Dear Professor Kearney,
I was interested in your reaction to the reading I proposed yesterday on the story of Lot - where the two visitors are inscribed within Lot's ethical system & cease to be guests, becoming part of Lot's narrative, while the Sodomites take the role of the Stranger demanding hospitality from Lot. Something I forgot to mention is that I feel that if Lot had said 'No, you can't have these men, because... I don't know why, you just can't.' the two visitors would have remained guests; however, since he gave a reason ('they have come to me for hospitality') he has inscribed them within his ethical system.
I'm curious for your response, since I give seems to break down the possibility of ethics (while preserving the possibility of morality) in a way that I'm not sure is compatible with your own reading; so a critical response would be most welcome.
Gabe
Dear Gabe,
Interesting...
But isn't Lot himself a 'guest' of the Sodomites who originally host him....' a foreigner (ger) come to stay (gur) with the Sodomites' (OH, p 251)?
So when the Sodomites (Lot's hosts) ask him to hand over his own guests they are abusing both the right of their guest (Lot) and of his guests (the two angels). A case of double betrayal of the law of hospitality?
I am not sure about your distinction between ethics and morality here; unless you mean that if Lot protects his guests he is observing the ethic of hospitality but if he hands over his daughters as 'gifts' to the Sodomites (his hosts and perhaps now, perversely, his guests who know at his door?) he is breaking the moral rules of family kinship and protection?
By this reading the biblical story would illustrate the trumping of familial morality by an ethics of unconditional hospitality? But does not the rhetorical force of the narrative suggest that this is not a great thing....to sacrifice your daughters to rapists? Or I imagining the biblical scribes to be more moral than they were?
It is true, of course, that Abraham was ready to sacrifice his son....to God? But what kind of God? A God of rapine who insists on child sacrifice or a God of mercy who is teaching Abraham a basic moral lesson: you just shouldn't do that kind of thing with your children, even if you think it is God knocking at the door and demanding you hand them over. So put away that knife and take your son home with you to Sarah and grow up!In other words, 'I am not a God of sacrificial bloodletting like the gods before me, but a God of love and justice'!
--Wishful thinking on my part? Kant and Girard would agree with the moral reading....but they are weird, so maybe the three of us are wrong and the sacrificial reading of both Abraham and Lot wins out? Give the gift of your children unconditionally to the one who asks but protect your guests no matter what? (Abraham receives the angels - God - unconditionally under the Mamre tree when they bring the gift of a son, Isaac, to him and the barren Sarah...but Abraham is then willing to give Isaac back again (offer him up!) to the same God when He asks. Benveniste's reading of hospitality as exchange of gifts? Potlach. You gave something to me, but I am now giving something more to you etc).
Perhaps that opens up new questions for discussion?
Best,
Prof. Kearney
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Snake
Psyche is seduced by Amor. She has never seen him, although she recieves him each night - her sisters poison her with doubt, say she is making love to a dragon who will eat her up in the end, at any rate, that she should check. She betrays him - she lights the oil lamp one night and a drop of oil burns him awake: he leaves. (And what could be worse than the flight of Amor?)
Marie-Louise von Franz interprets this story in her book on redemption motifs. She says that the animal and the divine are very close ("above and below the human level") and one of the things that unites them is their being "touchy about being seen in the light of consciousness". 'Dragon' is synonymous with 'snake' here. The voice of the sisters is the voice of hasty consciousness, Lawrence's "accursed human education". It is also the voice of 'conditional hospitality'.
Normally we think of bringing something to light as positive (especially as philosophers). Marie-Louise von Franz isn't saying that consciousness is bad, rather, she says instead "in this light of recognition there is a 'nothing but' attitude", and we must be careful of this. Otherwise, like Psyche, we might roam all over the world in pursuit of the vanished stranger who was a lover and might have been a husband.
(This is a psychological interpretation of the story of a meeting, which I think is convincing, but I would like to add that an actual meeting with a snake needs no 'interpretation' to mediate the sense of meeting one of God's more dubious sons.)
Marie-Louise von Franz interprets this story in her book on redemption motifs. She says that the animal and the divine are very close ("above and below the human level") and one of the things that unites them is their being "touchy about being seen in the light of consciousness". 'Dragon' is synonymous with 'snake' here. The voice of the sisters is the voice of hasty consciousness, Lawrence's "accursed human education". It is also the voice of 'conditional hospitality'.
Normally we think of bringing something to light as positive (especially as philosophers). Marie-Louise von Franz isn't saying that consciousness is bad, rather, she says instead "in this light of recognition there is a 'nothing but' attitude", and we must be careful of this. Otherwise, like Psyche, we might roam all over the world in pursuit of the vanished stranger who was a lover and might have been a husband.
(This is a psychological interpretation of the story of a meeting, which I think is convincing, but I would like to add that an actual meeting with a snake needs no 'interpretation' to mediate the sense of meeting one of God's more dubious sons.)
Saturday, March 20, 2010
simone weil
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
Fanny
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
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