turned out to be the first of many trips to the war zone over the coming years. These areas were inundated with hundreds of thousands of traumatised refugees and displaced persons, who had fled parts of these countries that were under Serbian occupation. I went to the “borders” within Croatia, where locals could hear haunting screams coming from the Serb-­ occupied side. Across those barricades and across the river, the earth was swallowing people up. Armanda took me to refugee and displaced persons centres throughout the Zagreb area and to the nearby “border,” where the main exit points for the continued exodus from Bosnia-Herzegovina were. She introduced me to survivors she knew so that I could hear directly from them about what they had suffered and witnessed. We now began working together with them and continued to learn from the daily influxes of refugees.10 Amid this mass suffering and chaos, I watched, with deep respect, as Armanda enacted her own riveting, poetic-hermeneutic, philosophical approach to language. Hers was a nuanced, solicitous, questioning-type of conversation and relationship with survivors, continuously adapted to the immediate and unfolding needs of the moment. I took in what I was hearing and tried to process this devastation. Mainly, I just listened with humility and learned  – and pondered how on earth I might be helpful in these utterly overwhelming circumstances. I entered this mix as an unexpected conveyor of insights from the U.S. Civil Rights and Women’s Movements. Out of this encounter, new lines of inquiry opened up as did new paths in the philosophical journey that Armanda and I now embarked on together. To this inquiry, I brought MacKinnon’s conceptual contributions concerning sexual

 In our conversations with survivors, we also discovered the presence of sexual assaults against Croatian and Bosniak (Muslim) men. Dr. Mladen Lončar, himself a Croatian concentration camp survivor of Serbian camps in Vojvodina, has worked with these and other survivors. I invited Fred Pelka, who at the time was working at the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center with male rape survivors, to Croatia to assist Dr. Lončar. Dr. Lončar also testified in our New York case. 10

184

N. Nenadic

abuse and violence, including innovative uses of law. I also brought the historical and theoretical contributions of African-American feminism concerning ways that sexual violence against women may be deployed in the attack on a racial/ethnic group and, generally, insights regarding intersecting oppression, insights Armanda found exceptionally helpful in understanding analogous phenomena in the war against Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. 13.5.2 Naming the Concept and Legal Action Armanda and I brainstormed about what to name this “new” crime and how to be more proactive and self-reliant in trying to stop it, seeing as no major help was coming from outside despite all our efforts. These concepts and the experience I came with joined with those of Armanda in a riveting, unfolding conversation, one ultimately guided by our daily conversations with survivors. As a culmination of our merging hermeneutical-­ phenomenological journeys, we agreed on naming this new crime “rape as genocide,” “genocidal rape,” or “sexual atrocities as genocide,” terms to convey a pattern and policy of mass rape and sexualized killing, rape and forcible impregnation, and sexual atrocities that leave survivors so psychologically destroyed that they never want to return to their homes. In the process of brainstorming, I also posed the question: why not just bring a lawsuit ourselves against these war criminals? We knew that with the U.N. still dithering and its Security Council resolutions sandbagged by Russian vetoes (LeBor 2008), we couldn’t wait for a kind of Nuremberg Tribunal after the war, leaving so many more people raped and killed. We needed to try to bring a case now, as some means of justice that might also act as a deterrent for ongoing crimes. But we had no idea how or where to undertake this effort. There was no existing international court or tribunal to prosecute a crime that didn’t even have a name until we gave it one and, so, wasn’t even on the law books. Still, I suggested to Armanda that we just start organising women’s and survivor groups in preparation should we eventually figure out a way to do this. Under the auspices of the group that Armanda recently co-founded, Kareta, Croatia’s first democratic feminist group, we organised a coalition of Croatian and Bosnian women’s and survivor groups to bring a legal case for sexual atrocities as genocide. After weeks in the war zone, in the early fall of 1992, I returned to begin my Research Scholar position at the University of Michigan Law School, but now, unimaginably, I was tasked with finding a lawyer to represent these groups. I didn’t know any lawyers well and was new to that environment, not to mention that few lawyers could fit this extraordinary bill. But I did know that MacKinnon was the person who could understand and do this. She could creatively re-think law in light of these “new” experiences, that is, approach the legal challenge philosophically. Not long after I arrived in Michigan, Armanda finally achieved some success in breaking the story about the sexual atrocities in the media, thus making them more widely known. With the media now also contacting me, I approached MacKinnon with our idea for pursuing a legal action against architects and perpetrators of sexual atrocities as genocide and asked if she would represent survivors and our coalition of wom-

13  Charting an Invisible Domain: Travel and the Genesis of the Concept…

185

en’s groups. MacKinnon agreed to serve as pro bono counsel, and, in November 1992, joined Armanda and me in working on this issue. I soon travelled back to Croatia to begin putting together a case with Armanda. Our long practical and philosophical work that had laid the foundations for this legal action now evolved to produce the substance of the lawsuit. In daily fax communications, I sent the evidence that we were uncovering and gathering, together with our findings, commentary, and analysis, to MacKinnon. Armanda and I finally had someone who understood what we were talking about and was prepared to do something about it. In the first weeks of 1993, these efforts went into very high gear with the possibility of filing a legal action against Radovan Karadžić, head of the Bosnian Serbs and major architect and perpetrator of the genocide, who we learned was soon coming to New York City to participate in U.N. “peace talks.” We pulled together our lawsuit (Kadic v. Karadzic) just in time. As Karadžić exited the area of the Russian consulate in New York, a Serbian-Yugoslav ally, United States Marshals served him legal papers in a judicial venue we created for this purpose, charging him with this new crime of sexual atrocities as genocide. Karadžić fled the United States amid a sea of protesters referring to him as the “Hitler of the Balkans.” Our case pioneered this crime’s recognition in international law. It was the first legal action taken against genocide while the genocide was ongoing. Not long after we brought our case, the U.N. announced the creation of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at the Hague, with jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. In 2016, it convicted Karadžić for genocide, and he is now serving his prison sentence.

13.6 Conclusion I have laid out elements of the philosophical paths, intertwined with travel-experience, that led to coming up with the concept of “rape as genocide” or “sexual atrocities as genocide,” a concept now recognised, codified, and in use. Our life experiences, including various travel-experiences, and creative use of resources from our respective historical-­philosophical and multidisciplinary backgrounds spurred Armanda and me on our own journeys of grasping the genuinely philosophical problem posed by this “new” atrocity and giving it conceptual shape. Through travel across continents, these journeys then came together into a richer, more powerful one of philosophical co-­ travellers. This enabled us aptly to name a previously unnamed crime and begin bringing visibility to this largely hidden dimension of the human condition. Our unfolding understanding then guided an unprecedented legal action, which actualised this concept in the world. My earlier travel to and relationship with Hvar kept me tethered to the region throughout this period, as a kind of connective tissue at the base of my readiness to heed Armanda’s summons to help her let the world know about this “new” atrocity. In so doing, Armanda and I were conducting philosophy as Hegel characterised it, by comprehending “our time in thought.” But we did it in the midst of unfolding events, including giving that concept legal expression, rather than, as Hegel’s Owl of Minerva does, long after those events have transpired (Hegel 1991, 21). Showing something of

186

N. Nenadic

these paths towards this new concept may resonate with thinkers today who are trying to respond to a current crisis, especially to crimes against humanity and genocide. It may aid in offering a better understanding of what philosophy is and what it may do by compelling us to ask: what constitutes a genuinely philosophical problem? And what might responses to it look like?

13.7 Postscript: Philosophy and Genocide Today In Eichmann inJerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, Hannah Arendt noted that perpetrators of genocide learn from past ones (Arendt 2006, 273). They learn ways to do it and to get away with it. They also learn how to avoid the mistakes of past perpetrators. Thus, they invent new means of carrying out genocide, and this tasks thinkers today with genuinely philosophical problems about discerning and giving conceptual voice to these new means. Asja Armanda and I have noticed how much Putin, in Russia’s war on Ukraine, has learned from Milošević, in Serbia-Yugoslavia’s wars on Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo. Both declared their target nations as not real, then tried to destroy them. Both falsely accused the victims of being Nazis when in fact Milošević, Putin, and their respective militaries are the ones who are most like Nazis.11 Both manufactured ­breakaway regions in the target countries as an excuse to occupy and ethnically cleanse them. Both organised mass killings, rapes, torture, and deportations to concentration camps.12 But Putin is, of course, also innovating. He has deported over a million Ukrainians to Russia, where many are in concentration camps spread throughout the country, even deeper beyond the reach of foreign journalists and other investigators (Snyder 2022d). By contrast, Milošević deported relatively few Croatians, Bosniaks, Bosnian Croats, and others to Serbia-Yugoslavia, people who, to this day, remain missing. Instead, he left the vast majority in mass graves strewn throughout occupied Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia as well as Kosovo before NATO’s military intervention stopped him. Then, having to hide these crimes from legal investigators, he had his forces dig up the bodies and spread them out to many smaller, secondary graves to camouflage genocide by making it appear like random war killings. Putin isn’t making that mistake, at least not as egregiously as Milošević. He is having the evidence move themselves farther out of sight where everything is possible and where there’s no need for the secondary grave sites to cover up genocide. This and other

 Timothy Snyder superbly deciphers this kind of propaganda in Russia’s genocidal attack on Ukraine. This analysis remarkably explains the same propaganda that was, in fact, first used by Serbia-Yugoslavia in its wars against Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and, to some extent, Kosovo (cf. Snyder 2022c). 12  Sir Geoffrey Nice, who led the ICTY prosecution of Milošević for crimes committed against Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo has stated that Putin should go on trial for similar crimes (Fitzgerald 2023). 11

13  Charting an Invisible Domain: Travel and the Genesis of the Concept…

187

strategies beg philosophical questions about what is new in Putin’s genocidal assault: what is he doing to these Ukrainians? In what ways are Russian forces attacking Ukrainians they’ve hunted down and deported far into the reaches of Russia? Naming and conceptualising what this is are among the challenges for thinkers today enacting philosophy along the lines that I have described it.

References Amery, James. 2009. At the Mind’s Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and Its Realities. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Applebaum, Anne. 2022. “They’re Not Human Beings”: Ukraine and the Words that Lead to Mass Murder. The Atlantic, June 11–15. Arendt, Hannah. 1973. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. First published 1951 by Schocken Books. ———. 2006. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Penguin. First published 1963 by Viking Press. ———. 2008. The Jewish Writings. New York: Schocken. Bellafante, Ginia. 2018. Before #MeToo, There Was Catharine MacKinnon and Her Book ‘Sexual Harassment of Working Women’. New York Times, March 19, 2018. https://www. nytimes.com/2018/03/19/books/review/metoo-­workplace-­sexual-­harassment-­catharine-­ mackinnon.html Fitzgerald, James. 2023. Ukraine war: Putin should face trial this year, says top lawyer. BBC News, January 2, 2023. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-­europe-­64138851 Frankl, Viktor E. 2006. Man’s Search for Meaning. Boston: Beacon. Harries, Karsten. 2001. Philosophy in Search of Itself. In What is Philosophy? ed. C.P. Ragland and Sarah Heidt, 47–73. New Haven: Yale University Press. Hegel, G.W.F. 1977. Phenomenology of Spirit. Oxford: Oxford University Press. First published 1807. ———. 1991. In Elements of the Philosophy of Right, ed. Allen W. Wood. New York: Cambridge University Press. First published 1820. Hull, Gloria T., Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith. 1982. All the Women Are White, All the Men are Black, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women’s Studies. New York: Feminist Press. LeBor, Adam. 2008. “Complicity with Evil”: The United Nations in the Age of Modern Genocide. New Haven: Yale University Press. Lower, Wendy. 2013. Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. MacKinnon, Catharine A. 1989. Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. MacKinnon, Catharine A., and Andrea Dworkin. 1998. In Harm’s Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. McCumber, John. 2013. On Philosophy: Notes from a Crisis. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Nenadic, Natalie. 2011. Genocide and Sexual Atrocities: Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem and Karadzic in New York. Philosophical Topics 39 (2): 117–144. ———. 2017. Catharine MacKinnon, Feminism, and Continental Philosophy: Comments on Toward a Feminist Theory of the State  – Twenty-Five Years Later. Feminist Philosophy Quarterly 3 (2): 1–21.

188

N. Nenadic

Nietzsche, Frederick, and Daniel Breazeale. 1997. Untimely Meditations, The Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pomerantsev, Peter. 2014. Russia and the Menace of Unreality: How Vladimir Putin is revolutionizing information warfare. The Atlantic, 1–13. Rittner, Carol, and John K.  Roth. 2012. Rape: Weapon of War and Genocide. St. Paul: Paragon House. Scharff, Robert C. 2014. How History Matters to Philosophy: Reconsidering Philosophy’s Past After Positivism. New York: Routledge. Snyder, Timothy. 2022a. Russia’s genocide handbook: The evidence of atrocity and of intent mounts. Substack, April 8, 2022. https://snyder.substack.com/p/ russias-­genocide-­handbook?s=r ———. 2022b. The War in Ukraine Has Unleashed a New Word. New York Times, April 22, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/22/magazine/ruscism-­ukraine-­russia-­war.html ———. 2022c. We Should Say It. Russia Is Fascist. New York Times, May 19, 2022. https://www. nytimes.com/2022/05/19/opinion/russia-­fascism-­ukraine-­putin.html ———. 2022d. Russia has deported more than one million Ukrainian citizens. This graphic shows the camps to which residents of occupied (and destroyed) Mariupol have been sent. Twitter, May 20, 2022. https://twitter.com/TimothyDSnyder/status/1527762460974931970? s=20&t=pRoQpRuUSDBkoFaYaWx8pg Strebeigh, Fred. 1991. Defining Law on the Feminist Frontier. New York Times Magazine, October 6, 1991. https://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/06/magazine/defining-­law-­on-­the-­ feminist-­frontier.html Natalie Nenadic received her BA degree at Stanford University, and MA’s in Philosophy and in History, MPhil in Philosophy and History and her PhD in Philosophy from Yale University. She held a two-year Research Scholar position at the University of Michigan Law School. Her research and teaching focus on major thinkers of the Western philosophical canon, especially post-Kantian philosophy, and contemporary topics in feminism, law, genocide studies, ­authoritarianism, and international justice, including the #MeToo movement and, most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. Her  research interests also  include French Enlightenment philosophy and the History and Philosophy of Science.  

Chapter 14 Travelling, Fast and Slow Joseph Campisi1 (*) and Georganna Ulary1 Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA [email protected]; [email protected] 1 

The art of living is about learning how to give time to each and every thing. Carlo Petrini

Abstract.  Over the last several decades, slow travel has been garnering increasing attention, especially with regards to the climate crisis and the many harms that result from global tourism. The defenders of slow travel claim that traveling slowly benefits not only the environment but also the local communities most affected by tourism, as well as the travellers themselves. This kind of defence, while seeming to be intuitively correct, is missing a sustained argument that explains why this is the case. In this paper, we fill this explanatory gap by relying on philosopher Albert Borgmann’s theory of devices and focal practices to provide a theoretical ground for the claims made about traveling fast and slow. Keywords:  Slow travel · Slow tourism · Borgmann

Since the second half of the twentieth century, there has been a dramatic rise in international tourism. In 1950, there were 25 million international arrivals globally via air. In 2000, there were 700 million (D’Amore 2010). Prior to the global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, 1.6 billion international arrivals had been projected for 2020 (Levy and Hawkins 2010). This precipitous growth in the tourism industry has given rise to a number of concerns, especially in regard to the environmental harms caused by over-tourism and long-haul travel and the damage that tourism can potentially wreak on local economies and traditional cultures. In response to such concerns, in the past few decades, environmentally and socially conscious travellers have sought to pursue alternative forms of tourism or what is sometimes called “new tourism” (Conway and Timms 2010, 331). These are forms of travel that are believed to have less harmful or even beneficial impacts on the natural environment and local populations. Such “new touristic” practices include “green” or “ecotourism” and “volunteer” or “service tourism.” Another form of such “new tourism,” one that has arisen in recent years, is “slow travel” or “slow tourism.” Inspired by slow food and the slow food movement’s critique of fast food and fast-food culture, proponents of slow tourism maintain that travellers should similarly eschew the fast and frenetic pace of mass tourism and just slow down, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M.-É. Zovko, J. Dillon (eds.), Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36659-8_14

189

190

J. Campisi and G. Ulary

whether it be during the journey itself, at one’s final destination or, ideally, for the duration of one’s entire trip. Defenders of slow tourism claim that by foregoing certain forms of transportation such travel can benefit the environment and that by favouring small businesses it can boost the local economy by reducing the economic “leakage” of profits to remote multi-national corporations. Moreover, supporters of slow travel maintain that it ultimately benefits the traveller him- or herself. This latter claim about the positive impact of slow travel on the traveller often occurs in the literature on slow tourism, where fast travel is derided for leading to a “spiritual pathology,” to superficial experiences and where slow travel is extolled for providing increased pleasure and enjoyment and for allowing individuals to forge stronger connections to people and places, to “being ‘in,’ rather than ‘at’ a destination” (Molz 2009, 276; Guiver and McGrath 2016, 27). However, this scholarship never really provides a sustained explanation as to why this would be the case, why fast travel is shallow where slow travel is deep. In what follows, then, we seek to fill this specific explanatory gap by using the philosophy of technology developed by the German-American philosopher Albert Borgmann, in particular his theory of devices and focal practices, to provide a theoretical ground for the claims made about traveling fast and slow, about slow travel and its critique of fast travel, and its idea that “moving differently through the world leads to being moved differently by the world” (Cooke 2013, 142).

14.1 Slow Travel While some writers point out that historical precedents for the notion of slow travel exist avant la lettre in the Grand Tour and Jost Krippendorf’s seminal work on tourism from the 1980s (Lumsdon and McGrath 2011), the current manifestation of the phenomenon takes its inspiration from the more recent rise of Slow Food and the Slow Food movement. As its name implies, the origins of Slow Food partly lie in its opposition to fast food and fast-food culture. The founders of Slow Food, long-time activists in the Italian left, organised a demonstration in 1986 to protest the opening of a McDonald’s in Rome. The name “Slow Food” was adopted soon after and, in 1989, the group issued “The Slow Food Manifesto,” in which they decried both “fast foods” and the broader culture of “fast life” from which they arise (Petrini 2001, xxiii). “Fast life” is characterised as a world in which speed, as provided by industrialisation and mechanisation, is held up as the model for living. Food, in such a setting, is highly processed and highly standardised fare, meant to be consumed without thought and as quickly as possible. In the manifesto, the founders of Slow Food express their concern for the impact that fast food and the industrialised forms of agriculture used to produce it have on “our environment and our landscapes.” Their main focus, however, is on the effects that such a “life model” has on our very “way of being.” Mistaking “frenzy for efficiency,” they maintain, the fast life is devoid of “quiet material pleasure” and “long-­ lasting enjoyment.” Regaining such pleasure, they proclaim, lies in “slow food,” in rediscovering and reacquainting ourselves with “the flavors and savors of regional cooking.”

14  Travelling, Fast and Slow

191

Since that demonstration on Rome’s Spanish Steps, Slow Food has grown into an international movement, and the Slow Food organisation itself currently has around 100,000 members in 153 countries. More significantly, Slow Food’s critique of fast life and fast living and its championing of the pleasures and benefits of slowness has since spread into other spheres of life. The most prominent of these is probably CittaSlow or the slow cities movement, but one can also find discussions of slow medicine, slow parenting, slow gardening, slow money, slow fashion, slow science, etc. Slow travel or slow tourism is another point within this larger cultural constellation of slow. Discussions of slow tourism and slow travel first arose in the 2000s and there is some debate in the literature on this topic as to whether the practice primarily concerns the mode of transportation one utilises or the activities one engages in once one has arrived at one’s destination (Caffyn 2012). Leaving that particular debate aside, there seems to be a particular constellation of ideas that frequently re-occur in these various analyses of slow travel. Slow travel emphasises maximising the time one spends at one’s destination. That is, once one arrives at one’s destination one should deliberately linger and tarry, exploring a given area in depth, venturing off the beaten path, as opposed to constantly and quickly moving from one “must-see” site to the next. One should find accommodations that allow one to have greater contact with the local community, homestays here being preferable to hotels, and one should eat at local restaurants and shop at local markets, foregoing multinational chains. One should make an effort to learn the language and dialect, phrases at the very least, and buy a local newspaper. One should walk and stroll as much as possible, immersing one’s self in the surrounding community and landscape, as opposed to swiftly gliding through space high on one’s perch on a sightseeing bus: “It is precisely this ethos – a sense of living deeply within the world rather than on its surface that underpins the philosophy of Slow Travel. For example, when slow travellers remark that they feel like participants and not just observers or sightseers during their journeys, they attach walking and slowness to this sense of dwelling within, not upon, the world” (Molz 2009, 280). The image of the spiral that is often used as a symbol for slow travel is telling in this regard. In contrast to the straight line, to the incessant motion from one point to the next that neatly describes the typical itinerary of fast travel, the spiral best captures the circling, the revolving, the turning around a single point that lies at the core of slow travel. The aim in slow travel is thus to move away from the model of fast travel or fast leisure that characterises mass tourism today, the frequent and short trips made over long distances, where the goal is to pack in as many possible “must-see” stops in as short an amount of time as possible: “modern tourists progress from place to place, ticking off countries, cities and communities as staging posts in a pilgrimage of mass consumption” (Gardner 2009). Moreover, whereas fast travel seems to reduce tourism to a purely visual experience, slow travel seeks to achieve total sensory immersion on behalf of the traveller. Such immersion, proponents of slow travel argue, results in ­certain benefits for the traveller, allowing him or her to become more intimately engaged with his or her surroundings, “with the place, people and the local culture they are located in or passing through” (Caffyn 2012, 77). Apart from the simple appeal to the temporal aspect of travel, proponents of slow travel don’t really explain why fast travel prevents such connections from being made, nor why slow travel allows for their development. It is here that the work of the German-American philosopher Albert Borgmann

192

J. Campisi and G. Ulary

on contemporary technology, his notion of devices and focal practices, can help us in this regard. Building on Martin Heidegger’s analysis of technology as modern Dasein’s mode of being, Borgmann offers a theoretical framework for understanding and supporting the claims made by defenders of slow travel.

14.2 Borgmann on Devices and Focal Practices Much of Borgmann’s philosophical work is devoted to far-reaching analyses of contemporary technology. In this regard, however, Borgmann is not particularly interested in exploring “the extraordinary achievements or threats of technology” (e.g., space travel, nuclear weapons, etc.), but rather the various ways in which “ordinary” technology is implicated in our day-to-day lives (e.g., television, air-conditioning, etc.) (Borgmann 1972, 136). What impact does technology have on our everyday lives? Or, as Borgmann asks, “how [do] we come to be at home in” a world in which many routine tasks can be realised with the simple push of a button or flip of a switch (Borgmann 1972, 135)? It is this attention to technology and the everyday that makes Borgmann’s theory so readily applicable and relevant to something as mundane as travel and tourism. These philosophical analyses of technology provided by Borgmann are primarily motivated by a series of normative concerns, as what he ultimately seeks to understand and evaluate is “the moral significance” of contemporary technological culture and life (Borgmann 1992b, 293). In passing moral judgment on the value of technology, Borgmann guides himself here by examining a connection that is often made by proponents of technology themselves between technological development and “the good life,” that is, the claim that technological advancements provide humanity with “a life of unchallenged power and glorious comfort” (Borgmann 1987, 245). This “promise of technology,” as Borgmann refers to it, has been defended by various thinkers since the Enlightenment, and is reflected in Descartes’ dream of an “infinity of devices” by which we can “enjoy trouble-free the fruits of the earth” (Borgmann 1996, 36; Descartes 1980, 33). The Cartesian dream, however, is not just a philosophical fantasy but is reflected in much of contemporary material culture where a relationship is often posited between technology and personal fulfilment. Such a connection can be seen, as Borgmann suggests, in the marketing campaigns we encounter on a daily basis (Borgmann 1984, 38). A quick glance at some of the slogans used by various corporations in the travel and tourism industry, air and cruise lines, and hotel chains, illustrates his point: “Fly your dreams,” “Fun for all. All for fun,” “We live it. You’ll love it,” “Everything. Right where you need it,” “Whatever you want. Whoever you are.” (Branding Reference 2022). In carrying out his analyses of technology, Borgmann thus seeks to answer this deeper moral question: is technology able to keep its promise? Does “the cornucopia of pleasures” it provides actually promote “the universally rich and satisfying life” (Borgmann 2000, 420; Borgmann 1987, 243)? In answering this question, Borgmann claims that we need to recognise the characteristic pattern or structure that marks contemporary technology, what he will call “the device paradigm.” “Devices,” in his analysis, are forms of technology that provide us

14  Travelling, Fast and Slow

193

given goods or commodities “instantaneously, ubiquitously, safely, and easily” (Borgmann 1984, 77). Devices achieve this via the utilisation of “machinery” that is by and large concealed from the user’s view, and that does not require any special effort or skill to operate on their part. The result for the user is “unencumbered enjoyment,” pure pleasure made possible by the device’s radical separation between goods and the means used to procure them (Borgmann 2000, 420). Borgmann uses various gadgets to illustrate what he means by a device, stereos, televisions, etc., but we can use his example of a furnace to get a clearer understanding of the concept. In this case, the given good or commodity supplied to us by a furnace is heat. The heat they provide is made available almost instantaneously and is evenly circulated throughout one’s home. Operating a furnace requires no expert knowledge, effort, or skill on the user’s part. Furnaces are also quite safe. The machinery that makes all of this possible, the boiler, the oil tank, the pipes, etc., are basically concealed from view, confined to the basement, hidden in floors and behind walls. The various features of Borgmann’s device can be better understood if we contrast devices with the things that they replace. Prior to the invention of the furnace, some people heated their homes using wood stoves. In comparison to a furnace, a wood stove does not provide heat quickly or effortlessly. One must first get some logs from one’s woodpile, carry them inside, arrange them with kindling, and carefully start a fire. The fire won’t provide heat until some time has passed and it gets going. Moreover, the heat produced by the stove won’t be evenly distributed throughout one’s home but will be basically confined to the room in which the stove is located. Using a stove and tending to a fire requires a certain degree of expertise, attention, and effort. One needs to know how to start a fire, how to keep it going, how to clean the stove once the fire is extinguished, etc. Moreover, one needs to know what kinds of wood to burn in one’s stove and what kinds one should avoid. Using a wood stove demands the requisite skills, the ability to cut and split wood, stack and store it, light a fire, and tend to it. Finally, in contrast with the furnace, using a wood stove can be quite dangerous as fires can easily spread. It is, for Borgmann, these various requirements and burdens, the skill, knowledge, and effort involved in using things like wood stoves, that are lifted from us as we make the shift to technological devices. For Borgmann, the ever-widening spread of “the device paradigm” in modern society can be seen as an “irrepressible force,” as more and more goods and commodities come to be produced and provided to us by devices (Borgmann 1971, 62). Borgmann argues, however, that this trend offers unquestionable rewards. The distinct benefit of the device rests in the remarkable ability it has to make an abundance of goods available to us without requiring any strenuous effort or labour on our part. People no longer have to toil cutting, splitting, and stacking wood, retrieving logs from their woodpile, starting and tending to fires. All that heating our homes now requires is the simple setting of parameters on one’s thermostat. In contrast then with the technophobe who seeks to call the value of technology and technological change into question, Borgmann maintains that the benefits afforded to us by devices cannot be so easily dismissed, that “the genuine constructive technological accomplishments of liberating the advanced industrial countries from hunger, disease, illiteracy, and backbreaking work” must be duly acknowledged (Borgmann 1987, 246). However, Borgmann is no mere technophile, maintaining that alongside the accomplishments of technology we must also recognise

194

J. Campisi and G. Ulary

certain effects that arise with the device paradigm, effects that may have a negative impact on our lives. It is this insight into the two-faced nature of devices, the ways in which they can both liberate and disturb us, that represents one of the central contributions of Borgmann’s philosophy of technology and distinguishes it from those who would have us simply condemn or celebrate technology and technological innovation. But how exactly, according to Borgmann, do devices negatively affect our lives? In his work, Borgmann describes devices as “intrinsically disengaging” and maintains that their use leads to a “disconnected, disembodied, and disoriented sort of life” (Borgmann 2000, 422; Borgmann 1992a, 108). Following his analysis, such “disorientation” can be tracked along four dimensions. First, in using devices people become detached both from their natural surroundings and from others. They also experience personal impoverishment in regard to their knowledge, skills, and abilities. And, finally, they become alienated from the very goods or commodities that devices make so readily available to them. When it comes to the goods and commodities produced by technological devices, Borgmann points out that there is a strange inverse relationship between the widespread availability of what they produce and our direct awareness of those products. That is, the more universally accessible goods become, and the less effort is required of us to produce them, the more they in fact fade from view. As Borgmann writes: “The presence of any individual thing is … diminished by the practically infinite number of co-­ available things” (Borgmann 1971, 67). Consider, for example, the warmth in a home that is heated using a furnace. Such heat is evenly distributed throughout the house. But, while it is everywhere, the heat is, in a certain way, nowhere present. In contrast, a person living in a home heated using a wood stove can deliberately move from a cool part of their house and sit down in front of the hearth to enjoy the warmth of the fire. As technological devices blind us to the very goods they make available, they also disconnect us from others and our natural environment. “A device,” Borgmann writes, “never radiates into a context” (Borgmann 1972, 138). Operating a furnace, for example, doesn’t require any engagement with one’s surroundings or with others. The person who uses a furnace to heat their home has no idea where their fuel comes from. Moreover, using a furnace doesn’t require or invite the co-operation of or assistance from others: one simply sets the thermostat and walks away. The situation is much different for someone who uses a wood stove to heat their home: “The experience of a thing is always and also a bodily and social engagement with the thing’s world” (Borgmann 1984, 41). A person who uses a wood stove is connected with their physical surroundings. They are attuned to the seasons and as summer moves into fall understand that they need to prepare their woodpile for the upcoming winter. They spend their days outside, axe in hand, chopping and splitting wood. Throughout this, they enjoy and welcome the company of others. Their family helps to cut and stake wood, bring logs in from the woodpile, start and tend to fires. The stove provides a focus for the family as they gather around it on winter evenings. There is no family, on the other hand, that spends their time sitting together around the furnace. Lastly, Borgmann argues that our own selves are affected by the use of devices. In making goods readily and easily available, devices leave nothing for us to do but simply enjoy the commodities they produce: “The machinery makes no demands on our skill, strength, or attention” (Borgmann 1984, 42). The adoption of devices and abandonment

14  Travelling, Fast and Slow

195

of the things that they replace, the move from wood stoves to furnaces, results then in a radical transformation in our own selves and way of being in the world, a shift from “making” to “using,” from homo faber to homo consumens (Borgmann 1984, 14). With things like wood stoves, we are active doers. In relying on devices like furnaces, we are reduced to passive users. Devices, for Borgmann, thus “atrophy the fullness of our capacities” (Borgmann 1984, 62). In using a wood stove, a person is being constantly engaged, developing, and perfecting various skills. A furnace, however, presents no such challenges. “A thing,” Borgmann writes, “requires practice while a device invites consumption” (Borgmann 1992b, 296). Once this analysis of the device paradigm is in place, Borgmann returns to the question that initially motivated his examination of contemporary technology, its ability to keep its “promise” and furnish us with “the good life.” Borgmann duly acknowledges the value of devices, their ability to make an abundance of goods available without requiring burdensome toil and effort on our part. However, while devices may provide us material prosperity, for Borgmann they fail to otherwise enrich our lives. Here, Borgmann points to psychological research on well-being that indicates that personal satisfaction and fulfilment does not simply rise with an increase in the consumption of material and technological goods: “commodities have limited power to yield pleasure” (Lane 2000, 147; cf. Borgmann 1984, 106 and Borgmann 1992b, 293). Immediate gratification we find quickly yields to hollow ennui: “Being given riding lawn mowers, garage door openers, and microwave ovens, we feel for a moment the power of wielding the magic wand … We seem to move with the effortlessness of youth, with the vigor of an athlete, with the quickness of a great chef. But it is an entirely parasitic feeling that feeds off the disappearance of toil; it is not animated by the full-blooded exercise of skill, gained through discipline and renewed through intimate commerce with the world … Hence the feelings of liberation and enrichment quickly fade; the new devices lose their glamor and meld into the inconspicuous periphery of normalcy; boredom replaces exhilaration” (Borgmann 1984, 140). As studies on well-being show, people feel more satisfaction cultivating and nurturing close relationships with others and developing skills and abilities that allow them to overcome complex challenges (Haidt 2006; Juster 1985). However, it is these very relationships and challenges that are eclipsed by our use of devices. “Following the device paradigm,” Borgmann notes, “we have progressively divided and decomposed the fabric of our lives” (Borgmann 1984, 124). So what is to be done? Borgmann concedes that the complete and utter abandonment of devices is neither realistic nor even desirable. As he argues, “the indispensable and admirable accomplishments of technology” must be acknowledged and respected (Borgmann 1984, 153). But neither should we simply endorse “hypermodernism,” the “unreserved allegiance” or continued devotion to yet more and more technological innovation (Borgmann 1992a, 82). Instead, Borgmann maintains that what is required is a middle path, a new “intelligently selective attitude toward technology” and technological devices, what he sometimes calls “a new maturity” (Borgmann 1984, 211, 196). In taking up this attitude, individuals make use of devices, but only to a certain limit, thereby allowing themselves room to cultivate alternative practices. Technology, he writes, should be accepted “within limits … appreciatively and cheerfully. But the gains of safety, ease, space, and time carry an obligation to clear a central space in our lives for the engagement with focal things and practices” (Borgmann 2000, 422).

