The good and its shadow: The view of levinas on human rights as the surpassing of political...

The Good and Its Shadow: The View of Levinas on Human Rights as the

Surpassing of Political Rationality

Roger Burggraeve

There are various possible ways of explaining the meaning of human rights. We would like to follow one path, which we also encounter in the thought of Levinas, namely human rights as the surpassing of the political ("l 'au-delh du politique"), or stronger still as the critical questioning of every sociopolitical order and rationality. 1

To arrive at this, in the first part of this article we would like to reflect on a remarkable bond between the ethical good and evil, a relationship that is almost certainly neglected or even not seen. All too often, we proceed from the traditional apologetics with regard to the origin of moral evil, namely that evil flows forth from evil, meaning to say from the bad intention of "malicious" people. In that regard, one finds it completely obvious to think of evil in radical opposition to the good. Because we humans do not like to be offended in our narcissism and give absolute preference to a pure and unstained self-im- age, we shun--usually unconsciously, but stubbornly--the idea that our own choice and effort towards the good as such could be the source of evil. And yet this is indeed the case. Nevertheless, moral evil not only flows forth from the bad will of people, but also--and even more than we would like - - f r o m the good will. It is not only the bad, but also the good, that gives rise to evil. All too often, our preference goes to purism, in the sense that we opt for pure distinctions and oppositions, for instance between true and false, beautiful and ugly, moral and immoral, between pure and impure, the good and the bad. Then we feel safe; then it seems sufficient that we take the correct side in order to find the meaning of life. This "dualistic," or rather "oppositional" approach has the advantage that good and evil are clearly separated and distinguished, and that it is clear who stands on the side of good or that of evil. That is precisely the paradox that we would like to demonstrate in the first part of our article, namely that the relationship among evil, ethics, and guilt is far more complex than one can suspect at first sight, and that good and evil are more intertwined with each other than can be desired and hoped for. Even stronger: the good can also be transformed into its opposite, whereby it turns out that good and evil in fact do not lie so clearly far apart and are controllable. Through

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an analysis of the social-political realization of human responsibility, it will become clear how evil is not only "that which is different" from the good, but also that which clings on to the good itself as its own shadow.

For this analysis we shall take the lead from some incisive insights on society and politics of our master Emmanuel Levinas (1905-1995), who during the frequent meetings on Monday afternoons in Paris repeatedly expounded on these insights with so much emphasis that a number of passages and casual reflections in his later works and especially in interviews gained clarity and force. 2 Through his view on society and "political reason," it will become clear that moral good is not so simple as it seems, that it also has its dark and threatening reverse-side. And precisely this transformation (reversal) forms the great challenge for ethics!

When the Sociopolitical Good Is Transformed into Its Own Opposite

All too often, the thought of Levinas is reduced to the relationship with the face of the one unique other and his ideas on society and politics are seen as a quasi-redundant incidentals, while they are essential for a good insight into his thought concerning the other. Hence, our explicit attention to his ideas on human society and the political as particular forms of this social life.

The Ethical Necessity of Justice and Politics

For Levinas, an ethical concept of society and politics is an extension of his well-known view on the face-to-face relationship and the responsibility for the other. In our concern to become ourselves we are confronted, "in spite of ourselves," with the vulnerability and the factual misery of the other, who at the same time tempts us to kill (EI 90) and the ethical appeal declares: "thou shall not kill" (EN 48). This extension from the unique other to the sociopolitical order has to do with an important datum of our daily interhuman experience namely the fact of the "third party." The unique other and I are, after all, not alone in the world; there are many of us. Moreover, there are not only the ones who are near, but the ones who are far and absent, this both in time and space. Well then, even these "third parties" fall under our responsibility. Ethics cannot limit itself to the strictly interpersonal relationship between the I and the unique other. This flows directly forth from the "nakedness" of the face itself. As radical alterity, the face points to the being-other of the other as such and thus to all possible others. The nakedness of the face consists precisely in the fact that in and through the fortuitous characteristics and traits of the face (the countenance), the immediate presence of someone "else" uncondit ionally pushes forth. In the face, I experience not only the presence of one single "other," but also of each and every "other" insofar as the face confronts me with the "others" as other, namely insofar as the other is radically separated

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from us and thereby is irreducible to us (LC 57). "The epiphany of the face opens humanity" (TI 188). After all, if one would exclude certain people, namely the absent ones, from the ethical responsibility for the other, then one would inadvertently fall into racism. In this regard, from the face all others appear to us as "equals," who all fall under our responsibility. As far as we are concerned, responsibility is utterly singular, but as far as its breadth is concerned it is utterly universal in time and space (AE 148). No one falls outside of the responsibility of the one for the other: it is unending, or rather it makes itself unending time and again. The absence of the "third party" does not discharge us from our responsibility. We discover ourselves as beings bound in fate. We stand in a relationship of solidarity with each other, and with the whole of humanity, here and far away, now and tomorrow, in spite of ourselves (DEHH 196).

