Trevor Howell
PHIL-149-01
Michael Ferry
Infinite Justice
“We are
strangers only by the fact that we have never met” (Edwards 187).
The current ethical order is one based on two faulty components. The first is its complete deference to practicality and the second is the resultant policy of limited engagement with others because of their inability to cooperate or reciprocate. The notion that one ought not to propagate a certain ethical outlook because it is too demanding and the consequential qualification that ought only to extend it to those deemed “worthy” has especially permeated the ethical discourse of the last half century. The domain of economic justice, in particular, is deeply rooted in this belief in practicality and reciprocity. As a result, it is important to note that the economic logic in which such “justice” claims are so deeply embedded is that of the capitalist, mostly Western, neo-liberal order. Therefore, in light of the severe inadequacies and faults of the ethical structures of the developed world, specifically the structures of economic justice, a radical reorientation towards extreme, unconditional obligation to others is necessary in order to begin to relieve the world of suffering in a more effective and long-lasting manner. Although not necessarily a wholesale indictment of the capitalist system, such a transformation requires the faults of Western ethical policy, which happen to be most markedly grounded in capitalism, to be exorcised and replaced with more compassionate, more ethical alternatives. Therefore, on the surface, certain aspects of capitalism, at least, must definitely change. One such way to implement such a change is by reinvigorating the compassionate spirit within human beings, especially those who are well off, and by refusing to yield to the pressure of such obstacles as “practicality” and reciprocity in regards to economic justice. The context of economic justice lends itself particularly well as a starting point for change. Through the alleviation of poverty and the erasure of need, humanity can assuredly raise the standard of living of the global community and of the individuals who comprise it. It is critical, however, that a greater shift in political consciousness occur in order to ensure that this ethical commitment remains embedded within the policies and attitudes of the global community. Therefore, it is crucial that we transcend the current confines of the neo-liberal order and its tenets of practicality and selectivity. One such means of doing so is to take to heart Jacques Derrida’s notion of the New International. Above all, it calls for a reconceptualization of the world order based on a true democratic vision directed toward ethical hospitality for and moral obligation to all, including those outside the scope of the current Western politico-ethical system. Along with an amalgam of other theoretical insights, the ethic of the New International stands clear as a beacon of hope for an ethical future and a launch-point from which to begin that campaign. Therefore, in order to revitalize the developed world’s dying notions of economic justice, the ideal of the New International can serve as a powerful catalyst by offering a means to undo our current ethical disaster, to transcend our failing political situation, and ultimately to work toward an ethic of genuine, global compassion for others.
Before an indictment of the current ethical order is possible, it is first necessary to make a few preliminary remarks about Derrida’s ethical philosophy and its particular relationship with the law and justice. Jacques Derrida is hailed by scholars as the father of the theoretical school known as “deconstruction.” At its most fundamental level, the goal of deconstruction is twofold. First, it is an act of erasure in the sense that it seeks to undo the hierarchicalization of values in society, particular those contained within binaries. Good/bad, outside/inside, absence/presence and man/woman are all examples of traditionally opposed ideas that deconstruction dismantles, showing them to be both interchangeable, in the sense that the terms may be reversed, and indistinguishable, in the sense that there really is no essence to any of the aforementioned terms that differentiates one from the other. Food, for example, is only really definable as that which is not bad, hence the terms only exist as a result of the other. Moreover, an act of bad can also be construed as something good such as killing one person to save a million, thus the essence of good is entirely relative, making the notion of essence as an unchanging nature entirely untenable. Deconstruction, therefore, erases the binary altogether by illustrating its invalidity. The second goal of deconstruction is the illumination of the irreducible gaps between meaning and language. Referred to as “aporias,” deconstruction exposes the infinite distance between the signifier of language, the word, and the signified, that which it represents, such that when I say a statement its meaning is always already out of my control in the sense that it may be interpreted in any number of contradictory ways. To give the example of literature, deconstruction illustrates how the writings of an author are not iron-clad but vulnerable to interpretation and reinterpretation over and over again. The implausibility of reading a text one single, truthful way in the face of contradictory passages and slippages in meaning is what deconstruction proclaims. Deconstruction thus indicates the irresolvable gaps in language. In light of this, it then becomes possible to explicate upon Derrida’s notion of ethics as related to his notion of the “democracy to come.”
