The other and his difference

Le Regard Libre N° 52 - Giovanni Ryffel

Are we sure we want this fabulous encounter with the other «as other»? We have to admit that we are often committed to this notion of otherness. The aim is positive: to promote fraternity and non-violence. Yet the notion of otherness is far from easy. Before we get into a political discussion with broken chairs on our backs, let's see if we can't highlight a few paradoxes which, we hope, will be the occasion for more careful reflection.

The first philosopher to discuss the notion of the other was Plato, in his old age dialogues. The great Greek philosopher had been searching all his life for the ultimate meaning of things: why do things exist? What is their origin? After his long search, Plato made this immense discovery at the end of his life: all the things that are exist because they are subject to fundamental principles that govern the entire universe: being and nothingness, movement and rest, from which life springs, and identity and otherness. Reading the Sophist of Plato, we realize that these notions are not just words: identity and otherness give substance to the whole of reality. They run through everything, from a blade of grass to mathematical definitions.

The astonishment of this discovery was crucial for Plato - and shattering, for he had to refuse the teachings of his masters. Plato had torn open the veil: in the beginning, there was something more fundamental than Socrates' ethics or Pythagoras' mathematics... even Parmenides' notion of being was incomplete. Identity and difference explained how a thing is itself and at the same time is not everything else: being and non-being were blended, becoming and unchanging, in short life and death, and all the beings the universe contains were grasped by this discovery at their deepest root.

From philosophy to politics

Otherness and’other which is its adjective, was thus born as a philosophical category that expresses the ultimate structure of reality. As a result, it was originally a notion that went beyond mere ethics: it was almost exclusively the domain of philosophers. Today, on the other hand, all those who are remotely interested in ethics and politics enrich their discourse with these terms, particularly in relation to migration issues or relations between European states.

So here's the first paradox: can we use in the political arena It's certainly true that we're confronted today with the question of cultural difference. It's certainly true that today we're confronted with the question of cultural difference. But the problem is that we sometimes speak of cultural difference as if it were self-evident, with the corollary of welcoming the other as if it were a categorical imperative. Perhaps this is where we need to remember that this is only one possible type of otherness among others. The only fundamental otherness is that of metaphysical otherness, which is not a specific prerogative of non-Western cultures, but of every being who is.

This easy use of the term «other» reveals its limitations when we realize the extent to which its corollary, that of welcome, which seems to go without saying and to be so necessary, is bankrupt. We fail to welcome the "other" every time we leave the elderly, who are the most discriminated-against members of our society, to fend for themselves. When we can't even help our next-door neighbor. When we feel hatred for someone close to our family: our wife, our child or our father. It's all very well to fill our mouths with kind words about people who are far from us - the thankless task of welcoming them falls to the state and the poorest sections of society - but we are often incapable of dealing with this otherness in our own private lives.

Levinas and existential otherness

The finest modern philosopher on the question of otherness was Emmanuel Levinas. This Franco-Lithuanian thinker not only understood Plato's lesson, but he also helped us understand how fundamental the notion of otherness was in the ethical sphere. He went so far as to say that «everything is ethical». For Levinas, there is nothing outside morality, precisely because at the basis of everything there is otherness and identity. The fact is, for Levinas, wherever we talk about these two notions, we are engaging in an existential discourse. We never face up to our own identity and the difference of the other except with a jolt to our whole being: the other remains forever a mystery to me.

My whole existence is questioned, sometimes even wounded, before I can move on to the joy of the encounter that will never erase the distance. Is this a bad thing? No, because if this distance remains and sends us back to our shortcomings and the impossibility of fully welcoming the other, it's also because it shows us who we really are, and therefore gives us the awareness we need to welcome the other without wanting to assimilate him or her, which would amount to imposing an extreme violence: that of telling him or her that he or she is inadequate simply by being what he or she is.

Once again, we can affirm that the notion of otherness is indeed necessary in ethics and politics, but that it does not allow us to confront problems that are far too serious to discuss lightly. The other is such a profound notion, as Plato used to say, that it runs through and characterizes everything; this is why Levinas, also following the shock of the world wars, realized that this notion, for the human being, always inevitably entails a serious questioning of his being and a total ethical commitment.

The greatest otherness is in proximity

But it would be easy to see otherness primarily in the clash between cultures. In reality, the place where otherness unfolds most intensely is in proximity. Levinas' interpretation of the caress is famous. Paradoxically, it is in the caress that the most immeasurable otherness manifests itself. In this gesture, the symbol of the love that is supposed to be played out between two people who now know each other too well, and which should bring them together to the point of union, it is here that the most abysmal gulf is created. The closer we get, the more the other person fundamentally escapes us. The more we get to know someone, the more their otherness jumps out at us. The more this otherness jumps out at us, the more vulnerable we become to their difference. Perhaps that's why it's so hard for teenagers to respond to their parents with kindness, or for couples to respect each other after so many years together.

What precisely do we mean when we praise the welcoming of the other for the other's sake? Do we know that this otherness is not reducible to the cultural given alone, and that there is a much more important one, which is metaphysical and engages the whole universe? Do we know that, even if we are open to the other as a culture, he will inevitably bother us in our existential relationship with him? Are we ready to accept this path? To recognize that the other is different? All too often, what happens is the opposite of the dialogue between «differences»: we easily sing the beauty of otherness, but we only take from the other what suits us. We declaim, for example, the need to welcome people from the Arab world, but we end up presenting only that part of this world which is directly in line with the habits of Western capitalism.

In other contexts, this same encounter is often actualized in such a way that it is either the young Western alternative who takes on the codes of «other» cultures, effacing himself in an anachronistic syncretism, or much more often - and worryingly - the person welcomed in Europe who finds himself swallowed up in the undifferentiated mass of those who work in the Western consumerist machine. In both cases, there is a flattening and misunderstanding of the role of otherness, and a flight from true encounter. The ease of these discourses on cultural otherness lies precisely in the fact that, paradoxically, they conceal true otherness. Perhaps this is because those who talk about it are not ready for true acceptance. The one that, as Levinas puts it, engages our entire existence.

Write to the author: giovanni.ryffel@leregardlibre.com