The question now is how this responsibility for all can be realized. As long as responsibility only runs from the single unique one to the other unique other, it literally has a single sense. But when the third party enters, the question arises: "Who is most near to me? Who comes first: the neighbor or the third party?" The third party is equally my "neighbor" as the first near other. Moreover, the other and the third party also have their "neighbors," these are their near ones and third parties (AE 200). This conflict in responsibility itself calls for the need "to compare the incomparable" (AE 152), meaning to say to bring to balance the incomparableness of the good, which directs itself towards the other as unique, with the rights of all the others. The generality of our responsibility obliges us to compare the unique other with all others, meaning to say to bring in equal treatment and calculation. That is why we must judge, prioritize, make distinctions, calculate and weigh out on the basis of priorities and urgencies, and thus treat everyone in an equal and fair manner. By means of the entrance of the third party, the care of the one-for-the-other must become justice. Only thus can one remedy the initial (not-intentional) violence that is affixed inadvertently onto the exclusive head-to-head between the unique other and the I. After all, the one who does everything for the one single other thereby does injustice inadvertently to the others precisely by neglecting, or even excluding, them. In this regard, goodness is even marked by violence, at least when it is striven for absolutely and entirely for itself. The entrance of the third party thus makes the building up of a just society necessary, whereby relationships are ordered according to a reasonable equality and fairness, meaning to say as mutually and respectfully as possible for everyone.

There is still more, however. Since we cannot reach here and now those who are far away in the future, we must realize justice by means of "mediations" (Vermittlungen), to use a Hegelian term (EFP 117). We can only concretely authenticate our care for others if we add "intermediaries" between ourselves and the absent third party, whereby we can reach them, albeit indi- rectly but yet really. These intermediaries are all sorts of social, economic,

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financial, juridical, political structures, institutions, organisms, agencies, systems, both infranational as well as international and global (EN 40).

Now all forms of social mediation need to be brought in connection and agreement with each other in a just way, meaning to say that they become attuned to each other and are "ordered." This implies the need for a "state," to be understood as political ordering (AE 205), which in its turn is coordinated by an informed and impartial authority that takes to heart the general well- being (SA 85). In this regard, political structure and ordering of society rests not only on a factual, pragmatic but likewise ethical duty to authenticate an institutionally organized justice. Without the construction of a just political ordering of our society, we commit the crime of desertion against our responsibility for the many others, who concern us no less because we do not see them or cannot reach them (HS 185).

The Dark Side of Social and Political Justice

Nonetheless, however ethically necessary and valuable it may be, this sociopolitical ordering cannot have the final word. This ordering, after all, constantly runs the risk of transforming into its own opposite. In concrete, there are two reasons why the ethical good--via the sociopolitical mediations which, in themselves, are necessary--can be perverted into the evil of the good.

First of all, there is a reverse-side to each sociopolitical modeling of our responsibility for all others. On the basis of its structure itself, and thus not on the basis of one or the other perverse intention of participating individuals, each socioeconomic and political mediation implies immediately a fundamental negligence towards the unique other, however ethical it may be in origin. As a sociopolitical structure, it inadvertently introduces the first violence in the responsibility of the one-for-the-other. Evil in this first violence is, in other words, the dark side of the good, namely the just structure, institution or legis- lative regulation. Even if the sociopolitical ordering would be born by "saints," and not by profiteers who pervert the system by means of their misconduct, each structural mediation implies the potentiality for structural violence. It is not only evil that leads to evil, but likewise the good; it is not only the subjective bad will that brings forth evil, but likewise good will. That is the paradox of structural and institutional modelling on the social, economic and political levels. Even when they are rooted in the most noble of ethical motivations, intentions, and commitments, they are marked by objective evil. The state and each transnational and even global sociopolitical ordering is constantly en- dangered, however ethical it may be in origin. This violence does not come from the third party as a person, but from the society, which on the basis of its universality and objectivity necessarily overlooks the uniqueness of the other. When a societal order takes shape in laws, institutions, and structures, it dis-


plays necessarily an anonymous, objective and distant character: the "shape of objective reason," to put it in Hegel's terms. Its nameless objectivity inadvertently becomes the cause of the "responsible I," which finds it difficult after a while to recognise its intentions of justice therein.

Moreover, out of its objective universality, the sociopolitical ordering is constantly inclined to overlook the concrete other in its uniqueness. The "administration" of institutions and structures approaches the other only insofar as the other falls under the general term "citizen," that is, from employee or em- ployer, taxpayer, road user, train passenger, etc. Levinas calls this "the drama of politics": social, economic, juridical, legal, and politically organized justice, which finds its origin in the ethical appeal of the face, and therefore is a form of the ethical good, finally goes against--on the basis of its very being-- this face and thus becomes the evil of the good (TI 276). Social and political mediation is absolutely necessary when we want to reach likewise the "third party" with our responsibility and goodness. But as order, institution, organization and structure, it also implies inevitably "structural" violence, that is, violence that ensues from the structures as such. One must, after all, share and apportion, one must know what A does to B and vice versa. Even I enter into this circle. The direct I-other-relationship is a non-symmetrical relationship, because I am responsible for the other and this without expecting the mutuality of his responsibility for me, or to pose it as a condition for my commitment. This typically Levinasian thesis of the asymmetry disappears, however, within the circle of society. This symmetry is the first violence, out of which all further violence of the sociopolitical order ensues. Whoever does not see this evil of the ethical good, meaning to say the reverse-side of the ethically necessary sociopolitical modelling of the face-to-face, runs the risk of absolutizing the sociopolitical mediations.

