Levinas and Political Theory Author(s): C. Fred Alford Source: Political Theory, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Apr.

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LEVINAS: SOMEIRREVERENCE

LEVINAS AND POLITICAL THEORY

C. FREDALFORD Universityof Maryland,College Park

How best to avoid the Levinas Effect, as it has been called, the tendencyto make Emmanuel Levinaseverythingto everyone?One way is to demonstratethat Levinas's thinkingdoes notfit intoany of the categoriesby whichwe ordinarilyapproachpolitical theory.If one wereforced to liberalism"would come closest to the categorizeLevinas'spolitical theory,the term "inverted mark. As long, that is, as one emphasizes the term "inverted"over "liberalism."Levinas's defense of liberalism is likely the strangest defense the reader has encountered.We should, argues Levinas, foster andprotectthe individualbecause only the individualcan see the tears of the other,the tears thateven thejust regimecannotsee. Theindividualis to befostered andprothis tectedfor thesake of theotherindividual.Whether has anythingto do with "real"liberalism, and whetherit should, is the topic of this essay. Keywords: Levinas;political theory;postmodernethics; liberalism

Politics left to itself bears a tyrannywithin itself. -Levinas1

Abstractand evocative, writingin what can only be describedas the language of prophecy,EmmanuelLevinas has become everythingto everyone. We assume we understand him, writingin much the same style, so as to say whateverwe wantedto say in the first place. The Levinas Effect it has been called, the ability of Levinas'stexts to say anythingthe readerwantsto hear, so thatLevinas becomes a deconstructionist, postmodern,or protofeminist, even the reconcilerof postmodernethics and rabbinicJudaism. Levinashas not yet hadmuchinfluenceamongpoliticaltheoFortunately, rists. I say "fortunately" because his influence would be bad (I think it not would be good), but only because there is still time to avoid the Levinas
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Effect. The question is how to do it. How best to think about Levinas as a political theorist without succumbing to the Levinas Effect? How best, in otherwords,to takeseriouslythe challengeLevinasposes to politicaltheory? One way to take his challenge seriously is to demonstratethat Levinas's thinking does not fit into any of the categories by which we ordinarily approach politicaltheory.If one were forcedto categorizeLevinas'spolitical theory,the term "invertedliberalism"would come closest to the mark.As long, that is, as one emphasizes the term "inverted"over "liberalism." Levinas's defense of liberalismis likely the strangestdefense the readerhas encountered.We should, argues Levinas, foster and protect the individual because only the individualcan see the tearsof the other,the tearsthateven thejust regime cannotsee. The individualis to be fosteredand protectedfor the sake of the other individual. Towardthe conclusion of this essay I speculate about why the Levinas Effect is so powerful. In other words, I speculate about why Levinas has become so widely read and cited among a large groupof postmoderns.The reasonis thatLevinas'approach grantsan ethicalaurato the categoriesof differenceandotherness.Levinasseems to providea way out of the postmodern version of the paradoxof relativismand tolerance.The paradoxis familiar. Relativism implies tolerance, but it also implies intolerance. Relativism implies anythingat all. If all beliefs are equal, then I may as well suppress some, all, or none. Orhold a lottery.Similarly,if the otheris totallydifferent from me, why should I not conclude thatthis makeshis or her welfare irrelevant to me, a happeningon a distantplanet?Because, says Levinas,the face of the other bears the trace of God. Withoutan assumptionlike this, there remains an unbridgeablegap between recognitionof otherness and difference and respect for othernessand difference. The gap may be bridgedby that arguments aremoreaestheticthandeontological(for example,varietyis for beautiful),butaestheticarguments moralityare,andshouldbe, suspect. Some who have turnedto Levinasuse him to grantan auraof the sacredto the other without acknowledging where the sacred comes from. Levinas's to his tendencyto separate theologicalandphilosophicalwritingscontributes the penchantof some postmodernsto write as if one could carryover into Levinas's philosophy the nimbus of the theological while writing as if one had nothingto do with the other,as thoughone could get the nimbuswithout its source. In order to see this more clearly, it will help to look first at Levinas's political theory,for there we see more clearly how extraordinary Levinas's argumenttruly is. Notjust extraordinary, Levinas'sargument occasionallybecomes bizarre, when writingaboutthe real world of politics, as Levinasdid for a especially series of articles in Esprit, a journalof progressiveCatholicthought.There

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Levinas writes of his fear that the West may be overrunby greedy Asian hordes. Elsewhere, in his writings about the State of Israel, Levinas sometimes seems to forget all his cautions aboutthe worshipof a place. Whether there is something in Levinas's political theory itself that leads to these derailmentswill be considered.

STATE WAR, OF STATE NATURE, AND THESTATE OF Though Levinas is no traditionalstate-of-naturetheorist, it is useful to considerhis projectfromthe perspectiveof thatfamiliartrope.Useful, butin some ways misleading. The experienceof infinity that Levinas writes of is not an experiencein place or time, not even the mythicalplace andtime of the state of nature.Nor does Levinas situate his own work within the state of naturetradition, even as he frequentlyalludesto it. Fromthe beginningto the end, Hobbes shadows Levinas's project. If the stateof natureis not an image close to Levinas'sheart,thenwhy do I begin with it? There are two reasons. First,to avoid the Levinas Effect. Turningto an image thatis compatible with Levinas'sthought,even if it is not a leading theme in his work, is a way of findingtherightdistancefromhim:not too close, not too far.Employinga tropemorecommonto Hobbes,Locke,andRousseauthanto those who most influenced Levinas-Husserl and Heidegger-is a way of gaining a little distanceon our subject.I promiseto cautionthe readerwhen the image of a stateof naturemight be misleading.Withthis image I am not tryingto make Levinas a political theorist.That would spoil the purpose of his project, as the epigraphsuggests. The trope of the state of natureis an attemptto create commensurability,which does not mean an identity, but a basis for comparison. Second, the image of the state of natureis not alien to Levinas. He concludes his late masterwork, OtherwisethanBeing, by rhetoricallyasking,"If the egalitarian just Stateproceedsfroma warof all againstall, or fromthe and irreducible responsibilityof the one for all?"And he begins his earlymasterwork, Totalityand Infinity,by asking if Hobbes's war of all against all is a permanentstate of being.2 Yes, he answers, which is why we must seek nonbeing.Frombeginningto end of his project,the image of the Hobbesian stateof natureis waitingin the wings, the hell to which men and women are consigned when they live only in and for this world. Levinas's difference with traditionalstate-of-naturetheorists is that he collapses the state of nature,the state of war,and the state itself. For Levinas,thereis little difference betweenthese threestates,which is why Totality Infinityequatesthe and

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stateof warwith the peace of empires-that is, with the existing worldorder: notjust among but within states. ForLevinas, the state of natureis the realmof contractsand exchange of sentiments,the warof all againstall by othermeans.In this orderthereis war and there is peace. The needs of the citizens of this world
relatethemto one anotherandcreatean 'economic'systemof mutualsatisfactionas well as a political networkof resistance,tension, war, and peace for the sake of satisfaction. Ruledby universalinterest,humanhistoryis an alternation warandpeace on the basis of of needs.3

For a moment Levinas sounds like Locke. The difference is that for Locke this state may become legitimate.For Levinas it never can. Put simply, for Levinas the social contract is war conducted by slightly more civilized means, dollarsand ballots, a point made by others,includingAlasdairMacFor Intyrein AfterVirtue. Levinas,the stateof war,the stateof nature,andthe stateareall variationson a commontheme,characterized Levinasin terms by of a "Cain-likecoldness,"which sees the world in termsof freedomor contract.Ordinaryhumanrelationsof affection and trustare mere transfersof sentiment(transfertsdu sentiment),as Levinas disparaginglycalls them, a selfish exchange in the marketof sentiments.4 Three propositions about the state define Levinas's project: peace is impossible within the state, peace is possible only beyond the state, going beyondthe stateto find peace cannotmeanleavingthe statebehind.All three propositionsare reflected in the title of an articlepublishedshortlyafterhis death, "Beyondthe State in the State."The transcendenceof the state must somehow take place within the state, even (or especially) the State of Israel, about which Levinas wrote several essays.5 The question, of course, is whetherall this wordplayleads to anythingsubstantial. ImaginingthatLevinas is writingaboutthe state of natureis one way of not answeringthisquestion.I locateLevinas'sstateof naturein anapartment, the most familiarplace to locate the stateof nature, one thatmakesperfect but sense once one recognizes that Levinas draws no distinction between the stateof natureandcivilized society. The cosmopolitanman or womanliving in an apartment Paris,andthe Indianliving in the woods of NorthAmerica in to whom Locke refers as exemplifying the stateof nature,areboth denizens of the stateof natureaccordingto Levinas.(Cosmopolitanis no compliment for Levinas, not only because of its associationwith modernanti-Semitism, but because even the cosmo-polis remainsa polis, a place.)6 Lest this equation of the state of natureand civilized society seem apt when applied to Levinas, but inapt when appliedto the traditionalstate-of-