The danger that Derrida articulates, in regards to deconstruction, is that the entire history of Western metaphysics has sought to overshadow and mask the aporias in meaning and ideas. The self, for example, since Aristotle “has been constructed upon the premise of a clear, stable and transparent subject who says what he means and means what he says” (Brassett and Merke 57). In recent times, however, the notion of the self as a fragmented composition of parts has been cogently articulated and is rapidly gaining ground. The danger, therefore, is what may be justified in the name of unity. Racial unity in the name of a “true” German race was the propagated logic of the Nazi Holocaust. Sexual (male) unity is the calling card of the West’s history of patriarchal oppression. And national unity is what today attempts to maintain the sovereign borders of a rapidly deteriorating world. In light of the exposure of identity as something splintered, it forces one to ask the question “To what other concepts might this apply?” Derrida, among numerous other answers, resoundingly answers “Democracy,” and specifically its relationship with an ethics toward the Other. Though this will be mentioned later, it raises the essentially important question of “What is Other?” especially if I do not even know what it means to be myself. Derrida thus deconstructs the self/Other binary as one blurs into the other. Therefore, it becomes necessary, as will be explained below, to revise our view of the world in a radical way in order to include all who suffer into the scope of our ethical outlook. The issue of democracy as a deconstructable notion will be taken up later. For now, it will suffice simply to introduce deconstruction as a technique. In light of the above theoretical illustrations, it now becomes critical to begin to attack the issue of practicality as an important consideration in the implementation of ethical action.
Practicality is oftentimes the most important ethical consideration in both the development and implementation of policy. The question of feasibility rattles the halls of the world’s parliaments and congresses with its resounding echoes. Additionally, besides the politicians and statespersons who champion its call, numerous ethicists infuse practicality and realism into their theories as a consideration of the utmost importance. What must be realized, however, is that practicality and calls for effects like it are nothing but cop-outs. At its core, practicality, at least in our modern political and ethical vocabulary, is the most persuasive excuse for the development of an ineffectual system of ethics. At first glance such a claim seems extremely suspect, and rightly so. Though, upon closer analysis, and by theoretically grounding such analysis, it becomes apparent ethical action with the goal of that helping other people ought not to be subjected to claims of practicality for three main reasons. First, practicality is an excuse to maintain a veneer of ethical care over a moral core of indifference toward others. Second, belief in a system of practicality allows the coexistence of two directly incompatible systems, namely that of ethical obligation and market capitalism (in it current form, that is), and the subsequent sacrifice of the former to the latter under the rhetorically justifiable guise of practicality. It is here within this debate that the issue of reciprocity arises as the justification for differentiating between those to be helped (those who can give back) and those not to be helped (those who cannot). Third, at a fundamental level of understanding, ethics never ought to be governed by claims of pragmatism because, as will be shown later, ethics is an act of infinite obligation that shatters the very notion of pragmatism apart. The remainder of this paper will thus deal exclusively with these questions and use them to formulate both a grounds for the rejection of practicality and reciprocity and the formation of a preferable ethical system in which to frame our obligations to others.
