The ancient Greeks were expected to adhere to strict rules of hospitality to strangers who were far from home. In ancient Greece, hospitality, Xenia, was fundamentally linked to piety. Hosts were expected to provide guests with bathing, food, drink, gifts and safe escort to their next destination. In exchange, guests were expected to provide stories and news to the outside world and to return the favour if their hosts ever called upon their homes.
Indeed Greek myths are full of stories of gods disguising themselves as poor travellers, asking the locals in a town for Xenia and bestowing great blessings on those who show kindness to poor travelers.
It is understandable how important such laws would be for trade and communication. Back in an age where chariots were the fastest form of transport, and many had to travel on foot, it would be difficult to reach many locations – even within the same country – during a given day.
What would a world with dramatically less fossil-fuel powered transportation look like? Would we all be forced to stay put and never move from our local village? From the fact that, a few years ago, a cyclist succeeded in travelling round the world in 80 days, it is clear that travelling long distances – and even seeing the world – will still be feasible, even in a lower energy future, but we will need to slow down and travelling to distant destinations will take months rather than days.
To avoid prohibitive hotel expenses, it is vital that strict laws of hospitality prevail across all Socibuild communities as they did for the ancient Greeks – although they need only apply to those travelling by bicycle or by foot and, by doing so, facilitate those who choose to journey afar in a future age which may use dramatically less fossil fuels than our current one.
For this reason, for the sake of the environment, Socibuild must adapt the Greek Law of Hospitality to suit our modern era:
The Socibuild Law of Hospitality states that all Socibuild communities must be prepared to welcome in all travelers who have walked more than 7 miles from their home by foot, or cycled more than 21 miles from home by bicycle (the hospitality law does not apply to those who have traveled by car, bus or train). Hosts must provide guests – free of charge – with food, baths, drink, a bed, a change of clothes if they are worn, or offer to clean their clothes, if they are dirty, and if they have lost themselves print out a map and provide them with guidance to their next destination. For those travelling on foot, who have lost their mobile phone, or whose phone has broken, the host must provide them with a new phone or repair their broken one, for guests whose bicycle has broken down, the host must provide the guest with either a new bicycle, or the means to repair their existing one.
Guests may not expect any one community to extend them such hospitality more often than 2 days out of every 2 months unless their business requires them to travel the same route regularly – and must explain the nature of their business if they wish the hosts to extent hospitality on a more regular basis. More regular travelers are expected to make less demands on the host community (such as washing clothes, not repeatedly losing phones, etc., etc.,) if they wish for hospitality to be extended to them on a more regular basis.
In exchange, the guest must be courteous, polite and provide stories of their travel to the hosts. Guests must not assault or harass their hosts, nor may hosts assault or harass their guests. Guests are strictly prohibited from having sexual relations with the spouse or partner of anyone in the community – unless the community is explicitly polyamorous. Guests are expected to show similar hospitality to any member of the host community who needs to stay the night at the residence of the traveler.