The essay on genocide has much in common with the philosopher Simone Weil. There will be a conference on her work at BC on April 23-24, in case any of you are interested.
Fanny
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Force of Face
Dear Professor Kearney (and classmates),
Quick question: I've been trying to think about Levinas' face/ethics in relation to Derrida's "Force of Law," and I am wondering where/when the face 'does its work.' I'm in Los Angeles, and don't have the text with me, but from what I remember, in "Force of law" Derrida sets up three movements toward justice (1) Suspention (epoché) of the Law (2) Ghost of undecidability (3) Urgency to act. If that's a fair reading/remembering, when does Levinasian ethics do its work? Is it present in all three steps of these? Does it cause me to suspend the law because ethics happens without a 'third'? Does it cause the haunting of undecidability because I have no way of relating to the Other? Does it demand that I act, as it puts me in the accusative asking me where I am and demanding that I "do not kill" or whatever else it might say? Does it do its work before all of this? Or is comparing these two just a category mistake?
thank you,
Mike
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Levinas & Genocide
Yesterday we didn't get to the second article which dealt with Levinasian ethics in view of genocide, particularly the Rwanda Genocide. But I was so confused by this article that I would regret very much missing the chance to ask about the point of this article. Particularly, I'm not sure how genocide fits into Smith's presentation of Levinas. Maybe someone with keener eyes than mine can correct my error, but I didn't see Smith ever discuss genocide in his paper. He discussed homicide quite a lot (despite using the word genocide for it), but genocide doesn't seem to appear except in a brief synthesis of Heidegger's Das Man with Levinas' ethic (a synthesis which he later casts aside as outside the realm of the essay).
So I'm left without exposition and without clue as to how genocide could fit into Levinasian ethics which seem to be very concentrated on the person, the I. Since the I, the single person, can't commit genocide (unless she's very efficient with her time!) but can only participate or command a genocide, I don't understand how any personalist ethic can really be fit neatly to the issue - i.e. it seems that it would require quite a bit of molding to fit Levinas into a discussion of genocide.
And in the end, I'm confused as to the very choice of genocide as a test-case. Assuming that the word still means anything at all aside from being a caricature of everything we don't like in human behaviour (a very generous assumption, in my opinion), I don't understand why Smith chose to address genocide rather than the more applicable-to-Levinas homicide. He seems to insinuate that genocide is an obvious site of radical evil, but aren't there any number of other examples of radical evil in the world? So what makes genocide so special? Is it just the fact that to discuss genocide increases the level of spectacle in a way that discussing infidelity, child abuse, rudeness, &c. wouldn't?
-Gabriel
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Pathos and the Strange
Dear Dr. Kearney,
As PhD student in the Theology and Education program, I am interested in a "theology of neighbor." I've been thinking about how our readings and discussions connect with the parable of the Good Samaritan (where neighbor becomes more than fellow Jew, and even beyond that, more than object but subject, when Jesus concludes the parable with the question, "Who was neighbor to the robbers' victim?").
I found myself thinking about the parable of the Good Samaritan this week because the Samaritan encounters the other and is moved with compassion. In Luke’s Gospel, the word 'compassion' only appears in two other accounts: in Jesus, when he raises the widow’s son (7:13) and in the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son (15:20). In light of the essay by Waldenfels, in the section "Strangeness as Pathos" (p. 8), the author seems to hint that we are passive to the strange, or at least subject to the strange encountering us. I wouldn't disagree; it seems rather unlikely that we can initiate an experience with the strange from within ourselves. But I keep thinking about the contrast between the Samaritan (out, on the road to Jericho) and the Prodigal Father (as one might call him) (out, waiting for his prodigal son to come home). There's something strange about a Samaritan caring for a Jew who has been beaten and robbed. That's not to say it isn't strange to have the younger son ask for his inheritance (what inheritance?), spend it, and then get welcomed back with open arms. Waldenfels says, alluding to Nietzsche, "what is strange comes when it wishes, not when I wish." Waldenfels follows this with a point about learning from the strange, but doesn't this first require an openness to the strange, a posture of welcome or even hospitality? Isn't that the difference between the priest and Levite and the Samaritan; the Samaritan is open to and engages with the strange (whereas the priest and Levite cross to the other side of the road). Likewise, the Prodigal Father accepts the strange (the younger son who asks for the inheritance to which he has no claim; the son who has spent what was not his to spend). I'm not sure these are good examples of hospitality (the Samaritan stumbles upon the robbers' victim in the road and the Prodigal Father is irresponsibly lavish with his son), but there is something of hospitality in their responses to the strange.
I was wondering if you'd care to comment on this disappointingly brief section in Waldenfels' essay. True, strangeness as pathos is something we cannot initiate or always anticipate, but isn't it more important/interesting to consider the pathos in our response to the strange?