As stated above, the academic field of ethics has always had a rather keen fascination with the issue of practicality and its importance in its systems. In order to discover the errors within such logic, it is therefore crucial to examine a few of the most striking uses of practicality as a justification for limiting one’s ethical commitment. Garrett Hardin, a neo-Malthusian professor of biology, in his article “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case against Helping the Poor” demonstrates one such example of the fusion of ethics and practicality. Arguing in favor of neglecting the needs of others insofar as that need trades off with our wellbeing, Hardin emphasizes the importance of the lifeboat theory in which we are in a near-capacity lifeboat in which letting any others board will capsize the teetering craft (Hardin 779). Hardin, thus, serves as the perfect example of practicality in action as he maintains that despite our ethical obligation to one another, on a personal or moral level, it is simply not practical to help. Pragmatism thus dominates compassion as the primary consideration. Hardin, however, also perfectly illustrates the flaws inherent within the act of elevating pragmatism to the level of utmost concern. First and foremost, arguments in favor of practicality like Hardin’s always rely on a skewed perception of the world. Hardin wholeheartedly believes in his lifeboat example, however, it fails to capture the truth of our global economic situation. In the example, Hardin fails to adapt the conditions of each individual to the habits of consumption present in the world; for if he did, each individual would not, as in the example, take up the same amount of space. In other words were we actually to model his example on the real world, the developed world (those in the boats) would be very fat individuals, proportional to their consumption, while the developing world and impoverished peoples (those in the water) would be extremely skinny. Therefore, Hardin now must not justify letting a person die in the water because he/she would displace one of us but he must defend the argument that letting us remain fat is more valuable than losing a little bit of weight (i.e. consuming less and thus giving it to the poor) so that another may climb onboard. In this light, Hardin’s claim of practicality becomes far more indefensible as it essentially would require a defense of rampant excessive consumption against the starvation and consequent death of millions. The second consideration that Hardin’s argument raises is how practicality concerns almost always displace concerns of compassion. Hardin’s admission that “our survival demands that we govern our actions by the ethics of a lifeboat, harsh though they may be,” besides its inherently flawed logic, further demonstrates how practicality, the actions of lifeboat ethics, necessitate the sacrifice of compassion (Hardin 790). John Arthur similarly cloaks his ethical system in the language of practicality. His belief that “the moral code it is rational for us to support must be practical” limits our capacity to care to the extent that there is “no substantial cost” (Arthur 776). Thus, the very basis of ethics as doing what is right, or in this case what is compassionate, is erased.
Secondly, Hardin and ethicists like him overlook the nature of reality as a world of interconnection and unity across borders and boundaries. Hardin’s naïve belief in a black and white conception of us/them clearly illustrates his logical fallibility. Consequently, the basis of so many practicality claims that we simply do not have the means to help “them,” whoever they may be, is upset as the very distinction between us/them is deconstructed. The world is no longer isolated and separated but an interconnected one in which the porous borders of the nation allow for the flow of peoples and ideas at an accelerated rate. In light of this global transformation, the ability to distinguish between the nationalist interests of the American people, for example, and the Sudanese or the Indonesians or the Eastern Europeans, in essence all of the peoples of the world, is becoming more and more difficult. Therefore, the very basis on which such practicality claims are set, that it is impractical for us to sacrifice an interest of our own for another, is itself becoming difficult to articulate. Thus, we need a new ethical system that is able to take into account this new development and adjust accordingly. It becomes necessary to articulate a vision of “global solidarity” that “[changes] the entire horizon of ‘the political,’ of citizenship, of belonging to a nation, and of the state” (Derrida “Intellectual Courage” Online). Finally, the issue of practicality must be examined from a global perspective. Too often politicians and ethicists are apt to frame an issue from a local or national perspective. The critical question that must be forwarded is “Practical for whom?” Hardin’s claim that we must embrace lifeboat ethics lest we “guarantee that our grandchildren, and everyone else’s grandchildren [this claim I will take issue with subsequently], would have only a ruined world to inhabit” embodies this skewed perspective (Hardin 789). The crucial issue, however, that Hardin overlooks is that except for those in the lifeboat, the world is already ruined! It is thus not impractical to hope for change and hope for a better world by redistributing goods, for example. In the words of a famous mantra, it is “try or die” for the majority of the world’s population as their lives are only under the risk of getting better. Therefore, is it really ethical for the minority of those well-off in the world to elevate themselves above the poor of the world? I would hope no one would answer yes to this question for to do so would put him/her in the same party as racists, sexists and bigots of other various sorts and their baseless claims in favor of arbitrary hierarchies of value. Therefore, when we “globalize” our perspective it becomes apparent that claims of practicality really are not so practical after all. It then forces us to ask the question “What is the real role of practicality in the debate over ethical obligation?” It is in answer to this question that capitalism rears its ugly head.
