Arendt, Levinas and a Politics of Relationality
304
Arendt, Levinas and a Politics of Relationality
304Overview
Anya Topolski brings their respective projects into dialogue by means of the notion of relationality, a concept inspired by the Judaic tradition that is prominent in both thinker’s work. The book explores questions relating to the relationship between ethics and politics, the Judaic contribution to rethinking the meaning of the political after the Shoah, and the role of relationality and responsibility for politics. The result is an alternative conception of the political based on the ideas of plurality and alterity that aims to be relational, inclusive, and empowering.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781783483433 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 05/21/2015 |
| Series: | Reframing the Boundaries: Thinking the Political |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 304 |
| File size: | 724 KB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
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Arendt, Levinas and a Politics of Relationality
By Anya Topolski
Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd.
Copyright © 2015 Anya TopolskiAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-78348-343-3
CHAPTER 1
Biographical and Philosophical Intersections
Take a moment to consider these accounts of the twentieth century.
Two world wars in one generation, separated by an uninterrupted chain of local wars and revolutions, followed by no peace treaty for the vanquished and no respite for the victor, have ended in the anticipation of a third World War between the two remaining world powers. This moment of anticipation is like the calm that settles after all hopes have died. Under the most diverse conditions and disparate circumstances, we watch the development of the same phenomena — homelessness on an unprecedented scale, rootlessness to an unprecedented depth. Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted. (OT vii)
That history of a peace, a freedom and well-being promised on the basis of a light that a universal knowledge projected on the world and human society — even unto the religious messages that sought justification for themselves in the truths of knowledge — that history is not recognizable in its millennia of fratricidal struggles, political or bloody, of imperialism, scorn, exploitation of the human being, down to our century of world wars, the genocides of the Holocaust and terrorism; unemployment and continual desperate poverty of the Third World; ruthless doctrines and cruelty of fascism and national socialism, right down to the supreme paradox of the defence of man and his rights being perverted into Stalinism. (AT 32)
These accounts were not written by the same person; the first was written by Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) and the second by Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1995). Both are highly personal, political and philosophical accounts of the horrors that marked their lives and the world in the twentieth century. One might wonder how they would have described our current reality; are we no longer dealing with the problems of homelessness, rootlessness, imperialism, exploitation or genocide? Are we not still constantly bombarded by such accounts, but respond by donning an emotionally resistantraincoat in order to simply 'make it through the day'? If we allowed the weight of their words or our reality to have its full impact, would we be able to wake up every morning, to do our jobs, or to enjoy life? Is it not our responsibility, as citizens of the world, to divest ourselves of this emotional resistance if only for a brief, albeit unbearable, moment? Both Arendt and Levinas appealed to their readers not to retreat from reality and from the world but rather to take up our difficult freedom and weighty responsibility in order to ensure that the future never again repeats the horrors of the past.
With this in mind, take a moment to re-read their accounts of the reality in which they lived. What strikes me is how meaningless life must have seemed after such an experience, how little hope they must have had. Yet neither of these thinkers succumbed to these emotions, neither wallowed in depression nor was overcome by hate. This fact alone is striking. They could have decided that life after Auschwitz was simply too much to bear. Many did. They could have declared that humanity could never recover its 'soul' in the aftermath of the Nazi genocide. But they didn't. It is this inspirational choice to believe in humanity's potential — against all odds — that motivated their writings and guides this project. The question I ask of both thinkers is what we can do to bring us a step closer, even if it is only a small one, to fulfilling the promise 'never again' made by many of those who survived.
Never Again. These two words convey the shared inspiration of Arendt's and Levinas's thought. While their ethical and political contributions cannot and should not be reduced to responses to the Shoah, the significance of this event changed their lives to such a degree that neither could continue the intellectual pursuits she or he had commenced prior to the war. While for Levinas this meant going beyond being towards ethics and the Talmud, for Arendt it meant leaving theology and the singularity of philosophy (by redefining the meaning of the political) towards the plurality created between human beings in the polis. While their thought takes divergent, and often conflicting, paths, Arendt and Levinas are connected by their fundamental commitment to this promise and in their shared hope in humanity's ability to fulfil it. In addition, as I will argue, the fact that both situate their projects as a critique of Western philosophy's prioritization of singularity, or the same, and seek a new 'foundation' in alterity and plurality — that is, in the between of intersubjectivity — is not happenstance. Yet before I begin to explore the respective philosophical paths each took in response to this promise, let us take a closer look at their life stories, which helps to situate their respective responses to the thinkers, philosophical methodologies and events of their times.