Thanks for your time and insight.
pax et bonum,
marc
Dear Marc,
In terms of our discussion in class on Tuesday, I suppose the neighbor is an example of the stranger who looks 'towards us' (rather than the hidden face that withdraws) - hence our pathos, namely, our reception of the face of the stranger as a foreigner who address us. This pathos may in turn become an active praxis to the extent that we respond hospitably to the face that calls us. This praxis would refer to the caring response to the Jew by the Samaritan (the foreigner to Jews) in the good Samaritan story; and, in the second story, to the forgiveness/hosting/welcoming back of the estranged prodigal son by the father.
Praxis in each case actively responds to a prior pathos of receptivity or passivity which 'suffers' the stranger to come unto us (or come back to us, come home, in the case of prodigal son). Better still, I think we could say that in these two examples the pathos and praxis of hospitality occur both as once.
The question of Jesus is: who is my neighbor? Namely who is the one who is near, next door, a fellow citizen, a familiar in some way? And Jesus replies to the question by making it the question of the stranger from afar, the estranged one, the alien or foreigner who only becomes near through an act of healing and pardon.....The Jew's own neighbors pass him by while it is the Samaritan stranger who becomes near from afar, familiar from unfamiliar, heimlich from unheimlich, who cares and thus becomes the good neighbor.
It is interesting, moreover, that the Samaritan brings the wounded Jew to a hostel, hospital, hospice - thereby showing how a situation of violent hostility is converted into hospitality. The parable thus seems to be saying that the alien/enemy/foreigner of the nation becomes a neighbour by hosting his stranger (the Jew) so that he (the stranger Samaritan) can become a guest in turn - that is a true neighbour to Jews in their homeland.
One might also compare the good Samaritan story with Jesus's exchange with the Samaritan woman at the well, or the healing of the lepers--when it is only the Samaritan leper who returns to say thanks for Jesus's hospitality in welcoming him in all his 'strangeness' (disease as well as foreignness).
Hopes this helps a little?
with thanks and best wishes
Prof Kearney
As PhD student in the Theology and Education program, I am interested in a "theology of neighbor." I've been thinking about how our readings and discussions connect with the parable of the Good Samaritan (where neighbor becomes more than fellow Jew, and even beyond that, more than object but subject, when Jesus concludes the parable with the question, "Who was neighbor to the robbers' victim?").
I found myself thinking about the parable of the Good Samaritan this week because the Samaritan encounters the other and is moved with compassion. In Luke’s Gospel, the word 'compassion' only appears in two other accounts: in Jesus, when he raises the widow’s son (7:13) and in the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son (15:20). In light of the essay by Waldenfels, in the section "Strangeness as Pathos" (p. 8), the author seems to hint that we are passive to the strange, or at least subject to the strange encountering us. I wouldn't disagree; it seems rather unlikely that we can initiate an experience with the strange from within ourselves. But I keep thinking about the contrast between the Samaritan (out, on the road to Jericho) and the Prodigal Father (as one might call him) (out, waiting for his prodigal son to come home). There's something strange about a Samaritan caring for a Jew who has been beaten and robbed. That's not to say it isn't strange to have the younger son ask for his inheritance (what inheritance?), spend it, and then get welcomed back with open arms. Waldenfels says, alluding to Nietzsche, "what is strange comes when it wishes, not when I wish." Waldenfels follows this with a point about learning from the strange, but doesn't this first require an openness to the strange, a posture of welcome or even hospitality? Isn't that the difference between the priest and Levite and the Samaritan; the Samaritan is open to and engages with the strange (whereas the priest and Levite cross to the other side of the road). Likewise, the Prodigal Father accepts the strange (the younger son who asks for the inheritance to which he has no claim; the son who has spent what was not his to spend). I'm not sure these are good examples of hospitality (the Samaritan stumbles upon the robbers' victim in the road and the Prodigal Father is irresponsibly lavish with his son), but there is something of hospitality in their responses to the strange.
I was wondering if you'd care to comment on this disappointingly brief section in Waldenfels' essay. True, strangeness as pathos is something we cannot initiate or always anticipate, but isn't it more important/interesting to consider the pathos in our response to the strange?
Thanks for your time and insight.
pax et bonum,
marc
Dear Marc,
In terms of our discussion in class on Tuesday, I suppose the neighbor is an example of the stranger who looks 'towards us' (rather than the hidden face that withdraws) - hence our pathos, namely, our reception of the face of the stranger as a foreigner who address us. This pathos may in turn become an active praxis to the extent that we respond hospitably to the face that calls us. This praxis would refer to the caring response to the Jew by the Samaritan (the foreigner to Jews) in the good Samaritan story; and, in the second story, to the forgiveness/hosting/welcoming back of the estranged prodigal son by the father.