Since
practicality has thus been shown to be immoral, outdated and ironically
impractical itself, it is critical to understand and expose the reason for its
persistence in modern ethical debates. To do so, it becomes particularly
necessary to look at practicality from the perspective of economic justice and
considerations of poverty, foreign aid and developmental assistance. Just as
above it was required to ask “Practical for whom?” it now becomes necessary to
ask “Practical for what?” Once one considers why practicality still has so much
weight in deciding whether or not to give food aid to Sudanese refugees or how
many goods to donate for relief in East Bengal (as in Singer’s famous article “Famine,
Affluence, and Morality”) it becomes apparent that moderation and selectivity
in terms of donations and economic assistance are practical for capitalism. While not necessarily true
of the function of capitalism in theory, capitalism as it is contemporarily
manifested requires a critical component to be present in economic ethics that
ultimately determines the practicality of moral intervention: reciprocation. Alain
Badiou, a famous French theorist, philosopher and professor of philosophy at
Université Paris VIII, notes that within the current ethical debates in
celebrated
‘other’ is acceptable only if he/[she] is a good other…on condition that the different be
parliamentary-democratic, pro free-market economics, in favour of freedom of
opinion, feminism, the environment.... That is to say: I respect
differences, but only, of course, in so far as that which differs also
respects, just as I do, the said differences…there can be no respect for
those whose difference consists precisely in not respecting differences…the
respect for differences applies only to those differences that are reasonably
consistent with this identity (which, after all, is
nothing other than the identity of a wealthy — albeit visibly
declining — ‘West’). Even immigrants in this country [
In light of this assessment, it thus becomes apparent
that to “become like me,” as Badiou argues, is the Western mandate to “be
capitalist like me.” It is only upon the basis of economic return that the West
feels itself morally obliged to aid another. Ethics is thus a game of economics
as “the food available to people is…fundamentally rooted in their ability to
provide services that people in the economic are willing to pay for” (Nielsen
232). The basis of moral obligation is not compassion; instead, “the capitalist
rationale…[is] plain, food aid [is] intended to assist capitalist development
in the
Ethics must radically break
from capitalist computations. Our view of obligation must change; for genuine
“responsibility cannot be reduced to a calculation or formula.
Responsibility…is only found in practice, taking place in the interaction and
engagement between self and other(s)” (Anderson-Irwin Online). In order to
challenge practicality specifically, it becomes necessary to break with the
logic of the neoliberal order in its current manifestations of capitalism,
international law and sovereignty (in their current forms) as they continually consider
practicality to be the pinnacle of ethical considerations. Derrida’s call for
the New International thus becomes a necessary commitment in the face of this
political apathy and moral selectivity. We must incorporate the belief that
even if “the way or the ways [to escape the neoliberal order] are not obvious
[it] does not mean…that it cannot be done or that we should settle…for some
reformist tinkering” (Nielsen 240). Our commitment to ethics must therefore shed
the skin of practicality in order to manifest a genuine commitment to the
Other. In light of the numerous faults of the neoliberal order and its reliance
on practicality and reciprocity as the basis for “ethics,” we must articulate
an alternative to the status quo, one committed to international justice, compassion
and infinite obligation: the New International.
In
order to transcend the current limits of modern ethics and its weak and
ineffectual commitment to the Other we must posit a new system of understanding
committed to infinite justice for the people of the world. At its simplest
level the New International is an amorphous commitment to what Derrida terms
“democracy to come.” By “democracy to come” he “poses the need to rethink the
democratic relation beyond the borders of nation-states and their relation with
non-citizens. It demands the invention of a new model of relationships, based
upon a new international law and a transformed sovereignty. An imagination of
the impossible justice is…a radical attempt to ‘see,’ ‘welcome,’ ‘understand,’
‘love,’ the other as other” (Brassett
and Merke 64). Despite the incessant vagueness surrounding this ethical
commitment, it is exactly this vagueness that gives the New International such
power. In order to understand the connection between Derrida’s conception and
individual ethical commitment, we must unpack his notions one by one. Hence,
let us start from the beginning.
First and foremost, the New
International requires an infinite obligation to the Other. While at first
glance this seems intimidating and ultimately impossible, true compassion
requires a genuine commitment to other people. There are a few reasons why such
a commitment is critical for the formation of genuine (in the sense of
sincerity) commitment to ethics. Initially, such an act is simply rooted in
compassion. It is the manifestation of unbridled care for another. It is the
replacement of one’s relatively trivial concerns with the very fate of another.