LIFE STORIES
Born in 1906, Levinas on January 12 in Kaunas (Lithuania) and Arendt on October 14 in Hannover (Germany), their early years were marked by the religious, cultural and political heritage of the Pale of the Settlement where so many Jews had settled, most often as a result of war and displacement (as was the case for much of European Jewry after 1492 or any one of the many other pogroms in Western Europe between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries). The Pale was the limited geographic region of Imperial Russia where Jews were legally permitted to reside (it included Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, Prussia and parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). Levinas's family fled their home in 1914, in the wake of the First World War, finding temporary refuge in Ukraine, only to return to Lithuania six years later. What is interesting about Levinas's two childhood homes is that each was a centre of an opposing school of Orthodox Judaism (although Levinas was not properly acquainted with either tradition until after the war, when he studied under the tutelage of Monsieur Chouchani). Lithuania was renowned for its hospitality to the thought of the Vilna Gaon, the founder of the Mitnagdim, a Jewish tradition that sought answers through study and thus required a high level of literacy. By contrast, Ukraine was the centre of the Hasidic movement, founded by the Baal Shem Tov, who argued that Judaism's wisdom was nonintellectual and arose from spirituality sought through song and dance. Given the poverty and violence of life in the Pale of the Settlement, and the lack of educational opportunities, it is no surprise that the latter was much more popular.
Hasidism's popularity was certainly not strong in Königsberg (East Prussia, presently Kaliningrad, Russia), where Arendt's family moved in 1909. Although many of the rabbis in her city would deny this non-Jewish influence, it is clear that Kant and German idealism had had a great impact on many young Jewish thinkers at the start of the twentieth century. Having studied in Marburg (Germany), Arendt was very familiar with the thought of Herman Cohen (neo-Kantian) as well as that of Moses Mendelssohn (whom she cites in her book on Rahel Varnhagen), both of whose writings were instrumental in the formation of Reform Judaism (a response to the dominant Orthodox Judaism of much of the Pale of the Settlement). It is rather difficult to put into words the role Judaism played for her family; suffice it to say that they considered themselves first and foremost Prussian (or German) and yet were all too often reminded, by others, that they were, and would always be, first and foremost Jews. The language and culture of these families was that of the country they lived in, yet their laws and literature were often other than that of their land of residence. While according to Arendt's diary she was exposed to very little blatant anti-Semitism, it was somehow always present within the ethos of these Western European cities. It was the latter subtler differences that played an important role in Arendt's upbringing. She often described her childhood feelings by claiming, 'I was different but it is difficult to determine the difference'. By contrast Levinas was much more at home with his Jewish identity, which he described felt 'as natural as having eyes and ears'. Nonetheless, he was no stranger to the feeling of being different than the majority population, a feeling of being both the same and different that many young Jews shared and sought to understand both prior to, and more consciously after, the Shoah.
In 1924 both Arendt and Levinas made a major decision to travel 'West'— literally and figuratively, to pursue an atypical academic career for Jews. This choice to go to Berlin (and then Marburg and Heidelberg) and Strasbourg respectively was the first step that eventually led both to develop an interest in philosophy. While Levinas considered studying in Germany, he seemed to have thought that France was more 'European' and thus a better place to study the classics (as well as psychology and sociology). Likewise, Arendt chose first to follow courses in the classics and Christian theology at the University of Berlin. Their decision to study classics may not strike one as out of the ordinary, yet it was quite exceptional for Jews at the time. Within a few years both developed an enthusiasm for the new phenomenological tradition, an enthusiasm fortified by their time studying in Marburg with Husserl and Heidegger. Arendt left Marburg for Heidelberg in 1926, two years before Levinas arrived as an exchange student in 1928. She completed her dissertation, entitled 'Der Liebesbegriff bei Augustin', under the guidance of Karl Jaspers, an existential or humanist phenomenologist, in 1929. Both of them were drawn more to Heidegger's existential or ontological phenomenology than to Husserl's more scientific phenomenology. For Levinas, who 'went to Freiburg because of Husserl, but discovered Heidegger', his time in Germany — a country which he refused to ever step foot in after the war — and his early infatuation with Heidegger — evidenced by his performance in a satirical soirée at Davos — seem to have been a later source of shame. While Arendt's infatuation with Heidegger took another form, it is clear from her writings, especially in her final book The Life of the Mind, that she viewed Heidegger as one of the greatest thinkers of his time. While there is a great deal written about each of their personal relationships to Heidegger, what is significant is the fact that both Levinas and Arendt were trained in the phenomenological tradition as championed by Heidegger. In the following section, this point will be expanded upon in terms of the second and third philosophical parallels between Arendt and Levinas.
