Nobleness, nobility the seduction that the ethical order can exert over the pride of power become

noble. The most precious, like prized works of art in the Japanese homes, is preserved in its hiddenness, and only taken out for viewing on special occasions. So with what lies concealed beneath the sheltering mistranslation, above, of: sduction que lordre thique peut exercer sur lorgueil du pouvoir devenu noblesse(70). (seduction the ethical order can exert on the pride of power become nobility) The ethical order has a seductive power! It is visible in the noblesse oblige of the ruling class that, at certain times and places of history, became nobility, with its rights and duties So rather than think that aristocracy was originally rule by the best in fact, and only became corrupt and pusillanimous by the attrition of time and inbreeding, should we not endorse Levinass eventuality to be evoked with circumspection and under reserve, namely that the nobleness of nobility is a manifestation of that seduction goodness can exert on power? This is the frail Levinasian lever that can dislodge the Nietzschean and subtler Heideggerian derivation of nobleness from power. A slender infiltration from the ethical order, that verticality or height beyond being, mirrored always ambiguously in being, in this case as pride (orgueil), that haughtiness (from haut or high) adjacent nobleness. (The same height and nobleness, perhaps, that Levinas admired in his friend Blanchot, despite its attendant susceptibility to the anti-Semitism that pervaded the ambiance of Blanchots early years, and to which the latter proved not impervious; perhaps it was also in the Attic and oracular purity of discourse Levinas heard in Heidegger's intonation of das Sein, at least before it became the more sacred, retro-written Seyn.) Two other problematic translations on this page. 1. (du politique consentant) of a politics consenting should be of a politician consenting This refers to a concrete individual (Alexander), just as noblesse refers to the concrete individuals making up the nobility. 2. (Compromis dans lattente de lordre absolu) Compromise in the yearning for the absolute order should be Compromise while awaiting the absolute order. This is an allusion to the coming of the Messiah. (Thoughts relating to the reading of Levinass Beyond the State in the State, in New Talmudic Readings, p. 101; CPJC 6th Annual Meeting, Simhat Torah, 5767)