It is the acceptance that another’s life is in my hands and that I am
single-handedly responsible for it. One might object that the life of another
is of no importance to me; however, “answering the call when it is made…is what
makes us human” because “our existence, not only who we are specifically
but…our very being, depends upon the other people to whom we are responsible” (Shepherd
Online). Shepherd continues to insist that “this responsibility means that we
are obligated to respond to the suffering and needs of others…to everyone, for
everything” as our “responsibility to the other is infinite in that it is never
satisfied” (Shepherd Online). Indeed, it is the very engagement with the other
that characterizes ethics in the first place for “ethics…must be qualified by
and engaged with contingent political
practice” (Brassett and Merke 50). Therefore, one’s complete surrender to the
Other is a critical precondition to the development of a truly ethical system of ethics. In the context
of economic justice, every individual must be willing to sacrifice for the
Other. Thus, as Singer proposes, “we ought to give…money away” because
“it is wrong not to do so” (Singer 765). While the infinity of our obligation likely frightens and
overwhelms individuals, the beauty of the act is its very impossibility. Never
can one single-handedly answer all of the calls of every single Other; however
“one must act even when the act is bound to fall short” (Anderson-Irwin
Online). As a result, the act may never be done and so may never be finalized. Instead, we may only work toward the goal but
never reach it. It is this infinity of duration that connects our commitment to
the Other with Derrida’s “democracy to come” for “a ‘democracy to come’ is a
permanent injunction, a permanent call for a democracy that is never fully
present in any democratic regime” just as our infinite obligation is never
fully realized (Brassett and Merke 63). While seemingly paradoxical on face,
this explanation becomes clear once it is related to Derrida’s conception of
ethics and its connection to deconstruction.
Derrida, put plainly and simply, deconstructs democracy and sees it, like language, as a signifier. If we model democracy with its tenets of equality, representation, etc. on language then it will always reach towards that which it signifies (the signified) yet it will never fully realize it for there is always an irresolvable aporia between the two; hence the name “democracy to come.” At first glance such a view seems extremely disempowering and pessimistic; however, when compared with today’s democracies and the neoliberal order, it is this impossibility that makes an ethical stance modeled on “democracy to come,” that of the New International, so powerful. The motivation is “to make sure that a totality [like the West’s current ethical position – the totality of practicality] does not rest easy, or become too assured of its ‘justice’ – an assurance that, in the worst-case scenarios, descends into totalitarianism or fundamentalism [such as the fundamentalism of market capitalism]” (Corey Online). Therefore, the West’s current ethical approach, enmeshed within market capitalism, is that totality that rests easy as individuals view it, first, as unchangeable and inevitable and, second, as the standard by which to judge what is and is not ethical (i.e. what is and is not practical). Therefore, though the notion of impossible justice, or impossible ethics, seems counter-intuitive at first, it is this ambiguity, this inability to define exactly what ethics is, that gives it so much power. By essentially leaving ethics indefinable, in the sense that it is not based on practicality or what fits the capitalist order, we may not exclude people because there is nothing from which to exclude them. Instead, a commitment to the incompleteness or “unfinalizability” of one’s ethical obligation is “to remind any political totality of its incompleteness, of its neglect for certain others, and of the ways in which it is inhospitable” (Corey Online). Thus, on the personal level, such a commitment “is absolute ethical care for ‘the other,’ for every ‘other,’ without conditions, without limitations, without demands, and without any expectation of reciprocity. We accept the other as other, without requiring that she conform to our rules or pay for our hospitality” (Corey Online). Most importantly, such an ethical commitment avoids Badiou’s concern that our current ethical dilemma is such that we only give aid to those who become like us, ultimately those who embrace capitalism. Instead, under this rubric, we do not “accept…the other…up to a certain point” as Badiou worries the West does now, but instead “preserve the promise of absolute hospitality” (Corey Online). Now, one must still be careful to understand that it would be naïve to believe that we are able to perfect our acts of hospitality for
all
political, legal, and religious forms of organization must, by necessity, be
inhospitable to some. But, insofar as we are conscious of unconditional
hospitality, we are acutely aware of the extent to which these forms [like
capitalism] are limited and exclusive. They are, to greater and lesser
extents, unjust. Thus, Derrida says we must live in constant tension –
between the conditional forms of tolerance and practice found in politics, law
and religion, and the unconditional imperative of absolute hospitality…he
encourages us to live in a perpetual state of critical reflection, of continual
unease with our worldly systems of politics and law. The moment that we
forget about the transcendent pole in this tension, the moment we try to
relieve the tension and abolish the notion of unconditional hospitality, that
is the moment when we will become enmeshed in what Derrida calls
“theologico-political” forms – that is, in thoroughly immanent metanarratives
that claim to be absolute but are, in fact, partial, exclusionary, and imperfectly
hospitable (Corey Online).