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naturetheorists,recall that it is Locke who stressed the continuityof these two states (which is why dissolving the governmentdoes not lead to anarchy). Similarly,C. B. Macphersonarguesfor the virtualidentityof these two states as markersnot just for markets,but for the individualswho inhabit them. For Macpherson,the mark of possessive individualism,which joins not just Hobbes and Locke, but the state of naturewith civil society, is not materialacquisitiveness,but the "conceptionof the individualas essentially the proprietorof his own person or capacities.'"It is precisely this that Levinaschallenges. Or rather,it is precisely this with which Levinasagrees, which is why he deems it is necessaryto move beyondbothstateandnature. Sitting in your apartment,suddenly the doorbell rings. What could that portend? As you walk to the door you aredistracted,still thinkingaboutyour latest project.It takesyou a momentto recognizeyourneighborat the door,the one who lives upstairs;as soon as you recognize his face you invite him in. You talk for a while. He tells you his problem,you tell him what you might do to help him. You share some pleasant conversation,and soon enough your neighborleaves. Whatyou originallyexperiencedas an interruption now you has experienceas a pleasantinterlude,in which some understanding passed between you and your neighbor.Or so it seems to you.8 Insteadof immediatelyreturning yourwork,or allowingthe memoryof to a pleasantinterludeto linger,Levinasasks thatyou tryto recapture shock the of the other'sintrusion,the momentwhen you were firstconfrontedwith the otherperson'sface, butbeforeyou recognizedhim. Whatdid you experience in this fraction of a second? You experienced, says Levinas, an encounter with the otherin all his or her immediacy,butwith none of his or her particularity.The face (visage, but occasionallyface), says Levinas, is naked and vulnerable,common to all humansand absolutelyuniqueat the same time. The resultof yourencounteris an experienceof unmediatedothernessso shocking that for an instant it must have shatteredyour ego. Was it not an not irruption, just into your life, butinto the orderof your world?Did you not feel thata doorhadbeen openedinto anotherworld,notjust into the hallway of your apartment building, but into infinity? It cannothave been an entirelypleasantexperience,butperhapsit was not so unpleasant either.The worldof your apartment, your desk, andyour work is fulfilling, but limited. You soak up the morning sunlight that pours in throughthe big windows, and at nightthe sparklinglights of the city makeit seem as if you live in an enchantedworld, ready to meet your needs. But occasionally the thoughtcrosses your mind thatthere might be more to life thanthis.

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If one were going to characterizeyour life prior to the encounterat the door in terms of traditionalstate-of-nature theory,it would probablycome closest to thatof Rousseau.Not his "noblesavage,"but the earlieststages of civilization that follow, when men and women live togetherin families and a towns, "maintaining golden mean between the indolence of the primitive state and the petulantactivity of our vanity."9 The epigraphthat introduces Levinas's OtherwisethanBeing, his late masterwork, fromPascal." 'That is is my place in the sun.'Thatis how the usurpation the whole worldbegan." of This sounds like Rousseautalkingaboutthe adventof privateproperty, only for Levinaswhat spoils things is not property, the individual'sbelief that but he owns himself. Strikinglysimilarto Levinasis Rousseau'semphasison the narcissismof this earliest stage of civilization, in which men and women use each other withoutacknowledgingtheirdependence,theirneed for others.It is notjust property,but mutual dependence, which spoils this idyllic state. Or as Levinasputsit, "inenjoymentI am absolutelyfor myself. Egoist withoutreference to the Other,I am ... outside of all communicationand all refusalto Levinasputsit this way becausehe wantsawarenessof sepcommunicate.''0 aratenesswithoutawarenessof difference,for thatwouldimply thatthereis a totalitythatencompassesself andotherthroughwhich we know bothat once. For Levinas, I know others in my world, having intercoursewith them, but theyremainpartof the wallpaperof my life, presentbutunnoticed.Until, that is, they frustrateme. Though your apartment hardlysounds like Hobbes's state of nature,it is not so far away from thatconstructioneither.The stateof natureis an idea of greatsubtlety.AboutHobbes's stateof nature,SheldonWolinwritesthatit is not so much a place of violence as a state of subjectivity,what Levinas calls humanity'snaturalnarcissism(narcissisme).As Wolin puts it, "to describe the stateof natureas a stateof subjectivityratherthan as simply the absence of sovereign power points to Hobbes' belief that"what marks the state of natureis notjust, or even primarily, andviolence, butthe primacyof subwar jective reason,the reason that sees the world as prey,the subjectof my will andreason.This perceptionis, for Hobbes,naive,not the resultof strategicor scientific thinking,but the narcissisticnatureof man. Levinas would agree completely, which is why men and women must be lifted out of natureif peace is to be possible." something is Though you live a satisfying existence in your apartment, missing from your life, and your encounterwith the face at the door reminds you of what it is: the rest of the world,one thatextendsto infinity.When you heardthe doorbellringit could havebeen anyone,a worldof infinitepossibil-

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ities at yourdoor.Orat least so you mighthaveimaginedfor a moment.Fora momentthe orderof yourworldwas exposed to the disorderof infinitepossibility. Your neighbor could have been anyone, needing anything, asking everything. (Levinas began as a phenomenologist, and sometimes writes aboutpossibility as a humanproject.Here "possibility" refersto the shatterintrusionof othernessthat disruptsmy ego and opens me to eternity.In ing this regard,"possibility" a categoryon the borderof humanexperience,an is encounterbarelyknowable as experience.) Levinas's work is a reflection upon this moment of infinite possibility, though it is I, and not Levinas, who locates this moment in time, and it is I who makesit a reflection.Levinaswould call it an imperative, experience the a commandto servethe other.ForLevinasit is an experiencethatcomes from somewhere beyond "scientific"time, which is why one cannot say that it occurspriorto becomingan adult,a responsiblehumanbeing, or whatever. It is priorto everything. In this regard,to call Levinas's apartment state of naturecould be misa leading if one were to assumethatthe experienceof answeringthe call at the door exists in the same way that the encounterwith the other exists. These experiencesbelong to differentordersof being, or in the case of the encounter with the other,nonbeing.ForLevinas,one is borninto the stateof natureand a relationto infinityat the sametime;only fromtheperspectiveof humanhistory is natureprior. Forthis reasonit wouldbe a mistaketo characterize encounterwith the the otheras an experiencethatlifts you out of the stateof nature.One follows the otheronly because thatis how I have to tell the story step by step, as time is linear.In realityyou were alwaysalreadyin thrallto the other;youjust didn't know it yet. It is the encounterwith the otherat the door thatremindsyou of whatyou alreadyknew,althoughthatputsit too muchlike Plato'sanamnesis. Levinas understandsthe encounter in terms closer to the medieval nunc stans, an encounterbeyond time. The resultis not so much to lift you out of natureas to expose you to the heavensabove.Levinascalls it an experienceof exteriority. If the image of an apartment misleadingin some respects,in othersit is is not. Indeed,it is Levinas'sown image. As Derridaremindsus, Levinaswrites aboutdoors (porte) a lot, the door almost always representing opening to an infinity,one aboutwhich we have a choice whetherto open or close it. (The cover of Derrida'sAdieu to EmmanuelLevinasdisplays an image of an open door.) As Levinas puts it,
The separated being can close itself up in its egoism, thatis, in the very accomplishment of its isolation.And this possibilityof forgettingthe transcendence the other-of banof

THEORY Alford / LEVINAS AND POLITICAL ishing with impunityall hospitality... fromone's home atteststo the absolutetruth,the ... radicalism,of separation. Thepossibilityfor the home to open to the Otheris as essential to the essence of the home as closed doors and windows.12