196

J. Campisi and G. Ulary

Borgmann will define such a “focal practice” as a “resolute and regular dedication to a focal thing. It sponsors discipline and skill which are exercised in a unity of achievement and enjoyment, of mind, body, and the world, of myself and others” (Borgmann 1984, 219). What is important about such practices is the way they contrast with our use of devices. Without any notable effort on our part, devices provide us with an abundance of goods which, in spite of or even because of their ubiquity, turn out to be largely invisible to us. In focal practices, however, we willfully orient ourselves around things that capture our attention, that “command our respect,” “things of historical depth or natural integrity that provoke skillful engagement” (Borgmann 1992a, 82; Borgmann 1995, 151). Moreover, such practices serve to connect us to our physical surroundings and to others while pushing us to develop certain skills and talents: “They allow us to be more fully human in offering us engagement” (Borgmann 1984, 196). Throughout his work, Borgmann offers various examples of focal practices, gardening, camping, playing a musical instrument, etc., but we can get a clearer understanding of this notion by looking at one specific example described by Borgmann, a focal practice he calls the “culture of the table.” As with many of the goods we consume today, much of our food is made available to us via devices, via the fast and processed food industries. Borgmann, however, points to another means or tradition of procuring food, the “culture of the table,” a focal practice in which, rather than relying on fast or ready-made foods, one takes the time and effort to prepare and share one’s meals. This doesn’t mean that one just cooks the occasional meal here or there. As a focal practice, the “culture of the table” requires resoluteness, a commitment wherein one regularly dedicates one’s self to carefully acquiring the necessary ingredients and to skillfully preparing one’s meals (which doesn’t mean that one can’t have an occasional fast food dinner). This practice, like any focal practice, is neither “anti-technological” nor “pre-technological,” and doesn’t entail the abandonment of devices (Borgmann 1984, 247). The use of certain devices, in fact, can provide us with the time and resources we need to cultivate this pursuit (e.g., using a furnace, we don’t have to sacrifice all of our time to chopping wood and tending fires). Nor do focal practices involve the rejection of technology. Cooks can make use of a variety of sophisticated tools: mixers, blenders, convection ovens, etc. The significance of a focal practice lies in its ability to overcome the various forms of estrangement that arise with the use of devices, the sundering of means and ends, individuals and world, self and others. One who practices the “culture of the table” is thus mindful of the goods being produced, the quality and value of food. Furthermore, the “culture of the table” invites us to connect to our physical surroundings, the sources of our food and the rhythm of the seasons, and to our social environment, those others who help us prepare our meals and with whom we share them: “In the simplicity of bread and wine, meat and vegetables, the world is gathered” (Borgmann 1984, 204). Finally, the “culture of the table” calls upon us to develop certain practical and creative skills: chopping, slicing, roasting, baking, canning, etc. Recalling the research alluded to above that points to a connection between practices, intimacy, and well-being, the “culture of the table” embodies a certain joy of cooking. As Borgmann writes: “In the preparation of a meal we have enjoyed the simple tasks of washing leaves and cutting bread; we have felt the force and generosity of being served a good wine” (Borgmann 1984, 200).

14  Travelling, Fast and Slow

197

14.3 Borgmann and Traveling, Fast and Slow We are now at a point where we can draw parallels between Borgmann’s philosophy of technology and the phenomena of fast and slow travel. Exploring these relationships, and in particular, looking at fast and slow travel from the perspective of Borgmann’s notions of the device and focal practices can help us make sense of some of the various claims made about fast and slow tourism by proponents of slow travel. To start, Borgmann’s theory of the device offers some added insight into the notion of fast tourism disparaged by slow tourism. That is, the mass tourism industry that lies behind fast travel can be understood as a device in Borgmann’s sense, as a system in which travel is made available “instantly, ubiquitously, safely and easily” (Borgmann 1984, 77). Fast travel is obviously fast. The speed here refers to the velocity at which travellers are whisked to their destination via means of transport such as jet aircraft and high-­ speed rail and also to the pace at which travellers often move once they are at their destination, hustling from one “must-see” site to the next, “staying long enough to snap a photo, buy a souvenir, and check the site off a mental or physical list” (LaSusa 2013, 33). Fast travel is also ubiquitous. Mass tourism offers excursions to almost any place on the globe. Many destinations are saturated by over-tourism and as hitherto untouched destinations become trendy or popular, international travel corporations quickly move in to exploit the opportunity and turn a profit. For example, in the 1980s fewer than 2000 permits were granted to climb Mount Everest; in each of the last two decades, that number has more than doubled, resulting in longer and longer lines of mountain climbers (Bogage 2019). Fast tourism also requires no special skill or effort on the part of the individual traveller. This is especially evident with package tours and cruises where tour operators take care of all the organisation and planning and where tourists are moved, like commodities, through a destination as if on a conveyer belt. Reduced to commodities themselves, travellers as tourists become standardised, defined by the same desires, interests, and expectations. As a result, mass tourism offers formulaic tours, shore excursions, and city adventures with little if any variety, requiring no input from the traveller, no skilful coping or decision-making at all. A stark and nihilistic picture of this is presented by David Foster Wallace in “Shipping Out: On the (nearly lethal) comforts of a luxury cruise.” Here he describes how luxury cruises organise and plan everything for the passenger, including “managed fun” and “pampering.” Such cruises promise ­pleasure as they “micromanage every iota of every pleasure option so that not even the dreadful corrosive action of your adult consciousness and agency and dread can fuck up your fun. Your troublesome capacities for choice, error, regret, dissatisfaction, and despair will be removed from the equation” (Wallace 1996, 37). Finally, fast tourism is generally safe. Dominated by multinational airlines, hotel chains, and tour operators, fast travellers need hardly worry about getting lost or ending up on the “wrong side” of town. The ever-popular all-inclusive resorts offer one-stop shopping, making sure the tourist never needs leave the safe confines of the property.

198

J. Campisi and G. Ulary

Similarly, organised excursions and tours led by flag and umbrella waving guides steer one safely away from all dangers and unseemly sights. Understood thus as a device, in Borgmann’s sense, “fast travel” utilises “machinery” that is largely concealed from view, the logistics of long-haul travel, the supply chains for hotels, restaurants, resorts, etc., being essentially invisible to us. As with any device then, there is a radical separation in fast travel between the means used to produce the end and the end or commodity itself. Interpreting fast travel as a device we can begin then to make sense of slow travel’s claim that such travel has an impact, not only on the environment and others but on our very “way of being” for, as we have seen, it is with the existential consequences of contemporary technology, its effect on “the texture and flavor of our daily lives,” that Borgmann is particularly concerned. In regard to fast travel, these consequences can be analysed, as above, along four dimensions: fast travel affects our relationship to travel itself, to our surroundings, to others, and to our own selves. Fast travel affords us the ability to travel instantly and ubiquitously, and the benefits of such a system seem obvious. Pressed for time, we can easily get away, quickly and often relatively cheaply, wherever we may desire to go. Such convenience, however, comes at a price. Firstly, fast travel can affect our appreciation of the travel experience itself, in particular, the experience of one’s destination. As quickly and effortlessly as fast travel brings us to our target, the target itself seems to recede from us, as we swiftly move on, often to our next target. Like the warmth in a furnace-heated room, destinations are there but are never really present to us. This disappearance of the destination is compounded by the monotonous uniformity, the levelling off of the touristic landscape that is often described by critics of mass tourism. As Rawlinson writes: “one city seems doomed to look and operate formally much like any other … Actual places, subject to the forces of global capital, tend toward sameness” (Rawlinson 2006, 143). Within the rails of fast tourism, one is frequently cut off from one’s real physical surroundings, trapped within the structures, the limited chains and franchises that dominate mass tourism. A guest, for example, at an international resort might be hard-pressed to say whether he or she was currently in the Caribbean or in Bali. Likewise, with fast travel, we are estranged from others, specifically from those very others who live in the destination we are visiting. Mass tourists spend more time with each other than they do locals, and when such interactions do occur, they are typically fleeting in nature, and almost exclusively mediated by some form of consumer exchange. Even our relationships with our fellow fast travellers are alienating, when, for example, we view each other as “herds” of tourists being “corralled” in safe touristic zones so that we can all take the same photos of these same landscapes and vistas. David Foster Wallace again hauntingly captures this problem: “Looking down from a great height at your countrymen waddling into poverty-stricken ports in expensive sandals…. There is something inextricably bovine about a herd of American tourists in motion” (Wallace 1996, 50). Finally, fast travel disburdens travellers of the various processes involved in travelling: the logistics of scheduling, the planning, the interacting, the wandering, the navigating, etc. Individuals are not called upon to possess or develop any complex knowledge or skills, to be productive or active in any way. One need not know how to read a map,

14  Travelling, Fast and Slow

199

navigate a city, talk with strangers, develop itineraries, or learn about new places on their own. Thus, there is a kind of consumerist passivity built into fast travel, something infantile, wherein the process of moving is reduced to the process of being moved. Taking these various forms of alienation into account, we can begin then to understand slow travel’s critique of fast travel, how such travel comes to affect our very “way of being” in the world. As Rebecca Solnit argues, travelling fast “sever[s] human perception, expectation, and action from the organic world in which our bodies exist … Speed does not make travel more interesting, but duller” (Solnit 2000, 257). It dulls our sensory perception, our ability to think, and our responsiveness to the uniqueness of different landscapes, peoples, and histories. Borgmann’s notion of “focal practices” can be used, in turn, to extend or broaden our understanding of slow travel itself. An interpretation of slow travel so informed by Borgmann’s thought can help us to recognise that what is important in travel is not hastily checking must-see sights off one’s “bucket list” but the simple, everyday practices of travel, the wandering, the reading, the lingering, the strolling through novel places. It is just such a practical as opposed to a consumerist approach to travel that arises from Borgmann’s conception of focal practices where the emphasis is not just on some commodity or end, but on the techniques and skills used to acquire it. With a broadened understanding of slow travel informed by Borgmann’s thought, we can acknowledge “quiet material pleasure[s]” beyond the superficial ones that come from mere sight-­ seeing, from commodified package-tours, the ambulatory pleasures, for example, that come from slowly moving through a marketplace, pleasures that ultimately make their own contribution to a life of “long-lasting enjoyment.”

References Bogage, Jacob. 2019. How Mount Everest became a tourist destination. Washington Post, May 31, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2019/05/31/how-­mount-­everest-­ became-­tourist-­destination/ Borgmann, Albert. 1971. Technology and Reality. Man and World 4: 59–69. ———. 1972. Orientation in Technology. Philosophy Today 16: 135–172. ———. 1984. Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1987. The Invisibility of Contemporary Culture. Revue Internationale de Philosophie 41: 234–249. ———. 1992a. Crossing the Postmodern Divide. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1992b. The Moral Significance of the Material Culture. Inquiry 35: 291–300. ———. 1995. Theory, Practice, Reality. Inquiry 38: 143–156. ———. 1996. Technology and the Crisis of Contemporary Culture. Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 70: 33–44. ———. 2000. The Moral Complexion of Consumption. Journal of Consumer Research 26: 418–422. Branding Reference. 2022. Branding Reference. https://brandingreference.com/. Accessed 3 March 2022.

200

J. Campisi and G. Ulary

Caffyn, Alison. 2012. Advocating and Implementing Slow Tourism. Tourism Recreation Research 37: 77–80. Conway, Dennis, and Benjamin F.  Timms. 2010. Re-Branding Alternative Tourism in the Caribbean: The case for ‘Slow Tourism’. Tourism and Hospitality Research 10: 329–344. Cooke, Lisa. 2013. Review of Slow Tourism: Experiences and Mobilities, ed. Simone Fullagar, Kevin W. Markwell, and Erica Wilson. Transfers 3: 142–143. D’Amore, Louis. 2010. Peace Through Tourism: The Birthing of a New Socio-Economic Order. Journal of Business Ethics 89: 559–568. Descartes, René. 1980. Discourse on Method. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Gardner, Nicky. 2009. A Manifesto for Slow Travel. Hidden Europe 25, March/April 2009. https://www.hiddeneurope.eu/editorial-­hidden-­europe-­25 Guiver, Jo, and Peter McGrath. 2016. Slow Tourism: Exploring the Discourses. Dos Algarves 27: 11–34. Haidt, Jonathan. 2006. The Happiness Hypothesis. New York: Basic Books. Juster, Francis Thomas. 1985. Preferences for Work and Leisure. In Time, Goods, and Well-­ Being, ed. F.  Thomas Juster and Frank P.  Stafford, 333–351. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Lane, Robert E. 2000. The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies. New Haven: Yale University Press. LaSusa, Danielle M. 2013. Sartre’s Spirit of Seriousness and the Bad Faith of “Must-See” Tourism. Sartre Studies International 19: 27–44. Levy, Stuart E., and Donald E.  Hawkins. 2010. Peace Through Tourism: Commerce Based Principles and Practices. Journal of Business Ethics 89: 569–585. Lumsdon, Les M., and Peter McGrath. 2011. Developing a conceptual framework for slow travel: a grounded theory approach. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 19: 265–279. Molz, Jennie Germann. 2009. Representing pace in tourism mobilities: staycations, Slow Travel and The Amazing Race. Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change 7: 270–286. Petrini, Carlo. 2001. Slow Food: The Case for Taste. New York: Columbia University Press. Rawlinson, Mary C. 2006. Toward an Ethics of Place: A Philosophical Analysis of Cultural Tourism. International Studies in Philosophy 38: 141–158. Solnit, Rebecca. 2000. Wanderlust. New York: Penguin Books. Wallace, David Foster. 1996. Shipping Out: On the (Nearly Lethal) Comforts of a Luxury Cruise. Harper’s Magazine, January 1996. https://harpers.org/wp-­content/uploads/2008/09/Harpers Magazine-­1996-­01-­0007859.pdf Joseph Campisi is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Marist College. He received his PhD in Philosophy from Duquesne University. His interests lie in the philosophy of food, contemporary continental philosophy, and philosophy of language. He has published articles in Food, Culture and Society, The Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics, and The Journal of the Society for Philosophy in the Contemporary World.  

Georganna Ulary is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Marist College. She received her PhD in Philosophy from Duquesne University. Her research areas include nineteenth and twentieth-­century social and political philosophy, psychoanalytic theory, and philosophies of love. In addition to her published articles in Thesis Eleven, and The Southern Journal of Philosophy, she also has a published essay in the edited volume Language and Liberation: Feminism, Philosophy, and Language.  

Part IV

Ethics of Tourism

Chapter 15 The Botho Perspective on Human and Animal Welfare Doreen Sesiro1 (*) 1 

University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana

Abstract.  This paper is an exploration of the intersection between animals, tourists, and host communities. While the conservation of animals serves the dual purpose of preserving the species for future generations as well as giving tourists the opportunity to see them in the wild, it also has existential implications for local people who share the environment with these animals. This is not only with respect to the advantages of tourism but also in terms of the dangers, losses and disadvantages of living alongside these animals, including the presence of poachers. The paper highlights the dilemma that such an intersecting relationship presents for ordinary people in their attempt to balance conservation and animal-based tourism with their traditional interaction with animals, including their historical dependence on the animals for food. At the same time, the paper undertakes an overview of contemporary ethical arguments on animal welfare alongside contemporary ethical arguments on the existence and ethical use of animal-based tourist attractions. It approaches the relationship of animals, tourists, and host communities from the framework of Ubuntu/Botho, an African philosophy that is based on the maxim, “I am because we are,” and argues for accommodations that reflect the symbiotic relationship between the intersecting variables. Keywords:  Botho · Animal welfare · Tourists · Host communities · Elephants

15.1 Introduction Botswana is a developing land-locked, semi-arid country in Southern Africa. The population is estimated to be about 2300, 000 people. The population in rural areas depends on subsistence farming, while the population in urban areas depends on formal employment. Botswana like many other African countries benefits the most from tourism. Northern Botswana is characterized by diverse ecosystems which include the Makgadikgadi Pan National Park, Nxai Pan National Park, Moremi Game Reserve, Chobe National Park, and Okavango Delta (Mbaiwa 2018a, 44). The tourism industry

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M.-É. Zovko, J. Dillon (eds.), Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36659-8_15

203

204

D. Sesiro

in Botswana is recognized as a means of supporting economic diversification, which is currently concentrated in the mining sector. Botswana’s tourism is mostly wildlife based. Human-wildlife conflict is a concern for Botswana, especially in those areas where human settlements are located near protected areas and game reserves. The conflict occurs when human persons or animals harm or threaten one another in the course of pursuing their needs or interests. This conflict threatens rural livelihoods, food security, and often causes conflict between wildlife managers and local communities. This paper focuses on the conflict between human persons and animals with specific emphasis on Botswana.

15.2 The Problem of Human-Wildlife Conflict in Botswana Julian H. Franklin argues that the use of nature is the main area in which human and animal rights conflict (2005). Franklin further defines conflict of rights as “situations wherein the legitimate interests of animals and the legitimate interests of humans directly clash” (2005, xiv). Franklin cites the competition between humans and animals for the use of a particular natural resource as an authentic conflict of otherwise legitimate interests. Water is a very scarce resource in Botswana, yet vital. The scarcity of water could lead to conflicts over human security and animal rights. Postel (Postel and Peterson 1996, 43) states that “as a basis of life, water requires an ethic of sharing – both with nature and each other.” In light of this statement, it may be noted that despite the human-animal conflict, animals need to live. Mbaiwa (2018b) notes that even though the conflict between humans and wildlife is widely known as a primary threat to wildlife conservation, it also affects the livelihood of human persons living adjacent to protected areas. While some people may argue that the human-animal conflict is provoked by human persons, others may object that animals function according to biological laws, and they are therefore naturally have to fight for the limited resources on which they depend for their survival. According to National Geographic, recent droughts in Botswana have driven elephants in search of water into regions they had not been in before. While they are associated with protected areas, they are a highly mobile species. The media reports elephants sighted in southern, central, and south-western Botswana (Mmegi Online 2017). This led to increased contact of elephants with human persons in a way that threatens lives, crops, and property. This presents a huge concern, particularly since Batswana rely on arable farming as a source of livelihood. Agricultural circumstances are not the only context. Sometimes people are unable to live normal lives because their movements are restricted, and their routines are disrupted. Hunting as a solution has become a controversial affair. Animal rights advocates argue that animals also need to live. Besides the fact that hunting as a solution has aroused international pressure for Botswana, there are also some assumptions that hunting could encourage poaching or make the animals more aggressive and therefore worsen human persons’ security.

15 The Botho Perspective on Human and Animal Welfare

205

15.3 Animal Rights Having discussed the problem of human-wildlife conflict in Botswana, I will now discuss philosophical theories considering whether animals have rights, the moral status assigned to human persons and non-human persons, and the duties that should be fulfilled towards them. These theories are very important because they affect the way human persons relate to and understand animals. Concerns regarding the relations between human persons and non-humans have a long-standing history. Philosophers have contributed substantially to animal ethics. It will be worthwhile to highlight some leading contributions briefly. Descartes crafts two tests in order to support his claim that animals are machines. The first test is concerned with the ability to communicate with others. Descartes argued that animals do not possess the capacity to process rational thoughts. In Descartes’ time, humans alone were thought to possess self-awareness and consciousness, the ability to plan for the future, and the ability to use tools and language. The second test states that “although such machines might execute many things with equal or perhaps greater perfection than any of us, they would, without doubt, fail in certain others from which it could be discovered that they did not act from knowledge, but solely from the disposition of their organs” (Fox and Brady 2011, 51). For Descartes, animals are moving mechanical devices made in imitation of a human person. Immanuel Kant, like Descartes, is dismissive of animal rights. According to Immanuel Kant, animals are not autonomous or self-conscious, and hence cannot be considered moral agents. Moral obligations and moral rights apply to agents only. Kant contends that rationality is the key element in deciding whether to extend moral obligations to a being (Thomson 2019). Kant presents the categorical imperative as though it covers only rational beings. For Kant, only rational beings have rights because they are an end in themselves. Animals fall outside the circle of morality because they are not rational. Animals were considered to have no moral worth and to serve mainly as a means to human ends. Jeremy Bentham laid the foundation for a new direction in animal ethics. According to Bentham’s utilitarian approach, animals are considered according to their sentience to have certain moral rights (Machan 2004). Utilitarianism bases its argument on that which maximizes happiness and minimizes pain. “Thus an animal that is capable of experiencing pleasure or happiness may be sacrificed to further some human purpose only if that sacrifice demonstrably contributes to the overall pleasure or happiness on earth” (ibid., 6). Bentham’s utilitarianism is committed to maximizing the good; the consequences must be calculated. Bentham, therefore, argues for the humane treatment of animals. Peter Singer took up the utilitarian theory of animal liberation. In his condemnation of human person’s bias against other animals as opposed to a favourable view of the human species, Singer differentiates between what he terms human-animals and non-­ human animals (Singer 1974). All sentient beings have interests. Singer argues that all animals and human persons might not be equal because of differences between species and between individual members of a species such as, for example, an imbecile and prodigy (Singer 2011, 58–60). All animals have interests and sentience. The interests

206

D. Sesiro

and sentience may not be the same, may not register with the same impact, or may only be aroused by a certain measure of stimulation- nonetheless, the individual or species must not regard the interests or sentience of another individual or species to be inferior just because it is not his own (ibid). Once we admit that all sentient beings can suffer pain and feel pleasure, the animals’ pain and pleasure must not count less than the human person’s. The animal interests therefore must be accorded the same respect as that given to a human person. According to Tom Regan, one sentient being has as much right of access to nature as another. Both Singer and Regan agree on the idea of extending equal consideration to animals. However, Singer denies that animals (and humans) have moral rights, while Regan, on the other hand, argues that animal interests are protected by rights. The idea of natural right was formulated by John Locke in connection with the issue of the proper relationships between human persons. John Locke argued that human persons are rational beings who are naturally selfish and entitled to pursue their own happiness within the bounds of the law of nature (Harrison-Barbet 1990, 200). In contrast to John Locke, Regan does not agree that natural rights are to be restricted to human persons alone. According to Tom Regan, animals are subjects of life and have, independent of sentience, inherent value. According to Regan, eating the flesh of animals violates their rights, and it is not justifiable. Singer’s and Regan’s arguments subscribe to Darwin’s theory. According to Darwin, “animals and humans are biological, psychological and emotional continuities. Therefore, all animals including humans are on the same plane of subjective existence” (Darwin 1859). Singer, Regan, and Darwin argue that human persons and animals have no difference of kind, since both have interests.

15.4  Botho Moral Theory This paper employs the theory of Botho to solve the complex situation of human persons and animals. The Botho perspective is more laudable than the above-mentioned Western theories because it epitomizes the concept of human dignity, where dignity is the fundamental element that separates human persons from animals. Singer and Regan for example, do not make a boundary between the human persons and animals, i.e., they demand that human persons be seen as simply one kind of animal. Hence, their theories fall short of ascribing appropriate dignity to the human person that would set him/her/ them apart from animals. There is a need to give a brief overview of what Botho entails. I will start by discussing ubuntu generally (Africa) and then narrow it to Botho in Botswana. Ubuntu is a term that is used among the Bantu group, in particular from the Nguni language group in Southern Africa. Batswana, who occupy parts of South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe,

15 The Botho Perspective on Human and Animal Welfare

207

and Namibia, are part of a larger group called the Bantu who belong to the Sotho-­ Tswana language group. The term Ubuntu is a Zulu/Ndebele/Swati/Xhosa lexeme. Tutu (1997, 39) describes Bantu as the plural form of the word umuntu, coined by Bleek to identify a similar linguistic bond among certain African speakers. Tutu argues that “Ubuntu means humanity and it is related both to umuntu – which is the category of intelligent human force that includes spirits, the human dead, and the living – and to ntu, which is God’s being as meta-dynamic (active rather than metaphysical)” (Tutu 1997, 39). Tutu goes on to say that the term includes references to wholeness (oneness) or the state of being whole in nature (1997, 39). Basically, it is both a philosophical and religious concept that defines the individual in terms of his or her relationships with others. The Setswana version of the concept is Botho. The word “Tswana” is a root which, when prefixed with Bo- means the Country, Ba-, the people of Botswana; Mo-, singular for the latter; Se-, the language or culture of Batswana. Botho is a coined Setswana term derived from the term “motho,” meaning simply personhood. As such, it defines “morality.” It is that “which makes the thing itself,” (Gaie 2007, 30). A human person ought to acknowledge any other being which exhibits the characteristics of personhood and treat that being as such. Failure to treat a human person as he or they ought to be treated is not Botho. Gaie (2007, 32) points out that to have Botho means to have good personality. A person who has no Botho is viewed as not being a Motho or person. That is to say, somebody who violates communal ethical codes relegates themselves to a lower status. It is important to point out that the negation of personhood is used pragmatically. It reflects meagerness in terms of quality and not essence. The concept can be likened to a drop of water; it is still water, but less in quality and not essence. A human person who has lost Botho is similarly not the best of themselves in quality, yet they are human persons in essence. According to the Botho perspective, personhood is a process; a human person can become more or less, the process only ends when one dies. The scope of Botho is wide, and its principles are applicable in a globalized world. There are different approaches to Botho that show that Botho contributes to the whole body of knowledge. Even though the principles prescribed in Botho may have been applied in traditional society, they still fit in contemporary society. The saying “a person is a person because of, with and through other people,” has the character of an axiom which can be applied in different contexts. For instance, a business person is a business person because of, with, and through his/her clients. A politician exists because of, with, and through his/her constituency. Biologically, my son exists because of me. The Setswana version of Botho defines Batswana. It is about how Batswana see and understand the world, human nature, and life in general. Their “philosophy of life is based on the moral principle of Botho” (Amanze 2002, 125). Batswana have a rich language that yields Botho, and there is a more specific meaning that the Setswana worldview brings to the understanding of human nature. Having stated what Botho is, the next section will Botho to the issue of human and animal conflict.

208

D. Sesiro

15.5 Application of Botho Theory to the Issue of Human and Animal Conflict Most African authors emphasize the communitarian and moral aspects of Botho. However, the Botho perspective also entails a rational aspect. According to this perspective, a human person is rational because he/she is an autonomous agent with the capacity to justify their actions with reasons. The sense of duty arises from the nature of a human person as a rational creature apart from the animals. In this regard, the Botho perspective can be contrasted with the Kantian conception of dignity. According to Kant, human dignity is constituted by the human capacity for rational agency. The Kantian conception according to which human dignity upholds human rights is generally understood to entail treating human persons as ends in themselves. However, in the Botho perspective, a human person is a being who because of rational capacity has the ability to relate to others. The African conception of dignity, as opposed to the Western version, is thus understood in a fundamentally social manner, insofar as it entails respecting an individual human person’s capacity for moral relationships. “[I]ndividuals have dignity insofar as they have a communal nature, that is, the inherent capacity to exhibit identity and solidarity with others” (Metz 2011, 544). The Botho perspective determines what ought to be done to a human person. A human person ought to be treated in a certain way, excluding certain other ways. Since every human person can recognize another human person, they ought to respect him/ her. According to the Botho perspective, the dignity of non-persons is low in quality as compared to the dignity possessed by human persons. Animals, plants, and minerals are the forces made available by God as a vital energy for use by human persons. Human persons are therefore more valuable than other aspects of nature. In Setswana, there is a saying, “ga le fete motho le tlhaba kgomo” (Mogapi 1984, 121), (a bullet ought to bypass a human person to stab a cow). The meaning of this saying is that, if a choice had to be made, anything ought to die in the place of a human person. The Botho perspective is similar to Regan’s and Singer’s theories. Regan makes us imagine four human persons and a dog in a lifeboat, all of equal weight. Four of them can be saved if one of them is thrown overboard. Regan contends that all on board: have equal inherent value and equal prima facie right not to be harmed. Now, the harm that death is a function of the opportunities for satisfaction it forecloses, and no reasonable person would deny that the death of any of the four humans would be a greater prima facie loss, and thus a greater prima facie harm, than would be true in the case of the dog. Death for the dog, in short, though harm, is not comparable to the harm that death would be for any of the humans (Regan 2004, 324).

