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'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'

a comment on Levinas « Previous | |Next »
September 13, 2006

Terry Veling wrote a straight-forward and authoritative article entitled "Facing Me" for the Melbourne Age about Levinas's understanding of ethics. I found the link to the article here. Unfortuantely, I have not been able to find the original article in The Age. Here is an extract:

'According to Levinas, we experience the transcendence of life primarily in the face of the human person. Every face we encounter is a face of otherness. Every face says, "I am other to you." Every face says, "I am not you." Every face says: "Don't kill me, don't absorb me into your world, don't obliterate me by making me the same as you. I am other. I am different. I am not you."

The face of the other breaks into my world and calls out to me. I am not an I unto myself, but an I standing before the other. The other calls forth my response, commands my attention, refuses to be ignored, makes a claim on my existence, tells me I am responsible. And this always. I will never be freed from the face of the other. So much so, that we are never released from the other's speaking to us and calling forth our response. As the haunting phrase of Matthew's gospel says, "the poor you will always have with you" (26:11). And as Levinas says, "it is impossible to evade the appeal of the neighbour, to move away." The human person "faces" me, and this "toward me" is both a profound appeal against my indifference to your naked vulnerability, and an accusation that prohibits my violence toward you.

"Being faced" means finding ourselves faced by a continual requirement of responsibility to and for the other. Even a casual reflection on our lives will reveal how bound we are to others, how constantly we are beset by the demands of obligation and the requirements of love - to family and friends, to those we work with, to neighbours and strangers, to those in our society whom we do not know yet whose claim on our lives we feel nevertheless.

This is a simple and yet increasingly stunning thought for me. The face of the human person, those that I encounter every single waking day of my life - on buses and trains, in the streets, at work, on television - everywhere, everyday, the "other" is before me, facing me. Perhaps this is what is meant when the biblical tradition says that humanity is made in the "image of God"...

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:49 PM | | Comments (0)
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