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About truthsand images so abstractandmetaphysicalthey boggle the mind, homey images areessential-for Levinas,andfor us all. Strikingis thateven the stateof natureis a homey image for Levinas-an image of our corrupted naturalstatethatis daily transcended every time we aremoral."Allthe transfers of sentimentwhich theoristsof originalwar and egoism [a referenceto the stateof nature]use to explainthe birthof generositycould not takeroot in the ego were it not, in its entirebeing, or rather entirenonbeing," its subjectto infinity.13 Assumeyou open yourdoor.How mightyou respondto this experienceof the infinite?Youfeel shocked,maybea little scared,butaccordingto Levinas you also feel gratitudefor being releasedfrom your little world of pleasures andworries.It is a defeatof your self-satisfiedlittle worldthatis ultimatelya victory, as you now belong to another.You feel small and insignificant,but not devalued,because your life now has a purpose,to serve the other.Forthe first time in your life you are free. Not to do what you want, but to put your verybeing into question,andso open yourselfto the encounterwith the other. For Levinas, that is the true meaningof freedom,the investitureof freedom he calls it, as though you were a knight sent on a sacred quest to serve the 14 other. It is unnecessaryto inferhow Levinasunderstands place of freedomin the the experienceof answeringthe doorbell,for he tells us, definingethics as the calling into question of my freedom.'"Does this mean that ethics is more thanfreedom?No, it means thatI find my freedomin serving the important other.Freedomis heteronomy, autonomy.(Does this not makeit impossinot ble to call Levinas a liberal, even an invertedliberal?Not necessarily.)Not because freedomis servitude,butbecause in serving the otherI open myself to the infinite, the absolutely other.
But the calling into questionof this wild and naive freedomfor itself [an implicit reference to Sartre],sureof its refugein itself, is notreducibleto a negativemoment.This calling into question of oneself is in fact the welcome of the absolutely other.16

This welcome is my passage to freedom. Priorto your exposure to the other you existed in your own little world, like the apartment which you were workingbeforethe doorbellrang.Othin ers existed, they met your needs, but they were partof the background.One might say the same thing aboutyour self. It is only with your exposureto the other that you come to be, including to be free. Not, however,by means of

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what Hegel called the dialectic of mutualrecognition,in which you define yourself throughstrugglewith another.Dialectic requiresdialogue, contact, even struggle,and across the infinite space thatdivides us therecan be little humancontact.Levinascalls it a "relationship An withoutrelation." encounter takes place, but it is "withoutrelation,"as the other remains absolutely
17 other.

The face of my neighborat my door rendersme guilty as one who has done less thanhe could. (HereI mustchangegrammatical subjects,for I may only talk aboutmy guilt, neveryours, says Levinas.) I can neverdo enough, because doing enough would requirethatI know the other'sneeds as I know my own, andit is preciselythis reductionof the otherto the samethatLevinas would avoid.The best I can do is devote myself to servingthe one whose true need must forever elude me. Once I am exposed to the other, I can never returnto my desk and forget about the other,no matterhow much I might wantto. The otherhas intrudeditself between me andmyself. Responsibility is persecutedsubjectivity, only way in which subjectivitymay be known, the as the prosecutionof the narcissismof the I. "ThewordI meansto be answerable for everythingand for everyone,"says Levinas. 8 This, says Levinas, is real humanism,one that knows that it is the other humanwho comes first, defining me as the other's hostage. I am able to be (thatis, experiencemy own subjectivity),only as a hostage to the other.The subjectcomes into existence only throughits exposureto the other,which is what Levinas means when he defines subjectivityas the other in the same. "Thepsyche in the soul is the Otherin me, a maladyof identity."'9 malady A of identityit may be, but it is the only identitythere is, hostage being. I am self-conscious responsibleto the otherbecausemy existence as individuated, on my relationship the other.Before thatI was not to subjectdependsentirely much differentfrom a contentedcow, but one that drankup the milk of the world. In the three states of nature,men and women are not much different thancattle for Levinas, like the cattle to whom Plato refersin The Republic (586a-b), greedily eating one moment, kicking and buttingeach other with hooves and hornsof steel the next.

LEVINAS'S POLITICAL THEORY Thequestionis unavoidable. not Levinasdescribinga religiousencounIs ter,like thatof Saul on the roadto Damascus?"Weoppose to the objectivism of war a subjectivityborn from the eschatological vision."20 Shouldn't we keep experienceslike this out of politics? Isn't this what the last six hundred years have taughtus? Levinas doesn't think so. His work is an attackon the

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idolatryof politics in the name of a prepoliticalethics rootedin a primordial relationshipbetween two humans, a relationshipthat I have described in termsof answeringthe ringingat the door.Confrontedwith the other,I have buttwo choices: to kill him,or servehim. By kill Levinasmeansnotjust murder, but any refusal or neglect of the obligation this encounterasserts. Confidentthat reason can justify and found an objective orderthat preserves and protects the freedom of all (or some), political theorists busy themselvesapplyinguniversallaws. The resultis often peace, andsometimes what is called justice. But even justice may be violent, as it recognizes not needy andvulnerableindividuals(the meaningof the face of the other,naked and exposed), but types, statuses,and roles, such as a citizen with the right against self-incrimination.By treatingeveryone the same, justice actually participatesin what Levinas calls totalization,subjectingindividualityand uniquenessto universalcategories. Justiceis the signal virtueof mass democracy,anda decidedlyambivalent but one. Treatingeverybodythe same is betterthaninvidiousdiscrimination, it violates the humanityof your particularity. don't deserveto be treated You like everybodyelse; you deserve to be treatedlike you. "Wecall justice this face to face approach,in conversation."21 What exactly this means-what exactly this could mean-for the practiceof politics is, of course, the question. It seems as if Levinas is confusing realms:what we owe to individuals, and what we owe to politics. But perhapswhat looks like confusion is the consequence of the fact that Levinas uses categories subtly different than those political theoristsare used to. "Thereare, if you like, the tearsthata civil servantcannotsee: the tearsof the Other." This considerationalone-that rationalandjustifiablehierarchy does not see the individual-is the exonerationof subjectivityin Levinas's work. Someone must be thereto see the tears."TheI alone can perceivethe 'secret tears'of the Other,which are caused by the functioning-albeit reasonable-of the hierarchy."22 is Levinas's nonliberaldefense of liberal This individualism. The individualis the greatestvalue,butonly becausehe or she can see the tearsof the other.Whatmodifications(or shouldI say transformaof tions?)mustourpoliticaltheoryundergoto find a place for thisAufhebung liberalism? Most of Levinas'spoliticaltheoryis quiteordinary, least on the surface, at assuming institutions and laws like those we live under in the Western democraciestoday,includingbureaucracy. This is becausepoliticaltheoryis not abouttwo people, butmany,represented the third(le tiers),the otherto by of the Other."TheOtherand the thirdparty,my neighbors,contemporaries The one another, distancebetween me andthe otherandthe thirdparty."23 put

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introduction the third,the introduction political theory,changes everyof of ... and nothing. thing One seldom turns to politics with such a deep sense of relief. Not just because the tone of Levinas's politics lacks the hyperboleof his ethics, but because politics, the introduction the third,saves us from being consumed of the infinite need of the other. by I may owe the othereverything,butwhen therearemanyothersI mustdistributemy obligationsamongthem."Tothe extravagant generosityof theforthe-otheris superimposeda reasonableorder ... of justice throughknowlhis edge," is how Levinas puts it in "Peace and Proximity," most sustained treatment ethics andpolitics.24 of when therearemanyothersI Furthermore, too become an other,to whom still othershave obligations.I mustbe willing to sacrifice myself, but others may not ask it of me. Questions of justice take on a new meaning with the introductionof the third.Indeed,questionsof distributive justice firstbecome possible, for there was never any question of how much I owed the other vis-a-vis myself: everything.Now I mustconsiderhow to distribute responsibilities.While my my responsibilitiesmay be infinite, my resources,includingtime and attention, are not. The considerationsinvolved are little differentfrom ordinary is proceduresof distributive justice. Levinas puts it this way. "Comparison onto my relationshipwith the unique and the incomparable, superimposed and, in view of equity and equality,a weighing, a thinking,a calculation."25 Calling distributive justice a superimpositionmight be read as suggesting that it is not implied by the original encounterwith the other.This though does not seem correct,as Levinassuggests thatotherswere presentall along, flanking,so to speak,my originalencounterwiththe face of the other,"where If in his turnthe Otherappearsin solidaritywith all the others."26 so, then we must conclude thatthe imperativeto care for all the othersis itself partof the original encounterwith the other.How we do so is the subjectof justice. The double structure communityis how Simon Critchleyrefersto this of of Levinas's thought,the way it seems to call us to be responsiblefor aspect one and many at the same time. The community is a relationshipamong equals that is nonetheless based on the inegalitarianmoment of the ethical relationship. In putting it this way, Critchley smoothes over the tension between saying and said, the face-to-face and the community. To be sure, there is apparentevidence in Levinas for this interpretation. Critchleyquotes Levinasas statingthatjustice is "anincessantcorrectionof the asymmetryof proximity"--thatis the asymmetryof theface-to-facerelationship, in which I owe the other everything.But by this Levinas does not mean thatthroughjustice "I become the Other'sequal,"as Critchleyputs it. Levinasmeansquitethe opposite:thatwe areall unequalbeforethe other.27

