223. Levinas and Lacan
I contrasted Levinas, with his philosophy of the other, and Nietzsche,
with his ‘will to power’, in item 63 of this blog, and in a book[i]. Like many others, I
judged that Levinas went too far in his unconditional surrender to the other,
being his/her ‘hostage’. Where does that leave the subject, as an agent, as
responsible for its own flourishing? On the other hand, Nietzsche went
overboard in his superagency, will to power, will to overcome resistance, in
the urge of a flourishing life.
I countered Nietzsche with the argument that in order to flourish the
self needs opposition from the other, in order to learn, to be rid of its
prejudices and myopia, to achieve the highest form of freedom, including
freedom from the prison of the self. And then, I countered Levinas with the argument that
if I merit opposition from the other for my flourishing, then the other similarly
deserves opposition from me.
Here, enlightened by a book by Mari Rutti[ii], I consider the contrast
between Levinas and Lacan (with Zizek as a follower). Both Levinas and Lacan
engage in ‘philosophy of the other’, recognizing that the self is socially
constituted, but morally Lacan goes in the opposite direction. Instead of
surrendering to the other he wants to fight free from its imposition, and to grasp
freedom outside the strictures imposed by the public symbolic order.
In the opposition between Levinas and Lacan I find myself in a position
similar to that between Levinas and Nietzsche. One the one hand I find myself
ethically attracted to Levinas’ commitment to the other in his/her
vulnerability and suffering. On the other hand I sympathise with Nietzsche and
Lacan, in their defence of agency and the flourishing of life against the
terrorizing or suffocating imposition of conformance and sacrifice to the
other. Again I argue that one needs to ‘let the other in’, and to some extent indeed
yield to the other (in ‘passivity’, as Levinas put it), but not only for
ethical reasons but also for cognitive and spiritual reasons, as a source of a
flourishing life, and then also offer the other to let me in to contribute to
his/her flourishing (and hence also be ‘active’).
There is nothing unusual about this. This is normal interaction: the
alternation of reception and offer, active and passive.
Here as elsewhere, like an Aristotelian I try to find a good ‘middle’
between extremes, in the same way that one needs to find a good middle between
recklessness and courage, altruism and self-interest, trust and control,
openness and secretiveness, aggressiveness and defensiveness, and so on. Where
the proper middle is depends on circumstances. In some conditions an extreme
may be called for.
This is connected with my stance concerning universals, discussed in the
preceding item in this blog. They are seldom strict, and how they apply varies.
Finding the proper degree, balance, depending on conditions, is a task for
‘practical wisdom’. We may be inspired by virtuosi in it, as role models.
Albert Schweizer, Gandhi, Mandela, perhaps.
Is this too loose, allowing for too many escapes or loopholes? Are there
no universals that apply across all contexts, unconditionally? In the preceding
item I pleaded for moral universals with the widest possible scope, short of
unconditional strictness. To see the limits of some principle is not to deny
its force.
At this point I mobilize the distinction I made, in the preceding item,
between normative and intentional universals. One needs to draw normative
boundaries beyond which one is not prepared to go, as long as there are no
convincing countervailing arguments or warrants. But under the wider umbrella
of intentional universality one can go beyond that, to understand motives,
perhaps sympathize with them, even while acting against them. In a later item I
will argue how such understanding of transgression may next yield a starting
point for debating and considering a shift of moral universals.
If this is on the level of individuals among each other, how about the
relation between individual and collective, between ethics and the public
system of justice? That is the subject for the following item.
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