Praxis in each case actively responds to a prior pathos of receptivity or passivity which 'suffers' the stranger to come unto us (or come back to us, come home, in the case of prodigal son). Better still, I think we could say that in these two examples the pathos and praxis of hospitality occur both as once.
The question of Jesus is: who is my neighbor? Namely who is the one who is near, next door, a fellow citizen, a familiar in some way? And Jesus replies to the question by making it the question of the stranger from afar, the estranged one, the alien or foreigner who only becomes near through an act of healing and pardon.....The Jew's own neighbors pass him by while it is the Samaritan stranger who becomes near from afar, familiar from unfamiliar, heimlich from unheimlich, who cares and thus becomes the good neighbor.
It is interesting, moreover, that the Samaritan brings the wounded Jew to a hostel, hospital, hospice - thereby showing how a situation of violent hostility is converted into hospitality. The parable thus seems to be saying that the alien/enemy/foreigner of the nation becomes a neighbour by hosting his stranger (the Jew) so that he (the stranger Samaritan) can become a guest in turn - that is a true neighbour to Jews in their homeland.
One might also compare the good Samaritan story with Jesus's exchange with the Samaritan woman at the well, or the healing of the lepers--when it is only the Samaritan leper who returns to say thanks for Jesus's hospitality in welcoming him in all his 'strangeness' (disease as well as foreignness).
Hopes this helps a little?
with thanks and best wishes
Prof Kearney
Monday, March 1, 2010
Anatheistic Distinctions
Dear Prof Kearney,
I had a quick question about your model of anatheism, particularly discerning between the secular & the sacred spheres of life. You make a big point of the necessity of a non-reductionist union between the sacred & the secular (which comes to a head on pp. 139-142) - a union in which the two come together without be absorbed into each other. An engagement which preserves distance.
Throughout the Anatheism, you discuss how to bring the sacred & the secular together into dialogue with one another, & you give several examples (Day, Gandhi, &c.); but you never discuss with the same rigour how one might keep them apart (at one point, which I cannot now find, you do give a few generic distinguishing features of the two spheres).
I had a quick question about your model of anatheism, particularly discerning between the secular & the sacred spheres of life. You make a big point of the necessity of a non-reductionist union between the sacred & the secular (which comes to a head on pp. 139-142) - a union in which the two come together without be absorbed into each other. An engagement which preserves distance.
Throughout the Anatheism, you discuss how to bring the sacred & the secular together into dialogue with one another, & you give several examples (Day, Gandhi, &c.); but you never discuss with the same rigour how one might keep them apart (at one point, which I cannot now find, you do give a few generic distinguishing features of the two spheres).
My question is if you think that it's possible to distinguish the sacred from the secular in a practical way in any given thing/action/life. 'Anatheism is the attempt to acknowledge the fertile tension between the [sacred and the secular], fostering creative cobelonging and "loving combat"' (141). Is it possible to discern where the fault lines lie in this tension or are the combatants so dependent upon each other that they make up every aspect of the world to the point that it's impossible to say 'That's secular' or 'This' sacred'?
-Gabriel
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
The Agency of the Foreigner
Our discussion of the stranger and hospitality has been primarily focused on the agency of the host. And with good reason, as it is from the position of host that the ethics of encountering a strange other takes place—for the most part. However, it seems to me that the discourse of hospitality demands a more robust formulation, especially when we take into consideration the events of Hurricane Katrina, the Tsunami that hit East Asia, and most recently the earthquake in Haiti. While Derrida’s discussion of hospitality extends from the idea of a Messianism, that is to say, the indeterminable arrival of the absolute Other, it seems in light of these aforementioned events that Derrida has overlooked the possibility that the Other’s arrival—that which calls forth this ethical situation—may in fact require us to assume the agency of the foreigner. In other words, the mode of hospitality may be flipped and require that a person leave the comforts of the home he or she has sovereignty over and gift him or herself to the strange other without any qualifications. The other may reject the gift or may take advantage of it, but just as with the host, one must accept this vulnerability if they are to give just heed to the other’s strangeness. I am not proposing a reformulation of the stranger in its many manifestations. As we have decided, strangeness is always already imminent in a number of different persons. Rather, I am suggesting that we must also consider the positive ethical implications that come along with the agency of a foreigner. It is he or she that provides the host the opportunity to resign his or her sovereignty, thus allowing the ethical experience of an absolute welcome to occur—‘if there is such a thing’. Moreover, it is an ethical gesture in its own right to offer oneself over to the other when he or she needs your help—or perhaps even when you yourself need help. Therefore, it would seem the offering of the foreigner to the host is an indispensable component of any account of hospitality and to consider this alternative mode of agency is to fully appreciate the reciprocal agency that hospitality requires.
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