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Instead of creating a symmetricalrelationshipamong equals, Levinas constructsan aporia,or perhapsit is just an impossibilitytheorem:thatI be responsiblefor all the others as I was for the one other.As JeffreyBloechl putsit, "Itis notjust this one otherpersonwho obsesses me, butall the Others too. This is more than an empiricalcomplication:in the humanface, I am commandedby all the Othersat once."28 How can I do whatcannotbut must be done? This is the leading problemposed by Levinas for politics. The introduction the third,which appeared be such a relief, turnsout of to to be no such thing.While the thirdmakesme an otherto all the others,ensuring thatI too will not be sacrificed,the thirdadds anotherother(actually,an infinitenumberof others)whom I mustserve. "Theface is both the neighbor and the face of all faces,"says Levinas.29 Ratherthanrelieving me fromobliof gation,Levinas's introduction the thirdrelieves politicaltheoryfrom having to justify whatit can only serve. Politics need no longerfulfill the role it is incapable of fulfilling, that of founding philosophy. "The role assigned to philosophyis not to providesolutions,butto preventthe cynicism of political reason from silencing otherdimensionsof thought."30 While the thirdprovidesonly fugitive relief, anotheraspect of Levinas's politics providesmore lasting illumination,his critiqueof mass democracy. One has to look long and hardfor this critique,for it is nowhere systematically developed. One finds it in some shortpieces on currentevents written decades earlier, many for Esprit, the voice of "progressive,avant-garde as Catholicism," Levinasput it.31In "Reflectionson the Philosophyof Hitlerism,"originallypublishedin 1934, Levinaswrites of the returnof paganism, the forces of race and nature,what he calls the forces of fatality.32 a 1956 In "Surl'esprit de Geneve,"referringto a summitconferencethat for a essay, brief moment promised relief from the cold war, Levinas writes of forces withoutfaces, by which he means nuclearweapons. In both essays the guiding idea is the same, thathumansare no longer in chargeof theirhistory.We have given ourselvesover to the forces of a reifiednature,the forces of fatality, be they race or atomic energy.
The inhuman,which in those centuries was prodigious, came to us still throughthe human.The humanrelationsthatmadeup the social orderandthe forces thatguidedthat order exceeded in power,efficacy andin being those of theforces of nature.... [Now] for the first time social problemsand strugglesbetween humansdo not revealthe ultimate meaning of the real. The end of the world will lack the last judgement. The elements exceed the states thatuntil now containedthem.... For politics is substituteda cosmopolitics that is a physics.33

In this assessmentLevinas sharesmuch with the Frankfurt School's criBoth see reasonandprogressas leadtique of the dialecticof Enlightenment.

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of worldis investedwith new powing to a return the primitive,as the natural ers to reign over man. That too is paganismfor Levinas. These forces also constitutea third,an alienated,inhumanotherthatthreatensto make human politics obsolete. Seen from this perspective,the face takes on a new importance,last remnantof the humanin an increasinglyinhumanworld.Fromthe perspectiveof Hitlerismand the Cold War,even Levinas's chargeof paganism looks a littledifferent.No longera way of removingthe sublimefromthe experienceof nature(for Levinas,only the humanface is worthyof ourawe), of paganrefersto the remythification natureby the categoriesof science and pseudo-science. For a moment, paganism sounds like what the Frankfurt School called instrumentalreason. One does not think first of Levinas as critic of the loss of individualityin mass democracy,butthattoo is one of his iterations.No defenderof liberalindividualism,Levinasdefendsthe individual because only the individualcan see the tearsof the other. Their analyses of the disease of Westernthoughtare so similar,both in tone andcontent,includingthe tone thatis theirguilt at the self-assertionnecessary to exist in this world, thatit comes as a surprisethatin manyrespects Levinasandthe Frankfurt School aretalkingaboutdifferentthings. Both are concernedwith the tendencytowardtotalization,best defined as the reduction of the otherto the same, the eliminationof difference.The momentone looks at theirsolutions, however,it becomes apparent they mean somethat differentby totalityand same. Against totality,TheodorAdorno thing quite sets the particular. Levinassets infinity.The differencecould not be anymore fundamental than that, or so it seems. ReversingKantiansubjectivity,Adornowould let the objecttake the lead in defining itself. Yield to the object;do justice to its qualities;refrainfrom definition. Let the object be, approachit with utmost velleity, help it to become what it is. These are the watchwordsof Adorno's approach,whose utopiangoal is, as MartinJay puts it, "therestorationof differenceand nonconstellationof subjecidentityto theirproperplace in the non-hierarchical tive andobjectiveforces he called peace."ForAdorno,the subjectandobject remainin a tenderrelationship,almost like a teacherwaiting patientlyfor a child to finish her long storywithoutinterrupting. "Distantnearness"Jiurgen Habermashas called it, a useful termas long as we rememberto emphasize the distance over the nearness.34 For Adorno, beautifulothernessis principally an aestheticexperience,one thatrequirescloseness, but not intimacy. Not distantnearness,buta "relation marksthe encounter withoutrelation" with the otherin Levinas's work.If Levinashas a motto,it is these lines from which he quotes more thana dozen Dostoevsky's TheBrothersKaramazov, times throughout work."Everyone of us is guilty beforeall, for everyone his

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and everything,and I more than others."For Levinas, the only ethical relationshipbetween you and me is one in which I become your hostage, persecuting myself for your sins as Levinasputs it. Anythingless, or more, is egoism in disguise. By contrast,Adorno's account of distant nearness sounds positively cuddly, a term one would otherwise not associate with Adorno, though Habermasonce used the term anschmiegen (snuggle) to describe Adorno's ideal relationshipto nature.35

IS" ISRAEL, ASIA,AND "THERE In Levinasand the Political, HowardCaygill comparesLevinas's silence on the subject of the State of Israel to Heidegger's silence on Germany.36 Caygill is unfair,and not just because Levinas was a citizen of France,not Israel.It's unfairbecause Levinaswas not silent aboutIsrael.He spoke out a lot, even if he didn'tsay whatCaygill would have him say. Nevertheless,one can appreciateCaygill's concern. For Levinas, state and place are pagan idols, virtualtotems. Accordingto Levinas,the greatestcritic of Heidegger, the philosopherof place, was YuryGagarin,the Soviet cosmonautwho first orbited the earth, showing the potential of technology to transcend the archaic spirits of place.37In light of this analysis, asks Caygill, how can Levinas write that the foundationof the State of Israel marks "one of the greatestevents of internalhistory,and, indeed, of all history?"38 There is no simple answer,certainlynot one thatcan be tracedhere. Suffice to say thatwhen Levinaswritesof Israel,sometimeshe refersto the state, andsometimesto the bearerof a prophetichistory,a statethatis moreandless thana state,comprisedtoo of the Diaspora,who shouldserveto keep the state honest to its ideals. It is in this context thatCaygill criticizes Levinas,citizen of the Diaspora,for his "tooeloquent"silence. It would be more accurateto criticizeLevinasfor occasionallywritingaboutrealstates,andso runningthe riskof confusingthe Stateof Israelwith Israel.SometimesLevinasdoes this. As often, Levinas remindsus not to, as when he concludes an interviewon ethics and politics by stating"a personis more holy thana land, even a holy land, since, faced with an affrontmade to a person,this holy land appearsin its nakednessto be, but stone and wood."That is, an idol.39 If Levinas's writings about Israel are generally albeit imperfectly nuanced,the same cannot be said of his few brief writings about Asia and Asians. "Underthe greedy eyes of these countless hordeswho wish to hope and live, we, the Jews and Christians,are pushed to the marginsof history." Why would Levinaswritethis?Why would this greatlover of the otherrefer