Therefore, by embracing Derrida’s notion of “democracy to come” we essentially give rise to four extremely important elements: first, the infinite obligation of my self to all others; second, and consequently, a recognition of the imperfectability of my ethical commitment; third, a recognition that this imperfection mimics the imperfection of global structures like capitalism and the law and that to claim that they are perfected will only ensure a collapse of ethical hospitality; and therefore fourth, that this impossibility must always be embraced as it reminds us always to strive toward the “democracy to come” by taking every chance we get to affirm our infinite obligation to the Other. In essence, our infinite commitment cyclically reaffirms itself in every act of awareness.
Up until now, however, the entire argument outlined has been framed in the abstract. Therefore, it becomes necessary to concretize the above into a more real world, interpretable context. While the very notion of infinite responsibility (on the personal level) and “democracy to come” (on a more structural level) seems to defy concretization, it is nevertheless important to hint at how such ideals may be implemented or initialized in the real world. Despite the importance of never finalizing one’s ethical obligations, “the need for real political decisions is never…abated” (Anderson-Irwin Online). This is not, however, an excuse to return to practicality in the sense that we must also be “practical” and make real political decisions that just happen to sacrifice the interests of the Other for our own. We must, above all, recognize our infinite responsibility to the Other. In the context internationalism, however, in order to fight the rampant inequality of capitalism and its byproducts of impoverishment, hunger and death, it becomes critical to turn to supranational institutions, and one in particular: the United Nations. Though Derrida recognizes “the limits of the state and law,” it is nevertheless possible, as on the personal level with one’s ethical responsibility, to act and simultaneously affirm the imperfection of the act (Corey Online). Similarly, one may embrace international law and the UN, simultaneously aware of its shortcomings and incompleteness. Indeed, it is this incompleteness that must always be maintained for to believe in a sort of pure efficacy would allow the UN to “[adopt] criteria that allow the other to be familiarized, domesticated and easily defined,” the very basis for the West’s current and flawed system of ethical obligation (Anderson-Irwin Online). Therefore, in the international realm it becomes crucial to look towards the UN as a site of impossible justice and to implore others to utilize and view it as such. At this point, however, we come to a crossroads for if the political system in its current state is corrupt and embedded within a flawed system then change seems impossible. Derrida, however, believes that
on
the one hand…there is an infinite perfectibility. We have to improve. We
shouldn't interrupt the work of these international institutions, the United
Nations, the UNESCO, and so many others. It's something good and we have to
improve them. This is an infinite process. But at the same time, it's not a
continuous infinite process. We have to try and displace some concepts which
are absolutely essential to these constitutions…this is not simply a continuous
progress, but sometimes a break…in the concept of state, in the concept of
internationality, in the concept of "citizen of the world"…To do
this, we need philosophy. That's why the
question of teaching philosophy is not simply a question for teachers and
pupils. It's a worldwide political question. If the citizens of all the
countries are not learned, some of them, in philosophy, they won't understand
anything to what's happening, not only in the newspaper, but in the decisions
of the state, the decisions of the Security Council, and so on and so forth.
Even if we think that we have to deconstruct some tradition, at the
same time we have to insist that these traditions be taught, and taught more
than ever. So philosophy is everywhere, philosophy is everywhere, today more
than ever. And so, in order to avoid the dogmatic use or exploitation of this
philosophy, teaching the discipline - that is, strengthening the people
professionally - is something... is a duty (Derrida “Jacques
Derrida's” Online; my emphasis).