The implication of the Botho perspective is that the life of the human person is paramount, and the highest value must be attributed to measures that enhance the well-being of human persons. It would be morally wrong according to the Botho perspective for the bullet to miss or spare the cow and stab the human person. According to the Botho perspective, the well-being and needs of human persons should not be compromised. Does this position suggest that according to the Botho perspective there is no symbiotic relationship between human persons and non-human persons or that human persons are

15 The Botho Perspective on Human and Animal Welfare

209

free to treat animals any way they want? What if putting human persons first leads to animal extinction? Does the Botho perspective suggest that there is some opposition between human persons and nature? The Botho perspective is ecocentric, relational, and anthropocentric. Even though Botho is construed within a framework of human relations, it is not confined to human relations, nor does it negate relationships that the human person has with nature. According to the Botho perspective, the human person has an essential relationship with the external world like animals, trees, ancestral spirits, mountains, and rivers. Placide Tempels (1959) contends that Africans do not make a distinction between living things, inanimate and animals, and non-living things such as rocks or minerals – they are all created by God using force and they are all endowed with force. The Botho perspective places intrinsic value on all living organisms and their natural environment. Tempels, however, goes further to explain that God made the non-human forces for the purpose of serving the human persons to strengthen their human vital force. It is indisputable that human persons sometimes exploit nature; that could be what happens in practice. But it is one thing to argue for a viable solution to this problem. It is quite another thing to argue that a human person is one animal among many, a perception that denigrates human dignity. The human persons’ sensitivity towards nature is never meant to accord it equal status with human persons. Human persons’ special status is embedded in their rationality. Human persons possess the capacity for free choice and responsibility to act ethically. Since rationality, morality, and epistemology are essential elements of personhood, it seems untenable to propose a Setswana culture that promotes the exploitation of nature. From a moral perspective, a human person is not expected to exploit nature or be cruel to other human persons. As rational beings, they have the ability to extend the same protection they have for human persons to other species, they can sympathize with certain animals because of the ways they are indeed similar to them, but animals do not carry any moral obligations towards human persons. Animals make no choices for which they must take responsibility. Ultimately, it is human persons who have to decide when it comes to moral evaluation, and human interests carry weight in the decision. According to the Botho perspective, the human person is a moral being with moral obligations towards other moral persons and even non-persons. The human person’s moral obligations towards other moral persons, however, differ from obligations to non-persons. The human person’s moral obligations towards moral persons are correlated with moral rights, hence the human person’s obligations towards moral persons are weightier than those towards non-persons. The suffering of animals is of concern to rational persons, but not to the point of sacrificing human persons to spare animals. The Botho perspective says that a person is a person because of, with, and through other persons. Botswana relies heavily on its reputation. For instance, Botswana has over the years been defined as a peaceful country by international agencies. “I am because of other people,” means other people define me and I define other people and the whole community. Batswana cannot escape the fact that people from neighbouring countries define them depending on their relationship with them. They are therefore going to be either a good or a bad nation because of, with, and through their relationship with people from international countries. The Botswana government’s decision to lift the hunting ban, for instance, has become a global issue and has the potential to damage

210

D. Sesiro

the image of Botswana as one of the leading countries in elephant conservation. Even if the decision to lift the ban may be justified, it will not be well received in a world where elephants are considered an endangered species. Botswana’s reputation for conservation affects its revenues for tourism. The Botho perspective is reciprocal; it is about a mutual relationship where both parties benefit. However, in this context both parties are disadvantaged. Supposing the international tourists boycott tourism in reaction to Botswana’s decision to lift the hunting ban, this is likely to hurt the country’s economy. Likewise, the international communities will be disadvantaged because they would not get to enjoy the noble creatures in Botswana. The Botho perspective also comes across clearly in politics where the government is a government because, with, and through its people. What this means is that not only does the government come into being because of the people, it comes to be through them, as well as with them. In Setswana, it is expressed as: kgosi ke kgosi ka batho (Mogapi 1985, 86), (The chief rules with, because of, and through other people, and that is when he will always succeed). It is in accordance with the Botho perspective for those in leadership to consult people, seek their opinions, and make them feel that they have a say in issues that involve them. The Botho perspective is similar to democracy with respect to freedom of speech and consultation. In contrast to democracy, the Botho perspective is not only about the rule of the majority – it recognizes the worth of an individual, the minority, and the poor people in society. One of the great attributes of Botswana is that it favours a very open and democratic society, and permits discussions on public issues. Botswana’s traditional politics is a politics of consensus. The opposition is always invited to freedom of speech through the sayings, “mmualebe o bua la gagwe” (every person has the right to express their views) and “mafoko a kgotla a mantle otlhe” (all words spoken at the public gathering are beautiful). Every individual is worthy of respect and should be allowed to say what they think. The freedom of thought and feelings presupposes the ability to reason as an integral part of every rational being and the possibility for disseminating information. It is against the Botho perspective to suppress an opinion which the majority does not approve of, because the suppressed opinion may be true. The Botho perspective entails equal rights for all human persons in the society, the right to individual choices and treating an individual as part of the community. Every individual is allowed the freedom to make choices and to contribute to the community. The Botho perspective preserves and promotes the dignity of the human person by acknowledging his/her freedom of choice. Any legislation which is in accord with the Botho perspective should be based on standards established by the community for all human persons’ well-being, not just with regard to a particular individual’s preferences for their own selfish interests. According to the Botho perspective, no one is inherently more important than others; no one can claim that his/her happiness or unhappiness counts more than the happiness or unhappiness of the average person. Even those in leadership are expected to live up to communal expectations. The Botho perspective is similar to Stuart Mill’s version of utilitarianism because it is based on actions producing good results for people. The Botho perspective encourages the common good for society. According to this perspective, morality takes the form of some kind of utilitarianism, which requires that one’s action “should aim at the general happiness, regardless of whether this will increase one’s happiness” (Norman 1998, 94). David Hume argues

15 The Botho Perspective on Human and Animal Welfare

211

that a morally good action lies in its utility. He asserts, “… other people derive happiness from them in so far as he offers love or friendship, or provides for those in need” (Harrison-Barbet 1990, 143). According to Botho perspectives, moral rules are based on reasons for benefitting human persons and not for hurting them. These reasons can be perceived, which makes them objective. Some critics of the Botho perspective have argued that the moral rules of this perspective are not objective. This is however not true. What makes this perspective objective is not the language of the moral rules, but their applicability to every human person. Moral rules in the Botho perspective are objective in the sense that they can judge everyone else, including those outside that particular community. When a human person does something wrong to another person, for example, they are failing to acknowledge that their happiness is tied to that person’s happiness. A moral wrong, according to the Botho perspective, is the failure to acknowledge reality for what it is. It would therefore be morally wrong according to the Botho perspective for the international community to impose a solution that ignores the people of Botswana in regard to the human-animal conflict in Botswana. The Botho perspective encourages a round table discussion where everybody is given an equal right to participate in the discussion. Any initiative that is suggested has to be compatible with the concerns of the people it concerns. The reason why Batswana should not be left out in resolving the issue in question here is that the government of Botswana, with its people, bears the costs of protecting their animals from poaching. Botswana has put aside land, money, and its people to protect its wildlife. The elephants in Botswana, for instance, thrived due to government protection, which afforded them freedom and access to multiple food sources. The population of wild animals in Botswana increased after the ban on poaching was introduced because Botswana’s citizens cooperated. If the indigenous people had not cooperated, we would not be dealing with the number of animals we are dealing with today. One could say the animals are because of, with, and through the people and vice versa. The government is also because of, with, and through its people. The government can only succeed in looking after this resource if it is supported by the community. Members of the international community, on the other hand, have the choice whether to come to Botswana and see the wild animals or not. They also have the ability to withdraw from the situation when they wish to, and their lives will not be endangered by the wildlife they have asked Botswana to protect. This however does not suggest that the issue of human-animal conflict has to be viewed in a Botswana context only. The phrase “I am because we are” implies that the local community and the international community are all dependent on each other. The human-animal conflict is therefore an African and an international issue.

15.6 Conclusion It is Botho to put human persons first. The Botho perspective is the embodiment of the principle of human dignity because it holds that the human person is distinct from animals and has higher moral worth. In contrast to animals, human persons have a sense of

212

D. Sesiro

right and wrong and are owed certain treatment by other members of the moral community. The crucial aspect of being human lies in their intra-social relations rather than in the linkage between human persons and animals. I am because of, with, and through other people implies membership in moral community which constitutes the primary criterion for being a human person. The Botho perspective also acknowledges the essentially individual, rational, moral nature and equal rights of all human persons. It recognizes that each member of the community is equally important, and no one may exercise rule over another without that other’s consent. It is therefore Botho to involve the local people in issues that concern them and to allow them to come up with solutions that benefit the well-being of the community. Botho is similar to utilitarianism in finding that, where harms must be compared, death to an animal may be a lesser harm than death to a human person.

References Amanze, James N. 2002. African Traditional Religions and Culture in Botswana. Gaborone: Pula Press. Darwin, Charles. 1859. The Origin of Species. New York: Hurst. Fox, Warren, and Brendan Brady. 2011. The Reflective-Phenomena Criterion: Finding Personhood Through Machines, Subjectivity Band Reflection. Dialogue 54: 50–61. Franklin, Julian H. 2005. Animal Rights and Moral Philosophy. New  York: Columbia University Press. Gaie, Joseph B.R. 2007. The Setswana Concept of Botho: Unpacking the Metaphysical and Moral Aspects. In The Concept of Botho and HIV/AIDS in Botswana, ed. Joseph B.R. Gaie and Sana K. Mmolai, 29–44. Kenya: Zapf Chancery. Harrison-Barbet, Anthony. 1990. Mastering Philosophy. London: Macmillan. Machan, Tibor R. 2004. Putting Humans First: Why We Are Nature’s Favorite. New  York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Mbaiwa, Joseph E. 2018a. Effects of Safari Hunting Tourism on Rural Livelihoods. South African Geographic Journal 100: 41–61. ———. 2018b. Human Wildlife Conflict in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. Journal of African Studies 32: 22–35. Metz, Thaddeus. 2011. Ubuntu as a Moral Theory and Human Rights in South Africa. African Human Rights Law Journal 11: 535–559. Mogapi, Kgomotso. 1984. Thutapuo Ya Setswana. Lobatse: Longman. ———. 1985. Ngwao Ya Setswana. Gaborone: Sikwane Publishers. Postel, Sandra and James Arthur Peterson. 1996. Dividing the waters: Food Security, Ecosystem, Health, and the New Politics of Scarcity. World Watch Paper. Washington: World Watch. Regan, Tom. 2004. The Case for Animal Rights: Berkeley. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Norman, Richard. 1998. The Moral Philosophers: An Introduction to Ethics (2nd ed.) New York: University Press. Singer, Peter. 1974. All Animals are Equal. Philosophical Exchange 5 (1(6)): 103–116. New York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2011. Equality for Animals? In Practical Ethics, P. Singer, 55–82. Tempels, Placide. 1959. Bantu Philosophy. Congo: Collection presence Africaine.

15 The Botho Perspective on Human and Animal Welfare

213

Thalefang, Charles. 2017. Elephants are Coming Down South. Mmegi Online. April 21, 2017. https://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?aid=68293&dir=2017/april/21 Thomson, Shawn. 2019. How to Resist Anxiety when you write an Overly Ambitious Article about Science. ASEBL Journal 14: 48–53. Tutu, Desmond. 1997. The Essential Desmond Tutu. Cape Town: Philip Publishers. Doreen Sesiro is a lecturer at the University of Botswana. She teaches Philosophy and her areas of interest are African Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Ethics. She holds a BA in Humanities, a Postgraduate Diploma in Education, and an MA in Theology and Religious Studies from the University of Botswana. She also holds an MA in Philosophy from St Augustine College of South Africa. Doreen Sesiro is currently pursuing a PhD in Philosophy at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. Alongside teaching, she is a prison minister and an active board member of the Botswana Crime Research Institute, a non-governmental organisation.  

Chapter 16 The Ethical Problem of Exploitation of Animals for Tourism Ena Pavičić1 (*) 1 

University of Zadar, Zadar, Croatia

Abstract.  Domestication of animals took place as a biological and cultural process. This was the basis for the Neolithic revolution resulting in the quicker progress of human societies (cf. Clutton-Brock J. A natural history of domesticated mammals. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999, 30–31). Today, some people try to preserve a piece of history by keeping animals as a tourist attraction. Those involved in keeping animals to promote tourism, however, are often driven to earn as much money as possible, while not considering the well-being of their animals. In my paper, I consider the ways in which animals are used in tourism. I discuss whether cultural aspects of animal husbandry only serve as an excuse for the “overuse” of animals. I consider if it is justifiable to view animals as tools for the satisfaction of our needs or whether animals must be considered as beings with intrinsic value. It will be shown that even Kant believed we need to treat animals with respect. The urgency of these questions is heightened by the increasing incidence of suffering and death among animals employed in tourism. I argue that humans should not be allowed to take advantage of animals to this extent merely because they occupy a position of domination with respect to animal life. Keywords:  Exploitation · Animals · Culture and tourism

Humans have been accompanied by animals since the dawn of history. Humans realised they could use those animals for various purposes, for example, for food, as helpers in agriculture, or as guards. Domestication, as the process of gaining control and domination over the animals, led to generations of tamed animals becoming absorbed into human society and gradually losing all contact with their wild ancestors (cf. Clutton-­ Brock 1999, 29). This process helped to quicken the progress of human societies. It may appear that as technology has developed, the use of animals has declined, but this is only partly true. It cannot be denied that agricultural machines are more efficient than oxen and horses for performing agricultural tasks. Also, animals are still used as sources of food, meat, eggs, dairy products, etc. With the continuing growth of the human population, the number of animals used for this purpose will continue to increase (cf. Fennell 2012, 157).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M.-É. Zovko, J. Dillon (eds.), Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36659-8_16

215

216

E. Pavičić

In addition to their use for food production, 100 million animals are killed for their fur worldwide each year (cf. The Humane Society of the United States 2020). Furthermore, animals are used as experimental subjects in biomedical and pharmaceutical research, as well as for the laboratory testing of other products like cosmetics. According to the report of the Humane Society International from 2012, 115 million animals are used globally as experimental subjects in laboratories every year (cf. Humane Society International 2012). Aside from these examples, animals are used for entertainment purposes and incorporated into tourism for this purpose in a variety of different ways. They can be observed in their natural habitat in the wild or in a wildlife preserve, or captured and displayed in captivity in zoos and aquaria, circuses, at festivals, or utilised as a form of transport (cf. Hughes 2001, 322). Fennell (2012, 157) gives the example that snakes and bears are used as street performers, while monkeys are used as props at beaches. Horses and dogs are raced and bulls baited and fought. As a mode of transportation, animals can perform a wide range of duties to facilitate the needs of tourists. Usually, they serve as carriers, like donkeys in Santorini, elephants in India, and camels in Egypt, or to pull carriages, like the horses in New  York or Vienna (cf. Fennell 2012, 158). Animals can become a symbol of a destination, and are frequently shown on postcards and in brochures for promotion purposes. In Dalmatia, for example, we often see a donkey or a Dalmatian dog used to represent the region and its culture. Restaurants and marketplaces may attract tourists by serving animals as exotic food (cf. Hughes 2001, 322). There is a dish called “live octopus,” usually served in Korea. “If you order it, you’ll be met with chopped baby octopus tentacles still wriggling on the plate, served with minimal accompaniments like slivers of garlic and a dish of soy sauce.” (Falkowitz 2022). Animals can even be part of the cultural experience offered by tourism providers (cf. Hughes 2001, 322). Rural tourism is a good example of this particular type of animal use, which may also have positive connotations. According to the World Tourism Organization (WTO), rural tourism is “a type of tourism activity in which the visitor’s experience is related to a wide range of products generally linked to nature-based activities, agriculture, rural lifestyle / culture, angling and sightseeing.” (WTO 2021). This is an interesting example, insofar as animals are used in this context in a double sense. On the one hand, they are being exploited for agricultural purposes, and on the other, they serve as part of the tourist experience. For instance, in rural tourism, goats may be raised to produce milk, which can be sold as it is or made into different dairy products, and at the same time may be used to attract tourists, who enjoy petting and playing with them. Regardless of how they are used in tourism, animals are treated as resources and commodities to satisfy human interests. In other words, they are treated as having instrumental and not intrinsic value. In today’s context of increasing animal rights activism, the tourism industry is nevertheless trying to find a way to make the use of animals as a tourist commodity morally defensible. In other words, tourist providers are looking for ways to reconcile the use of animals in tourism with the pursuit of profit and pleasure (cf. Fennell 2012, 161; cf. Hughes 2001, 322).

16  The Ethical Problem of Exploitation of Animals for Tourism

217

There are two approaches to understanding tourist behaviour among those who choose destinations where animals are used: the motivational and the experiential view. The first approach, as the name implies, attempts to understand what motivates tourists to seek out encounters with animals in the context of tourism. It does this by assessing the individual tourist’s expectations, goals, desired outcomes, motivations, and cognitive judgement about a given tourist activity (cf. Curtin 2005, 1). That means that satisfaction is based on the extent to which “the experience has met expected outcomes, rather than on the actual nature of the experience itself.” (Curtin 2005, 1). The problem with this approach is that experiences are dynamic and emergent. Moreover, experiences are often unexpected and differ greatly from expectations. The motivational approach may confirm that people enjoy animal tourism for many reasons, but it delivers no information about what it is that makes the encounter with animals enjoyable for tourists (cf. Curtin 2005, 2). Understanding the relationship between the consumer (the tourist) and the product (the animals), however, is key to evolving a responsible and sustainable type of tourism involving animals, and hence, as Curtis emphasises, needs to be made a priority (2005, 2). The experiential view of animals in tourism is a more recent approach, which considers “the importance of satisfying hedonistic and pleasure seeking goals” (Curtin 2005, 2). Viewed from an experiential perspective, tourism involving animals is a hedonistic activity surrounded by myths and intangibility, extending to the tourist a kind of promise that doesn’t necessarily have to come true (cf. Curtin 2005, 2). This is because animals are living beings which are, in a sense, unpredictable and can themselves have an impact on how an experience plays out. It is remarkable that, despite this uncertainty of fulfilment, people choose to participate in activities involving animals. The reason for this appears to be because, particularly in Western countries, people live in ever greater isolation from nature, and seem to require the experience of animals in order to compensate for this and to achieve “intellectual, physical, even spiritual stimulation” from their travels (cf. Curtin 2005, 3 quoting Harrison 2003, 27). An interesting fact is that people prefer destinations that offer the possibility of viewing exotic species and allow good visibility of such animals (cf. Curtin 2005, 4). A safari in the Serengeti National Park is a good example, because the animals are exotic (lions, giraffes, zebras, rhinos) and visible, especially around water holes. Participants in tourist activities involving animals also have a desire to interact with the animals. Tourist providers conclude “the closer the better.” Other factors like authenticity, small tour groups, and education, play a significant role in determining the attraction of tourist activities involving animals (cf. Curtin 2005, 4). All these factors are combined in rural tourism, for instance, where interaction usually involves domesticated animals (horses, goats, sheep, cows) that are used to petting. The authenticity factor is assured by this type of tourism because of the fact that people are staying on a real farm, which can accommodate only a small group at a time. Being introduced to real farm life, including getting up early in the morning to participate in chores like feeding and cleaning stalls and pens, also satisfies the need for the education factor. It’s important to mention here that human interest in animals originates, at least in part, from the anthropomorphic attraction that animals have for us. Properties like curiosity, playfulness and social habits that we see in animals cause a feeling of connection.

218

E. Pavičić

Surprisingly, the size of the animal also determines whether we feel a desire to interact with them or not. When the animals are observed in the wild, for example, large mammals and birds are more likely to awaken the desire for interaction than small ones (cf. Curtin 2005, 6). It is obvious that consideration of all the factors named above focus exclusively on the consumer, in this case the tourist, and not on the animals being implemented in tourist activities. That this focus has to change in order to ameliorate what might be deemed a morally unjustifiable exploitation of animals for tourism seems clear. To further illuminate this dilemma, it is necessary to distinguish between the perspective of environmental ethics, animal welfare, and animal rights. This is demonstrated by Peter Hughes’ article “Animals, values and tourism – structural shifts in UK dolphin tourism provision.” Within environmental ethics, the idea of extending ethical considerations beyond humans is a constantly evolving practice which entails moving away from the human-centred perspective on an individual, social, and cultural level. This transition from anthropocentric ethics is based on Roderick Nash’s suggestion “that people’s values, and with it the range of their moral considerability, start with themselves before developing to include family, tribe, region, state, race, humanity, non-human animals, plants and finally, non-living nature.” (Hughes 2001, 322). This means that even though people form their values starting from themselves, they grant some moral standing to individual animals, too. Nevertheless, Hughes claims that since the birth of the modern environmental movement in the 1960s, concerns about animals have been subsumed under the general debate about the environment (cf. Hughes 2001, 323). Aldo Leopold’s land ethics is counted among the foundational works of modern environmental ethics. This school of ethics claims that “any action is ethically justifiable so long as it does not disturb the integrity of the ecosystem as a whole.” (Hughes 2001, 323). As Leopold put it in the dictum of his time: The ‘key-log’ which must be moved to release the evolutionary process for an ethic is simply this: quit thinking about decent land-use as solely an economic problem. Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and esthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. (Leopold 1970, 262)

Leopold’s position implies that the ecosystem as a whole, and not its constituents, needs to be seen as an entity that has “moral considerability.”1 In keeping with this position, it is completely acceptable to kill animals, as long as the action has no impact on the survival of one or more species, as would be the case if one were to disturb the predatorprey relationship which holds between species in a specific eco-system (cf. Hughes 2001, 323). In accordance with this position, it would be acceptable, furthermore, to take individual animals, say bears, out of the wild and to put them in zoos or to use them as street performers, insofar as it does not disturb the natural balance of the ecosystem.  Hughes uses the term “moral considerability” to describe an entity that needs to be taken into account with regard to the morality of actions, decisions and behaviour. (Hughes 2001, 322, 323, 328) 1

16  The Ethical Problem of Exploitation of Animals for Tourism

219

The difference between the environmental ethics and the animal welfare position is that in the second one, the welfare of individual animals is taken into consideration. In Hughes’ view, “An animal’s welfare is compromised when there is some thread of suffering.” (2001, 323). Suffering can result from human-induced injury, from spread of disease, inhumane methods of capturing, trapping or killing, and through disturbance, damage or destruction of the animals’ habitat. However, that does not mean that animals get treatment equivalent to humans, because “The animal welfare position is prepared to accept that some animal suffering may be justifiably incurred if the benefits to human welfare, or to the welfare of the animal species at large, outweigh the costs (pain and suffering) to the individual” (Hughes 2001, 323), making the utilising of animals for human pleasure and interests normal (cf. Hughes 2001, 323). For example, carriage rides are acceptable, not because the animals are being treated according to their needs, but because such activities are educational for humans in terms of illustrating the cultural heritage of a country like Austria. As long as their basic needs like the need for food, water, and exercise are being adequately met, it would be acceptable, according to this view, to use them as tools to achieve other goals. Proponents of animal rights, on the other hand, assert that any act which adversely affects the welfare of an individual animal is morally wrong. Animals are granted moral relevance in consideration of their capacity to feel pain regardless of whether the pain is physical or psychological (cf. Hughes 2001, 323). A much stronger argument for the moral considerability of animals emerges when they are viewed as individuals with an inherent value, and therefore as ends-in-themselves. It’s important to say that this type of value is not a matter of degree, but a categorical one, which all who are subject-of-a-­ life have equally. Fennell quotes Tom Regan’s book The Case for Animal Rights to explain what a subject-of-a-life is in connection with the task of safeguarding the welfare of animals: individuals are subjects-of-a-life if they have beliefs and desires; perception, memory, and a sense of the future, including their own future; an emotional life together with feelings of pleasure and pain; preference and welfare-interests; the ability to initiate action in pursuit of their desires and goals; a psychophysical identity over time; and an individual welfare in the sense that their experiential life fares well or ill for them, logically independently of their utility for others and logically independently of their being the object of anyone else’s interest. (Regan 2004, 243; cf. Fennell 2012, 259).

It is obvious that this perspective is Kantian (deontological) and not teleological. However, people have often made the mistake of thinking that Kant excludes animals from his ethics. This conclusion emerges because Kant focuses on the relationships between people. We have duties, though, only towards other people; inanimate things are totally subject to our will, and the duties to animals are duties only insofar as they have reference to ourselves. Hence we shall reduce all duties to those towards other people. (Kant 1997, 177).

According to Allen Wood’s interpretation, Kant doesn’t posit humans as morally or ethically preeminent based on the fact that they belong to the species of humans, but because they possess reason. This is, according to Kant, the characteristic which gives them the basis for good will, the only intrinsic value, besides dignity, which a living

220

E. Pavičić

being may possess (Wood and O’Neill 1998, 189–190; cf. Eterović 2017, 194–195). In Kant’s words: Will is a kind of causality of living beings insofar as they are rational, and freedom would be that property of such causality that it can be efficient independently of alien causes determining it, just as natural necessity is the property of the causality of all nonrational beings to be determined to activity by the influence of alien causes. (1998, 52)

Although this may seem to imply that animals don’t have intrinsic value, Kant argues that we still have obligations regarding them (cf. Eterović 2017, 194–195). He differentiates thereby between direct and indirect obligations toward reasonable beings. He understands under direct obligations those which we have towards other people In speaking of laws of duty (…), of laws for human beings’ external relations with one another, we consider ourselves in a moral (intelligible) world where, (…) attraction and repulsion bind together rational beings (on earth). The principle of mutual love admonishes them constantly to come closer to one another; that of the respect they owe one another, to keep themselves at a distance from one another (…) (Kant 1996, 293–294)

and towards ourselves For suppose there were no such duties [duties to oneself]: then there would be no duties whatsoever, and so no external duties either. – For I can recognize that I am under obligation to others only insofar as I at the same time put myself under obligation (…). (Kant 1996, 261)

In other words, we have direct obligations towards ourselves and others, because humans are the only reasonable beings and thus the only beings of morality (cf. Eterović 2017, 197). As far as beings without reason are concerned, we don’t have direct obligations towards them, but obligations regarding them or indirect obligations. This is due to the fact that “Since animals are an analogue of humanity, we observe duties to mankind when we observe them as analogues to this, and thus cultivate our duties to humanity.” (Kant 1997, 212). Naturally, then, the basis of every ethics has to be anthropocentric, insofar as ethics is based on rationality and we only know about the rationality of humans. Kant gives a good example in his Lectures on Ethics: If a dog, for example, has served his master long and faithfully, that is an analogue of merit; hence I must reward it, and once the dog can serve no longer, must look after him to the end, for I thereby cultivate my duty to humanity, as I am called upon to do; so if the acts of animals arise out of the same principium from which human actions spring, and the animal actions are analogues of this, we have duties to animals, in that we thereby promote the cause of humanity. So if a man has his dog shot, because it can no longer earn a living for him, he is by no means in breach of any duty to the dog, since the latter is incapable of judgement, but he thereby damages the kindly and humane qualities in himself, which he ought to exercise in virtue of his duties to mankind. Lest he extinguish such qualities, he must already practice a similar kindliness towards animals; for a person who already displays such cruelty to animals is also no less hardened towards men. (Kant 1997, 212).

Even though Regan overlooked this part of Kant’s philosophy, he came to the conclusion that value and respect don’t belong only to people as moral agents, but also to

16  The Ethical Problem of Exploitation of Animals for Tourism

221

animals as “moral patients.”2 Clearly, moral agents are beings who can weigh their options as morally right or wrong and act according to a decision based on free will. Moral patients, on the other hand, lack the capacity to use moral principles while making decisions, and therefore cannot be held accountable for their actions, as humans can (cf. Fennell 2012, 160). In view of these arguments, even if the use of animals in tourism is viewed as acceptable, it is necessary to consider them as beings with an intrinsic value, albeit one based on their analogous position with respect to human dignity and the requirement to cultivate kindness and respect toward them based on that analogy – and not only as things with instrumental value to be used in the pursuit of profit and pleasure. People are rational beings that can make decisions based on free will according to moral principles, which means that not all animal owners exploit their animals. Nevertheless, there are also those who see animals as their property and don’t care about their intrinsic value. For this reason, it is our responsibility as consumers or tourists to consider how animals are treated when used in tourism. Animals are going to be used and exploited as long as they bring profit. It is up to tourists as consumers to decide whether they are going to support such behaviour by paying for a tourist attraction involving animals and by participating in tourist activities involving animals that fail to take due consideration of our obligations toward them.

References Clutton-Brock, Juliet. 1999. A Natural History of Domesticated Mammals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Curtin, Susanna. 2005. Nature, Wild Animals and Tourism: An Experiential View. Journal of Ecotourism 4 (1): 1–15. Eterović, Igor. 2017. Kant i bioetika. Zagreb: Pergamena. Falkowitz, Max. 2022. Is Live Octopus Really Alive When You Eat It? Taste. https://tastecooking.com/live-­octopus-­really-­alive-­eat/. Accessed 18 Mar 2022. Fennell, David A. 2012. Tourism and Animal Rights. Tourism Recreation Research 37 (2): 157–166. Harrison, J.D. 2003. Being a Tourist: Finding Meaning in Pleasure Travel. Vancouver: UBC Press. Hughes, Peter. 2001. Animals, values and tourism – structural shifts in UK dolphin tourism provision. Tourism Management 22: 321–329. Humane Society International. 2012. About Animal Testing. Humane Society International, October 21, 2012. https://www.hsi.org/news-­media/about/ Kant, Immanuel. 1996. The Metaphysics of Morals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1997. Lectures on Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1998. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Leopold, Aldo. 1970. A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from Round River. New York: Ballantine Books.

 Fennell uses this term to describe individuals who are never right or wrong in a moral sense but can be on the receiving end of right or wrong acts from moral agents (cf. Fennell 2012, 160). We can also say that moral patients are objects of moral behaviour. 2

222

E. Pavičić

Regan, Tom. 2004. The Case for Animal Rights. Berkeley: University of California Press. The Humane Society of the United States. 2020. Investigation reveals animals brutally beaten and skinned alive on fur farms in Asia for the sake of fashion. The Humane Society of the United States, July 7, 2020. https://www.humanesociety.org/news/ investigation-­reveals-­animals-­brutally-­beaten-­and-­skinned-­alive-­fur-­farms-­asia-­sake-­fashion The World Tourism Organisation. 2021. Rural Tourism. The World Tourism Organisation. https:// www.unwto.org/rural-­tourism. Accessed 18 Mar 2022. Wood, Allen W., and Onora O’Neill. 1998. Kant on Duties Regarding Nonrational Nature. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes 72: 189–228. Ena Pavičić was born in 1995 in Bjelovar, Croatia, where she attended elementary school and gymnasium. She studied German language and Philosophy at the University of Zadar, where she received her Master’s Degree in November 2019. She is presently studying for a PhD in Philosophy at the University of Zadar. Her fields of interest include ethics, bioethics, philosophy of science, genetics, and more.  