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to "the rise of countless masses of Asiatic and underdeveloped peoples ... who no longer refer to our holy history,for whom Abraham,Isaac and Jacob no longer mean anything?"40 they once? Why would Levinas Did cautionRussia (he meansRussia,the Europeanpower,not the Soviet Union) duringthe Cold Warnot to
drownitself in an Asiatic civilization.... The yellow peril!It is not racial,it is spiritual.It does not involveinferiorvalues;it involvesa radicalstrangeness,a stranger the weight to of its past,fromwhich theredoes not filterany familiarvoice or infliction,a lunaror Martian past.41

Is Levinas out of his mind? Caygill speculates that Levinas's real targethere is Arab nationalismin conflict with the State of Israel. Not Asia but Egypt is Levinas's concern. Thatseems farfetched,especially since it is not to EgyptbutChinathatAbraham, Isaac, andJacobare strangers.CertainlyLevinashas become unglued. Those who turnto Levinas for inspirationmust determinewhetherthere is somethingin his metaphysicsthatleads him to these bizarreconclusions, or are his views aboutAsia a personalquirk? They are more than a quirk. The difference between Levinas and the Frankfurt School pointsto the reasonwhy. Forthe Frankfurt School, the goal is a new relationshipwith being (to use this troublesomeabstraction),one markedby terriblecaution, what Adorno calls velleity, the weakest kind of desire,but a desirefor being nonetheless.ForLevinas,on the otherhand,the goal is to escape from the terribleburdenof being, what Levinas calls il y a, "thereis," existence withoutexistents, as Levinas puts it.42 writes that we dread"the presentimentof something Soren Kierkegaard thatis nothing."43 dreadnothingness,our own nonbeing.Levinasis writWe ing about an experience that is in important ways the opposite of the of Kierkegaard's, presentiment nothingthatis something,the absenceof that returnsas a presence that threatensto drown me in being. everything " 'Thereis' is being withoutnothingness," "Thereis" means says Levinas.44 to be locked in being with no escape, no exit. About the experienceof "there is," Levinas writes,
My reflection on this subject starts with childhood memories. One sleeps alone, the It adultscontinuelife; the child feels the silence of his bedroomas 'rumbling.' is something resemblingwhat one hearswhen one puts an empty shell close to the ear,as if the emptiness were full, as if the silence were a noise. ... Existenceand Existentstries to describe this horriblething, and moreoverdescribes it as horrorand panic.45

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ThoughLevinastells us thatthe idea of "thereis" occurredto him for the first time while he was in the Stalag(Levinaswas imprisonedin a campfor French officers duringWorldWarII), the experience evidently began in his childhood, duringthose long nights in which he could not fall asleep. ThoughLevinas practicallyinvites us to interpret"thereis" as a psycho"there On logical phenomenon,it is best to resistthe temptation. the contrary, is" is not a psychological phenomenonbecause all thatmakesan experience psychological, thatis subjectivelyknowable,is overwhelmedwith the dread of mereexistence, merebeing. "Itis not,"says Levinas,"amatterof escaping from solitude, but ratherof escaping from being."46 The path that winds through"thereis" may seem a strangedetourfrom Levinas'sanxietiesabout Asia, but the detoursoon rejoinsthe main road. Levinas is at risk of experiencing reality,whatis often called being, as a creepy,threatening thing,ready at any moment to swallow one up. One is reminded here of Sartre's Roquentin,sitting on a bench in the park beside a chestnut tree, suddenly experiencingthe roots of the tree as monstrous,aboutto absorbhim in their mere being. ForSartre,the otheris the deathof me.47Levinaswould agree.The difference is thatfor Levinasthis is good. My deathis my salvation,the deathof my ego thatopens me to infinity.Herefinally is an exit frombeing, says Levinas, in an explicitreferenceto Sartre.Justanswerthe doorbellandit's there,relief from the horrorof "condemnation perpetualreality,to existence with 'no to exits.' "48 De l'vasion three years before Sartre'sNau(Levinas published sea; Levinas and Roquentinsuffer from much the same malaise.) Forthe most part,Levinasdeals with the experienceof "thereis" through the constructionof exits. This "evasion,"as Levinas calls it, constitutes99 percent of his project. Occasionally,however, when confrontedwith those most alien of humanbeings, who know nothingof the promiseof Abraham, Levinaswritesof Asians as thoughthey were aboutto swallow him up, erasing all distinctions,so that"soonno one will botherany more to differentiate between a Catholic and a Protestantor Jew and a Christian."49 Levinas is Roquentinin China, anxiously waiting to be devouredby the "two billions eyes that watch us." Somethingdeeply disturbinglies nearthe heartof Levinas'smetaphysics. The questionwe mustansweris whetherthis destroyswhat is of value in his political theory. I do not believe it does. On the contrary,I believe that Levinas's political theory is the best partof his project.What our considerationsmeanis thatwe must approachLevinas'spoliticaltheorynotjust with wonder,but caution:notjust aboutwhat he says aboutAsians, but abouthis deep commitmentto escape from being that motivateshis lapse.

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AND INVERTED LIBERALISM SUBSTITUTION Recall Michael Sandel's brilliantdeconstructionof Rawls. Ostensibly a theory of justice based on an account of how rational individuals would choose in ignoranceof theirown positionin anyfuturesociety, Sandelpoints out thatRawls'sA Theoryof Justicein effect assumesthatindividualsdo not in own or possess their own selves. Instead,they "participate one another's as the nature," Rawls puts it in characterizing ideal community.50 Whateverthe meritsof Sandel's argument,it has nothingto do with what Levinascalls substitution. the contrary, On Levinasinsists on the narcissistic before I confrontthe other,a qualitythatI qualityof my life in my apartment nevercompletely lose. If I neededotherstoo much,if I blend with them,then I cannotdevote myself to theirservice. If I did not exist as a separateindividual, I could not see their tears. In substitution,I am called upon to put myself in the place of the other, answering for everything the other has done, becoming responsible for everythingthe otherneeds. Substitutionis not, for Levinas, a type of moral choice. On the contrary,substitutionis not just premoral,but preconscious. Substitution stemsfromthe primordial experienceof the other,anexperience thatprecedes my relationshipto myself. "Therelationshipwith the nonego precedesany relationshipof the ego with itself."''This does not mean thatI am not a separate Levinasinsists on being, with my own ego. On the contrary, If I were not separate,I could not substitutemyself for the my separateness. other.I would in some way alreadybe the other,like Sandel'sselves who flow throughone another. Substitutiondefies the distinctionbetween separateand fused. The other is alreadyin me, closer to me thanI am to myself, butthe otheris not me. The otheris my saving grace, an alien presencethatallows me to open myself to the world, a foreign body thatwedges itself between me and my ego, and so allows me to escape my narcissisticsoul by devoting myself to the other in me (l'autre dans le meme).52 Substitutionis generallycharacterized criticizedby those who study and too Levinasin phenomenologicalandpsychological terms.Isn't substitution too masochistic,too deindividuating, extreme?Hereit is moreuseful to consider the political implicationsof substitution.If the otheris alreadyin me, but not only not me, but infinitely distant from me, then Levinas has not subOn developeda communitarian challengeto individualism. thecontrary, stitutionimplies a nonliberaljustificationof the key assumptionof liberalism, the supremevalue of the individual.If only the individualcan see the tearsof the other,thenthe individualmustbe preservedat all costs; not for the sake of the individual,but ratherfor the other.53