In addition, it relates directly to that parallel — the rise of totalitarianism and the Shoah. Neither was prepared for Heidegger's public support of Nazism in the early 1930s or the events that followed. It is due to these events, and specifically Heidegger's speeches and writings from this period, that led both to question their own personal, philosophical and political presuppositions. For Arendt, Heidegger's rectoral address was a symbolic betrayal of their shared love for thinking. Furthermore, it was also representative of the growing anti-Semitism of many of the leading thinkers of the academy. Levinas also defended his thesis in 1929 on Husserl's phenomenology and thereafter accepted a position at the Alliance Israélite Universelle in Paris. He continued to study philosophy and translated many of Husserl's works into French, notably the section of Cartesian Mediations dealing with intersubjectivity. Interspersed with his writings on Husserl, he began to write about Heidegger and the ontological tradition, which he gave up in 1933 after Heidegger delivered his rectoral address. This event was certainly the turning point for Arendt and Levinas as well as many others of Heidegger's Jewish students.
Unlike Arendt, who seemingly forgave Heidegger publicly, at his eightieth birthday celebrations, Levinas chose never to do so. What is interesting about this difference is that both prioritize forgiveness in their writings and associate it with ethics. Levinas, a practicing Jew, was much more aware of the meaning of forgiveness in a Judaic context (teshuvah). In line with teshuvah, Heidegger could not be forgiven because he had never asked to be (which would require that he first admit his error). Arendt was also familiar with this Judaic concept (JW 42), yet she clearly did not feel that it was necessary for Heidegger to make a public apology for what she chose to interpret as a private affair. While Heidegger's political failure had an immense impact on Arendt and Levinas, neither abandoned the phenomenological method. Nonetheless there is a marked change in their writings on Heidegger after this period. For Levinas, this change is both a clear distanciation from Heidegger's ontological project and an intellectual turn towards the Judaic. Levinas, with the help of his mysterious teacher, Monsieur Chouchani, dedicated himself to studying Judaaism — and specifically the Talmudic tradition, in the years directly after World War II. While Arendt also began to study and write about Judaism, and specifically Israel, with the help of her close friend Walter Benjamin, he did not live to complete her education. Nonetheless, 'Arendt was abruptly estranged from this tradition [of German idealism as taught by Heidegger, Jaspers and Husserl] by the rise of Nazism. She first became politicized by Zionism and by the quest for Jewish national identity', quickly coming to appreciate that 'if one is attacked as a Jew, one must defend oneself as a Jew. Not as a German, not as a world-citizen, not as an upholder of the Rights of Man' (EU 11–12). Thus for Arendt, who was forced to flee Germany in 1933, the political path her writings took was very much a response to the events of her life that brought her Judaism and the political reality she was confronted by into conflict, a conflict that was made much more personal and painful by Heidegger's actions.
Both thinkers thus found themselves in Paris in the 1930s, surrounded by many other Jewish intellectuals from across Europe. As odd as it was that they did not meet in Germany while studying phenomenology, the fact that they never met in Paris, where both mingled within similar Jewish and intellectual circles, is rather surprising. The reality of the rising anti-Semitism across Europe, but most severely in Germany, and the impending tensions that preceded the onset of World War II led both Arendt and Levinas to consider what, if any, philosophical connection needed to be drawn between Heidegger's ontological project and the legal and political exclusion of Jews in Nazi Germany. After his studies in Germany, Levinas had made his home in Paris, marrying Raïssa Levin in 1930, and implicitly explores this connection in his 1934 essay, 'Reflections on the Philosophy of Hitlerism',an essay that eerily foreshadows the Shoah, and in his 1935 essay 'On Escape,' in which he first expresses his critique of Heidegger's ontology.
In 1930, while still in Germany, Arendt was wed to Günter Stern, a Jewish thinker. In response to the rise in anti-Semitism, she began to participate in political discussions in Berlin. After ending up in jail for acting politically — a fact she was very proud of — she was forced to flee, which is how she ended up in Paris, where she began to work for both Zionist and other Jewish organizations. As with Levinas, she was known to travel in several academic circles and to participate in several soirées attended by other Jewish thinkers such as Walter Benjamin and Raymond Aron. Arendt's publications from this period (to which we will return in part II), published in 2007 as The Jewish Writings, all revolve around the question of Palestine, Jewish identity, politics and philosophy. Although both Arendt and Levinas were certainly far from naïve and understoood that this increase in anti-Semitism was not simply a phase that would pass over Europe, neither was properly prepared for what would happen when the war broke out in 1939. Humanity, as Arendt often said, had not yet realized that anything really is possible, a reality that would perhaps have been better left undiscovered. By then a French citizen, Levinas was drafted into the army, serving as an interpreter, and spent the majority of the war as a Jewish POW in a labour camp in Germany. While all of his Lithuanian relatives, to whom he dedicated Otherwise Than Being, perished, his wife and daughter Simone, born in 1935, survived the war thanks to their many friends and to the Catholic nuns who hid them for most of the war.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Arendt, Levinas and a Politics of Relationality by Anya Topolski. Copyright © 2015 Anya Topolski. Excerpted by permission of Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd..
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