Chapter 17 Hedonism and Its (Negative) Impact on Tourism Maja Ferenec Kuća1 (*) 1 

University of Zadar, Zadar, Croatia [email protected]

Abstract.  This paper analyses and evaluates human actions and examples of behaviourism in tourism from an ethical perspective. Defining the concept of values in tourism as a concept of what is desirable to the tourist together with its motivation, we differentiate four hierarchical levels with respect to the foundation of those values. My aim here is to analyse all of these levels, but with a stronger emphasis on the tradition of teleological ethics within which hedonism arises and which later becomes the basis for utilitarianism. I argue that hedonism provides, in general, a very useful basis for exploring human behaviour in tourism, particularly given the fact that some have considered the pursuit of pleasure as a failing rather than a virtue of tourism. For this reason, I believe it is necessary to investigate the emergence of new moral standards in tourism and potentially reconstruct our understanding of hedonist value systems in this context. Keywords:  Tourism · Hedonism · Behaviourism · Virtue · Ethics

The pursuit of pleasure is one of the main motivations of humans’ affinity for tourism. This pursuit is also central to a hedonist ethical perspective. However, in order to distinguish hedonism in a colloquial sense from hedonist ethical systems, it will be necessary to subject the phenomenon of tourism to a multi-faceted discussion incorporating deontological, teleological, and existential perspectives, with a stronger emphasis on teleological ethical views, in order to take account of the goal-directedness of hedonist tendencies in human behaviour. A consideration of behaviour motivated by a hedonistic worldview in a general sense will need then to explore the hedonist’s underlying value system. David Fennell, in his article “Responsible Tourism. A Kierkegaardian Interpretation,” argues that the negative effects which arise from tourism stem precisely from the pursuit of hedonistic goals. Fennel quotes Przeclawski, who states that “Tourism can not be explained unless we understand man, the human being,” (Przeclawski 1996, 239). In other words, we need to clarify our understanding of human nature before we can begin any kind of discourse on ethical principles in tourism. If we accept Przeclawski’s position that the motivation for human behaviour in the context of tourism needs to be explained on the basis of human nature and that such behaviour per se has an ineliminable ethical aspect, it follows that tourists are by their © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M.-É. Zovko, J. Dillon (eds.), Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36659-8_17

223

224

M. Ferenec Kuća

nature moral subjects who bear full responsibility for their actions. What are the grounds for this assumption and in what does this responsibility consist? Firstly, we observe that by nature human beings – like other animals – expect that their actions will have consequences. Secondly, human beings are capable of making valid judgments and conscious predictions regarding the potential outcome of their actions. And thirdly – and this characteristic appears to be reserved to humans as opposed to other animals  – humans are able to choose between different courses of action on the basis of self-­ consciously adopted principles. The latter two points taken together comprise the main difference between humans and other animals (cf. Ayala 2010, 239; cf. Fennell 2009a, 212). For although animals may be shown to adopt certain behaviours based on their expectations of the outcomes of their actions, and so to be capable of some form of judgment based on their ability to predict those outcomes, it has yet to be shown that any animal other than humans chooses one course of action over another on the basis of self-consciously adopted principles. In light of these considerations, and for the sake of further deliberation, it is necessary to analyse the concept of value upon which our reflections are based. Human behaviour is, so Fennell argues, primarily a function of what I esteem as a value (Fennell 2009a, 213). In other words, values are what motivate us, what drive us to perform certain actions with a specific, definite conviction which I have self-consciously espoused beforehand. This definition of intentional action is pretty easy to understand; but when we turn to the task of establishing a precise definition of the notion of value itself, things become more complicated. This is because there are competing definitions of the concept of value. The first of these is based on the idea that value is something abstract, a mere idea of (moral) goodness imposed on the human mind as such, which may not represent an actually existing good in the sense of a physical object which attracts us automatically as capable of fulfilling an intrinsic need or producing a feeling of pleasure. A second definition conceives of value as a behavioural goal which is socially acceptable, e.g. a norm or convention, but which is not necessarily individually desirable. A third definition posits value as something that motivates us to act to attain that specific thing or to participate in a process that ensures its attainment, as for example in Hodgkinson’s theory of meta-values and their role in specific professional, above all pedagogical contexts. Hodgkinson believes, namely, that value in this sense is an end or conception of what is desirable, which acts as a “motivating force” for action and behaviour (Hodgkinson 1978, 1991, 1996). This could also be expressed as follows: values are a manifestation of a good we desire to achieve as an end or aim. Of course, one assumes that we are thinking of values that are not merely paid lip service, but which actually motivate us to act in a specific way and to adopt corresponding habits of behaviour (cf. Tribe 2009, 214). With regard to the question of values, the history of Western philosophy reveals the following development: Plato, in determining the cause and aim of virtue, claimed that the highest idea which made all good things good and enabled the virtuous to achieve virtue was the idea of the good. Aristotle, for his part, argued that good is what everyone strives, for the purpose of achieving happiness. Nietzsche believed that good and evil were relative concepts and that all traditionally espoused values should be re-­valued in this regard, whereas Marx believed that ethical norms were a mere reflection of rela-

17  Hedonism and Its (Negative) Impact on Tourism

225

tionships in society which are the basis of the production of material goods. In light of the historical transformation of the relationship between values and the good, it appears to me that the right way of putting the question becomes: What actually are values? This topic is a subject of metaethics. In this context, there are differing approaches to explaining the concept of value: ontological, epistemological, and semantic. However, all of them lead ultimately to the distinction of facts and values (cf. Hodgkinson 1991, 89). One such fact is that humans seek pleasure. A discussion of the pursuit of pleasure must therefore precede any discussion of human behaviour and its consequences in the context of tourism. How is hedonism as an ethical theory related to tourism? The most straightforward answer has to do with its intimate relationship with the pursuit of pleasure. Whether it is a question of psychological or ethical hedonism, both essentially see it as the goal of a good life to maximise pleasure and limit pain. In this regard, value is attributed only to the experience of pleasure, and human nature is seen as subordinate to a permanent and continuous calculus with regard to the maximisation of pleasure over pain. Pleasure with respect to emotions includes all feelings which we experience in a positive way, such as liking, love, relief, calmness, joy. The opposite, that is pain, includes any feelings which are experienced negatively or as causing suffering, such as sadness, depression, despair, disorientation, discomfort, anxiety, anger, etc. Leaving aside any attempt at an ontological determination of pleasure, that is, the question of what type of entity pleasure actually is, I turn to the discussion of hedonism itself as a theoretical approach to its value and place in human moral behaviour. Since values in tourism can only be discussed in relation to human nature, it will be helpful to apply Hodgkinson’s values model or paradigm (Hodgkinson 1991, 97–99; cf. Fig. 2, 97), based on the view that value is a conception of the desired and the desirable, which acts as a motivating force. Hodgkinson’s values model permits values to be hierarchically ordered into roughly four levels (Type I-III, where Type II is divided into IIa and IIb; cf. Fig. 2, 97). At the lowest level, we value something according to preference, in other words, we desire it, because we like it instinctively. The next level refers to when we value something because it is preferred by the community/majority (so-called “consensus” level; Hodgkinson, in particular, has the professional community in educational administration in mind). The third level of value refers to valuing something with respect to its consequences (i.e., in a pragmatist or utilitarian perspective), whereas the highest level is based on what Hodgkinson calls will or belief. That is, values are at this level based on received convictions about value, which act as principles of moral behaviour. While the second level involves rational calculation, Hodgkinson sees “value complexes or value orientations” at the highest level as fundamentally transrational. They depend, according to Hodgkinson, “on the holder’s circumstances, biography, and culture,” and can be “unconscious and in logical contradiction” with one another (Hodgkinson 1991, 95) – at least until we find occasion to reflect upon their ability to stand up to examination as a rationally coherent system. The question that concerns us here is in what way the highest level of value is related to judgment regarding our choices. This is because in acting according to principle I base my behaviour not on what I merely like or dislike, or on what pleases others, or even on what science claims or knowledge recommends as “good” for fulfilling wants or needs, but on some principle which is to a certain extent independent of these con-

226

M. Ferenec Kuća

siderations. In other words, I value something at the highest level because it is in line with my intuitively or self-consciously espoused principles, which I am convinced others should follow as a sort of “rule” in order to achieve the morally “best” outcome. The influence of Kant’s ethics of duty can be easily recognised at this level of Hodgkinson’s division, although Kant would insist on the need for rational reflection on our moral maxims, while Hodgkinson focusses on their role as a motivating force, which corresponds more with teleological and utilitarian ethical positions, respectively. Kant’s deontological ethics obviously requires a much deeper and broader discussion than can be undertaken here. However, I will mention Kant’s position only incidentally when presenting specific examples. What is interesting here is that, at the lowest level of our perception of value, our preference for one course of action over another relies on affect, emotion, and sensuality, which speaks in favour of a hedonistic ethical perspective. The very fact that this represents the lowest level of our experience of value reveals something of the problematic nature of the question of value within the context of tourism. Given that the hedonist aim with respect to value is ethically limited to some form of calculation that would permit one to estimate the excess (or surplus) of pleasure over pain and suffering, this position raises specific objections from both a deontological and from a utilitarian point of view. Nevertheless, some form of hedonistic calculus is recognised as comprising an integral part of any moral system that strives to take the whole human being into account (cf. Woodbridge 1897, 475). Leaving aside the psychological definition of the word pleasure for now, I posit pleasure in the context of a philosophical reflection on the phenomenon of tourism as having a purely material connotation, which means that pleasure is identified with any concrete thing that may be the object of human desire. In the context of tourism, then, the object of pleasure is identified with anything that tourists use or consume in order to satisfy their wants and needs, or even their higher aesthetic or intellectual aspirations. This entails the more specific question - what is it that provides enjoyment in the context of tourism, or what does it mean to satisfy your needs or wants in the context of tourism? Furthermore, the question arises as to whether the satisfaction of needs or lusts in the context of tourism has any attenuating effects on things or people besides the individual tourist and what consequences that has for consideration of tourism in the context of hedonist ethical theory? Wang defined a tourist as a natural person who willingly leaves home to experience change, and since experience is desirable, this in itself produces pleasure (cf. Wang 2000, 6). Fennell, in an article entitled “The Nature of Pleasure in Pleasure Travel,” talking about the nature of pleasure, mentions Plato and Aristotle as the initiators of the idea that pleasure is the beginning and end of every happy life. Pleasures can be categorised into those which are aroused by emotional states, and those pleasures that result from sensations, although the two of these obviously overlap. In other words, pleasurable emotions are associated with sensations of a certain kind, and pleasurable sensations are associated with or evoke emotions which are also pleasurable. A primary category of pleasure may be defined as the pleasure of satisfaction experienced through the fulfilment of need or desire. Satisfaction in tourism is easily identifiable, insofar as it relates to all activities in which the subject participates in order to

17  Hedonism and Its (Negative) Impact on Tourism

227

fulfil a need or desire specific to the exercise of tourism. The basic needs which form the condition of tourist satisfaction are the same as the needs of human beings generally: shelter, clothing, food, but with the additional aspect of being provided for a short term in a location other than one’s home. The additional need for an appropriate means of transport to the tourist destination involves the attainment of similar levels of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Beyond the satisfaction of needs, which are the conditio sine qua non of the exercise of tourism, the aim of most tourist activity is to experience something more, something like a surplus of satisfaction, or satisfaction of unnecessary desires. Excitement or exhilaration, which we may define as an experience of an intensified or elevated level of (usually) positive emotion, is one of the main causes of tourist satisfaction in this regard. Some tourist experiences admittedly produce this heightened level of excitement through confrontation with negative emotions such as fear (as in certain forms of extreme sport like bungie jumping or skydiving), horror, shock, or sadness (as in certain forms of dark tourism, such as visits to former concentration camps, disaster sites like Chernobyl, or war-stricken or impoverished regions). Enjoyment of this elevated level of emotion, however, has a dual reference: on the one hand, enjoyment is intrinsically associated with an activity which may produce pleasure, regardless of the actual outcome, that is regardless of whether it produces satisfaction of desire. Hadreas calls this the “enjoyment model” of pleasure, which he differentiates from the “sensation model” and the “satisfaction model” (cf. Hadreas 1999, 220). On the other hand, enjoyment is linked with satisfaction of desire, that is, with a sensation of physical pleasure or feeling of euphoria obtained from any of a variety of sources. Following Lacan, enjoyment thus becomes synonymous with both an activity which is in itself experienced as pleasurable and with the sense of psychological satisfaction we actually gain from fulfilment of the desire to participate in it (cf. Fennell 2014, 5). Kingsbury summarises the activities of the tourist as the “exercise of a legalistic right to use and derive enjoyment from the resources of property without ownership or diminishment” (quoted in Fennell 2009b, 126). It would appear, accordingly, that any use of tourist attractions from which (physical, psychological) enjoyment derives is fully justified in itself, regardless of the effect it may have on the physical environment or on the stakeholders (i.e. tourism providers) or local resources. For example, the taste of sweet figs in summer produces physical pleasure and a sense of comfort for most people, and one may assume there is no disagreement as to the morality of this enjoyment in the terms of gastronomy as long as the figs are not stolen. If we consider the example of the tourist hot-spot Ibiza, on the other hand, which is widely known as a place of very lively and turbulent nightlife where pleasure is identified with indulgence in food, drink, and sex, and apparently no rules apply, we would probably talk about enjoyment in the other context already mentioned above, which is that it is closely related to greed. Here, Fennell notes the connection between individual fantasies regarding consumption of the objects of desire and social situational factors which fuel those desires (Fennell 2009b 127). A destination like, for example, Ibiza creates in the subject desire through advertising which generates enthusiasm for the purchase of attractive hotel accommodation, accompanying activities, and other products by creating a kind of mystique, which ultimately has little or nothing to do with satisfying individual human needs, but is concerned rather only with stoking constant desire for

228

M. Ferenec Kuća

excitement, an intensification of sensual pleasure and pleasurable emotion, and a concomitant desire for ever more of the same, feeding into an endless cycle of anticipation, fulfilment (or lack of it), and renewed desire (cf. Fennell 2009b, 127). The aesthetic admiration which constitutes a part of the pleasure and value associated with our sensory perceptions and understanding of sensory knowledge as tourists certainly differs from the satisfaction associated with the fulfilment of basic needs or the satisfaction associated with fulfilment of apparently superfluous lusts. For example, the emotional and intellectual pleasure gained from “seeing the sights,” in other words with the visual stimuli (the beauty of the landscape) provided by a visit to the Plitvice Lakes stands in stark contrast to the pleasure of physical excitement produced by a recreational visit to the Krka waterfalls and /or rafting on Zrmanja. Similar examples might be given of the aesthetic or intellectual pleasure afforded by the sensual beauty or historical narrative contained in the experience of cultural monuments. Human behaviour appears to be motivated by appetites for desirable or beneficial things, on the one hand, and by aversion to things that are undesirable or harmful to us, on the other hand. If we travel to Ibiza as tourists, we travel presumably to satisfy our desire for certain things which stimulate our appetites as suggested by advertising or anticipated on the basis of previous experience, our own or that of others. In a similar manner, if we have an aversion to something (because it arouses a sense of boredom, for example), we travel to escape our aversion to the experience of such a state. Insofar as the anticipated pleasures are of a primarily physical or sensual nature (so-called “lower pleasures”), the mechanism of action by which these are produced may not differ significantly from that by which neuroscientists are able using electrostimulation to simulate the sensation of pleasure produced by enjoyment of food or sex. But it is unclear whether this same mechanism of action is also responsible for producing the so-called higher pleasures that we can find in Mill’s defence of utilitarianism as a good, sustainable, and desirable ethical position (cf. Fennell 2014, 6–7, and Hadreas’ summary of neurological research using electrostimulation to investigate so-called pleasure and reward centers and neurotransmitter pathways in the brains of animal and human subjects: Hadreas 1999, 221–231). Ultimately, the desire associated with avarice or greed, that is, the desire to have ever more of the same is ultimately destructive of others and of oneself, as such unbridled desire tends to subordinate all other aim-directed behaviour in oneself and others to the fulfilment of one’s personal lust for particular pleasures. Such tendencies can be provoked by sex tourism, gambling, and similarly addictive or morally questionable features of tourist activities. Bentham’s account of pleasure is based on a form of psychological hedonism which sees human action and its moral valuation as grounded in the maximisation of pleasure, and correspondingly, in a minimalization of the amount of suffering that human action produces. Accordingly, in Bentham’s account, all human actions are motivated by the pursuit of pleasure. One of the earliest illustrations of motivational or psychological hedonism in the history of philosophy is the story of Gyges’ ring from Plato’s Republic (2:359a–2:360d). In relating the myth of Gyges, Glaucon is hoping to be convinced by Socrates that justice will be chosen for its own sake regardless of the consequences. For this reason, he tells a story to illustrate the universal inclination of humans to satisfy their lusts even if this involves committing injustice, insofar as it is possible to do so with impunity. The story recounts how the shepherd Gyges discovers by chance a ring

17  Hedonism and Its (Negative) Impact on Tourism

229

which permits him to become invisible, and how he proceeds then to seduce the queen, murder the king, and set himself up as ruler in his stead, the assumption being that every man would behave thus if he had in his possession such a ring. Socrates, on the other hand, argues that the just man will be able to overcome that kind of lust for power and sensual pleasure for the love of justice. His position, in other words, is that not all pleasures are morally acceptable per se and that the virtuous individual will not only discriminate between pleasures which should be satisfied and those which should not but will be educated to abstain from those pleasures which should not be satisfied indiscriminately. We can take as an example of unjust behaviour of tourists and disregard toward the object of their desires as a result of unbridled egotistical self-indulgence the fate of one of the most popular destinations in the south of Croatia: Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik, which in modern times has always been a popular tourist destination, stood out among other cities on the southern coast of the Adriatic Sea because of its culturally rich past as an independent republic, its historical walls, and its natural beauty, with the turquoise sea below its steep cliffs, and the mountain Srđ towering above it, its narrow stone streets, especially Stradun – the main street in Dubrovnik. Since the end of the Homeland War, life within the city walls had returned to a relatively normal rhythm with its bustling summer months and quieter winters, although increasingly more and more property within the walls has been transformed into rental properties or bought up by foreign nationals. Then in 2014, the filming of the world-popular series Game of Thrones began there, which is when the city’s problems start to increase, escalating to the point where in 2017, even international media began to write negatively about what was once the most beautiful city on the Croatian coast. The city was visited namely by so many fans, or better say fanatics of the mentioned series, that overcrowding, filth, and the exorbitant cost of goods and services threatened to destroy the very source of its revenues (cf. Simmons n.d.). Those who live primarily from tourism, which should bring profit and prosperity, both for them and for the state, were reduced to endless complaints regarding the woes of tourism – and were threatened with the loss of their UNESCO protected status. Because of overcrowding, the communal infrastructure, in particular the sewage system, is completely unable to cope, product prices in shops and cafes have risen beyond what an average resident can afford, and luxury yachts crush together with cruise ships in a historical port that was never meant to receive so many vessels and that due to its inability to cope with the quantities of waste has turned into something more like a landfill than paradise on earth. The once charming stone-paved streets with their traditional stone buildings have been emptied of normal daily life and serve as no more than a glittering advertisement for overpriced rental properties. ATMs deface the ­historical Stradun with its cultural monuments, and instead of authentic family businesses every few meters the buildings’ façades are interspersed with ice cream stands and nearly identical shops filled with serial-produced souvenirs and jewellery sold at exorbitant prices. The example of Dubrovnik shows that much of what gives tourists pleasure can become a nightmare for the local population if the number of tourists and the satisfaction of those pleasures surpasses the reasonable use of a destination’s resources, squeezing the life out of the local community, and outweighing with its negative effects any economic advantages that individual tourist providers may have from their offerings.

230

M. Ferenec Kuća

Although the Dubrovnik city authorities have attempted to provide solutions to some of the pressing problems produced by overtourism over the past few years, for example, through the implementation of the Project called “Respect the City” (cf. Grad Dubrovnik 2018; Dubrovnik Tourist Board n.d.), it is questionable whether this project will ever be fully implemented. The main reason is that it is very difficult to change habitual behaviour, in particular the habitual behaviour of tourists. This is because pleasure (the attraction that a perceived source of pleasure, in this case the tourist attraction or destination, exercises over one) is the main motivator of human behaviour. In other words, behaviour motivated exclusively by the pursuit of affective pleasure and the habits that arise from that pursuit are rooted in human nature. To put it simply, if tourists, in order to satisfy their lust for pleasure, want to visit Dubrovnik and enjoy, at any hour of the day or night, food, drink, loud music, partying, and disruptive behaviour on Stradun, spending for their enjoyment in one night amounts which quite frequently exceed the average monthly salary in Croatia, they will continue to do so and to be permitted to do so, regardless of the short- or long-term negative impact on the cultural treasures of the city and local population themselves. Another example of a purely hedonistic orientation in tourism that irrefutably has a negative impact on tourism is the example of nautical tourism. One survey1 shows that most nautical tourists who visit Croatia are between the ages of 30 and 49 and that more than half of them are highly educated and have high monthly incomes. Many choose Croatia as one of the nautical destinations in the Mediterranean where nautical tourism is relatively unregulated with respect to the laws of other Mediterranean countries. For this reason, the extent of hedonism in the realm of nautical tourism often exceeds the boundaries of good taste. For example, boaters often explore previously untouched bays and islets along the coastline, moving on in search of similar places when these become overcrowded. Meanwhile, uncontrolled release of untreated exhaust, wastewater and sewage, and uncontrolled disposal of trash, as well as excessive noise and rowdiness, pollutes the land and sea in these areas, negatively impacting marine life, flora and fauna, the ecosystem in its entirety, and as a result also the local population who depend on these resources for their livelihood. What is even more of a problem is the spread of algae dangerous to other marine life, such as the green algae, as was observed in Croatia in 2000 (Marine Adventures 2019), which is known for its invasive spread and destruction of marine life of the Mediterranean and is caused by water pollution. Needless to say, the pleasure of sailing can ultimately have negative consequences for human beings as well, because, for example, green algae, if present in shallower water, can have detrimental effects on human health and thus negatively affect tourism as a livelihood and human activity. In the long run, the uncontrolled hedonism which characterises nautical tourism can destroy the life habitat not only of marine life but also of local populations whose livelihood depends on the health of the ecosystem, since a tourist is unlikely to return to a place that has had detrimental effects on their health. In this regard, nautical tourism, as an activity entirely motivated by enjoyment, is not an activity with good consequences.

1

 Survey by the Dubrovnik Tourist Board.

17  Hedonism and Its (Negative) Impact on Tourism

231

Under the relatively recent Croatian Law on Golf Courses, which declared golf courses in general a matter of national strategic interest, and provided the government with sweeping powers to enact zoning regulations and even expropriate private property for the purpose of realising that interest, a plan to build a golf course high above the city on Dubrovnik’s Mountain Srđ materialised. This plan, which ran aground because of the huge amount of resources needed to establish, maintain, and irrigate the surface required for a functional golf course, aimed, on the one hand, to cater to tourist enjoyment, albeit a privileged minority, and on the other, to produce a large influx of money into the city and state coffers. The initiators of the project were thus apparently guided both by instrumental utility and by the goal of providing pleasure to a specific sector of tourist consumers. At the time, the Institute for Tourism argued that such development would differentiate Dubrovnik as a tourist destination and provide it with added value, but it is apparent that the value would be of a material nature not necessarily beneficial to the natural environment or the local population dependent upon it. The project exists since 2013, but has not yet been implemented (cf. Golf Park Dubrovnik 2013). Another very good example of the negative effects of the hedonistic orientation of mass tourism are the Plitvice Lakes (cf. Brubaker 2012; Ružić and Šutić 2014), which, like Dubrovnik, have been included on the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites. In contrast to Dubrovnik, the primary attraction of the Plitvice Lakes lies in the aesthetic enjoyment of the natural environment. However, the destination suffers from similar woes: excessive tourist numbers, high prices, the need to protect the environment from noise and waste. Both destinations have since been threatened with removal from the World Heritage List, because of the excessive number of tourists which threatens to destroy their cultural monuments and sensitive ecosystems. In contrast to Dubrovnik, perhaps because of its regulation as a National Park, stricter measures are in place in the Plitvice Lakes, including a system of advance reservations and limits on numbers of visitors and buses permitted to enter the park at any given time. Let us return briefly to the definition of hedonism again, but now to what is called normative or ethical hedonism. This concept of hedonism considers the positive and non-instrumental value of pleasure, although the pleasure with which it is concerned is essentially the same pleasure as that which is the object of psychological hedonism. However, the effect, or consequence, of the pursuit of pleasure in this case differs from that of a purely quantitative measure, as in Bentham’s “account of pleasure”. Values comprise an essential part of the argumentative strength of an ethical form of hedonism. Hedonism is not generally approved by ethicists, despite causal arguments for the pursuit of pleasure as an explanatory basis for human behaviour, as well as influence, which the pursuit of pleasure may have on epistemic processes, and hence on the ­development of ethical theory itself. Nevertheless, hedonist positions have a significant place in utilitarian and egoistic traditions of ethical thought. The pursuit of pleasure as such enters into a discussion of ethical theories aimed at the pursuit of a moral aim or “goal” (telos). Primary among these is the type of teleological theory that traces its roots to Aristotle’s notion of eudaimonia. Eudaimonia or well-being is in Aristotle the goal to which the practice of virtue leads us and is insofar universally “good” as all creatures, in particular humans, naturally aim toward this end. Fennell argues with Smith and Duffy that tourism should espouse virtue ethics and that

232

M. Ferenec Kuća

virtues such as truthfulness or sympathy on the part of tourism operators that have a direct relationship with tourists are essential for establishing just (ethical, fair) forms of tourism (cf. Fennell 2009a, 216). He also mentions Butcher, who holds that hedonism may have once been the “virtue” of tourism, but that because of the change in moral authority, which today becomes only and exclusively entertaining and an adventure of prime attraction, hedonism becomes a sin for tourism (Fennell 2009a, 216). This depiction of developments may be correct to a certain extent. However, this principle, which is fundamental to Bentham’s utilitarianism, has encountered great resistance. If this principle were acceptable, and tourists – as is often the case – outnumbered local residents in a specific destination, then it could appear that sex tourism is morally more acceptable than ecotourism, since it might conceivably produce a greater amount of pleasure in a greater number of tourists. Obviously, however, all pleasures are not created equal. Rather, the legitimacy of the pursuit of pleasure in this case would depend on the circumstances under which such services are offered (e.g. age of consent, protection of sex workers who are ensured to be adults under no external compulsion provided with adequate health and welfare services, etc.). This modified form of utilitarianism is redeemed by J. S. Mill, who favours a qualitative, and not merely quantitative, determination of pleasure, according to which he differentiates their respective values. Deontological ethics, on the other hand, bases its judgment of the ethicality of pleasure on motives, not on the consequences of human behaviour. In other words, moral action or moral behaviour is behaviour that follows from acting on a principle, not relying on one’s expectations of the consequences of an individual act. Paradoxically, the Global Code of Ethics in Tourism formulated by the World Tourism Organization, expresses a sort of deontological vision as based on the ethics of the social contract, when, in Article 2, it defines tourism as a means of personal and collective fulfilment. In this manner, it permits us to connect a deontological perspective (acting on principle) with the perspective of an ethical hedonism (pursuit of one’s own and others’ fulfilment of need and desire as based on the idea of a social contract). Opposed to teleology and deontology, existentialist ethical theory, as based on the search for authenticity, sees the human act as self-determined according to freedom of choice, and as such derives moral authority solely from subjective criteria. In this regard, an existentialist framework for ethics in tourism seems to be the most problematic with respect to tourist behaviour, insofar as authenticity based on subjective values cannot produce universally applicable objective normativity. In reference to the existentialist stance, the question arises as to whether one person’s values take precedence over another, and according to what criteria certain values will be preferred over others in morally relevant situations. Freud’s sentence from the essay Civilization and Its Discontents perfectly describes the dilemma expressed here: “It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement – that they seek power, success and health for themselves, and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life.” (Freud 1989, 10; cf. Smith 2009, 261) In other words, while existentialist values may be relevant for the individual’s perceived need for authenticity, they include no criteria for universalising their application in situations where individual values and individual pursuit of pleasure and fulfilment come into conflict with the values of others.

17  Hedonism and Its (Negative) Impact on Tourism

233

With regard to the search for meaning or the notion of good in ethics in tourism, then we inevitably touch on all three ethical paradigms: utilitarianism, which has grown partly out of hedonism; ethics of virtue or deontological ethics, as exemplified by Kant’s ethics of duty; and finally, existentialism, which is very popular in the modern world, but also intrinsically problematic. One may conclude that it will remain difficult to fully define ethical principles in tourism if we do not take into account the debate about values from the point of view of each of these ethical standpoints and how they are related to tourism in general. Human behaviour, as motivated by the pursuit of pleasure, is clearly the cornerstone of the debate on ethics in tourism. Therefore, it is necessary to begin any discussion of morality in tourism with a “valuation” of human behaviour as motivated by pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain and discomfort. Hedonist tendencies in tourism need to be discussed in relationship to utilitarian considerations of consequences, consideration of duties with regard to natural resources and local populations, and existentialist values, that is the search for authenticity, meaning, self-fulfilment – not with regard to the individual tourist alone, but to the situation of all stakeholders involved in the tourism practice. The pursuit of pleasure as a natural constituent of human life is not negative in itself. The problem arises when the pursuit of enjoyment crosses the boundary to become personal greed, that is, an irrational lust of the individual for ever more pleasure of one kind or another. The example of sex tourism illustrates the difficulty of asserting a purely positive role of the pursuit of pleasure in tourism, insofar as it raises far-reaching ethical issues with regard to respect for human rights. The example of nautical tourism as a type of tourism devoted purely to the pursuit of pleasure raises other ethical issues due to long-term negative effects on the environment and populations in local destinations. Jamal and Menzel in the article “Good actions in Tourism” (2009), identify hedonism as a positive basis for performing good deeds in tourism, arguing that the initial starting point for ethical reflection with regard to good deeds is definitely hedonist in a utilitarian sense. Jamal and Menzel refer their argument to Epicurus and his school, the paradigmatic source of hedonist ethical theory in the history of Western philosophy, arguing that phronesis, that is, practical wisdom, plays a key role in doing good works in tourism because it is needed in order to assess the impact of one’s actions and make ethical decisions between development options for a tourist destination and its environment and culture. The key to an ethical approach to tourism, as Jamal and Menzel argue, is active participation in its positive development (cf. Jamal and Menzel 2009, 235). In the context of Aristotle’s ethics, an example of virtue ethics, a virtuous life is one that involves the development and exercise of practical wisdom. This in turn is no “inert quality,” but a capacity to reflect and judge, which through exercise and habituation becomes a permanent aspect of one’s character (Fennell 2009a, 233). Phronesis comprises, in this regard, an indispensable element in the regulation of hedonistic tendencies. We can also say that about Mill’s utilitarianism, which includes procedures that strive for long-term benefit / happiness / pleasure and are capable of establishing good practices. This is because such procedures rely on judgment according to measurable standards – and because human beings, as established from the outset, differ from other living beings precisely in being able to form judgments based on consciously adopted principles based on reason.

234

M. Ferenec Kuća

To conclude, I believe that hedonism, insofar as the pursuit of pleasure constitutes a positive element of human behaviour and cognition, does not necessarily entail it having a negative effect on tourism. Nevertheless, the exclusive pursuit of pleasure without regard for consequences involves a necessary conflict when it comes to considerations of justice and human rights. This is because some hedonistic acts, that is, the gratification of specific pleasures and uncontrolled gratification of pleasure generally, have negative consequences for individuals or the collective with regard to their (inviolable) human rights. Hedonism, as discussed above on the example of Dubrovnik or the Plitvice Lakes, does not provide a morally acceptable and justified basis for tourist behaviour considered solely from the perspective of its contribution to economic gain and prosperity, whether of the individual tourist providers or the state as a whole, insofar as the unbridled pursuit of individual pleasure in these contexts clearly leads to endangerment of the conditions of life and human livelihoods through the threat of irreversible loss of human cultural goods, as well as natural resources and habitats. Is the point of tourist activities to ensure economic stability for some at the cost of the destruction of the environment and well-being of others? It seems this ought not to be the case. In “Against Ethical Tourism,” Butcher uses George Monbiot’s statement according to which: “Tourism is a non-ethical activity that allows us to have fun at the expense of everyone” (cf. Butcher 2009, 246) to bring the matter to a point. If we analyse the meaning of this statement at the semantic level, we notice a kind of contradiction, because the proposition of “entertaining oneself at the expense of others” can be understood as involving a negative outcome for all or most other people. The inclusion of otherness, that is, others, however, carries with it an implicit recognition of one’s responsibility towards others whom I myself, as a human being, am obliged to consider. Doing whatever you want, but taking consideration of others certainly doesn’t permit having fun at the expense of others, but rather requires setting certain limits to one’s enjoyment. Thus, ethical questions are an unavoidable and necessary aspect of tourism, despite or even because of business and economic interests in tourist activities. In order to develop a meaningful form of tourism over time, it is necessary to raise people’s awareness of their responsibility towards others, including future generations, and towards the environment. In this regard, something along the lines of an ethics of responsibility, which incorporates utilitarian, deontological, and existentialist considerations, could provide a more comprehensive basis for informing tourist behaviour. As Hans Jonas asserts, one should “Act in such a way that the effects of your action are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life on earth.” (Jonas 1984, 11) A thorough analysis of the environmental and cultural degradation caused by existing forms of tourism from the point of view of the principle of responsibility could provide a solid template for the establishment and promotion of sustainable ethical tourism. Even if the ethics of responsibility alone cannot resolve the problems caused by hedonist tendencies in tourism, it could provide a framework for reasonable and prudent actions to correct the negative effects of hedonistic practices in tourism.