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Because his focus is on ethics (that is, the relationshipof one person to another), because in the end this is the only relationshipthat counts for Levinas,could one not arguethatLevinas's teachingis compatiblewith the softer forms of authoritarianism-authoritarianism with a humanface as it would leave its subjects room to might be called? This authoritarianism devote themselves to each other,as long as they leave the politics to others. YugoslaviaunderTito mightbe an example.Citizensdid not live in daily terror;theywere moremateriallysecurethanin manycountries,includingsome Westernones; andthey hadtime andplace and space to carefor each other,if they chose. (The irony of this example does not escape me.) The compatibilityof Levinas's teachingwith the softer forms of authoritarianismis an interestingproposition,but for two reasons it does not work. First,Levinas says it doesn't. Nowhere does he suggest he is anythingother thana democrat,and if he worriesaloud aboutwhether"liberalismis all we need to achieve an authenticdignity for the human subject,"he never suggests that what lies beyond liberalismhas anythingto do with leaders and states.54AboutAsians andseveralothermatters Levinasrunsoff the rails,but never aboutdemocracy. Secondly, and more to the theoreticalpoint, the distinctionbetween the otherand the thirdis not trulytemporal.The thirdwas always alreadythere. "The thirdlooks to me in the eyes of the Other.. . . It is not that there first wouldbe the face, andthenthe being it manifestsor expresseswouldconcern himself with justice. The epiphanyof the face qua face opens humanity."5 The thirdwas thereall along, which meansthatall along my problemwas to balancemy obligationto you andall the others.Since I too am a thirdto all the others,I may not be sacrificedfor them, even if I choose to sacrificemyself. Explicatingthe phrase"Iam responsiblefor the persecutionsthatI undergo," the epitomeof substitution, Levinasdeclaresthatthis positioncannotbe generalized. It applies only to me. My relations,my people, are alreadyothers, has andfor themI demandjustice. "Tosay thatthe Other(Autrui) to sacrifice himself to the others (les autres) would be to preachhumansacrifice!"56 In such a world, thereis no place for authoritarian rule, howeverbenign. The first is the other,the second is me, and the thirdis all in others at once. Thereis no room and no place for a fourth,the ruleror party.The only argument one might possibly make along these lines is that in Levinas's world thereis really no place for politics period, and it is precisely this thatmakes his accountdangerous.To ignore politics doesn't make it go away, as good Marxists learned long ago. But Levinas doesn't ignore politics, as I shall show. Fromthe perspectiveof substitution,thereis only one political question: how do I makemy infiniteobligationto the othersocial?Thatis, how do I dis-

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tributemy infiniteobligationto the otherin a worldof others?As equally as possible seems to be Levinas's answer,though in his later work he stresses my obligationto my neighbor,no longer the abstractother,but a real person near me. This raises some difficult issues, including that of weighing my obligation to strangerand neighbor.Theoreticallymy obligation to each is infinite;practicallythat cannotbe. How to parse the difference? Levinas will not answer.Doing so would requirea universalethics like Kant's,or at least a universalformula.All Levinaswill do is statethatthereis no solution, only a uniqueobligationto a multiplicityof others.Thereis no solutionbecauseLevinas'sentireprojectis to challengeprinciples,contracts, and the like as instancesof a totalizingtendency,the tendencyto reducethe individualto an instanceor status.Insteadof universalprinciples,justice is foundedon the infiniteresponsibilityof each for all the others.It is the taskof politics, in conjunctionwith tradition,to work out the details. The last sentenceputsit too simply.Custom,law, andhabitarethe frames within which we act on our responsibilities.Withoutthese frames,we could not act on our responsibilitiesbecause we could not act in a calculable,reasonable, and predictableway. This is what Levinas means when he writes of "beyondthe state in the state."Levinas's conservatismis real and entirely practical. On the other hand, it is the whole point of the face that it is anarchicintrusioninto the all world,shattering framesandforms.Thinkhereof the wordof theprophet. In TheSymbolismof Evil, PaulRicoeurwritesof prophecyin termsof the tension between infinite demandand finite commandment.We thinkof the prophetas the one who uttersa demandaimedat the sinfulhumanheart.Consequently,it is a demandthatcan neverbe met.The resultis to place God at an infinite distance from man, the One who accuses. But that is not the whole story. For a long time, biblical critics "failed to recognize this rhythm of prophetismand legalism. They also displayed an excessive contempt for legalism.... This tension between the absolute, formless, demandand the finite law, which breaks the demand into crumbs, is essential."Consider Moses. At the moment when "Moses is supposed to promulgatethe moral andculturalcharter... it is to the innerobedienceof the heartthathe appeals (Deuteronomy6, 11, 29, 30)."57 Levinas is no lawgiver.Levinas is a prophetin precisely thatsense explicatedby Ricoeur,albeitone who adoptsa series of increasinglyabstractformulations:not only for the word of God, but for the experienceof God. An God anthropomorphic is transformed Levinasinto an abstractexperience by of excess so extreme that it shatters all my categories. The story about this answeringthe doorbellis an attemptto characterize experience,God as a shadowshattering experienceof otherness.Behindthis experience,or rather

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ing this experienceof the other,is an encounterwith Illeity (illeite), a neologism coined by Levinas and formed on the Latinor Frenchfor he. Illeity is God. One way to thinkaboutIlleity is in termsof its relationshipto the il y a, with which it is linguisticallycoupled. "Mightone then infer that the il y a mimes the transcendenceit occludes?"asks Edith Wyschogrod." Yes, and God is the opposite of merebeing. Morethanthatwe cannotsay, even as we surround ineffable He-ness with a thousandstories. an One of these stories concernsthe everlastingtension between Jerusalem and Athens. "Both the hierarchy[by which Levinas means law, state, and bureaucracy] taughtby Athens and the abstractand slightly anarchicalethical individualismtaughtby Jerusalemare simultaneouslynecessaryin order to suppressviolence," says Levinas, referringnot just to physical violence, butto every way of living thatdoes not putthe otherfirst.But while hierarchy and ethical individualismare both necessary,Levinas concludes that in our era the "protestagainsthierarchy" must take precedence.59 In our age, violence is more likely to be the resultof the smoothlyfunctioningsystem than its breakdown.Ethicalrevolutionis today more importantthanbuilding up the institutionsof law andjustice, even as theremight come a day when this was not the case. The tensionbetween prophecyandjustice, the claims of the otherand the claims of all the others,abides.Thereis no solution,no answer,just "permanenttensionandambiguity," Bloechl putsit.6 Justiceremainsa dangerous as as business, as likely to subduethe particular serve it. But whatis the alternative? It seems too easy to conclude, as one commentatordoes, that for Levinas "philosophy serves justice by both thematizing difference and To reducingthe thematizedto difference."6' be sure,it is Levinashimself who a good source for a sympatheticcritic.62 that doesn't But says this, always make it right. Levinas downplays the radicalismof his own automatically teaching,making it more symmetricalthan it is, contributingto the formalism to which Caygill refers. Not symmetrybut impossibility is the markof Levinas's political theory,in which philosophy servesjustice by reminding us thatits task is impossible-to treateach and every other as though he or she were my world. Levinas would teach us to live with this impossible task withouttelling us how. For all its strangeness,Levinas's accounthas room for politics. Politics is of because politics is notjust aboutthe administration things, but important the rationalizationof justice-the calculation and weighing of infinite responsibility,no small matter.Levinas puts it this way in a late interview.
Ricoeur,in le Monde,speakingof the recentEnglishelections, expressedhis sorrowthat, in England,a majorityof people, having what they need, vote as landlords,as no one is

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concerned about the poor. [This is] one of the dangersof democracy:the permanent exclusion of a minoritythatalways exists.63

This is not the teaching of an unpoliticalman, even if his conclusion is not merely political. On the contrary,in an implicit reference to the state-ofnaturetheoristsLevinasarguesthatthe stateexists for those who cannotfight for theirown being, who areabsentfromthe state.64 this Derridainterprets as meaningthatthe justice of the stateis measuredby how well it cares for the alien, the metic, the nonresident.However,AnnabelHerzog seems closer to the spiritof Levinas(andRicoeur)when she writesthatLevinasis firstof all thinkingof the poor,the hungry,the naked,and the homeless. Fromthis perspective, the distinctionbetween citizen and noncitizen is blurred,and that comes closer to Levinas's own thinking.65 citizen versus noncitizen,but Not personwho can representhimself or herself (his or her being) versusperson who cannot. That is Levinas's basic political distinction,one not lacking in subtlety. Hereis the dilemma.The stateshouldfeed, clothe, andhouse thepoor.For the state to care for the poor, the poor must be made subjectto bureaucracy, renderedfaceless, less thanfully human.If the statedoes not do this, the poor may go hungry,naked,andhomeless. Thereis no solution,only "areversalof the orderof things!"66 Somehowthe statemustbecome the place whereindione by one, become hostage to those in greatest need. About this viduals, "somehow"Levinasneitherelaboratesnor offers examples.It is this "somehow" state that I have called invertedliberalism.Levinas and his followers have used the terms "utopia," and "surplus," even "democracyto come" to characterizethis same state. If there is place for politics in Levinas's work, this does not make him a political theorist, though there is certainly a tendency among more recent of interpreters Levinasto makehim one. As Critchleyputs it in TheEthics of Deconstruction:Derrida and Levinas, for Levinas "ethicsis ethical for the sake of politics-that is, for the sake of a new conceptionof the organization of politicalspace."67My interpretation leans in the otherdirection.The origin of Levinas's ethics in the face-to-face relationship imposes impossible demandson politics. That is why political theoristsshould be interestedin him. Not because he is relevantto political theory,but because he isn't. Critchleyis one of those postmodernsreferredto in the introduction,a theoristof differenceand othernesswho finds in Levinasone who grantsan ethical nimbusto the categoryof the other.Levinas, says Critchley,puts the self into question,allowing the self access to otherness.This statementabout Levinas, which is true, is used to argue that the work of both Levinas and

