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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I am glad to see this post, for I've been wondering myself about the agency of both guest and host--though from the inverse perspective, that of the host. More concretely, I find Derrida's radical hospitality limited insofar as he never exerts his agency to put himself in the place of the guest. Though he is willing to extend (in theory) the notion of conventional hospitality to the radical extreme, by accepting any guest, and welcoming visitations as well as invitations, he remains host and master. But to really 'take the position of the other' as empathy requires, don't we have to put ourselves in the Other's situation? Doesn't Derrida have to b e c o m e the unexpected and perhaps unwanted guest himself, by taking leave of the home turf which he knows so well, and throw himself on the mercy of Others? Then he will have known what is means to be a guest, which presumably will inform the way in which he is a host.
ReplyDeleteI realize I am not exactly addressing your post explicitly; but I do think in your last lines we see the strong parallel: "it is an ethical gesture in its own right to offer oneself over to the other"...I would agree, and thus claim that Derrida must offer himself up as guest in order to complete the circle of host/guest, self/other, here/there.
Sharon
Your concern is interesting and I believe is shared by Professor Kearney, as he also proposed the use of imagination in order to attempt to understand the guest. However, I think Derrida would argue that insofar as absolute hospitality is of concern; any such attempted imagination would do violence to the absolute openness that any guest deserves. In absolute hospitality one cannot presume any knowledge of the guest, which includes: language, name, intentions, etc. So to try and imagine what it would mean to be a foreigner would automatically compromise a complete openness to the other. While this complete openness does not seem practical, or even plausible, as Derrida himself suggests, I believe the point of suggesting this absurd ideal is to reinforce the fact that in any imaginable situation of arrival there is always already something substantive of that person which you as host—or as I suggest above, guest—cannot account for, and more importantly this excess demands respect. The notion of absolute justice, therefore, leaves open a space—an unimaginable space—for the other insomuch as we simply cannot fully know the other. In other words, it is an attempt to respect the absolute alterity that accompanies all others, i.e. give heed to the other as just that, Other and not me—even if in real life such a respect is impossible.
ReplyDeleteI would presume the alternate agency I have suggested above would also demand the same respect. However, it would differ insofar as the guest does not have the same sovereignty as the host and therefore finds herself in a more compromising position. I believe this agency of subordination exploits the risk and challenge of ethical relations just as accurately—perhaps even more accurately, ‘albeit fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom’. In either case, it seems if we are to take Derrida accurately, and we are to strive for absolute justice, we must at least recognize and attempt to respect the absolute alterity that belongs to the other.
Mukasa
For the sake of clarity, I would add that your claim that "Derrida must offer himself up as guest in order to complete the circle of host/guest, self/other, here/there." is inaccurate. There is no circle, there is only the offering of oneself to the other, in his or her excess. It reminds me of that Nietzsche quote, "From the Sun I learned this: when he goes down, overrich; he pours gold into the sea out of inexhaustible riches, so that even the poorest fisherman still rows with golden oars. For this I once saw and I did not tire of my tears as I watched it."
ReplyDeleteMukasa