17  Hedonism and Its (Negative) Impact on Tourism

235

References Ayala, Francisco J. 2010. The Difference of Being Human: Morality. In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, May 11, 2010, Vol. 107, Supplement 2: In the Light of Evolution IV: The Human Condition (May 11, 2010), pp. 9015–9022 Published by: National Academy of Sciences Stable. Brubaker, Cate. 2012. Overwhelmed By Overtourism at Plitvice Lakes National Park (Croatia). Green Global Travel. December 7, 2012. https://greenglobaltravel.com/ croatia-­plitvice-­lakes-­national-­park/ Butcher, Jim. 2009. Against Ethical Tourism. In Philosophical Issues in Tourism, ed. John Tribe, 244–261. Bristol: Channel View Publications. Dubrovnik Tourist Board. n.d. Respect the City. https://tzdubrovnik.hr/lang/en/get/kultura_i_ povijest/75284/respect_the_city.html. Accessed 15 March 2022. Fennell, David A. 2009a. Ethics and Tourism. In Philosophical Issues in Tourism, ed. John Tribe, 211–227. Bristol: Channel View Publications. ———. 2009b. The Nature of Pleasure in Pleasure Travel. Tourism Recreation Research 34 (2): 123–134. ———. 2014. Exploring the Boundaries of a New Moral Order for Tourism’s Global Code of Ethics: An Opinion Piece on the Position of Animals in the Tourism Industry. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 22 (7): 983–996. Freud, Sigmund. 1989. Civilization and its Discontents. Transl. and ed. James Strachey, with an introduction by Peter Gay. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Golf Park Dubrovnik. 2013. Projekt Golf park Dubrovnik. http://www.golfparkdubrovnik.hr/hr/ pregled/projekt-­golf-­park-­dubrovnik/25. Accessed 15 March 2022. Grad Dubrovnik. 2018. Respect the City  – Poštujmo Grad za održivu budućnost Dubrovnika. November 27, 2018. https://www.dubrovnik.hr/projekti/respect-­the-­city-­postujmo-­grad Hadreas, Peter. 1999. Intentionality and the Neurobiology of Pleasure. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 30 (2): 219–236. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1369-­8486(98)00023-­5. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369848698000235. Hodgkinson, Christopher. 1978. Towards a Philosophy of Administration. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. ———. 1991. Educational Leadership: The Moral Art. Albany: State University of New York Press. ———. 1996. Administrative Philosophy. Bingley: Emerald Publishing. Jamal, Tazim, and Christopher Menzel. 2009. Good Actions in Tourism. In Philosophical Issues in Tourism, ed. John Tribe, 227–244. Bristol: Channel View Publications. Jonas, H. 1984. The Imperative of Responsibility. In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age. Transl. Hans Jonas with the collaboration of David Herr. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press. Marine Adventures. 2019. Green Algae. Project M.A.R.E. August 20, 2019. https://www.marineadventures.org/green-­algae/ Przeclawski, Krzysztof. 1996. Deontology of Tourism. Progress in Tourism and Hospitality Research 2 (3–4): 239–245. Ružić, Vlatka, and Branislav Šutić. 2014. Ecological Risks of Expansive Tourist Development in Protected Areas – Case Study: Plitvice Lakes National Park. Collegium Antropologicum 38 (1/1): 241–248. Simmons, Joanna. n.d. Overtourism in Dubrovnik. Responsible Travel. https://www.responsibletravel.com/copy/overtourism-­in-­dubrovnik. Accessed 15 March 2022.

236

M. Ferenec Kuća

Smith, Mick. 2009. Development and its Discontents: Ego-tripping Without Ethics or Idea(l)s? In Philosophical Issues in Tourism, ed. John Tribe, 261–277. Bristol: Channel View Publications. Tribe, John, ed. 2009. Philosophical Issues in Tourism, 3–25. Bristol: Channel View Publications. Wang, Ning. 2000. Tourism and Modernity: A Sociological Analysis. Amsterdam: Pergamon Press, Amsterdam. Woodbridge, Frederick J.E. 1897. The Place of Pleasure in a System of Ethics. Ethics 7: 475–486. Maja Ferenec Kuća was born in 1991  in Varaždin, Croatia. She completed her studies in Philosophy at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb in June 2016, defending her master thesis on the topic “Epistemology with Regard to Skepticism.” She has taught philosophy, logic, ethics, and Croatian language and literature in high school. She has been an active member of the Plato Society of Zagreb since 2017. In September 2019, she joined the Croatian Science Foundation (Hrvatska zaklada za znanost) research project “Relevance of Hermeneutical Judgment,” directed by Jure Zovko. She is an assistant at the University of Zadar, Department of Philosophy, where she is pursuing her doctoral thesis under the mentorship of Prof. Jure Zovko. Her research assistantship and doctoral studies are being funded by the Croatian Science Foundation (HRZZ). Her main interests are epistemology, philosophy of science, modern philosophy, ethics, politics, and philosophy of literature.  

Part V

Tourism and Culture In Situ: Perspectives from the Town of Hvar

Chapter 18 The Faces of Tourism in Hvar from Ancient Times to the Present Marinko Petrić1 (*) 1 

Hvar Heritage Museum, Hvar, Croatia

Abstract.  Hvar is a typical Mediterranean town overwhelmingly influenced by tourism. Its tourist past is particularly long and exhilarating: from the country manor tourism of antiquity, the pilgrimages of the medieval period, the summer residences of the Renaissance and Baroque period, the scientific tourism of the nineteenth century, the health tourism of the second part of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth, the summer and recreational tourism of the 1920s and 1930s, the trade union tourism of the 1950s, the mass summer tourism of the 1970s and 1980s and contemporary party tourism. The year 1868 is particularly important for Hvar, Croatia, and for European tourism in general. In that year, the Hvar Curative Health Society was established as the first tourist association in this region, marking the beginning of professional and organised tourist activity, which over the following 150 years completely changed the economic and social life of the town and island of Hvar. This article provides a short, focused survey of the development of tourism in the town of Hvar from ancient times to the present. In conclusion, I review some of the positive and negative effects of tourism and its influences on the economic and social life in present-day Hvar. Keywords:  Tourism · Hvar · Ancient · Present · Economy · Social life

“The Faces of Tourism in Hvar from Ancient Times to the Present” has been translated into English by Katarina Carder Novak. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M.-É. Zovko, J. Dillon (eds.), Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36659-8_18

239

240

M. Petrić

View of Hvar in 1834 by Josip Rosignoli (The First Sunrise), watercolour, from the Kasandrić family collection in Hvar, Courtesy of Zoran Kasandrić

During the long history of the town and the island of Hvar, and particularly during the last 150 years of modern and organised tourism, the image of Hvar as a tourist destination and the way in which guests are welcomed and accommodated have been changing. Here, as briefly as possible, my aim is to outline the changes and patterns of Hvar tourism over the centuries, with its good and bad sides. (On the history of Hvar tourism cf. Jurić 1988, Petrić 1955, Petrić 2001).

18.1 Mythological Beginnings of Hvar Tourism The origins of tourism in Hvar have their roots in the realms of myth. According to some interpretations of The Argonautica by the Greek poet Apollonius of Rhodes, the first visitors to the island of Hvar were the oldest travellers in Europe, the Argonauts. (cf. Zaninović 2004, 6; Apollonius, and George W. Mooney 1912, 4.565; 335) At the beginning of the second millennium BC, on their wanderings through the world looking for the Golden Fleece, they are thought to have visited the island of Hvar, describing it as an “idyllic Pityeia” (Apollonius, and George W. Mooney 1912, 4.565; 335), an island densely overgrown with spruce trees – stone-pines to be precise.

18.2 Scientific Tourism of Ancient Times At the end of the sixth century B.C., the island was visited by the famous Greek poet and philosopher Xenophanes of Elea, in southern Italy. His visit was of a scientific nature; primarily, he is thought to have been searching for fish fossils, presumably near

18  The Faces of Tourism in Hvar from Ancient Times to the Present

241

today’s Vrboska. In this respect, he can be considered a distant ancestor of scientific tourism on the island of Hvar. (cf. Xenophanes 21 A33 [Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 1.14.4–6] Diels and Kranz 1951, 122).

18.3 Manorial Tourism – Aristocratic Country Villas in Ancient Times In Classical and Late Antiquity, tourism can be identified with the role of the numerous country estates (villae rusticae). They were scattered over many small, gentle, coastal bays and Arcadian areas in the interior of the island, and they undoubtedly represent the favourite retreats of the individual tourist wanderings of wealthy Romans, typical of ancient times. There were probably about a hundred Roman estates and country villas on the island of Hvar, and about ten in the area of today’s town of Hvar alone in ancient times. Remains of one of these Roman estates and country villas can still be seen in the bay of Soline on the island of St Clement, near Hvar.

18.4 Religious Tourism of the Medieval and Post-Medieval Period In the Middle Ages in Europe, tourism was mainly related to pilgrimages. Owing to its favourable maritime position, Hvar was by this time included on the well-known and well-frequented pilgrimage route, Venice-Jaffa (The Holy Land). Hvar appears to have been a regular stop on this route, although the number of pilgrims who frequented the Hvar harbour on their way is not known. It was probably not a large number as the journey was not at all comfortable and exacted of the traveller a large sack of gold coins. However, those who passed through Hvar in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries certainly belonged to the most distinguished classes of European society: counts, knights, diplomats, church and military dignitaries, and wealthy individuals eager to gain new knowledge and experience who had the means to travel. Fortunately, many records of these religious and curious travellers were preserved, so they give us a first real impression of Hvar as a destination. As they were mostly from northern countries, the reports by these early visitors are coloured by their strong impressions of the Mediterranean atmosphere of Hvar: stormy seas, the play of the dolphins, the whiteness of the stone buildings, the elegant palms which once stood near the main town gates, and the fragrance of rosemary at the foot of the Hvar fortress. The town itself is described as agreeable and pleasant, but poor in services. In fact, during the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, Hvar could only offer these travellers a few inns, some taverns, and, in case of misfortune, a municipal doctor and pharmacist.

242

M. Petrić

18.5 Country Manor Tourism in the Renaissance and Baroque Periods During the Renaissance and Baroque period, Hvar’s tourism shifted to include another type of tourism besides religious tourism. This period is characterised mainly by individual tourist visits, in a form which could be described as country manor tourism. This type of tourism was distinguished by the custom of mutual entertaining and socialising among the elite social classes – nobles, wealthy personages, church dignitaries, intellectuals and poets  – in the relaxed pastoral atmosphere of the rustic summer villas, particularly during the hot summer months. Typical of the Renaissance and Baroque period, when most of the summer villas of Hvar originate, its origins date back to Classical times. The Renaissance yearning for bucolic surroundings is best displayed by the poet Petar Hektorović (1487–1572), a noble from Hvar. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, he built a spacious summer villa called Tvrdalj on a family estate in Stari Grad “for his own and his friends’ use,” as one of the many thought-provoking and entertaining stone inscriptions in Latin reads. The villa features a walled fish pond enclosed by an arched portico and a formal garden with a variety of decorative plants. A part of this summer villa was also set aside for travellers. In his pastoral and philosophic poem Fishing and Fishermen’s Tales, printed in Croatian in Venice in 1568, Hektorović describes his three-day trip (today we would call it a “fishing picnic”) by boat from Stari Grad to the bay of Nečujam on the island of Šolta in the company of two fishermen. The description of the trip is very picturesque, full of vivid impressions, and represents the first-ever realistic narrative with a fishing theme in European literature.

18.6 Scientific Tourism in the Nineteenth Century During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, pilgrimage tourism died out, but interest in scientific investigation of natural phenomena, ethnographical, archaeological and culturological study and exploration grew. Dalmatia was a favourite destination of curious Europeans of the time, particularly for scientists from Austria and Germany. For them, Dalmatia represented a picturesque part of the Austrian Empire and the exotic and unexplored garden of southern Europe. The island of Hvar was an especially attractive flower in this garden, and at the end of the eighteenth and during the nineteenth centuries, it was visited by numerous scientists and lovers of the natural sciences. They studied plants, insects, sea worms, sponges, minerals, vegetation, and the local climate. Because of the intense interest of these visitors in studying natural phenomena, it could be said that these years characterise the period of scientific tourism in Hvar.

18  The Faces of Tourism in Hvar from Ancient Times to the Present

243

18.7 The Beginning of Modern, Organised Tourism in the Nineteenth Century Modern organised tourism on the island of Hvar begins in the nineteenth century. The meteorological investigations of Hvar citizen Grgur Bučić (1829–1911) contributed significantly to this development through his meteorological investigations and his ground-breaking work at the weather station in Hvar in 1858. The results of Bučić’s measurements were of great importance for local tourism because they showed how suitable the excellent qualities of the Hvar climate were for curing various illnesses, particularly those affecting the lungs. The idea of promoting curative tourism was born in 1864 and first introduced to the people of Hvar by Austrian zoologist Oscar Schmidt (1823–1886). However, it was not until 1866 and the arrival in Hvar of the Austrian doctor from Graz, Franz Unger (1800–1870), that the idea of establishing a scientific tourism institution come to life. Owing to his connections, reputation, hard work, and especially his devoted love of Hvar and tourist vision of Hvar, his idea was very quickly accepted by the people of Hvar, particularly the bishop of Hvar, Juraj Duboković (1800–1874). Thus, on the historic day of May 15th, 1868 in Hvar, the society called the Higijeničko Društvo u Hvaru or Hvar Curative Health Society (Società Igienica di Lesina, Heilverein von Lesina) was founded. This was the occasion for the official proclamation regarding the establishment of the Hvar Curative Health Society: After surrendering Venice, Austria did not have in its vast dominions a single place on the coast suitable for curative stays during the winter season for those who suffered from chest illnesses, even though there are several such places along the coasts of Istria and Dalmatia. After due consideration, and with the approval of the most capable doctors and excellent scientists, it was decided that Hvar, owing to its location, the nature of the town and the distinctive features of the climate, was the most suitable place for those with chest illnesses. Not only could it rival Venice, Pisa, Nice, and so on, but it could often outshine them. Guided by these motives and inspired by patriotism and compassion, and in the belief that we can offer people from Austria and northern Germany a more accessible and suitable resort, we are establishing in Hvar, Dalmatia, a joint-stock company to be called the HVAR CURATIVE HEALTH SOCIETY. The aim of the Curative Health Society is to provide everything necessary for foreigners to have a pleasant stay in this town, in order to ease their ailments and offer their sick and disabled lungs the mildness of our climate and beneficial air. On this basis, the Society will have at its disposal comfortable accommodation for foreigners, will provide all services and make every effort to fulfil all their wishes. In October, several furnished houses will be ready for this purpose.

Hvar, May 15th, 1868 (cf. Novak 1967). This was a crucial document for the development of contemporary tourism in Hvar and Croatia, embodying the essential aims of the newly founded society. The program was printed in German and French and was widely circulated.

244

M. Petrić

The program of the Curative Health Society contained a clear vision for tourist services of that period, based on organised public health care and supervision. For this reason, May 15th, 1868 can be considered the date on which modern tourism in Hvar was conceived. It can, in fact, be pointed out that this date represents the beginning of modern organised tourism in general, as there were no similar tourist societies in Europe at that time.

18.8 The Nineteenth Century: The First Hotel in Hvar The founding of the Hvar Curative Health Society and beginnings of health tourism led to other necessary developments for the island, including the founding of the first hotel. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, distinguished guests and visitors to Hvar (diplomatic, church and military dignitaries, as well as notable business people) were received, in accordance with the custom of the time, in the Ducal Palace, the Bishop’s Palace, one of the Hvar monasteries (particularly the Dominican or the Franciscan), or by one of the wealthier middle-class or noble families. Ordinary travellers, merchants, or chance travellers of any other kind, who for whatever reason happened to be in Hvar, had at their disposal lodgings (hospici), where they could spend the night. One of the first Hvar inns is mentioned in 1543, and in 1561 the inn of Mrs. Goja Kličinović (Goya hospita) on the main Hvar square is mentioned. The overriding task of the Curative Health Society from its very inception was to build a modern curative health hotel. As the cost of this large and expensive project exceeded the sum of the shares sold, on October 15th, 1868, the management of the Society temporarily adapted a smaller hotel in a rented house of the Samohod and Duboković families on the main square. The limited number of beds was supplemented by providing additional accommodation for guests in private houses. In the meantime, the Curative Health Society contacted the Viennese court for financial support for the building of a new hotel, with the request that the Empress be the patron, and that the name of the future hotel should bear her name. The Empress agreed to the request from the people of Hvar and, in 1869, sent the first financial instalment. The area where the old and dilapidated Ducal Palace stood, in a pleasant, sunny part of town, was chosen as the site of the future hotel. Thankfully, another financial instalment from the Viennese court was forthcoming, along with income from the national lottery, so the first part of the hotel was finished at the end of 1898, and festively opened on the 1st of April, 1899. However, it wasn’t until 1903 that construction of the hotel was completed. In the same year, it opened its doors to its first guests. The Empress Elizabeth Curative Health Hotel (Kur Hotel Kaiserin Elisabeth) had twenty-six rooms, comprising thirty-five beds, several bathrooms, plus a dining room, a coffee house in the old town Loggia (a roofed area attached to a house), and a reading room. It was tastefully decorated and fitted out with furniture bought in Trieste.

18  The Faces of Tourism in Hvar from Ancient Times to the Present

245

18.9 Winter and Health Tourism of the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the Curative Health Society vigorously promoted tourism in Hvar and its hotel, in particular for those who suffered from chest illnesses. Along with the distribution of numerous leaflets, and the publication of notices and reviews in Austrian journals, the first guide to Hvar was printed in German in Trieste in 1899 (Anonymous 1899), and a new one, also in German, with photos and the cover page in colour, in 1903 (Anonymous 1903). They highlight Hvar’s beneficial climate, the advantages of winter tourism, all the illnesses that could be successfully treated, the beauty of the landscape, and the sightseeing trips that could be undertaken near Hvar. On the entertainment and cultural side, the following was offered: night fishing, a shooting gallery, a bowling alley, concerts played by the town band, evening entertainment with music on the hotel terrace, or a visit to the art collection in the Franciscan monastery. There were large numbers of guests, mainly from central Austria, Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, and the Croatian territories, so Hvar became a well-known resort of the Austrian Riviera. It is from this time that the well-known epithet referring to Hvar as the Austrian Madeira originated.

18.10 Summer Tourism of the 1920s and 1930s With the dissolution of the Curative Health Society in 1918 due to financial difficulties, the first period of modern tourism in Hvar came to a close. What followed in the short period between the two wars was the beginning of summertime tourism. This period began in 1921, after the end of the Italian occupation of Hvar when the island became an integral part of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, later Yugoslavia, and lasted up until 1941 when these regions were shaken by the Second World War. The intervening 20 years witnessed the rapid and organised development of tourism in Hvar. During this period, tourism changed considerably and reached levels of achievement which far surpassed the predictions of the visionary pioneers of tourism from the previous century. The interwar years were characterised by broad and varied tourist initiatives, not only by the construction of new hotels and modernisation of old ones, but also by the expansion of catering and other services (in the area of sports, culture, entertainment, and leisure). The circle of tourist entrepreneurs, employees, and all those who indirectly and directly took part in the expansion of tourist offerings changed considerably during this time, and new developments began to affect different social classes so that we can speak of the earliest move toward a broader distribution of resources and income and a more generalised acceptance of tourism in the town of Hvar. On the whole, investment in tourism was still quite modest – the investors were mainly local businessmen, and rarely state creditors and banks. But while economic gains were moderate, and tourism’s influence on the traditional economic and social system of Hvar was only modest, nevertheless, the results were most encouraging, and tourism became a more realistic

246

M. Petrić

and attractive economic activity. The ‘siren call’ of tourism had still not reached its peak attraction. Gradually, tourism in Hvar took on a new profile. It was no longer limited to health-­ focused winter tourism but became increasingly oriented toward recreational, summertime, and bathing tourism. Guests were no longer limited to elite circles but belonged increasingly to a variety of social classes and age groups. All these characteristics paint a picture of tourism during this period in Hvar in distinctly bright and flattering colours.

18.11 Workers’ Trade-Union Tourism of the Late 1940s and the 1950s In the years following the end of the war in 1945, tourist life in Hvar changed considerably. The nationalisation of hotels in 1948, government management, and enforced exclusion of visitors from the Western tourist market, paralyzed the very foundations of the tourist industry. The government oversaw tourism and tourist activities. It offered many incentives (state-paid holidays, discounts for accommodation and transport), and so encouraged the development of the workers’ trade-union type of tourism. The guests were war invalids from the recent war, workers, children from all over the former Yugoslavia, and as regards foreigners, the ever-loyal Czechs. In these conditions, Hvar tourism became decidedly unprofitable, and the level of tourist enterprise remained far below the level of the pre-war period.

18.12 Revival of Summertime, Health, and Fashionable Tourism in the 1960s and Early 1970s However, the memory of pre-war tourism and the success of Hvar as a tourist destination was still very much alive and a powerful source of motivation. Thus, inspired by the desire to revive the tourist trade in Hvar and improve its quality, the Hvar Town Council and the Hvar Tourist Society (the former Tourist Municipality Committee) founded the independent tourist firm Hotelsko poduzeće Hvar (The Hvar Hotel Company) in 1959. A modest black and white leaflet with the title Come to Hvar this Winter  – The Sunniest Island on the Adriatic was published the same year. This signalled a new tourist era in Hvar in which the Hvar tourist trade aimed to emulate contemporary European tourism. In the very unfavourable social and economic circumstances of Yugoslavia at that time, not many people thought seriously about the potential of the tourist industry, in particular not in Hvar, which at that time was in a difficult economic position. Nevertheless, an energetic team of barely thirty people, of whom few had professional tourism or catering qualifications, got down to work with nothing more than enthusiasm and good will. In spite of all the difficulties, and despite the insufficient availability and

18  The Faces of Tourism in Hvar from Ancient Times to the Present

247

unfavourable terms of short-term bank loans, the existing hotels were renovated, and in 1960 a summer restaurant with a terrace for dancing was built in the town centre. In 1961, a particularly attractive night-time restaurant on the little island of Galešnik facing the town of Hvar was opened. And in 1962, Hotel Pharos, a pavilion-type hotel with 364 beds, was completed – the first modern tourist complex in Hvar. The new enthusiasm for tourism opened up new ideas for the future of tourism in Hvar. In addition to the traditional summer and winter tourism, naturism (especially popular in Western Europe at the time), and health tourism (for treating allergy-related illnesses, which was of interest to tourists from Nordic countries) were also introduced. This updated vision of tourism was followed by modernisation of basic public utilities and infrastructure, a move which was as much a result of the greater demands of tourism as of the needs of the local population. This included supplying electricity and water from the mainland, the construction of the main road along the length of the island from Hvar to Sućuraj, and the construction of a new ferry harbour in Hvar (Vira) and Sućuraj. More conspicuously, private tourist initiative made possible the opening of the first private restaurants, bistros and guest-houses since the war, as well as the operation of private taxi-boats (barkarjuli) and maintenance services, and increasingly successful trade by vendors of lavender products and boat rental services. In the 1960s, owing to the good quality of services and tourist offerings for that period in socialist Yugoslavia, Hvar became particularly attractive to visitors from Western Europe. Tourists arriving in Hvar in that period found a genuinely hospitable and welcoming environment – in addition to the ‘exotic’ element of the Communist surroundings. As a result, Hvar regained its former reputation as an exclusive Adriatic summer resort. Alongside domestic Yugoslav guests, and the traditional Czech and Austrian visitors, guests were mostly from Sweden, Norway, Holland, and in particular from West Germany. The latter undeniably became the most numerous and loyal guests in Hvar in the following years.

18.13 Summertime Mass Recreational and Entertainment Tourism During the 1970s and 1980s The success of the Hvar tourism of the 1960s, along with new social and economic reforms (especially the 1965 economic reform), provided the incentive for the rapid and comprehensive tourist development of Hvar which began at the end of the ’60s and lasted for the next two decades. Due to a more liberal and favourable economic system, characterised by a greater tolerance for private enterprise and availability of long-term domestic and foreign loans with beneficial interest rates, tourism took on new contours. This would become the dominant profile during the ’70s and ’80s, and the model for contemporary tourism in Hvar.

248

M. Petrić

The essential characteristics of Hvar tourism during the ’70s and ’80s are its orientation toward summer, recreational, and entertainment tourism, its emphasis on naturism, mass tourism, and its dependency on large tourist agencies. The tourist market at this time was focused on the countries of Central and Western Europe, with an emphasis above all on the West German market. The benchmark for basic services was high, with standards comparable to those in the most developed European tourist destinations, so Hvar was more competitive, for example, than Spain or Greece. Furthermore, over time, tourism spread into every aspect of public and private life and became the standard for the entire economic and social development in Hvar. Thus, the end of the 1960s saw a period of rapid tourism-related construction in Hvar. While new hotels with modern conveniences were being built, the old ones were being renovated and expanded. New hotel complexes, camping sites, marinas, sports grounds, holiday centres, excursion centres, bathing resorts, restaurants, inns, and coffee-­houses were being built. The scope of activities offered was broadened, so that apart from the normal summer activities, swimming amenities, naturism, water sports, and hunting, sport and conference tourism were also developed. The scope and initiative of private tourist offerings expanded in leaps and bounds, from providing accommodation (guest-houses, rooms for rent) to restaurants, bars, and various related tourist services. Great care was dedicated to the training of young tourism service apprentices, and for this purpose, alongside the Catering School, in 1977 a Tourism School for secondary age students was founded. These developments were also accompanied by tourist advertising of a high and varied standard. All of this led rapidly to high-quality tourism and increased prosperity, particularly for the town of Hvar as the tourist centre of the island, so that in the 1970s Hvar again became the principal riviera of middle Dalmatia, one of the best known and most attractive Adriatic summer resorts in Europe, and the winner of many national and international tourism prizes. The revenues of the state tourist service firms soared, the foreign currency savings of private board and lodging providers were growing, and the standard of living of the local population rose quickly so that everybody was satisfied. Tourism was a very lucrative business and because as an occupation it was not too strenuous, except during the three or 4 months of the summer rush, it pushed aside other economic activities and grew to be the primary economic activity of the people of Hvar, in which directly or indirectly everybody or almost everybody took part.

18.14 The Decline of Hvar Tourism During the 1990s The mass tourism model reached a peak during the first half of the 1980s, but at the same time began to exhibit certain negative effects, and the end of the 1980s marked a substantial decline in the tourist economy and the tourist image of Hvar. During the years of the Croatian War of Independence, from1991–1995 (the “Homeland War”), the crisis deepened due to the armed conflict in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The general insecurity of the situation, unfavourable foreign news reports, and interruption of supply chains and transportation routes contributed to

18  The Faces of Tourism in Hvar from Ancient Times to the Present

249

tourism in Hvar literally dying out during this period. This, of course, had drastic consequences for the overall economic situation in Hvar, which fell into a deep depression. The only ‘guests’ in Hvar at this time were the numerous refugees from the Danube basin in Croatia and from Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, despite the near-complete demise of the tourist industry during this period, some systematic economic reforms were introduced, which proved to be a precursor to a less restricted and better-quality revival of the tourist economy. Among other changes, under the newly independent Croatian state, the structure of ownership and management was fundamentally altered, so that in 1994 the hotel firms became joint-stock companies, enabling private initiative and enterprise to develop with a new level of freedom.

18.15 Aggressive, Mass Entertainment Tourism in the 2000s Even though tourism in Hvar in the second half of the 1990s was still hampered by the long-term effects of political upheaval, enormous debt, and modest investment, there was an encouraging step forward in the early 2000s. This was the result, on the one hand, of resourceful joint advertising by Hvar island’s local town councils, individual tourist boards, and the hotel chain Sunčani Hvar, and on the other, of improved transport connections, and the loyalty of traditional Hvar tourists. However, the real revival of the Hvar tourist trade started only at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century following the global financial crisis, when new, fresh ideas were infused into the tourist trade and active participation at the local level, such as the founding of nightclubs for young people and establishment of the local nautical centre of Hvar harbour, began to attract new visitors. With memories of Hvar’s image and success from the 1970s and 1980s still fresh in people’s minds, these factors promoted a fundamental renewal of Hvar tourism from today’s perspective. At the same time, several smaller family hotels were being constructed and restored in the town, and many apartments were being built and renovated. Construction of luxury tourist villas with swimming pools for richer clientele and inexpensive hostels for younger tourists were a novelty in the new program of tourist offerings. Overall, the profile of tourist and catering facilities has been notched up to a higher level, and it is now generally recognised that the tourist business in Hvar has become more modern and professional. This new momentum has surpassed many expectations. The extension of the tourist season, now starting already during April with all the Catholic holidays of Holy Week, lasts almost until the autumn with the celebration of the Town Day of Hvar on the 2nd of October, ensuring more regular employment and greater prosperity to Hvar residents. Over only a few years, the traditional make-up of tourists has completely changed. Along with the usual Germans, Scandinavians, and Italians, there are now more and more British, French, American, Spanish, Russian, Brazilian, and Australian tourists, with the most recent newcomers coming from far Eastern countries including Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, India, and China. The majority are young people,

250

M. Petrić

mainly from Great Britain and from Scandinavian countries, attracted by the motto and reputation of one of the best-known Hvar nightclubs Carpe Diem (“Seize the day,” or freely translated: “Enjoy yourself while you can!”). They come in great numbers in order to spend their 7 days of holiday in the relaxed, partying atmosphere of the Hvar nightclubs. These young partygoers are becoming the main representatives of the new tourist image of Hvar as one of the most popular party destinations of southern Europe, often called the “Ibiza of the Adriatic.” All told, evidence shows that Hvar’s international renommé is once again on the rise and that Hvar is becoming a sought-after tourist destination and meeting place for the world’s jet-set. For the past several years, tourist expansion in the town of Hvar has reached record-­ breaking levels and statistics, as seen in the number of overnight stays, visits by yachts, cruisers, and charter boats, and growth of per capita income, as well as in the amount of publicity Hvar has gained, in particular through social media. But pressure on the public life of the town, which is more and more exposed to the increasingly unruly and uncontrolled behaviour of young tourists, has also reached an all-time high. The inadequate and outdated communal infrastructure, insufficient town regulations, surcharging of the limited capacity of Hvar’s historic harbour, inadequate safety procedures for maritime traffic in the channel, limited land availability for development and construction, as well as limited natural resources, increasingly subject to the insatiable appetite of investors, and so on, all add to the strain being put on the town and its residents in the present situation. At a time when the business of tourism and the creation of the tourist image of the town is ever more internet-based and momentary developments in the realm of products and demand are frequently beyond the influence and wishes of the local community, it is wholly uncertain how tourism will evolve in Hvar in the future.