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Derridarests upon an "unconditional categoricalimperativeof affirmation," one thatproducesa readingthatcommandsrespect for the other.68 Ignore, if you will, the move from people to texts, a move which itself deserves scrutiny,but not here. What is clear is that the affirmationof the otherin Levinas'swork stems not merelyfromthe othernessof the other,but fromthe sacrednessof the other,the way in which the face of the othercarries with it the traceof a God who has no name but Illeity, and no qualities,only infinite difference and distance. Without this trace, the affirmationof the othermight as well be the negationof the other.Othernessis itself not valuable, except perhapsin the aestheticsense thata diverseworld is more interesting andpleasingto manythana uniformone. (Othernessis not tantamount to diversity,of course;a world filled with many othersmay be.) But thereis not a hint of this argumentin Levinas. There is a related misreadingof Levinas that would achieve much the same end by a less circuitousroute. It is the more popularmisreading,running something like this. When we open ourselves to the experience of the radianthumanface, we open ourselves to an experiencethatcombines sympathyfor humanitywith an awe thatremindsus of the awe humansfeel in the presenceof the holy. Facedwith an experiencethatcombineshumanrelatedness with sacredawe, we find we cannot kill or harmthe other.69 Thereis enoughevidence for this readingin Levinasthatit would be more accurateto call it a partialand incompletereadingratherthan a misreading. Nevertheless,Levinascannotbearthis readingeither,as it implies too much mutualityon the one hand,too mucha vision of manmadein God's image on the other.Levinaswould explode the myth of mutualityand with it the myth of a supremebeing, one capableof being characterized any image at all, by let alone a humanone. A supremenonbeingcomes closer to the markas faras Levinasis concerned,and thatcategorydoes not lend itself to an experience of humanmutuality,as Derridahas argued.70 experience of the human The face as infinitelyother,and so deservingof my worship,as God is, is itself a religiousexperience,one thatshouldnot be sociologically parsedor theoretically parceledout. Is Levinas's projectthe intrusionof Jerusaleminto Athens, the insertion of infinitywhereit has no place, politicaltheory?It could be argued.Indeed, it is not clear thatpolitical theory,as opposed to the ethical practiceof politics, remainsa distinct enterprisein Levinas's account, though presumably each of us needs help in the rigorousweighing of our infiniteresponsibilities to others-not exactly the stuff of philosophy and public policy studies, though perhapsit should be. The term"eachof us" may surprise,as thoughthe task of political theory were to help each of us, one by one, be more responsible for others. This

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comes closer to the markfor Levinas. ThoughLevinas is no liberal, aspects of his political theorycome surprisinglyclose, as I have suggested.The reawhich Levinas soning, though, is entirely different. Against "liberalism," both embraces and rejects, as we have seen, Levinas opposes none of the usual categories,but "secrecy," surprisingchoice. Withthe term"secrecy" a Levinasis not talkingaboutprivacyor isolation,butthe "secrecywhichholds to the responsibilityfor the other."71Responsibilityis an intimaterelationeven bureaucratized, Levinassuspectsthat ship. While it mayberationalized, in the end it is mass society, in all its guises, liberalandtotalitarian, is the that greatenemy of responsibility,for mass society compromisesthe privacyof the soul. Would liberal democracy change its institutionalstructure,or only its meaning,underLevinas'spolitical theory?Evidently "only"its meaning.If the individualis valuablebecause only the individualcan see the tearsof the other,theneverythingchanges, andeverythingremainsthe same as faras liberalismis concerned.It would be as if one scooped out the old liberal structure,filling it up with new substance,the experienceof being hostage,even as the structure continuedto look the same from the outside. Fromthe outside liberaldemocracylooks the same because its goal remainsthe same, to protect the autonomousindividual,which includesallowinghim or hersome say in how he or she is governed.Whathas changedis the meaningand purpose of individualexistence: not to serve or express oneself, but to serve others. Forthis the individualstill needs to be fosteredandprotectedmuchas before, albeitfor differentreasons-so thathe or she can dedicatehimself or herself to the tearsof the other.Wittgensteinsaid thatphilosophy leaves everything as it was. Levinaswould leave the institutionsof liberalindividualismmuch as they are, so thateverythingelse might change.

NOTES
1. Levinas, Totalityand Infinity:An Essay on Exteriority,trans. Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh,PA:Duquesne UniversityPress, 1969), 300. 2. Levinas, OtherwisethanBeing: Or BeyondEssence, trans.AlphonsoLingis (Pittsburgh, PA: DuquesneUniversityPress, 1998), 159. "1'Etategalitaireetjuste" is how Levinasputs it in the Frenchoriginal,Autrement 'etreou au-delt de l'essence (Paris:Livre de Poche, 1990), qu 248. Levinas, Totalityand Infinity,21-30. 3. AdriaanPeperzak,Tothe Other:AnIntroduction the PhilosophyofEmmanuelLevinas to (WestLafayette,IN: PurdueUniversityPress, 1993), 19. I amquotingPeperzak,not Levinas,but their views here (and generally) are identical. 4. "Cain-likecoldness"in EmmanuelLevinas, Of God WhoComesto Mind,trans.Bettina in CA: Stanford of Bergo(Stanford, UniversityPress, 1998), 71. "Transfer sentiments," Emmanuel Levinas, "Substitution," Basic Philosophical Writings,ed. AdriaanPeperzak, Simon in

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Critchley,and Robert Bernasconi (Bloomington and Indianapolis:IndianaUniversity Press, 1996), 79-96 at 91. Levinascites Hobbesas an exampleof this way of thinkingin the note (36) to this passage. 5. EmmanuelLevinas,"Beyondthe Statein the State," New Talmudic in Readings,ed. Richard Cohen (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne UniversityPress, 1999), 79-107. A couple of Levinas's articles on Israel can be found in a collection of mostly religious readings by Levinas titled Beyondthe Verse:Talmudic Readings and Lectures,trans.G .Mole (London:Athlone, 1994). 6. Derridacommentson Levinas'sdistastefor cosmopolitanismin "Welcome," Adieu to in Emmanuel Levinas,trans.Pascale-AnneBraultandMichaelNaas (Stanford,CA: StanfordUniversityPress, 1999), 15-123 at 88. Fromtime to time,Jews havebeen associatedwithcosmopolitanism, as though they were a people without sufficient loyalty to a place, what is called nationalism. 7. C. B. Macpherson,The Political Theoryof Possessive Individualism:Hobbes to Locke (Oxford, UK: Oxford UniversityPress, 1962), 3. in 8. This is my versionof Levinas's example in "Enigmaand Phenomenon," Basic Philo65-78. Levinasis fond of imagesof dwellings anddoors,as Derridapointsout sophical Writings, in "Welcome," 26-27. The storyaboutansweringthe doorbell,as well as my comparisonbetween Levinasandthe Frankfurt School School, aredrawnfrommy recentbook, Levinas,the Frankfurt and Psychoanalysis(Wesleyan,CT:WesleyanUniversityPress, 2002). 9. Jean-Jacques of Rousseau,"Discourseon the Originand Foundations Inequalityamong Men"(Second Discourse),in TheFirstand SecondDiscourses, trans.RogerMastersandJudith Masters(New York:St. Martin's,1964), 77-228 at 150-51. 10. Levinas, Totalityand Infinity,134. 11. SheldonWolin,Politics and Vision(Boston:Little, Brown, 1960), 258; Levinas, Otherwise thanBeing, 81. Levinasuses the termnarcissismfrequentlyandcasually,to capturehumanity's utterself-centerednessin the state of nature.I use it in the same casual way here. 12. Levinas, Totalityand Infinity,172-73; quoted in Derrida,"Welcome," The question 96. Derridaraises for Levinas in this essay (Derridahas always raised the hardestquestions for Levinas)is whetherin the act of openingthe door and welcoming the otherI have appropriated the space on which the otherstands.To receive anotheris to say "youarewelcome in my place." But what makes it mine to begin with? 13. Levinas, "Substitution," Basic Philosophical Writings,79-96 at 91. in 14. Levinas, Totalityand Infinity,302-4. 15. Ibid., 43. 16. Levinas, "Meaningand Sense,"in Basic Philosophical Writings,33-64 at 54. 17. Levinas, Totalityand Infinity,80. 18. Levinas, "Substitution" 90. 19. Levinas, Otherwisethan Being, 69. 20. Levinas, Totalityand Infinity,25. 21. Ibid., 71. The statementis italicized in the original. 22. Levinas, "Transcendence Height,"in Basic Philosophical Writings,11-31 at 23. and 23. Levinas, Otherwisethan Being, 157. 24. Levinas, "Peaceand Proximity," Basic Philosophical Writings,161-69 at 169. in 25. Ibid., 168. 26. Levinas, Totalityand Infinity,280. See too Otherwisethan Being, 16, 160. 27. Levinas, Otherwisethan Being, 158; Simon Critchley,The Ethics of Deconstruction: Derrida and Levinas, 2d ed. (West Lafayette,IN: PurdueUniversityPress, 1999), 46, 231; Ed Wingenbach,"Refusingthe Temptationof Innocence:LevinasianEthics as Political Theory," Strategies 12 (1999): 219-38 at 226-27.