Derrida thus suggests that one possible way of ensuring that an institution such as the UN is guided by similar ethical principles is to teach, to make known to all the importance of one’s ethical obligation and its role in the journey towards the “democracy to come.” Such a transformation of the global system, however, may be even easier than we may think. Peter Vale argues rather cogently that the structures of the world are also structures of the mind and thus are alterable by shifts in individual consciousness. This is not to say that we may simply think of an apple and watch it manifest in our hands but it gives hope to the transformation of institutions by recognizing them not as inhuman structures but as collections of peoples upon whose minds the function of the organization depends. Therefore, even though
at
first…there seems to be little hope of healing the fractured system…The tide of
recent events… has revealed the weakness of the sovereignty of states, and
presents a unique moment to look anew at the way the world, and the U.N., is
viewed. Consider, for example, this alternate proposition: the structures that
dominate our lives, including our approaches to the U.N., are only as permanent
as we make them. Crucial features of life, such as democracy, nations,
sovereignty, capitalism, the Cold War, and even the U.N., have concrete
manifestations, but are simply constructs
of the human mind. They are but theories, which at times certainly make us,
but are also made by us. "We are
as we are because we got that way," was one of Kenneth Boulding's reported
summations on the tide of human affairs. Theories and their concrete
manifestations, like the U.N., can be changed (Vale Online; my emphasis).
So, in light of this radical yet persuasive
understanding of the nature of international relations, the implementation of
our infinite ethical responsibility on a global level is within our hands. At
the simplest level then, it is just a matter of hope; we must change our minds
and hope to alter the world around us.
While leaving the fate of
the world to hope seems rather idealist and naïve, it becomes far more persuasive
when one proposes the question “What is left?” In this world of rampant
poverty, malnutrition, economic inequality, environmental degradation,
militarization and violence, where “millions
of children…drown every year…nearly 50 percent of women…are beaten…23
million [are] infected with AIDS…and…there are…a billion illiterate people and
140 million uneducated children,” it seems as if hope in ourselves is all that
we have left (Derrida “Intellectual Courage” Online). This hope, however, ought
not to be construed as a pessimistic signal of the death of human activism and of
the impossibility of compassion but instead should be embraced as yet another
chance to make right the wrongs of the world. Along with Derrida, we must
“continue to believe…in the possibility of this impossible” (Derrida Philosophy 115); “we have
to…speak and to act” (Derrida “Politics of Friendship” Online) with the
understanding that “change in institutions and change in individuals supports
and flows from the other” (Edwards 218). One may
nevertheless argue that today change is impossible. That to upset the global
order is something one is simply unable to do. And moreover that to commit
oneself to an ethical stance of infinite obligation is simply a waste of time.
If the above essay is not enough to raise even a bit of hope, even a flicker of
light, in one’s moral self then maybe he/she is right. It then seems, however,
appropriate to end with a quotation from David Campbell, a professor of
International Relations, on the issue of impossible justice that may convince
another, better than I, of the importance of ethical commitment.
To
declare that inaction is appropriate because there are either no national
interests at stake or not effective policy options available is to deny that
each presents a challenge to the affirmation of life. It is the idea of
affirming life that is the important criterion—and perhaps, albeit ironically,
the overriding principle—here; for in a situation of an-arche, of radical interdependence, one does not seek final
justifications, or commands, or morals, or rationalizations, or answers to the
“why” outside of life, beyond the nexus of being and acting. One affirms the
present, the life that one has, even in the most difficult of situations: as in
the case of the cellist who memorialized twenty-two civilians killed in a
mortar attack during the siege of Sarajevo by holding twenty-two solo
performances of Albinoni’s Adagio at the site of their deaths, or the Orthodox
Jew who, having prevented the lynching of a Palestinian after he had stabbed an
Israeli boy in Jerusalem, lamented, “I protected someone because he was a human
being, and found that I had to explain myself” (Campbell 86).
Works Cited
Anderson-Irwin,
Chris. “Beyond Economy, or the Infinite Debt to the Other: Caputo and Derrida
on Obligation and Responsibility.” j_spot:
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