18.16 Conclusion: Hvar and Tourism A 100 and 50 years of intensive and continuous tourist development have profoundly and significantly altered the economic and social life of Hvar. Today, tourism, without a doubt, represents the single most crucial and probably the only possible route of economic and social development for Hvar. Similar to the situation in comparable tourist settings, in Hvar, the advantages of this development have been twofold. On the one hand, tourism has contributed, socially and materially, to a rapid increase in the standard of living of the local population, as Hvar has gone from being a small town on the borders of the Austrian Empire to being a fashionable European tourist destination. On the other hand, the town and island of Hvar have been spared thereby from the pervasive industrial pollution common elsewhere along the Croatian coast, where tourism is not the main source of revenue, and urban development has rather been directed and regulated by more refined criteria. Traditionally, tourism has emphasised the attractive and energising characteristics of Hvar’s natural setting and social backdrop. The town of Hvar was always alluring to travellers because of its south-facing orientation and favourable climate. As the fame of

18  The Faces of Tourism in Hvar from Ancient Times to the Present

251

Hvar as a destination grew, the natural scenery began to reveal its charm and beauty, as if a veil had been lifted. The sunny panoramas became an inspiration for artists, and the long, rolling promenades of the town’s riva highlighted the new refined vistas of the town. The architectural and cultural-historical heritage became an object of admiration, while traditional ‘a capella’ singing on the main square or in remote small streets still blesses the town with a novel, picturesque atmosphere. In the years since Croatia’s independence, tourism has directly and permanently connected Hvar with the contemporary democratic West, and this has sparked a kind of ‘quiet revolution’ in the public and private life of the people of Hvar. Tourism democratised traditional views, liberated the cheerful Mediterranean spirit, and released to a certain extent, even under the conditions of the socialistic era, a liberal entrepreneurial mentality. In its more recent history, tourism as the primary sector of contemporary economic life in Hvar has fostered new qualities among the hosts, including tourist courtesy and tourist internationalism. Tourism, which particularly in the ‘70 s and ‘80 s, was largely responsible for radically transforming the economic structure of the island, has also made it more dependent on a sole source of income, potentially more unstable and more subject to economic risks, factors which became most evident in the frugal tourist years of the Croatian War of Independence. During this period many villages in the commune of Hvar became impoverished, and some, such as Malo Grablje, were completely abandoned, whereas the town of Hvar, as a tourist centre, was exposed to the relentless pressure of internal immigration from outlying areas and the mainland. The expansive tourism of the 1970s and 1980s intruded offensively into the most cherished traditional Hvar locales. It commercialised, and reduced even to banality, many social and creative values, at the same time directly or indirectly squeezing out everything that could not be exploited for tourism. The victims of such aggressive tourism were in particular the fragile social structures of everyday life, such as traditions, the local dialect, oral heritage as a whole, in fact, everything to do with the customs and mores of typical old Hvar families and communities. However, it is important to note also that tourism is not the only cause of these developments, nor is its influence on the area and social surroundings as catastrophic as in some of the very developed tourist regions of Spain and Italy. Until recently, Hvar has been able, and in fact mostly because of insufficient financial resources, to preserve many of its former qualities. Sadly though, with the new tourist surge in Hvar in recent years, even this has become questionable. Owing to these developments, it is necessary to thoroughly re-examine the previous concept of tourism in Hvar, particularly as it has developed since the years of crisis in the ’90s, and the recent ‘free-for-all forward drive’ of mass and party tourism. Under the current, liberal economic and social system, and with the beginning of a fresh tourist revival in Croatia, in which Hvar has taken its place as one of the most attractive destinations for investors, it is vital that Hvar tourism turn towards a more moderate post-industrial model of tourist trade, in order to inject some new or forgotten initiatives which in fact have proven to be fruitful here. The focus needs to be primarily on a more balanced relationship of tourism with the whole economy and a more moderate and year-round tourist trade for the town and the island, with as wide as possible a range of varied and more flexible tourism models in addition to the existing ones which Hvar is

252

M. Petrić

able to provide, including a more focussed development of medical, sport, winter, family, rural, scientific, cultural, ecological, gastronomical, fishing, and other types of tourism. The emphasis can and should be on a more independent and sustainable approach towards the tourist market, and a more energetic role of the Hvar Tourist Board in creating tourist-trade products of greater quality. In many ways still a typical Mediterranean town, Hvar is not alone in its experience of the precipitous development of tourism over the past decades. Nonetheless, Hvar’s long and exhilarating tradition of tourism from ancient times to the present will no doubt enable it to meet the challenges of its new standing in the fraternity of contemporary European tourist destinations, and once again revive its image as a promoter of new ideas, as it has done in the past.

References Anonymous. 1899. Klimatischer Kurort Lesina in Süd-Dalmatien. Trieste: Lesina Heilverein. ———. 1903. Klimatischer Curort und Seebad Lesina, Österreichs Madeira, Süd-Dalmatien. Wien: Lesnina Heilverein. Apollonius, and George W.  Mooney. 1912. Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius. Edited with introd. and commentary by George W. Mooney. London: Longmans, Green. Diels, Hermann, and Walther Kranz. 1951. Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. 6th ed. Hildesheim: Weidmann. Jurić, Frane. 1988. “Hvar: 120 godina turizma.” Feuilleton in 12 sequences. Slobodna Dalmacija. April 18–29, 1988. Novak, Đino. 1967. Osnutak i život Higijeničkog društva u Hvaru. Turizam 4, Zagreb: Institut za turizam. (Extended edition 1968. Hvar: Historijski arhiv). Petrić, Marinko. 1955. Turizam na otoku Hvaru. Otok Hvar, 292–300. Zagreb: Matica Hrvatska. ———. 2001. Hvarski turistički spomenar. Sentimentalno putovanje kroz turističku prošlost Hvara. 2nd ed. Hvar: Turistička zajednica Hvar, 2018. Zaninović, Marin. 2004. Antički Grci na Hrvatskoj obali. Arheološki radovi i rasprave 14: 1–57. Zagreb: Hrvatska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti. Marinko Petrić was born in Hvar in 1953. He graduated from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zagreb, having studied History of Art and Philosophy. Since 1978, he has worked as a curator for the Centre for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage of the island of Hvar (Hvar Heritage Museum). He has written several professional and popular works about the cultural-­historical heritage of his native town, among them several about tourist history.  

Chapter 19 Hvar on Film Zorka Bibić1 (*) 1 

Hvar Town Library, Hvar, Croatia

Abstract.  Something over ninety movies have been produced in Hvar since the first saved amateur film by Maximilian Paspa in 1932, either as part of or as full editions of movies or documentary works. More than forty foreign productions were filmed in Dalmatia during the pre-Second World War period. Hvar has been the chosen location for two documentarists and representatives of the Culture Film – Urlich Schulz (The Sea Creatures in the Adriatic Bays and Fjords of South Dalmatia) released in 1934 – and two blockbusters, The Coral Princess and The Impossible Mr Pitt. Ćiro Gamulin, the first known Hvar amateur filmmaker, made the first Hvar island mosaic film “Jelšanski slikopis” (Jelsa Photo Painting) 1939–1941. Most films became part of the “collective memory” and local people from the island took on secondary roles or took part as extra walk-ins. Though the island’s territory has been exploited many a time as a stand-in for other nameless locations, the scenes and sites are still attractive to the contemporary audience. According to historian Duško Kečkemet, cinema made its first appearance in Stari Grad in 1916. (Kečkemet D. Počeci kinematografije i filma u Dalmaciji. Muzej Grada Splita, Split, 1969, 130) In the appendix, one can find the listing of all known movies or film documentaries filmed either completely or in part on the island of Hvar. Keywords:  Hvar · Cinema · Documentary · Movie

Not much is known about the many films made in or about Hvar: some have been irretrievably lost or are known only by their title and occasional remembrance, while others are still waiting to be discovered in the dark and dust of numerous archives. Researching and discovering film treasure is too often intensive, demanding, slow, and expensive work. Still, several very interesting films have been preserved in which Hvar town and the island played a significant part. In the period prior to World War II, over forty foreign films were made in Dalmatia. The first known, so far, was the German film Das malerische Kroatien (Picturesque Croatia), which was made as early as 1912 in the Hvar region and unfortunately lost, and is known only by its title. Asta Nielsen, the megastar of silent film, made the film The Power of Love with Bruno Carli in 1921 in Split and its surrounding area. That film too is also not preserved. Nonetheless, Dalmatia very soon became a favourite film location for both German and other Central European filmmakers, especially those from countries of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. Also, in this way, Germans © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M.-É. Zovko, J. Dillon (eds.), Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36659-8_19

253

254

Z. Bibić

were running away from the bad situation in their country, defeated in the recent World War I, they found numerous ways to create a good and attractive product despite inflation, and strove thereby to establish themselves as European competitors to Hollywood film productions. The idyllic and previously unknown and pristine Dalmatian landscape was an ideal location for entertaining adventure films (the so-called chase films) and romantic films. Besides displaying its own beauty and autochthonous character, Dalmatia has many times “stood in” for other areas and countries, like Italy, the Middle East, Latin America, and the like. German filmmakers showed an interest in the history, architecture, and natural beauty of the Dalmatian area. The Adriatic coast wasn’t far away from Central Europe and filmmaking expenses were significantly lower than, for example, in Italy, and state and local authorities were willing to cooperate. Local people were also inclined towards foreign film productions, mostly due to the fact that they recognised an enormous advantage for the promotion of a promising emerging industry, namely tourism. Most Dalmatians, and that includes people from Hvar as well, met the seventh art for the first time precisely through curious observation or active participation in filming. Cinema was first introduced in the small town of Stari Grad on the island of Hvar in 1916, according to historian Duško Kečkemet (Kečkemet D. Počeci kinematografije i filma u Dalmaciji. Muzej Grada Splita, Split, 1969, 130), however there is not any further information about it. It was thanks to an amateur that Hvar was recorded by a film camera eye for the first time. Maksimilijan Paspa, a dentist and the founder of Kinoklub Zagreb, filmed the panorama of Hvar harbour from the deck of a passenger ship in 1932. Those film frames were included in the five-minute film with a simple title, “Split – Trogir – Hvar.” In the absence of more detailed research, this film is so far the first reliable remembrance of the island and town of Hvar preserved on film and the earliest preserved recording of Hvar in Croatian archives. Paspa filmed the scenes of Hvar town again in 1936 in the film On the Blue Adriatic. Almost all films known to have been made on Hvar in this period so far, served as picturesque calling cards for Hvar tourism, at least insofar as they were featured in the newspapers at the time. An amateur black-and-white silent film, “Jelsa Photo Painting” 1939–1941, found and published in 2009, provides an outstanding, intimate insight into the people and life of Jelsa during the period before World War II. The filmmaker was a local inhabitant Ćiro Gamulin, who was a biology and math teacher in a Split gymnasium. Exclusively for his own needs, he filmed clips of life, people, and customs in his birth town for 2 years. Gamulin’s Pathe 9.5 mm camera recorded anonymous fishermen and old ladies who felt a bit uncomfortable during the encounter with a technical novelty, as well as the forgotten Corpus Christi custom of blessing the fishermen’s nets spread out on the seafront while confraternity members and altar boys, fishermen and other men walked on them. For the first time, certain ancient and forgotten customs were filmed such as the “Following the Cross” cortege, i.e., waiting for the cross-bearer and his entourage on Good Friday morning, with an impressive scene where confraternity members hold a visibly exhausted cross-bearer while he enters the Church of St John. The film was discovered in the collection of Ćiro Gamulin’s son, the academic Stjepan Gamulin. The prematurely deceased Ćiro Gamulin, a passionate fan of film and photography, is the first known Croatian amateur cinematographer. Future research may bring some more interesting things to light from his legacy.

19  Hvar on Film

255

The third decade of the twentieth century was marked by rich foreign, especially German, production. The first waterproof camera in the world filmed the sea bed in front of Split, Vis, and Hvar in August 1932. Ulrich Schulz, a zoologist and one of the greatest producers of pre-war kulturfilm (short film forms on different topics), made the film “Marine Life in the Adriatic Sea” (“Meerestiere in der Adria”). In 14 min, shots of sea inhabitants are interchanged with tableaus of the Dalmatian landscape: a view from the little island Galešnik toward the Franciscan monastery in Hvar surrounded by the bare landscape, unpopulated by houses back then, a diver in a heavy suit, rich flora and fauna of the central Dalmatian seabed. Schulz returned to Dalmatia two more times for the purpose of filming. In the year 1934, he made a film on Adriatic fjords and coves, where the forgotten skills of picking pyrethrum flowers and mornings in the Hvar market are shown in short shots. The biggest pre-war German and Yugoslav co-production was the film The Coral Princess (Die Korallenprinzessin) with the alternative title On the Blue Adriatic  – An der Blaue Adria from 1937. Lead roles were played by the domestic actors Ivan Petrović and Ita Rina, and it was mostly filmed on the island of Zlarin, in Hvar town, and at Divulje airbase. The filming attracted previously unseen media attention, especially from the Split newspaper Novo doba, which reported on the filming progress and locations almost daily in the early summer of 1937. The newspaper reported on the introduction of a special free shipping line which would transport extras to the filming locations in Hvar. Two hundred extras were hired for the filming, which included twenty young couples who were familiar with modern dances. Two days later, the same newspaper published a large text on filming in Hvar, in the then newly built beach resort Bonj, with a picturesque terrace made of white stone. A journalist describes the details vividly: more than 200 extras, a director shouting directions through a megaphone and his pleasing appearance that attracted Hvar residents, the noise of the swimmers which annoyed the cameramen, the music of the Split jazz orchestra, curious observers, the repetition of the scene due to the fact that an actor forgot his lines, Hilde Sessak with strong makeup, as it was recorded in newspaper Novo doba in June 1937. The atmosphere of short-term glamour was caught in the so-­ far only known photograph from that filming. The newspaper articles reveal that the exteriors were filmed during June and July 1937 (just over a month), and the other scenes were filmed in a studio. The first person who saw the film in a private projection was the Nazi minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, who noted the title incorrectly in his diary, either accidentally or on purpose: Cossack Princess with the following note: “a trivial film, but Hilde Sessak is a good actress” (Rizmaul 2017, 15). The Croatian premiere of The Coral Princess was held at the end of October, 2 months after the end of filming, in Šibenik. I haven’t found any information in newspapers of that time on a premiere in Hvar, but if it happened at all, it was probably held right after the one in Šibenik. The newspaper Novo doba published an article at the end of November on the enormous meaning of this film to the tourist promotion of Dalmatia. The filming of the last pre-war German blockbuster takes place in November and December – an action comedy The Impossible Mr Pitt (Der unmögliche Herr Pitt) by the director and actor Heinrich/Harry Piel, the true pre-war celebrity. Together with Split, Hvar was turned into a harbour on the Tunisian coast for a short time for the purpose of filming an adventure comedy with Harry Piel as the lead actor. A clumsy taxi driver is arrested and charged for espionage and sentenced to forced labour, but he man-

256

Z. Bibić

ages to escape from prison and hide on a luxurious yacht. After an array of turnovers and dynamic situations, with the unavoidable love troubles, the film concludes with the expected happy ending. Camels walking down the waterfront (the Riva) in Split and booths with tropical fruits at the Split market can be seen in shots that were saved. Piel was a frequent subject of the Novo doba newspaper and they followed him on his trip to Hvar, where he went to “review the town attractions for the purpose of filming some scenes” (Novo doba 1937, December 8, 8). They also published an extensive text on filming in the quarry in Križna harbour in the town of Hvar, where an old, rotten ship was brought for the needs of filming and local people could earn money by being extras. By the end of the war, international cinema had already transitioned through most stages of its evolution – from short, silent films, to the invention of a sound film, to full-­ length colour films. Most genres had already been shown, the first signs of modernism had appeared, while domestic cinematography was still struggling with the basics of narration, technical aspects of filming, and the diversity of genres. The coast and islands, as well as the town of Hvar, were shown in colour in the documentary “Greetings from the Adriatic Sea” (Ante Babaja, 1958). A panorama of the town filmed from Fortica (the hilltop fortress overlooking the harbour), a ship put to sea from the seafront, sailing boats, and, from our contemporary perspective, a remarkably empty promenade and beach resort for the middle of summer present to the modern viewer a romantic postcard of the town and of Dalmatian islands that were still relatively unaltered by tourism. A short documentary film “Centuries of Hvar” (1959) by director Branko Belan, was also filmed in colour and follows the history of the island in a poetic way from the Illyrians to modern times, with a focus on the golden period of the Renaissance. A rather shaky camera lingers over architectonic details and beautiful, natural scenery. The 1960s are a period when Croatian cinematography of different genres thrives, as reflected in the sheer amount of filming done on the Adriatic coast, and specifically in Hvar. The period of filming on the island of Hvar from 1960 to 1990 has a special place in the collective memory of Hvar residents. Memories from the golden age of pre-war film were gradually overtaken as local actors, members of amateur drama societies who were no longer limited to appearing as silent extras, were also cast in smaller speaking roles. Meanwhile, two films made in the first half of the 1960s brought tourism in Hvar into full swing. It was in 1963 that Hollywood star Elke Sommer, at the debut of her career, made the film Seduction by the Sea on the Pakleni islands, in Palmižana Bay, together with Peter van Eyck and several Yugoslav actors. The isolated, untouched, and at that time still undiscovered beauty of Palmižana formed the ideal backdrop for this film about a young female tourist who falls in love with a young man living alone on a deserted island. The film is also interesting because of the influence of the new fashion in cinematography at the time where the actors interrupt their dialogue in certain scenes to address the audience directly. Probably the most famous film guest to visit these parts was the director Orson Welles, who filmed in Zagreb, Trogir, and Split. He directed two complete films in Croatia, “Vienna” and The Trial, and also acted in the Croatian historical films The Secret of Nikola Tesla and Battle of Neretva. He filmed scenes on the sea in front of Hvar town harbour for the film Dead Reckoning, which was later renamed The Deep.

19  Hvar on Film

257

According to film critics, this film can be compared in terms of quality to his greatest achievement, Citizen Kane. Lead roles were played by former megastar Jeanne Moreau, Welles’s muse, Oja Kodar, Welles himself, Michael Bryant, and Laurence Harvey. Unfortunately, Welles’s film was left unfinished because of a lack of funds, even though the director financed it himself completely. Still, 122 minutes of filming were saved and recently used to successfully reconstruct a film which has attracted the attention of a large audience. It should be mentioned that Welles broke two of his own proscriptions in this film when he chose to film in colour and to film nude scenes. Welles stayed for 6 weeks in Hvar in the hotel Adriatic, which was newly built back then, and he is remembered for always having a cigar in his mouth, for his impatient gestures, and for his speech, which was incomprehensible to many people. He had read about the island’s history and cultural legacy before he came. His Hvar adventure finally got its first showing in 2015 in connection with the one-hundredth anniversary of the famous director’s birth. The town of Hvar bought about thirty photos from the filming of The Deep and collected them and exhibited them, in 2015, under the common title The Story of the Saracen Boat on Hvar, which was about the boat that was used for the filming of the movie in the Hvar aquatorium. There is a plan in place for these photos to become a permanent exhibit in the town of Hvar. It was not until the establishment of the Republic of Croatia that elements of Hvar’s culture, history, and legacy came into greater focus, especially in documentaries made by public broadcasting. The generation of directors who reached maturity just prior to the dissolution of Yugoslavia was not able to break into the cultural scene in the first decade of the new country, especially because of the Croatian War of Independence. The new century strengthened the power of television and brought a wide range of new media with extraordinary technical possibilities to the domestic market. The consequence was a general lack of interest in cinema. Croatian cinematography took two more decades to gradually evolve to the level of international cinema, with the predominant theme initially being the Croatian War of Independence. Only in the last 10 years has Croatia become more open to co-productions and foreign filming. Similarly to the situation in the 1930s, the public and the government see these initiatives as an opportunity for improving the promotion of tourism, but also Croatia’s image in the world at large. Domestic and foreign filmmakers are slowly rediscovering Hvar: in 2013, the town was the setting for the first half-domestic documentary production, Fishermen’s Conversations, in which female director Chiara Bove Makiedo, who is of Croatian origin, questions the relation between the traditional and the modern – fishing and the galloping rise of unorganised tourism. In the same year, a French and American team found in and around Hvar ideal locations for shooting the film Odyssey about the undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau. In 2018, a large part of the Croatian film Osmi povjerenik (The Eighth Commissioner) was filmed in Velo Grablje and the film was the Croatian submission for the Oscars that same year. In this manner, we return to our point of departure: films made on the island and in Dalmatia – regardless of the quality – continue to have an enormous power to attract an interested audience. In the period from 1932 to 2018, over eighty feature and documentary films, as well as TV shows, were made, either partially or completely, on the island of Hvar. According to titles and censorship records available in different archives, mostly from German-­ speaking areas, we can assume that there are more films that were made before 1932

258

Z. Bibić

since the earliest records of films are backed up by the existence of the preserved films mentioned above, that is, the film by Maksimilijan Paspa and the kulturfilm by Ulrich Schulz. Only future research will uncover whether the films made on the island have been preserved, either in their entirety or in fragments. The quality of the filmed material is varied: not all of the preserved material corresponds to the ultimate cinematic achievement. In fact, we can conclude that the island of Hvar – maybe because of its natural beauty and charming Mediterranean climate – was used very frequently as the scenography for a number of related genres. These include chase films (the predecessor of action comedies), psychological love dramas, light comedies, and narrative films about the bravery and heroism of partisan soldiers. By reason of the development of tourism, technical possibilities, and progress in general during the past decade, Hvar is becoming even more of an attractive destination for filmmakers. This is especially true with regard to the attraction stemming from the historical presence of director Orson Welles, one of the greatest names in the world of film, whose stay in the town of Hvar, even though a short one, represents a potential topic to be considered from the perspective of a productive interaction between tourism and culture. From the early beginnings, documentaries made on the island of Hvar have had a strong marketing component, especially for touristic purposes, regardless of the changing countries and regimes which have historically held sway over the island and town of Hvar. As opposed to feature films, where the island of Hvar most frequently “played” other geographical places, documentaries cast into focus the true content of the island’s character and history. The cinema attendance record in 2018 for the film Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, which was made on the island of Vis, confirmed the kind of strong sense of emotional attachment and identification that the scenery and locations represented by filmed material can arouse in audiences – even though Vis did not play Vis but some Greek island, just as Hvar didn’t actually play Hvar many times in the films in which it appears but some other location. Audiences like to see familiar places in different attire. The films mentioned above, as well as other films made on Hvar, arouse in viewers a strong sense of nostalgia. What do we long for when we experience this kind of nostalgia? Is it the bygone youth, or a bygone time, which we think was better than the present one, with more romance, connection, a better way of life and everything that we believe life has taken away or erased? In which moment would we like to freeze Hvar, and as such draw inspiration and ideas from it, or do we just wish to comfort our yearnings? Is it the period of the 1930s, the last pre-war blockbusters and a strong development of tourism? Or the period of the 1960s when Hvar experiences the greatest touristic upturn when it gets eight new hotels in only 10 years, and one of the greatest filmmakers of the last century, Orson Welles, stays in one of them? Or the years before and after the Croatian War of Independence, the time that is the freshest in our memory, when Hvar is modern, lively, colourful, open to everyone, and when, in films, it also becomes more of what it really is? That nostalgia and yearning which are very often carried by us collectively can remain a part of our intimate experience or find a way toward others. It can be an encouragement for better mutual communication in terms of digging under the surface and researching what we can dig out from the history of Hvar and launch into the

19  Hvar on Film

259

future, for our own good and then for the good of others – in this case tourists. The filmed material can surely be used for the revival of forgotten values, but only if we recognise them as values that can be presented to generations to come: it can be a return to wild plants, such as picking and drying pyrethrum flowers in the old film by Schulz, streets full of flowers and the Mediterranean spirit as in the films by Gluščević, theatre in the street and on the market where the autochthonous words resound, as in the pre-­ war film The Impossible Mr Pitt. So, the feeling of yearning and nostalgia can encourage action. This short review of the famous past films filmed on the island of Hvar has hopefully helped to provide some insight into the irretrievably lost and forgotten segments of life and nature, the testimony of the changed place which has been, even for a short time, saved on film, and the historical, sociological, and cultural changes that have shaped the cinematography of the region and the role of the island of Hvar as a filming location.

19.1 List of Appearances of Hvar in Film 1. Split – Trogir – Hvar, documentary film, B/W, 1932 Screenplay, directing and editing: Maksimilijan Paspa; no production listed, 5 min. Men on a boat, view of the island from the sea, a walk through town 2. Melodije 1000 otoka, feature film, B/W, 1932 Directing: Max Oswatitsch, role: Mira Zdravković No further details known; possibly the earliest sound film in this region and the first German and Yugoslav co-production 3. Alte Kulturstädten in Dalmatien, documentary film, B/W, 1930–1939 Producer: Felix Wildenhain; a copy is preserved in the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, Berlin The Loggia, Fortica castle, scenes from the streets 4. Meerestiere in der Adria, documentary film, B/W, 1933/1934 Director: Ulrich K.T.Schulz, 14 min, prod. Universum-film AG, Berlin 5. Jadranske idile, documentary film, B/W, 1934 Directing and production: Oktavijan Miletić 6. Schären und Fjorde an der Adria, documentary film, B/W, 1934 Directing: Ulrich K.T.Schulz, prod. UFA Berlin Picking Dalmatian pellitories, the well on the Pjaca 7. Na plavom Jadranu, documentary film, B/W, 1936 Directing and cinematography: Maksimilijan Paspa, View of the town from the sea, the Hvar Riva, the cathedral and Pjaca, a boat arriving in the harbour

260

Z. Bibić

8. Die Korallenprinzesse; alternative title An der Blaue Adria, feature film, B/W, 1937 Director: Victor Jansen, screenplay: Harald G.  Petterson, actors: Ivan Petrović, Hilde Sessak, Ita Rina; 76 min. 9. Die Insel der 1000 Stufen Hvar, documentary film, 1937 No listed director; production: Hermann Winter-Filme Muenchen According to the description on the censorship card, it is a short touristic propaganda film 10. Život u Jelsi, documentary, B/W, 1938 Text: Ivan Susović, camera: Velimir Vučković, production: Gevaert Cine Fim/ Jadranska straža; 15′39′′ 11. Der unmögliche Herr Pitt, feature film, B/W, 1938 Directing: Harry Piel, screenplay: Harald Bratt; actors: Harry Piel, Willi Schur, Hilde Weissner, Leopold von Lebedur; production: Ariel-Film GmbH Berlin; 92 min. 12. The Empire of the Doges  – The Coast Towns and Islands of Dalmatia, Documentary film in colour, 1938 No listed director or cinematographer, most likely film newsreel, Great Britain, 17 min., (Croatian State Archives) 13. Jelšanski slikopis 1939–1941, documentary, B/W Directing: Ćiro Gamulin; no listed producer or year Intimate scenes from life in Jelsa 14. Ljetni dani u Dalmaciji, documentary film, B/W, 1940 Directing, camera and editing: Ladislav Ilin; production: Laci film. Fishermen, swimming on Hvar 15. Hrvatska u rieči i slici, documentary film, B/W, 1943 No listed screenwriter or director; prod. Hrvatski slikopis; 64 min. Hvar palaces, convents, and churches, fishermen, grape harvesting 16. Slavica, feature film, B/W, 1947 Screenplay and directing: Vjekoslav Afrić, production; Avala film, actors: Irena Kolesar, Dubravko Dujšin, Marijan Lovrić; 100 min. Scenes of an evening dance in the courtyard of the vacation home for customs officials 17. Jadran kroz vjekove, documentary film, B/W, 1948 Screenplay: Melita Filipović, Rudolf Sremec, Branko Marjanović; directing:  Melita Filipović; production: Jadran film, Zagreb, 44′20″ An overview of the history of the eastern Adriatic coast from the Illyrians to the period after the Second World War. Fortica, Loggia, the H. Lucić summerhouse, exteriors of the Arsenal, women taking water from the well on the Pjaca, Stari Grad, Tvrdalj Vrbanj.