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28. JeffreyBloechl, "Ethicsas FirstPhilosophyandReligion,"in TheFace of the Otherand the Traceof God: Essays on the Philosophy of EmmanuelLevinas, ed. Jeffrey Bloechl (New York: of Fordham UniversityPress), 130-51at 143.Bloechl madea number helpfulcommentson an earlierversion of my manuscript. 29. Levinas, Otherwisethan Being, 160. 30. Colin Davis, Levinas:An Introduction (NotreDame, IN: Universityof NotreDame Press, 1996), 144. It is Davis, I believe, who first used the term "LevinasEffect." 31. HowardCaygill, "Levinas'PoliticalJudgment: EspritArticles," The RadicalPhilosophy 104 (November/December fromthe FrencharefromCaygill. 2000): 6-15 at 7. All translations 32. Levinas, "Reflections on the Philosophy of Hitlerism,"Critical Inquiry 17 (autumn 1990): 64-71, translatedby Sean Hand. 33. Levinas, "Surl'esprit de Geneve,"in Les imprivus de l'histoire (Montpellier,France: FataMorgana,1994), 159-65 at 164. 34. TheodorAdorno,Negative Dialectics, trans.E. B. Ashton (New York:Seabury,1973), 43; MartinJay,Adorno(Cambridge,MA: Harvard UniversityPress, 1984), 68. 35. Habermas,Theoriedes kommunikativen a.M.: Suhrkamp,1981), Handelns (Frankfurt 1:512. 36. HowardCaygill, Levinasand the Political (London:Routledge,2002), 159. 37. Levinas, "Heidegger,Gagarinand Us," in DifficultFreedom:Essays on Judaism,trans. SeainHand (Baltimore:Johns HopkinsPress, 1990), 231-34 at 233. 38. Levinas, Beyondthe Verse,187; Caygill, Levinasand the Political, 172. 39. Levinas, "Ethics and Politics," in The Levinas Reader,ed. Sein Hand (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1989), 289-97 at 297. 40. Levinas, "JewishThoughtToday," DifficultFreedom,159-66 at 165. in 41. Levinas, "Le D6bat Russo-Chinois et la dialectique,"in Les imprevusde l'histoire (Montpellier,France:FataMorgana,1994), 171-72. 42. Levinas,Timeand the Other,trans.RichardCohen(Pittsburgh, DuquesneUniversity PA: Press, 1987), 50. 43. Soren Kierkegaard, Conceptof Dread, trans.WalterLowrie(Princeton,NJ: PrinceThe ton UniversityPress, 1957), 38. 44. Levinas, Timeand the Other,50. 45. Levinas, Ethics and Infinity:Conversationswith Philippe Nemo, trans.RichardCohen PA: (Pittsburgh, DuquesneUniversityPress, 1985), 48. 46. Ibid., 59, author'semphasis. 47. Jean-PaulSartre,Being and Nothingness,trans.Hazel Barnes(New York:Philosophical Library,1956), 221-23; idem, Nausea, trans. Lloyd Alexander (New York:New Directions, 1964), 125-29. 48. Levinas, "ThereIs: Existence withoutExistents,"in TheLevinasReader,29-36 at 34. 49. Levinas, "JewishThoughtToday,"165. 50. JohnRawls,A TheoryofJustice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress, 1971), 565; Michael Sandel, Liberalismand the Limitsof Justice (Cambridge,UK: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1982). 51. Levinas, Otherwisethan Being, 118. 52. Ibid., 111. 53. In Levinas and the Political, Caygill (pp. 3, 169) argues that Levinas is a republican, is pointingout thatfraternity Levinas'score concern,as when Levinaswritesabout"afreedomin fraternity... throughwhich the rightsof man manifestthemselvesconcretelyto consciousness as the rightof the other,for which I am answerable." EmmanuelLevinas,Outsidethe Subject, In trans.Michael B. Smith (London:Athlone, 1993), 125. But the fraternity about which Levinas

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writes has little to do with the fraternityof "liberty,equality,and fraternity." just because Not Levinastransforms fromcomradeship solidaritywith the victim,butbecausesubstito fraternity tutionis not fraternity, a much moredistantnearness."Arelationwithoutrelation," but Levinas calls it, and that seems aboutright. 54. In Levinas's 1990 prefaceto "Reflectionson the Philosophyof Hitlerism" 63), quoted (p. in AnnabelHerzog's"IsLiberalism'AllWe Need'? Levinas'sPolitics of Surplus," Political Theory 30, no. 2 (2002): 204-27. In thinkingthroughLevinas's liberalism,I have been helped by Herzog. 55. Levinas, Totalityand Infinity,213. 56. Levinas,Ethics and Infinity,99. 57. PaulRicoeur,TheSymbolism ofEvil, trans.EmersonBuchanan(Boston: Beacon, 1967), 54-62 at 59-61. 58. Edith Wyschogrod,EmmanuelLevinas: The Problem of Ethical Metaphysics,2d ed. (New York:FordhamUniversityPress, 2000), xiii. 59. "Levinas, Transcendence and Height," in Basic Philosophical Writings, 24, his emphasis. 60. Bloechl, "Ethicsas First Philosophy,"144. 61. Critchley,Ethics of Deconstruction,235. 62. Levinas, Otherwisethan Being, 165. 63. Levinas,"Dialogueon Thinking-of-the-Other," Entrenous: On Thinking-of-the-Other, in trans.Michael B. Smith and BarbaraHarshav(New York:ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1998), 201-6 at 205. 64. Levinas,At the Timeof Nations, trans.M. B. Smith (Bloomington:IndianaUniversity Press, 1994), 61. 65. JacquesDerrida,"Welcome," 71-74; Herzog, "Is Liberalism'All We Need'?" 218-19. 66. Levinas, Timeof Nations, 61. 67. Critchley,Ethics of Deconstruction,223. 68. Ibid., 4-5, 41. 69. Susan Handelman,Fragmentsof Redemption:Jewish Thoughtand LiteraryTheoryin Benjamin,Scholem,and Levinas (Bloomington:IndianaUniversityPress, 1991), 208-17. 70. Jacques Derrida,"Violence and Metaphysics,"in Writingand Difference, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press, 1978). 71. Levinas, Ethics and Infinity,79-81.

C. FredAlfordis a professor of governmentand a distinguishedscholar-teacherat the UniversityofMaryland,CollegePark,wherehe has taughtsince 1979. Authorofa dozen books on moralpsychology,his most recentbook is Levinas, the Frankfurt School, and Psychoanalysis.He is currently finishing up a book manuscriptonfreedom.