19  Hvar on Film

261

18. Jugoslavenski Jadran, documentary film, B/W, 1950 Screenplay: Milan Katić and Ante Mladineo, directing: Milan Katić, production: Jadran film Panorama of Hvar, bathing spot, Loggia, fishing, one of the Pakleni islands where only Šjor (Mister) Mande lives, grape harvest 19. Sinji galeb, feature film, B/W, 1953 Director: Branko Bauer, screenplay: Josip Barković and Branko Bauer; actors: Tihomir Polanec, Nela Eržišnik, Antun Nalis; production: Jadran film, 91’ Shots of the Pjaca, Šćikov bok 20. Mala Jole, feature film, B/W, 1955 (unfinished) Screenwriter and director Nikša Fulgosi, lead roles: Dejan Dubajić, Ksenija  Domljan, Antun Nalis, production: Jadran film 21. Jadranski motivi – Jadranska simfonija, documentary film, B/W, 1957 Screenplay and directing: Branko Majer, production: Zagreb film Panorama of Hvar and the Pakleni islands 22. Ljudi na obali, documentary film, B/W, 1958 Screenplay: Ivo Braut, directing: Branko Marjanović, production: Zora film The everyday life of farmers in the town of Hvar, tourists at a bathing spot, panorama, Pjaca, the marketplace, streets and houses, palm trees and agaves 23. Pozdravi s Jadrana, documentary film in colour, 1958 Screenplay: Ante Babaja, Zvonimir Berković, directing: Ante Babaja, production: Jadran film Panorama and the centre of Hvar 24. Spomen grčkom rodoljubu, documentary (newsreel), B/W, 1958 No listed screenwriter or director, production: Filmske novosti, Belgrade Paintings in the Franciscan monastery, the cathedral 25. Svetlost na ostrvu, documentary, B/W, 1959 Screenplay and directing: Marijan Vajda, prod. Dunav film, Serbia The manufacturing and installation of cables for electricity from the mainland to the island of Hvar, the importance of the electrification of the islands 26. Hvarska komuna, documentary, B/W, 1959 Director: B. Tešija; no listed production Vladimir Bakarić launches the electric power station into operation (not specified where), panoramas of island locations 27. Vjekovi Hvara, documentary, in colour, 1959 Screenplay: Grgo Gamulin, directing: Branko Belan, camera: Jure Ruljančić, prod. Zagreb film History of the island of Hvar from antiquity to modern times

262

Z. Bibić

28. Verfürung am Meer (Zavođenje na moru; Ostrva; Agente special Eva-Mission sex), feature film, B/W, 1963 Directing: Jovan Živanović, actors: Peter van Eyck, Elke Sommer, Blaženka Katalinić, production: Alfa film, Avala film (West-German and Yugoslav co-­ production); 80’ Scenes of the town of Hvar and of the Pakleni islands 29. Lito vilovito, feature film, B/W, 1964 Screenplay: Obrad Gluščević i Vanča Kljaković, director: Obrad Gluščević, actors: Milena Dravić, Boris Dvornik, Ljubiša Samardžić, Desanka-Beba Lončar, prod. Avala film, 86’ 30. Hvar i Korčula, documentary film in colour, 1964 Director: Richard Annand; amateur footage, silent film; 25 min. 31. Sunčani Jadran, documentary (advertising) film, B/W, 1965 Screenplay: Kruno Quien, Bogdan Žižić, directing: Frano Vodopivec, prod. Zagreb film The possibilities of vacationing on the Adriatic, a panorama of Hvar 32. Kako su se voleli Romeo i Julija, feature film in colour, 1966 Directing: Jovan Živanović, actors: Špela Rozin, Mihailo-Miša Janketić, Aleksandar Gavrić, Rade Marković; prod. Avala film, 100’ 33. The Deep, feature film in colour, 1967 (unfinished) Screenplay and directing: Orson Welles, actors: Michael Bryant, Jeanne Moreau, Oja Kodar, Lawrence Harvey 34. Objektiv 350, documentary, B/W, 1967 Author: Zvonko Letica; prod. RTV Zagreb Students and teachers of the Hvar Partisan Gymnasium Vladimir Nazor 35. Mladi na ekranu – četiri priče: Grga, Nada, Branka, Pero, documentary, 1968 Screenplay and directing: Branko Lentić, Gordana Bonetti; prod. RTV Zagreb A conversation with Pero from Stari Grad, a sailor on a private trabaccolo, and with his grandfather, the oldest sailor on Hvar 36. Goli čovik, feature film in colour, 1968 Screenplay: Ranko Marinković, directing: Obrad Gluščević, actors: Vera Čukić, Ljubiša Samardžić, Karlo Bulić, Antun Nalis, Vinka Ćurin; prod. Jadran film, 99’ 37. Na zimskom suncu, documentary film, B/W, 1969 Screenplay and directing Obrad Gluščević, prod. Jadran film 38. Naše malo misto, television drama, B/W, 1969–1971 Screenplay: Miljenko Smoje, directing: Daniel Marušić; actors: Karlo Bulić, Asja Kisić, Boris Dvornik, Zdravka Krstulović, …; prod. Televizija Zagreb

19  Hvar on Film

263

39. Karavan, documentary broadcast, B/W, 1969 Screenplay and directing Milan Kovčević; prod. RTS Beograd (the show was broadcast from 1963 to 1983; two episodes were dedicated to the island of Hvar) 40. Bablje ljeto, feature film in colour, 1970 Screenplay: Živko Jeličić, directing: Nikola Tanhofer, actors: Boris Dvornik, Milja Vujanović, Ana Karić, Rade Marković, Branko Pleša, Pavle Vuisić, Edo Koludrović; prod. Dalmacija film – Kinematografi Zagreb, 97’ Filmed in the bays Mala Stiniva and Dubovica 41. Kroz Jugoslaviju, documentary film in colour, 1970 No listed screenwriter or director; production: Drummer Films Production, UK An overview of the interesting touristic locations in Yugoslavia, among which is Hvar 42. Češljanje Jadrana, documentary film, 1970 Author Neven Letica About the hydroarchaeological finds and theft of the same, Hvar divers participate, as well as Dr. Niko Duboković Nadalini 43. Jadranski gradovi, documentary/informative broadcast, 1970/1971 No listed director; prod. RTV Zagreb Harvest of lavender 44. Hvar – en jugoslavisk tilværelse, documentary film, B/W, 1972 Directing: Hans C. Alsvik, production: NRK (Norsk rikskringkasting), Norway 45. Ribari, documentary film in colour, 1973 Directing: Vladimir Fulgosi, production: Televizija Zagreb 46. Tamo gdje smiješak nije obavezan, documentary broadcast, 1973 Directors: Branko Lentić, Saletto Perušina A show about the hotel Amfora and the people who work there, as well as about the hotel industry on the island of Sveti Klement 47. Kapetan Mikula Mali, feature film in colour, 1974 Screenplay and directing: Obrad Gluščević, actors: Petre Prličko, Tonči Vidan, Joško Pažanin, Manojlo Cvijanović, prod. Jadran film, 95’ 48. Naš Matij – padaj silo i nepravdo, documentary film in colour, 1975 Screenplay Miro Modrinić, directing Mate Bogdanović, prod. Adria film 49. Veljko Rogošić – jači od mora, documentary film, 1975 Screenplay and directing Nikola Babić, prod. Slavica film Portrait of the marathon swimmer V.  Rogošić and shots of him breaking the world record in distance swimming between Hvar and Split (43 km)

264

Z. Bibić

50. Pakleni otok, feature film in colour, 1979 Screenplay Frane Jurić, directing Vladimir Tadej, actors: Pavle Vuisić, Klaus Löwitsch, Slavko Štimac, Beba Lončar, Ružica Sokić, Richard Harrison, Peter Carsten, Krunoslav Šarić, Aljoša Vučković, Miki Krstović; prod. Adriafilm 51. Mathias Sandorf, narrative mini-series in colour, 1979–1981 Screenplay: Claude Dessaily (based on the novel by Jules Verne), directing: JeanPierre Decourt; actors: Istvan Bujtor, Claude Giraud, Giuseppe Pambieri, Monika Peitsch; French, German, Hungarian, and Italian production 52. Odmor u Hrvatskoj, documentary film in colour, 1980 Screenplay: Veselko Tenžera, Salih Zvizdić, directing Zvonimir Berković, prod. Jadran film Pakleni islands 53. Na dlanu mora IV., documentary film in colour, 1984 Director: Igor Michieli Musical and documentary travel show with parts about the traditional past and day-to-day of Adriatic islands – Jelsa, Stari Grad, and Hvar are explored 54. Tajna starog tavana, feature film in colour, 1984 Screenplay and directing: Vladimir Tadej, actors: Špiro Guberina, Boris Dvornik, Mia Oremović, Jan Kanyza, Miloš Kopecky, Petar Jelaska, Edo Peročević, Mario Mirković, Jiri Guriča, Nina Petrović; production: Croatia film / Filmove Studio, Gottwaldov (Yugoslav and Czech co-production) 55. Od petka do petka, feature film in colour, 1985 Screenplay Miljenko Smoje, directing Antun Vrdoljak, actors: Boris Dvornik, Zdravka Krstulović, Katja Zupčić; production: Dalmacija film, 91’ 56. Skice za portet Vlahe Paljetka, documentary film in colour, 1985 Screenplay and directing: Gordana Hajni, prod. Jadran film A woman by the name of Marijana tells the story of how she met Vlaho Paljetak in 1935, in the town of Hvar, and he stated that he would compose a song about her. In the background, archival images of Hvar are shown. 57. Haloa – praznik kurvi, feature film in colour, 1988 Screenplay: Veljko Barbieri, Lordan Zafranović, directing: Lordan Zafranović; actors: Neda Arnerić, Ranko Zidarić, Stevo Žigon, Dušica Žegarac, Zorko Rajčić, prod. Jadran film/TV Zagreb, 120 min. 58. Petar Hektorović, documentary and acted broadcast, 1988 Screenplay: Veljko Barbieri, directing: Ljiljana Jojić; prod. HTV A series in two parts (“Trag u nepoznatom”, “Tvrdalj i ribanje”) 59. Ribanje i ribarsko prigovaranje, a recording of the theatre performance, documentary, 1992 Editor: Maja Gregl, screenplay and directing: Marin Carić; prod. HTV

19  Hvar on Film

265

60. Forske pisme i tonci, documentary film, 1993 Screenplay: Aleksandar Pavlovsky, directing: Nana Šojlev, prod. HTV, Zagreb, 24:48 min. Filmed in Hvar, Sveta Nedilja, Vrboska, and Velo Grablje 61. Za Križen, documentary film, 1994 Screenplay: Aleksandar Pavlovsky, directing: Goran Pavletić, prod. HTV,  27:47 min. Filmed in Jelsa, Pitve, Vrisnik, and Svirče 62. Sveto porojenje, documentary film, 1994 Screenplay: Aleksandar Pavlovsky, directing: Rudolf Zangl, prod. HTV, 30 min. Christmas customs in Velo Grablje; narrator: Ivica Tomičić-Tajnikov 63. O hvarskim kapacitetima, report on tourism, 1995 Authors: N. Šurjak and A. Altarac; prod. HTV The director of Sunčani Hvar speaks about tourist capacities, footage of the town 64. Bruške pisme Lucije Rudan, documentary film, 1995 Screenplay and directing: Marin Carić, editor: A. Pavlovsky; prod. HTV; 30 min. Excerpts from theatre plays based on the verses of Lucija Rudan, performed by the Hvar Folk Theatre 65. Bratovštinska procesija Po Božjin grebima i teoforična procesija u gradu Hvaru, short film, 1995 Filmed by Ivan and Vaska Lozica; Archive of the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research (Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku), video 336 66. Za Križen, short film, 1995 Filmed by Duško Brala (based on J. Gladić), particularly in Vrboska; Archive of the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research (Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku), video 612 and 613 67. Izgubljeno blago, feature film, 1996 Screenplay and directing: Darko Vernić, actors: Veljko Barbieri, Svemir Brakus, Dragutin Broz; prod. Crna ovca/ HRT; 95 min. 68. Moja priča o Hrvatskoj: svjedočanstvo starog filmskog zapisa, documentary, 1997 Screenplay and directing: Bruno Gamulin, prod. HTV; 45 min. Film records from Ćiro Gamulin that were filmed between 1936 and 1940 with an 8 mm film camera as a basis for a conversation with contemporaries about the past, present and future of life on the island of Hvar 69. Stari Grad njihove mladosti, documentary film, 2000 Screenplay and directing: Petar Krelja, prod. HTV; 45 min.

266

Z. Bibić

70. Sveti glasovi, documentary, 2000 Screenplay and directing: Petar Krelja, prod. HTV, 45 min. 71. Pjesnički putopis – forska lipost uzorita, documentary, 2000 Author: Milan Rakovac, director: Ines Pletikos; prod. HTV About Hvar writers 72. Za križem, documentary/commissioned film, 2000 Screenplay Mirela Cigić, directing Ivan Cigić, prod. MC Media, Široki Brijeg; 26 min. 73. Sunčani novac, documentary report, 2001 Screenplay and directing: Josip Šarić; prod. HTV Comparing summer and winter on the island, and the question of the direction of development 74. Hvarski divovi, documentary, 2003 Screenplay and directing: Ljiljana Mandić, prod. HRT 75. Ribanje, short documentary film, 2004 Screenplay and directing: Irena Škorić; prod. Kino klub Zagreb; 15 min. The day-to-day life of periodical (seasonal) inhabitants of the island Sveti Klement 76. Vatra, voda, brašno, documentary, 2004/2005 Screenplay and directing: Irena Škorić; prod. Kino klub Zagreb; 15 min. Baking bread in a bread oven as an aspect of everyday life on the island of Sveti Klement 77. Maratonac, documentary, 2004 Screenplay and directing: Petar Krelja; prod. Hrvatska radio televizija The story of the sporting success of marathon runner Janez Maroević 78. Pjaca, placa, trg – Hvar, sunčana strana svijeta, documentary broadcast, 2006 Editors: B. Nađvinski, N. Šurjak, T. Šimić, S. Kopjar; prod. HTV About the island’s curiosities, history, heritage, and inhabitants 79. Kipar Kuzma Kovačić, documentary, 2007 Screenplay and directing: Milan Bešlić; prod. HRT 80. Potpis zločina, documentary, 2007 Screenplay and directing: Miro Branković; prod. HRT The life and work of Ivan Vučetić, the father of modern criminalistics 81. Pod suncem, documentary, 2007 Screenplay and directing: Ljiljana Mandić; prod. HRT

19  Hvar on Film

267

82. Lavanderman – istina ili mit, feature, 2010 Screenplay: Toni Faver, directing: Zvonimir Rumboldt, actors: Boris Bunčuga, Anja Alavanja; prod. The adventures of superhero Boris Bunčuga (Lavanderman) and a beautiful journalist who comes to the island in search of the real truth about Lavanderman’s supernatural abilities 83. Čovjek koji je živio kazalište, documentary, 2011 Screenplay and directing: Lada Džidić, prod. Documentary program HTV-a, 80′ A film about Marin Carić 84. 400 godina hvarskog kazališta, documentary, 2012 Directing: Branko Schmidt, production: Hrvatska radio televizija, 43’ 85. More, otok i četiri kipara, documentary, 2012 Screenplay: Tahir Mujičić, directing: Ivica Dleski, prod. HTV; 35 min. Four contemporary sculptors from the island of Hvar: Kuzma Kovačić, Slavomir Drinković, Peruško Bogdanić, and Kažimir Hraste 86. Missing, television drama, 2012 Director: Gregory Poirier, actors: Ashley Judd, Cliff Curtis, Sean Bean; prod. ABC Studios/Upcountry/Little Engine Production, Great Britain One episode of the series was filmed on the island of Hvar 87. Visoka modna napetost, feature film, 2013 Screenplay and directing: Filip Šovagović, actors: Goran Navojec, Marija Škaričić, Mijo Jurišić; prod. Zona Sova/ HAVC 88. Fishermen’s Conversations, documentary, 2013 Screenplay and directing: Chiara Bove Makiedo; prod. Pinch media, London 89. Redikul, short feature film, 2013 Screenplay and directing: Djiki Djanka; actors: Igor Skvarica, Zoran Kačić-­  Bartulović, France Modrić, Juraj Vujnović; Akademija scenskih umjetnosti Sarajevo 90. Pola stoljeća diska, documentary, 2015 Screenplay: Toni Faver, directing: Zvonimir Rumboldt, prod. KadTad, 60 min. 91. L’odyssée, feature film, 2016 Screenplay: Jean-Michel Costeau and Albert Falco, Directing Jerome Salle, actors: Lambert Winson, Pierre Niney, Audrey Tatou; French, Belgian, and British coproduction, 122’ Shots of the Pakleni islands, the bay Stiniva, and the underwater of Hvar 92. Osmi povjerenik, feature film, 2018 Screenplay and directing: Ivan Salaj (based on the novel by Renato Baretića), actors: Frano Mašković, Borko Perić, Nadia Cvitanović; prod. Kadar, Alka-film Zagreb; 139 min.

268

Z. Bibić

93. Ribanje i ribarsko prigovaranje, feature film, finished 2018 Screenplay and directing: Milan Trenc, actors: Rade Šerbedžija, Leon Lučev, Lorenco Damjanić, Bojan Brajčić, Inge Appelt, Filip Mayer 94. Murina, feature film, 2021 Directing: Antonela Alamat Kusijanović, screenplay and directing: Antonela  Alamat Kusijanović, Frank Graziano, actors: Gracija Filipović, Leon Lučev, Danica Ćurčić, Cliff Curts. The listed films are stored in the Croatian Cinematheque and the Croatian Film Archive (both in the Croatian State Archive), the archives of Hrvatska radiotelevizija, the Bundesarchiv in Beriln, the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, and in private archives and foundations. The list does not include short reports as part of television broadcasts, and it does not include films or reports about Hvar residents outside of Hvar.

References Kečkemet, Duško. 1969. Počeci kinematografije i filma u Dalmaciji. Split: Muzej Grada Splita. Novo doba. 1937. Rizmaul, Leon. 2017. Princeza koralja, Vremeplov I. Pula: Pula film festival. Zorka Bibić was born in Split in 1984. After completing a degree in Croatian language and literature and the History of Art at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Zagreb, she returned to her native Hvar, where she collaborates on numerous cultural projects. She is a librarian in the Hvar Town Library.  

Chapter 20 Youth Attitudes on Cultural Tourism in the Town of Hvar Students of Hvar High School1, Vesna Barbarić1, and Sanda Stančić1 (*) 1 

Hvar High School / Hotel Management and Tourism Vocational School, Hvar, Croatia

Abstract.  Tourism and culture are so closely connected that they depend on each other. A tourist is a user of the culture of the country they come to, but at the same time, they are also a representative of their own native culture. Globalisation processes and rising standards expected by guests have influenced the international tourism market. Destinations must constantly raise and enrich the quality of their tourist offerings in order to be interesting and competitive. The town of Hvar is a famous tourist destination with a 152-year tradition of organised tourism, but the primary focus today is attracting young tourists and providing them with entertainment. Hvar is equipped with excellent preconditions for the development of a wide range of tourist activities, but unfortunately potential for cultural and natural tourism remains largely unexploited. The town of Hvar has an excellent basis for the development of a long-term sustainable type of tourism. The question is whether the local people, especially the young people of Hvar, are aware of the benefits of cultural tourism. Keywords:  Cultural tourism · Youth attitudes · Cultural heritage · The Town of Hvar

Tourism and culture are intertwined and interdependent in a complex way. Thus, in relation to tourism providers, the term enculturation refers to the impact of tourism on the growth and enrichment of cultural awareness among individual members of the host community with respect to their culture, while the term acculturation presupposes the encounter between different cultures in the tourism process (cf. Grusec, Hastings 2015, 520–538; 521, 525). Tourists, on the other hand, partake of the culture of the country they visit, and at the same time, act as representatives of their own country’s culture. While the town of Hvar has a tradition of organised tourism dating back a century and a half, the focus of tourism in Hvar today lies primarily in entertainment tourism and attracting young tourists. Specific spatio-geographic and cultural-historical features of the town of Hvar equip it with excellent preconditions for the development of a This study was supervised by Vesna Barbarić and Sanda Stančić.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M.-É. Zovko, J. Dillon (eds.), Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36659-8_20

269

270

Students of Hvar High School et al.

wide range of tourist activities, but unfortunately, so far, the cultural and natural potential remains largely unexploited. A key step in the development of these resources would be to improve some of the older tourist offerings and to create new and innovative cultural products that would be adapted to current trends in the world. It is also imperative to improve the accompanying infrastructure. At the time of this study, there were a total of ninety cultural assets officially registered in the municipality of Hvar – and these are set to increase due to new archaeological discoveries. It is clear, then, that valuable cultural and natural resources exist, but it is necessary to turn them into attractive and interesting tourist offerings. One important step in achieving this is to strengthen cooperation between the town of Hvar and other municipalities and civic entities on the island, as well as among young stakeholders and residents of the town itself. The town of Hvar is thus in many ways a real treasure trove of cultural and historical heritage and has the potential to develop a sustainable form of tourism. To better understand whether this form of tourism could lie in the town’s future, the students of Hvar High School decided to explore to what extent local people and young inhabitants of Hvar are aware of the benefits of cultural tourism. The students and their teachers decided to create this project after being invited by Dr. Marie-Élise Zovko to participate in the International Symposium organised by the Institute of Philosophy and the Plato Society of Zagreb, with the very interesting and highly relevant topic “Tourism and Culture: A Philosophical Perspective.” The theme of the symposium brought together students preparing for different vocations, as members of the tourism vocational school and gymnasium high school programs. The topic of the conference encouraged students to think about tourism not only from an economic point of view, and in relation to the market value of tourist experiences, but also from a philosophical point of view with respect to the phenomenon of tourism as a societal occurrence and its influence on local populations. The aim of the project was to research, in the form of an opinion poll, the views of young Hvar citizens regarding tourism, and to explore their experience of tourism as a phenomenon that they have been in touch with directly or indirectly since birth, a phenomenon with which they live and which influences their lives on a daily basis. The emphasis of the study was on a special form of tourism  – cultural tourism  – that in recent times has not been the main form of tourism practised in the town of Hvar. The students wanted to discover whether young Hvar citizens are even familiar with the term cultural tourism, whether they have a positive attitude towards it, what negative effects of tourism they experience, whether they have a desire to change the direction of tourism in Hvar, and whether they have their own suggestions for the promotion of cultural tourism. The outcomes of the study were in line with the students’ expectations, and in fact, confirmed everything they had anticipated. In their own experience, they had found that young Hvar inhabitants weren’t satisfied with the forms of tourism that exist in the town to date, and they wanted change. They also felt they were impacted by the negative and positive effects of tourism on society, culture, the region, and the environment.

20  Youth Attitudes on Cultural Tourism in the Town of Hvar

271

Students from different grades and different programs of our school – the tourism and hotel program and the gymnasium program  – who attended the elective class “Promotion of a Tourist Destination,” were involved in the research project. The project was supervised by Sanda Stančić, teacher of economics, and Vesna Barbarić, teacher of Croatian language and literature. Data collection and preliminary analysis were undertaken by the students of Hvar High School (second and third-year students, aged sixteen and seventeen): Matilda Bortolotti, Anastazia Kalaš, Karmen Poparić, Nikol Marušić, Mia Čubre, Gabrijela Jurić, Martina Škarpa, Stella Miliša, Roberta Tudor, and Tara Schwarz. The students were introduced to the methods and research model used for the project as part of the course content of the elective class “Promotion of a Tourist Destination,” which in part deals with market research and statistical analysis for the purposes of tourism promotion. This project was an excellent opportunity for the students to apply their learned knowledge to a real example in practice. A simple method of descriptive statistics and graphic analysis was used, which forms part of the popular digital tool, Google Forms. The students put together a structured questionnaire with twenty-five closed-ended questions. Following the standardised rules for putting together surveys, they used different types of questions, including dichotomous questions, multiple-choice questions, the Likert scale, and the grading scale. The finished questionnaire was forwarded via a link to all students of the school and was also posted to the Facebook page of the school, which many former students, as well as other young people from Hvar, follow. In this way, they were able to reach more respondents in a short amount of time, and the respondents could quickly and easily answer the questions on their mobile phone, tablet, or other devices with just a few clicks. Graphical representations of the results were created using the free and publicly available tool Google Forms. Research methods: Descriptive statistics, graphics analysis Research objectives: To examine the attitudes of young people in the town of Hvar towards the concept of cultural tourism, as well as their satisfaction with the offerings in the area of cultural tourism in the town. Survey instrument: structured questionnaire, twenty-five (closed-ended) questions Data collection method: Google Forms (link sent via email, messages, social networks) Sample: random sample; sample size: 178; population: youth of Hvar (local population) aged fifteen to thirty years Interview time: beginning of October 2019; the results are presented in chart form, graphic analysis

272

Students of Hvar High School et al.

20.1 Results (Figs 20.1, 20.2, 20.3, 20.4, 20.5, 20.6, 20.7, 20.8, 20.9, 20.10, 20.11, 20.12, 20.13, 20.14, 20.15, 20.16, 20.17, 20.18, 20.19, 20.20, 20.21, 20.22, 20.23, 20.24, and 20.25)

Fig. 20.1  Question 1: How old are you? 178 responses Most survey respondents were between twenty-four and thirty years old

Fig. 20.2  Question 2: What is your occupation? 178 responses

Fig. 20.3  Question 3: The highest level of your education is 178 responses

20  Youth Attitudes on Cultural Tourism in the Town of Hvar

Fig. 20.4  Question 4: In your opinion, what does cultural tourism imply? 177 responses

Fig. 20.5  Question 5: Does the town of Hvar have a recognisable cultural heritage? 178 responses

Fig. 20.6  Question 5: Cultural heritage is important for the tourism of our town 178 responses

273

274

Students of Hvar High School et al.

Fig. 20.7  Question 7: Do you think the number of tourists visiting a place at the same time should be limited? 176 responses

Yes, because of the noise Yes, because of the crowds No, because of tourism revenue No, I enjoy it Yes, due to noise and rude behaviour It’s dirty Yes, due to bad tourist behaviour Yes, it bothers me Yes, especially the behaviour and disrespect of cultural heritage No It bothers me because most tourists are uncultured and do not know how to behave appropriately Yes, because it started to develop spontaneously, which does not benefit anyone Ill-educated tourists, jerks Drunk people bother me, but I'm used to it Yes, because of the uniform offer in the city Yes, because of the poor quality of guests who come and don't appreciate what we have Yes, because of the noise and crowds. Because of the rude and inappropriate behaviour of tourists Yes, because the numbers will last a few more years and then we’ll be left with empty apartments

Fig. 20.8  Question 8: Do you mind excessive tourism? 177 responses

Fig. 20.9  Question 9: Working hours of cultural attractions are suitable for the increased number of tourists 173 responses

20  Youth Attitudes on Cultural Tourism in the Town of Hvar

275

Fig. 20.10  Question 10: How satisfied are you with the progress of cultural tourism in Hvar in the past 5 years? (grade) 178 responses

Fig. 20.11  Question 11: Do you mind drunk tourists and their behaviour? 178 responses

Fig. 20.12  Question 12: Do you think Hvar should ban pub crawls like some other tourist destinations? 177 responses

276

Students of Hvar High School et al.

Fig. 20.13  Question 13: Do you think that Hvar has untapped potential for the development of cultural tourism? 177 responses

Fig. 20.14  Question 14: How satisfied are you with the marking of cultural facilities in Hvar (grade)? 177 responses

Fig. 20.15  Question 15: Are there accessibility restrictions at some attractions for people with disabilities? 178 responses

20  Youth Attitudes on Cultural Tourism in the Town of Hvar

277

Fig. 20.16  Question 16: Does Hvar have enough to offer to guests out of season? 177 responses

Fig. 20.17  Question 17: Are there enough souvenirs and souvenir shops in Hvar? 178 responses

Fig. 20.18  Question 18: Does the cultural tourism of Hvar affect the quality of life of the locals? 175 responses

278

Students of Hvar High School et al.

Fig. 20.19  Question 19: Is it necessary to have management skills when connecting tourism and culture (heritage)? 177 responses

Fig. 20.20  Question 20: Cultural tourism could extend the tourism season in Hvar 178 responses

Fig. 20.21  Question 21: Do you think Hvar is losing its authenticity and traditional values for the purposes of tourism? 176 responses

20  Youth Attitudes on Cultural Tourism in the Town of Hvar

279

Fig. 20.22 Question 22: Are there tourist arrangements in Hvar with included cultural attractions? 177 responses

Fig. 20.23  Question 23: Do you mind the cruise ships which bring thousands of guests a day? 178 responses

Fig. 20.24  Question 24: Do you think that tourism is harming the destination that tourists visit? 176 responses

280

Students of Hvar High School et al.

Fig. 20.25  Question 25: Do you think that a positive attitude of the locals towards tourism affects tourist satisfaction? 178 responses

20.2 Conclusion Almost all young people we surveyed in Hvar were familiar with the concept of cultural tourism. Almost everyone surveyed was also aware that the town of Hvar has a recognisable cultural heritage. The vast majority knew that cultural heritage is important to the town and for the development of its potential as a tourist destination. Almost everyone noted that the town’s potential for the development of cultural tourism remains largely untapped. The vast majority of those surveyed were aware that cultural tourism affects the quality of life of the town and its residents, and believed that the season could be extended with the help of cultural tourism, contributing to an improved quality of life for local stakeholders. Sixty-nine percent of respondents thought that Hvar is losing its authenticity and traditional values by its present attempts to adapt its resources for tourism purposes, the rest were not sure or disagreed. Opinions were divided as to whether it is necessary to have managerial skills for the purpose of connecting tourism and culture. Most respondents believed that their positive attitude towards tourism also influences how satisfied the guest will be in Hvar. Opinions were divided regarding the question of whether tourism is harming the destination. The answers to questions regarding tourist groups arriving on cruise ships were also quite disparate. Most respondents had not heard of or did not know about cultural tourist offerings in the town. Most respondents were of the opinion that Hvar does not have enough off-­ season facilities and offerings. Most were not aware of the lack of accessibility for tourists with disabilities. Opinions were divided over the ban on pub crawls, but the vast majority were bothered by drunken tourists around the town. Most people were satisfied with the progress of cultural tourism in the town over the previous 5 years. Despite a relatively good level of informedness and positive attitude of the younger population of Hvar with regard to the concept of cultural tourism, greater awareness and familiarisation with concepts and issues such as “social tourism (accessible tourism),” “sustainable tourism,” “long-term negative impacts of tourism on the environment and the local population,” are needed. This conclusion is supported by divided

20  Youth Attitudes on Cultural Tourism in the Town of Hvar

281

opinions regarding the detrimental effects of tourism on the destination and as regards the nondetrimental effects of tourists arriving on cruise ships. The questions that remain to be investigated and which should be made a topic of public debate are: • Does Hvar suffer more damage or receive more benefits from party tourism and cruise-ship tourism? • Can cultural tourism represent a sustainable alternative to mass and party tourism? • How can the local population contribute to the development of cultural tourism?

Reference Grusec, Joan E., and Paul D.  Hastings, eds. 2015. Handbook of Socialization: Theory and Research. 2nd ed. New York: Guilford Press. Students of Hvar High School The students of Hvar High School (second and third grade of high school, aged 16/17) who participated were: Matilda Bortolotti, Anastazia Kalaš, Karmen Poparić, Nikol Marušić, Mia Čubre, Gabrijela Jurić, Martina Škarpa, Stella Miliša, Roberta Tudor, and  Tara Schwarz. They presented a portion of their findings and research at the International Symposium Tourism & Culture in Philosophical Perspective, on October 16, 2019, in the auditorium of the Arsenal of the Town of Hvar.  

Vesna Barbarić is a teacher of Croatian language and literature at the Department of Preparatory High School and Hotel Management and Tourism at the Secondary School of Hvar. She is also a deputy head-teacher, and is involved in many school projects, including Erasmus projects and Croatian Ministry of Tourism projects.  

Sanda Stančić is an Economics teacher and mentor at the Department of Hotel Management and Tourism at Hvar High School. She has also been the coordinator and project manager of six school projects in cooperation with the Croatian Ministry of Tourism. The most recent project: “Hvar for All,” concerning the topic of social, accessible tourism and tourism for all, and was recognised as one of the three best projects in Croatia.  

Index

A Abraham, 21, 147, 148 Academy, Plato’s as destination for philosophical tourists, 27 Adorno, T., 130, 131 Aesthetic, aesthetics aesthetic ideas, 131 of classical idealism, 138 of modernity, 129, 130, 138 Agathos, see Good Ahistoricity, see Architecture, postmodernist Alexandria, 21–23, 28, 29 Alexandria, Athanasius, 98 Ammonius Saccas, 23, 29 Animal as analogue to humans, 220 animal-based tourism, 216–218, 221 animal rights, interests protected by, 206 animal welfare, 16, 203–212, 218, 219 anthropomorphic attraction to, 217 difference to humans (Kant), 205 domestication of, 215 duties and obligations toward (Kant), 220 experiential life of, 219 experiential view of animals in tourism, 217 exploitation of, 16, 215–221 feelings of pleasure and pain, 219 and host communities, 203–211 human-animal, human-wildlife conflicts, 204 (see also Botho perspective) humans’ bias against (see Singer, P.) inherent, intrinsic value (animals as ends-in-themselves, as subject-of-a-­life), 219 as means of transportation, 216 as moral patients, 221

in rural tourism, 216, 217 as tools, 219 tourist activities involving, 217, 221 tourist attractions involving, 16 as tourist commodity, 216 use for entertainment, 216 Anthony, St., 98 Antiquity, classical, fascination with, 11, 12, 73, 105 See also Grand Tour Apollonius of Rhodes, 240 Appetite, appetites, see Desire Archaeology, archaeological excavations, also as metaphor for psychoanalysis (see Freud, S.) love for, 84 study, 83, 242 Architectural construction, 134, 138 design, principles of, 129, 130 ornament, 137 purism, 136, 137 Architecture ahistorical, 14, 133, 139 contemporary, 139 for factory workers, 134 functionalism in, 130 hermeneutic function of, 139 historical, tourists’ need to visit, 135 homogeneous, 134 iconic, 139 mass construction of, 134 modernist, 14, 127–129, 133, 134, 137, 138 New Architecture, 134 postmodernist, 129 principles of, according to Vitruvius, 130, 131

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M.-É. Zovko, J. Dillon (eds.), Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36659-8

283

284

Index

Architecture (cont.) secular, 129, 137 standardisation, 134 uniformity, 134 utilitarian, 134, 137 Archytas of Tarentum, 25 Arendt, H., 9, 170, 171, 175–178, 186 Aretê, 11, 34–38, 40 See also Virtue Aristotle, 10, 11, 27, 28, 33–41, 45, 46, 64, 65, 101, 111, 116, 224, 226, 231, 233 Armanda, Asja Kareta, 15, 176, 184 Art, arts abiding character of, 113 absolute control of, 125 collection, collecting, 76, 77, 136, 245 history, 72, 76, 98, 129–132, 136 interpretative value of, 139 purpose-free, 130 purposive, 130 social function of, 130 Artist God as, 111 killed, wounded in WWI, 124 Askholía, 65 See also Busyness; Negotium Ascent to the Good, 60 to the idea of Beauty, 56 interior, 66 Athens destination for philosophers, 29 philosophical schools, 28 Atonement, see Exile; Israel Atrocity, sexual as genocide, 15, 168–187 prosecution of, 169 testimonial evidence of, 170 weaponization, 167 Augustine, St., 6, 11, 12, 49, 50, 65–67, 97–99, 137 B Babylon, 10, 24 Bach, J.S., 122, 125 Bad

activities, 39 pleasures, 37, 39, 52 See also Pain; Unpleasant Bantu, plural of umuntu, see Botswana; Ubuntu; Umuntu Batswana, see Botswana (people of Bantu group, of the Sotho-Tswana language group, occupying parts of South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia) Baudelaire, C., 47 Bauer, J., 64 Bauhaus, 134 Bauman, Z., 12, 93, 94, 97–99 Beach, The, 136 The beaches, 5, 95, 101 Beauty in art, 73 Classical, as paradigmatic, 73 (see also Grand Tour) intellectual, 58 intuition of, 57 itself, intellect as, 57 physical, 57 and proportion, 57 Stoic definition of, 56 and symmetry, 57 unity of beauty and goodness in God, 59 of ways of life, 57, 58 Bel paese, Italy, as substitute for Greece, 72, 74, 76, 78, 84 See also Grand Tour; Rome; Winckelmann, J.J. Belting, H., 131, 132 Benjamin, W., 99, 100 Bentham, J. on animals, 205 on pleasure, 228, 231 utilitarianism, 205, 232 Bilbao effect, 138–139 Bonaventura, St., 68 Borgmann, A., see Device paradigm; Focal practices Botho perspective characteristics, 207 communitarian and moral aspects, 208 humans’ relation to nature, humans, and non-humans, 208 humans’ special status, 209 moral wrong according to, 211

Index on moral rights and obligations, 209 politics of, 210 relation of persons and society, persons and other persons, 209 Botswana Botho perspective in government, 209 elephant conservation in, 210 hunting ban, decision to lift, enforcement of, 209, 210 international tourism in, 16 poaching, ban on, 211 Building, buildings contemporary, 129 historical, 129, 139 museum, art museum, 138 Bunyan, J., 50 Busy, busyness, see Askholía; Negotium C Capitalism as cultic religion of modernity, 99, 100 indebting, guilt-producing character, 100 utilitarian practices of, 100 Castalia, the “Pedagogic Province”, see The Glass Bead Game City city centres, 13, 129 City of God (Civitas Dei), 98 City of Man (earthly city, civitas terrena), 12, 98 historical, 129, 134 industrial, 138 locus of collective memory, 134 Cohen, E. phenomenological framework for dark tourist experiences, 154–159, 162, 164 typology of tourist experience, 157 Community, communities global, international, 16, 55, 132, 169, 209–211 historical and cultural memory of, 134 host, 7, 269 intellectual, 111 of interpretation, 48 local, 4, 7, 17, 18, 191, 204, 211, 229, 250

285

moral, 212 spiritual life of, 135 Concept formation, concept genesis, 168–187 Constitutions, Plato corrupt, 53 degeneration of, 53 healthy, 53 Consumerism, see Capitalism Contemplation of nature, outward, 68 of self, inner, 11, 68 silence and, 116 COVID-19, 4, 7, 12, 46, 86, 96, 189 Crichton, M., 47, 48 Cruise ships, 95, 96, 229, 279–281 Cultural heritage, 7, 8, 12, 17, 18, 95, 96, 136, 219, 270, 273, 280 monument, 95, 96, 128, 228, 229, 231 Culture contemporary, 4, 137, 192 global, 3–19, 139 homogeneity, 135, 137 local, 15, 17, 191 Curiosity, motive for tourism and travel, 94 D Dante Alighieri, 50, 117 Dark tourism and death, 15, 154, 157, 161, 162 definition of, origin of term, 153 demarcation from other tourist experiences, 159 experiences, 15, 153–165 modes of (diversionary, experiential, experimental, existential), 155, 157, 158, 161, 163 (see also Cohen, E.) motivation for, 153, 154, 159 need for spiritual, social centre, 157 phenomenological typology of, 15, 153–165 recreational, 154–157, 161–163

286

Index

Dark tourism  (cont.) sites, components of, death-relatedness, referentiality, significative function, 15, 160–162 spectrum of, 154, 155 and transcendences (see Transcendences, modes of) See also Tourism, dark Death encounter with in dark tourism, 154, 157, 158, 160, 164 experiences of (see Dark tourism) Dehistorization, see Architecture, postmodernist Derrida, J., 14, 147–150 Descartes, R. animals as machines, 205 Desire, desires (epithumiai) for admiration, 95 to discover new things, 68 for good, for good things, 50 for honour, 49, 53 for immortality, 50 for knowledge, 25, 47, 50, 95 for pleasure, 53 to see, 68, 73, 94 to travel, 11, 18, 48, 49 tyranny of, 55 for wealth, 53 Destination disappearance of (see Fast, tourism) tourists, 10, 17, 18, 27–28, 93, 95, 96, 99, 101, 102, 139, 146, 197, 198, 227, 229, 231, 233, 240, 246, 248, 250, 252, 275, 279–281 ultimate, 61 Device paradigm, see Borgmann, A. Devotio Moderna, 49, 50 See also Thomas à Kempis Dignity animals, 206, 211 human, 16, 18, 206, 208–211, 221 non-human, 16 See also Botho perspective; Regan, T. Diogenes Laertius, Life of Plato, 25, 26 Dion, 25, 27 Dionysius I, 25 Dionysius II, 27

Displacement, deportation, 11, 18, 46, 47, 177, 181, 186 See also Travel, forced Dubrovnik, 95, 96, 136, 229–231, 234 E Eberhard, Christian August Gottlob, and stereotypes of Italy, 80 See also Bel paese Egypt, Egyptians, 10, 22–25, 29, 31, 84, 216 See also Travel, philosophical Elephants, 16, 146, 204, 210, 211, 216 See also Botswana Epicurus, 28, 65, 233 Episteme, see Knowledge Ergon (work), see Aristotle Ethical ruin, 39 treatment of animals in tourism, 205 Ethics animal, 205 deontological (ethics of duty), 226, 232, 233 (see also Kant, I.) environmental, 218, 219 and hedonism, 17, 225, 231–233 human-centred, 218 land, 218 Euclides, 25 Eudaimonia, see Happiness Eudoxus of Cnidos, 27 Eurhythmy, see Architecture Evolutionary role of play, 13 Exile, exiles, 6, 50, 54, 76, 106, 125 See also Israel Exodus, 50, 100, 183 Experience dark tourist, 15, 153–165 lived, 139, 176 travels, travel, 6, 13, 33, 46, 48, 76, 145, 168, 169, 171–173, 185, 198, 241 Extension, concept of, 128 F Fast foods, 189, 190, 196 tourism, 15, 16 travels, 189–199

Index Father figure, see Freud, S. Feminism, feminist African-American, 180, 184 in authoritarian regimes, 175 (see also Arendt, H.) democratic, 176, 184 (see also Kareta) in Yugoslavia, 182 Fernweh, 48, 49 See also Heimweh; Nostalgia Festival, feast and “holy days”, 117 and liturgy, ritual, 13, 117 See also Play, religious aspect of Film, movies, cinema The Coral Princess (Die Korallenprinzessin), 255 documentary, 256, 257 feature, narrative, 258 Fishermen’s Conversations (documentary, director Chiara Bove Makiedo), 257 foreign, 253, 254, 257 history of film in Hvar, 17 The Impossible Mr. Pitt (Der unmögliche Herr Pitt), 255, 259 Jadran Film, 260 locations, iconic, 87, 95, 96, 139 marketing element in, 258 and nostalgia, 259 Odyssey, 257 production, produced in Hvar, Dalmatia, 17 Seduction by the Sea, 256 short, 255 Firmitas, see Architecture, principles of; Vitruvius Flâneur, flânerie, 47, 93, 94, 101, 102 Focal practices culture of the table as example of, 196 as means of overcoming culture of estrangement, 196 See also Borgmann, A. Foley, M., 153, 154 Following the Cross (Za križen), 254 Foreigner, foreigners right to be guest, 148 See also Guest; Hospitality Forgiveness, see Exile; Israel Form and image, 113 likeness to, 57

287

participation in, 5, 51 Platonic, 97 Freedom, of mind, see Play Freud, S. collecting-mania, 83 father figure, 82, 84 inner need to travel, 82 interest in archaeology, archaeological excavations, 83, 84 journey to Rome, Greece, 82 Friendship, friendships, 65, 68, 76, 113, 211 G Game, games distinguished from play, 106 (see also Play) escapism, 112 See also The Glass Bead Game Gamulin, Ć., 254, 260 Garden of Eden, 49 Genocide sexual atrocities as, 15, 167–187 German Classical, 131 Germany, as new Athens, 72 See also Grand Tour The Glass Bead Game and critique of play-spirit, 111 Glinka, M., 122 Global Code of Ethics in Tourism, 232 God cause of life, mind, being, 59 Goethe, J.W. von, 72–76, 80, 82, 83, 86 Good, goods desire for, 50, 52 good man (spoudaios, agathos anêr), 34, 41, 57 types of, 52 See also Happiness; Virtue Good, the/goodness ascent to, 56, 60 desirability of, 59 idea of, 224 likeness to, 57 Grand Tour, 11, 12, 71–87, 105, 146, 190 Greece, 12, 27, 31, 72–74, 80–86, 105, 248 See also Grand Tour; South, the Guest (hospes) rights of, 98, 146 Guggenheim project, 139

288

Index

Guilt, moral equivalence with economic indebtedness, 100 See also Capitalism H Hadreas, P., 227, 228 Happiness (eudaimonia) not of this world, 123 and pursuit of pleasure, 33, 34, 51 and pursuit of the good, 233 Hêdonê, 37, 38, 101, 102 See also Pleasure Hedonism definition, 223 as ethical theory, 225 psychological, 228, 231 in tourism, 17, 106, 223–234 and utilitarianism, 205, 232 (see also Bentham, J.) Hektorović, P., 101, 242, 264 Hegel, G.W.F. aesthetics, 76, 77, 79, 80 antithesis of the sensual and spiritual, Italy and Germany, 79 and Italy, Italian art, culture, music, 76–80 Heimweh, 48, 49 See also Nostalgia Hektorović, P., 101, 242 Henrich, D. and Greece, 12, 86 and Italy, 86 Heraclides of Heracleia Pontica, 27 Heraclitus, 28, 47, 48, 51 Heritage artistic, 130 cultural, 7, 8, 12, 17, 18, 95, 96, 136, 219, 273, 280 historical, 139, 251 indigenous cultural, 139 intangible cultural, 96 intellectual, 112 monumental, 128 protection of, 130 urban, 95 Hermeneutic, 14, 129, 130, 132, 139, 180–183 Hesse, H., 13, 106, 107, 111–114, 117, 118 Hêsukhía (rest), 65

Higijeničko Društvo u Hvaru (Hvar Curative Health Society, founded 1868) proclamation of, 243 Hodgkinson, Christopher, values paradigm, 225 Hodoeporics, 46 Hölderlin, F., 72–74, 111 Hollmann, O., 122, 124 See also Schulhoff, Erwin Holocaust, 169, 171, 174–177, 182 Home, homes, 4, 6, 10, 11, 18, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 46, 47, 49, 68, 72, 81, 84, 97, 98, 101, 105, 146, 148, 150, 184, 192–194, 226, 227, 260 Homecoming (nostos), 48 Homeland, love for, 67 Homer, 22, 34 Homo ludens, 106, 107, 110, 114–116 See also Huizinga, J. Hong Kong Hongkongers as tourists, 145 and overtourism, 145 Hospitality (ospitalité, hospitalitas) ancient Greek, Roman, 147 conditional, 14, 148, 150 as custom, 14, 147–149, 151 ethics, ethical ideal of, 150 industry, 14, 146, 147, 150, 151 vs. inhospitality, 147 Judaeo-Christian tradition, 14 loss of, 14, 147 norms, laws, conventions, 149 obligation to provide, 147 roles of guest and host, 14, 146, 148–151 traditional, 14 unconditional, 14, 148–150 utopian ideal of, 14 Host, hosts, 7, 14, 17, 96, 146–151, 251, 269 See also Hospitality Hughes, P., 216, 218, 219 Huizinga, J., 13, 106–111, 113–118 Human, humanum human behaviour, 5, 223–225, 228, 230–234 human beings, 4, 6, 11, 18, 33–35, 38–40, 51, 58, 83, 97, 99, 106, 107, 110, 117, 130, 138, 147, 149, 150, 162, 223, 227, 230, 234 human condition, as basis for philosophising, 170, 172, 181

Index human dignity, 16, 18, 206, 208, 209, 211, 221 (see also Kant, I.) humanism, humanistic, 13, 78, 110, 129, 177 human nature, corruption of, 39 Humanities, task of and transcendent order, 116 Hunting decision to reopen, 16 elephants, moratorium on, 16 See also Botswana Hvar effects of tourism on social structures, 251 as film location, 136 Hvar Heritage Museum, 8, 17 Hvar High School, 9, 18, 270, 271 Hvar Town, 9, 17, 246, 253–256 infrastructure, infrastructures, 270 island of, 18, 101, 169, 171, 240–243, 247, 250, 254, 256–259, 261, 263, 265, 267 organised tourism, 240, 243, 244, 269 (see also Higijeničko Društvo u Hvaru) as party destinations, 250 I Iamblichus, 22–25, 30, 98 Idealism absolute, 129 German Classical, 131 Influencer, 6, 47 Intellect (nous) activity of, 40 life of, 58 pleasures of, 53 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), 169, 178, 185, 186 Israel, 50, 178 See also Exile; Exodus Italy Italienreise, 79 See also Grand Tour Itinerarium mentis ad Deum, 68 J Jerusalem, 22, 50, 96 See also Pilgrimage, routes John Lennon, J., 153, 154

289

Journey historical, 126 inward, 60 musical, 13, 123 personal, 126, 171 philosophical, and travel, 23, 30, 168, 169, 171, 174, 183 of self-discovery, 11 K Kant, I. on duties and obligations toward humans and animals, 205, 208, 219, 220, 226 on human dignity, as opposed to African conception of, 208 on persons as ends in themselves, 208 on rationality as entailing human rights, 205, 220 Karadžić, R., 15, 169, 183–185 Kareta, 15, 176, 184 See also Armanda, Asja Kepos, see Epicurus Knowledge, 6, 8, 14, 18, 22–25, 46–50, 52, 53, 56–59, 73, 80, 95, 112, 135, 173–182, 193, 194, 198, 207, 225, 228, 241, 271 L Lassels, R., 71 See also Grand Tour Lastheneia of Mantinea, 28 Learning, love of, 21 Le Corbusier, 135–138 Leisure and affirmation (of life, being, world, God), 13, 116 contrary to ideal of work, 13, 116 and freedom, 13, 64 and life of the mind, 13, 18 See also Muße; Otium Leopold, A., 218 Life ephemeral and transitory character of, 113 experience, 168–171, 174–176, 185 as ritual, 112, 115 self-examined, 56 as a stage, 22

290

Index

Life world determined by work, 99 (see also Work, worker) superficiality of contemporary, 99 uncertainty of, 94, 99 Līlā (divine play), 107 See also Play Locke, J. on natural selfishness of humans, 206 Logos, logistikon, 36, 38, 53 See also Soul Loos, A., 130, 133, 136 Love of beauty, 50, 51, 56, 60 of learning, as motivation for travel, 60 of wisdom, 50 Lucić, H., 101 Lycopolis, 22, 29 M MacCannell, D., 155, 156, 160, 164 MacKinnon, C.A., 179, 180, 182–185 Magister Ludi (Josef Knecht), see The Glass Bead Game Materialism, materialistic, 13, 108 McGuggenheimization, 139 Mecca, see Pilgrimage Medjugorje, see Pilgrimage Memory collective, 81, 134, 137, 256 cultural, 132, 134 historical, 135 Mies van der Rohe, L., 137, 138 Migration, migrants, 5, 7 Mill, J.S., 210, 228, 232, 233 Mindfulness, 64 Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), 64 Mobility, 6, 11, 46, 47, 146, 163 Môchos, 23 Moderation (sophrosune), 37, 39, 54, 58, 59 See also Virtue Modernism, high purism as postulate of, 136 See also Architectural Modernity aesthetics, 129, 130, 138 liquid (see Bauman, Z.) world view of, 136, 138 Monga, L., 46, 50

Mont Ventoux, 11, 63–68 Montaigne, M. de, 6, 50 Monument architectural, 135, 139 cultural, 95, 96, 128, 228, 229, 231 famous, iconic, 95, 96 historical, 7, 135 Motho, personhood and communal ethical codes, 207 defining for Botho, 207 negation of, 207 as process, 207 See also Botho perspective Musician as artist relationship to performance, 122 Music, musical styles, 13, 24, 34, 40, 77, 78, 80, 109, 112, 114, 115, 117, 121–126, 230, 245, 255 Muße, see Leisure N Narcissus and Goldmund symbolism of Apollonian and Dionysian, 113 Nature, natural admiration of, 228 beauty, 61, 229, 254, 258 Negotium, see Askholía; Busyness Nicholas of Cusa, De Ludo Globi, 112 Nicolai, G., and stereotypes of Italy, 80 See also Bel paese Non-tourism, non-travel, non-voyages, 73, 76, 86 See also Grand Tour Nostalgia, 48, 60, 85, 86, 258, 259 See also Heimweh Ntu, God’s being as metadynamic and wholeness, 207 See also Ubuntu O Occupati (busy people), 65 Ornament abstractness of, 136 associative, 136 negation of, 137 organic system of ornamentation, 136 as symbolic element, 137 See also Architectural

Index Otium, 64, 116 See also Leisure Overtourism definition, 146 negative effects of, on ecosystems, local infrastructure, local community and culture, 4, 146 overcrowding from, 96 P Pain negative feelings (sadness, depression, despair, disorientation, discomfort, anxiety, anger), 225 Pandemic (COVID-19), 4, 7, 12, 46, 86, 96, 189 Panorama (diorama, neorama), 67, 79, 81, 251, 254, 256, 261 Parnassus, 73 See also Grand Tour Pascal, B., 13, 110 Paspa, M., 254, 258, 259 Pathê (emotions), 37 Perfect perfect happiness (teleia eudaimonia), 11, 38, 41 perfect man (teleios anêr), 38, 40 Perfection, 40, 112, 138, 205 Petrarch, F., 11, 63–68 Phenomenological, phenomenology, 13–15, 130, 153–165, 171, 176, 179–181, 184 Philhellenism, 73 Philolaus, 25 Philo of Alexandria, 21 Philosopher, as academic tourist, searcher for wisdom, see Tourist, academic Philosophical articulation of existential issues, 170, 172 schools as destination for “philosophical tourists”, 10 tourism, travel, question of financing, 10, 22, 24, 25, 28, 30 Philosophy as comprehending “our time in thought” (Hegel), 4, 128, 185 as vocation, 171–173 of technology (see Borgmann, A.) Phronimos, 36, 38 Pieper, J., 13, 106, 107, 115–117

291

Pilgrim (peregrinus) humans as, 97 inner-worldly, secular, 98 See also Augustine, St. Pilgrimage (perigrinatio) contemporary, 12 irreligious, tourism as, 12, 93, 94 Marian, 96 Mecca, 96 Medjugorje, 96, 97 routes, 241 tourism, 12, 93, 94, 96, 97, 101, 158, 191, 241, 242 Place aura of, 134, 135 concept of, 132–135, 138 cultural and historical dimensions of, 134 as geographical position, 134 historical concept of, 135 historical specificity of, 139 quantitative, 134 uniqueness of, 135, 139 Plato, Platonism on desire for beauty, knowledge, 51 Plato, Plotinus as philosophical tourist, 30 Plato’s Sicilian, Syracusan voyages, 27 Play childlike, 109 Christian/puritan critique of, 110 civilising effect of, 13 as contemplative enjoyment of world, 118 contest (agon), agonistic principle, 109 and creation, 107 as distraction, 110 element in culture, 108, 109, 117 evolutionary role of, 13 extraordinary realm of, 108 freedom as fundamental characteristic of, 108 fundamental to humanity, 118 humanistic tradition of, 13, 110 Indic tradition of, 107 instinct, shared with animals, 109, 110 music and, 13, 109 and origins of Greek drama, 110 religious aspect of, ritual, 115 rules and, 108, 109 sacred, identification with the sacred, 115 seriousness of (serio ludere), 106, 110, 117

292

Index

Playground parallels to law court, battlefield, 109 Play-spirit erosion of, 114 Pleasure (hêdonê) accidental, secondary, 40 aesthetic, 17 bodily, physical, sensual, 11, 36, 39, 41, 51, 53, 59, 60, 99, 102, 227–229 enjoyment model of, vs. sensation model, satisfaction model (see Hadreas, P.) good, relationship to the good, 39 impure, morally questionable, bad, 53 of the intellect, intellectual, 39, 51, 228 kinds, hierarchical order of, 51, 56 mechanism of action, 228 necessary, satisfaction of desire, needs, 227 pleasure calculus, 51, 54, 55 and positive feelings (liking, love, relief, calmness, joy), 225 proper to animals, proper to humans, 38, 39, 41 pure, 53, 193 pursuit of, natural, 233 qualitative, quantitative account of, 51 unnecessary, 54 Pleonexia (greed), 12, 99, 100 Plinio Designori (character from The Glass Bead Game), 112 Plitvice Lakes, 228, 231, 234 Plotinus, teacher of Porphyry, travels, 22, 29, 98 Plutarch of Chaeronea, 30 Polupragmosune, 65 See also Askholía Porphyry, journey in search of enlightenment, 22, 24, 29, 30, 98 Poverty, 5, 7, 18, 52, 123, 198 See also Wealth Protagoras, 28, 52 Pythagoras, as “father” of academic tourism, 22, 23 R Refugees, 99, 173, 174, 177, 183, 249 See also War, wars Regan, T. on animals as subjects, 206, 219 (see also Animal, animal rights)

Republika Srpska, 173 Resources, natural, 7, 16, 204, 233, 234, 250, 270 Responsibility toward animals, 17, 209, 221 toward others, 150, 151, 234 Ritter, J., 135 Roberts, T., 7 Rome, as focus of philosophical tourism, destination of philosophers, 29 Rossi, A., 134 Royce, J., 48 S Schiller, F., 13, 74, 107, 109 Schmidt, S., 64 Schubert, Franz, Wanderer Fantasy, 121–123, 125 Schulhoff, Erwin, Suite for the Left Hand, 121, 123, 124 Schutz, A., 15, 156, 160–164 Self-discovery, self-knowledge, 6, 11, 45–61 Self-sufficiency (autarkeia), 41 Seneca, 29, 65 Serio ludere, see Play, seriousness of Seven Wise Men, 48 Shostakovich, Dmitri, Second Piano Sonata, 121, 122, 124, 125 Sicily, Plato’s voyages to, 25, 27 See also Tourism, philosophical Singer, P. on animals, 205, 206 human vs. non-human animals, 205, 206, 208 Site architectural, 14 cultural, 95, 96 mythologising of, 136 Skholê, 64, 99, 116 See also Leisure; Muße Slow food (vs. fast food), Slow Food Manifesto, slow food movement, 190 as life model (vs. fast life), 190 slow cities (CittaSlow), 191 slow tourism, 16, 189–191 slow travel, 189–192, 197–199 Socrates, 24, 48, 51–54, 64, 228, 229 Sophrosunê (moderation), 37, 39, 54, 59 See also Virtue

Index Soul beauty of, 56–59 parts of, 38, 53 South, the, 12, 71–87 See also Grand Tour Space abstract geometric, 133 as arrangement, 128, 133 era of, 128 as extension, 128, 133 global, 132, 134 medieval concept of space as localisation, 128 new paradigm of, 129 Spatial turn, 129, 132 See also Architecture, postmodernist Speusippus, 27 See also Academy, Plato’s Spirit of modern rationality, 138 spirit of modernity, 129 Spiritual substantiality, 14, 135, 137, 138 Stari Grad, 101, 242, 260, 262, 264, 265 Stari Grad Plain, v Sullivan, L., 133, 134, 136 See also Architectural, ornament T Technology, philosophy of, 15, 190, 194, 197 See also Borgmann, A. Teresa of Avila, 50 Tertullian, 13, 110 Thanatourism, 154, 164 See also Dark tourism Thomas à Kempis, 49 See also Devotio Moderna Thomas Cook travel agency, 146 Thomas, E., 7 Time awareness of, 132, 158, 162, 234 historical, 134, 139, 173 present, meaninglessness of, 94 Tourism aim of, 4, 46 alternative, new, 11, 15, 61, 64, 154, 281 anti-tourism, 146 awareness of, 15, 18, 270, 280 as consumerism, 94, 99, 101 country manor, 242

293

cultural, 3–19, 56, 95, 96, 128, 135, 138, 155, 191, 216, 234, 269–281 cultural heritage, 18, 95, 136, 273 dark, 9, 15, 153–165, 227 device, 16, 197 eco-tourism, green tourism, 189, 232 Hvar, 4, 17, 18, 240–252, 254, 256, 269–281 industrial, 94, 122, 172 irresponsible, 146 mass, masses, 3–19, 63, 86, 95, 96, 122, 189, 197, 198, 231, 248–251, 281 modern concept of, 129 nature-based, 18, 216 nautical, 230, 233 organised, history of, 240, 243–244 overtourism, 3–19, 86, 87, 95, 96, 145–151, 189, 197, 230 party, parties, 251, 281 philosophical, ancient phenomenon of/ modern modes of, 10, 26–30 phobia, 146 pilgrimage, pilgrimages, 93, 94, 96, 97, 241, 242 post-industrial, 251 practice, practices, 5, 7, 10, 13, 14, 17, 22, 51, 56, 136, 189, 233, 234 providers, 17, 216, 217, 227, 269 recreational, 13, 105, 155–157, 161, 246–248 religious, 94, 97, 241, 242 (see also Pilgrimage) revenge, 3–19 rural, 216, 252 scientific, 240–243, 252 sex, 228, 232, 233 slow, 16, 189–191 and social media, 6 summer, 146, 242, 245–248 sustainable approach to, 5 trade union, 246 transformative, 8, 15 transportation and, 146, 190, 191, 248, 249 unsustainable, 146 virtual, 12, 72, 86 winter and health, 245 Tourist, tourists academic, intellectual, philosophical, 22 attraction, 10, 15, 16, 56, 95, 138, 154, 157, 217, 221, 227, 230, 232, 246

294

Index

Tourist, tourists  (cont.) dark, intentional project of, 156, 160, 161 destination, 7, 10, 17, 18, 27–28, 60, 93, 95, 96, 99, 101, 102, 139, 145, 146, 216, 217, 227, 229–233, 240, 246, 248, 250, 252, 271, 275, 279–281 experiences, 6, 10, 11, 14–17, 55, 94, 99, 153–165, 216, 226, 227, 270 human beings as, 11, 227, 230 industry, 14–16, 151, 246, 249 interior, 11, 45–61 numbers, need to limit, 68, 231 offerings, 60, 61, 153, 229, 245, 247–249, 270, 280 responsibility as, 17, 221 season, extension of, 249 unruly behaviour of, 250 Tradition Christian, 13, 49, 110 connection to contemporary moment, 139 Greco-Roman, 14, 147, 149 humanistic, 13, 110 Judaeo-Christian, 14, 49, 50, 147–149 Tranquil, tranquillity, 63, 65 Transcendence and alterity, 163 and experience of boundaries, limitations, 162 loss of (detranscendence), 100 modes of (great, intersubjective, intermediate, little, subjective), 15, 154, 160, 162–164 (see also Dark tourism, dark tourist experiences) and perceptual awareness, 162 phenomenological sense of, 162 projective elements of, 164 striving for, 164 Transhumances, 46 See also Migration Travel aim-directed, 228 aimless, 47 as birthright, 46 desirable in itself, 47 experience, as driver of concept formation, philosophical activity, 171 fast, 15, 190, 191, 197–199 forced, 11, 50, 177

in imagination, 13, 80–86 inner, 11, 13 inner need to, 82 for leisure, leisurely, 6, 8, 11, 47, 191 as metaphors, 46 motivation for, 6, 8, 11, 50, 61 narrative, 50 outward, 60 for pleasure, 11, 50, 190, 199, 226, 230 recreational, 6, 13 slow, 189–192, 197–199 in time, 13, 125 transformative, 169, 171 virtual, 47, 73, 79, 86–87 wish to, 82 Travelogue, travelogues, 7, 50, 68 Tribe, J., 5, 7, 8, 224 U Ubuntu term used among Bantu group, 203, 206, 207, 212 See also Batswana; Botho perspective; Botswana Ugly, ugliness, 57, 58 Ukraine, war in, 7, 9, 169, 180, 186 Umuntu, category of intelligent human spirits, dead and living, 207 Unamuno, M. de, 50 UNESCO World Heritage List, 95, 96, 231 Unpleasant activities, 39 Urban artefact, 134 centre, 139 character, 47, 94, 134 environment, 136, 138 Utilitas, see Architecture, principles of; Vitruvius V Values concepts of in history of philosophy, 224 distinction of facts and values, 225 existentialist (authenticity, meaning, self-fulfilment), 232, 233

Index hierarchical model/paradigm (see Hodgkinson, C.) and judgement, 192, 225, 232 nature of, 225, 226 scale of, 51 Vanity, vanities, 49, 50, 111 Venustas, 130 See also Architecture, principles of; Beauty; Vitruvius Villa rustica, see Tourism, country manor Virtue, virtues (aretê) courage (andreia), 35, 36, 58, 59 and ergon, telos, 11, 38, 231 and goodness, goods, 34, 35, 59 and happiness (eudaimonia), 11, 34, 35, 38, 40 justice (dikaiosunê), 36 moderation (sophrosunê), 37, 54 and perfection, 40 and pleasure (hêdonê), 37 proper to humans, animals, 220 and vice (kakia), 36 and wisdom, 36, 40–41, 51, 52 Vis, 136, 255, 258 See also Film, locations Vischer, F.T. deconstruction of myth of origin, 81 interest in collecting, 83, 84 voyage to Greece, 86 Vitruvius, 130, 131 See also Architecture, principles of W Wanderer, wayfarer, 123 Wanderlust, 48 War, wars Croatian War of Independence (Homeland War), 1991–1995, 248 First World War, 124, 137 genocidal, 168, 169, 173, 174, 176, 180, 182, 186 in region of former Yugoslav republics, 7 Second World War, 116, 122, 124, 245

295

in Ukraine, 7, 9, 169, 180, 186 Wealth and poverty, 5 and tourism, 10, 17 and travel, 95 Weber, M., 98 Welles, O. anniversary exhibit in Hvar, 257 Battle of Neretva, 256 The Deep (Dead Reckoning), 256, 257 The Secret of Nikola Tesla, 256 The Trial, 256 “Vienna”, 256 See also Film, produced in Hvar, in Dalmatia Werkbund, 134 Winckelmann, J.J., 12, 71–87 Wisdom practical (phronesis), 36, 233 and virtue, 51, 233 Wonder, wonderful, 58–60, 67, 68, 171, 172 Work, worker glorification, idolatry of, 116 ideal of, 116 opposed to leisure, 65, 116 Protestant work ethic, 116 World historical, 128, 129 imaginary, 13, 107 secular, 99, 129 as theatre, 111 World Heritage Site, 95, 96, 231 See also UNESCO Wright, F.L., 137 X Xenocrates of Chalcedon, 27 Xenophanes of Elea, 240 Y Youth attitudes toward cultural tourism, 18, 269–281