The Need for a Permanent Revolution and an Ever Better Justice

It is this realization of the evil of the sociopolitical ethical good that brings us - -o r must bring us- - to critically question the social, economic, political structures, and realizations time and time again, in order to see whether they still respond to their unconditional ethical task, namely the structural realization of justice for everyone, those who are near and far, the present and the future. In this sense, Levinas speaks about the need for a "permanent revolution" (DVI 27). Realized justice does not suffice; it is in constant need of correction, revision, and reform. Only in this way can it avoid petrifying its own ethical quality and suffocate in its own opposite. Only thus can it counter the transformation of the good into evil.

With this, we must indeed consider that even the idea of "permanent revolution" contains its own dangers and thus can alter into its own opposite. The risk of a revolution is that it is impatient and wants to overthrow "with all

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force" the established, unjust order. Its enthusiasm and radicality, which can easily lead to brash energy and violence, can affect as such the good of the revolution--literally "over tuming"--so much so that it brings about evil from its own good. It wants to change everything radically, once and for all; it is so obsessed by the ethical good- - formulated at present in terms of human r ights-- that it wants to achieve its goal of a new, true justice at whatever cost, and thereby end up in the violence of the Absolute Good. It can as such be "driven" by its resistance against inhuman sociopolitical order, that it forgets that its resistance can also produce, and usually does produce, innocent victims. Its ethical pretense, namely its attempt at making an unjust society different or better, is usually so radical and intense that it becomes fanatic and by means of striving stubbornly for its own "good cause" brings about the evil of its own good, meaning to say new forms of violence. Every revolution hides in its passion its own angel of death, the terror of the ethical good which is not only a potentiality but in reality quite swiftly arises. This is why Levinas talks about the necessity of a "permanent" revolution. No single overturn can be the end point; every revolution must be subjected to critical investigation. Every societal overturn is threatened from within by degeneration. A revolution that over- throws the so-called "established" sociopolitical powers because it deems them unjust also runs the risk of the perverted enjoyment of power, at the moment it comes to power. No single revolution is safe against the ideologization of its own striving for power (I 130-31). At the moment new institutions are installed in order to authenticate the so-called "new justice," they immediately become, as it were, fragile and senile already. That is why there is a need for a new, permanent questioning and overturning in every overturn, in the awareness that every socio-political change is but finite and temporary. If one does not in t roduce this temporar iness , based on the exper ience of mortal i ty, as a relativizing principle of leverage, oppression by the new "regime" already lurks around the comer, whereby the good undoes itself.

In this regard, Levinas conceives of revolution not so much as a "new order," but as the principle of "sobriety" and "anarchy," literally of "dis-order," that is of the breakthrough of the petrified and rotten justice that is never justice enough. This idea of an "ever better justice" (une justice toujours meilleure) intends to hinder that one establishes oneself in the sociopolitical ethical good as an "end term," so that the ethical good does not coagulate into a horrifying shape of evi l - - the true drama of ethics and of ethical politics (SaS 38-39).

This implies quite concretely that the achieved socio-political justice may never count as a definitive regime, that pretends to have not only the first but also the final word and where everything is calculated in a conclusive and decisive manner. On the basis of its incapacity to do justice to everyone as a "unique other" in an adequate manner, it remains essentially temporary, or rather it must always be kept explicitly temporary. Nonetheless, a social, institutional, economic, financial, juridical, and political system is inclined time


and again to raise itself into an absolute and unchanging system, into the ultimate and "true good" that is above time or rather determines the course of time as the "goal" of history (AS 62). Every social, economic, and political system displays the almost irresistible urge to raise itself to the Ein und Alles, to proclaim itself the good--the eschatological good--per se, after which nothing follows anymore. In this, it becomes totalitarian in intention and sometimes in hard reality as well as a totalitarian apparatus, which destroys all preceding traditions and erases the memory in order to start all over from zero, following its own stringent logic, and thus be able to dominate everything. This is then the evil of the ethical good, meaning to say the dark side of the ethically necessary incarnation of the good for everyone in just institutions, juridical structures and legal arrangements, which are regulated and dominated by a political apparatus.

Historical Stalinism as the Evil of the Good

This event took place, according to Levinas, in historical Stalinism (AS 62). He discovered a clear continuity between structural violence that is inherent in all, even the most just sociopolitical institutionalization and Stalinism. For him Stalinism did not represent an exception as such that it can be separated radically from our present experiences with social and political institutions. On the contrary, he saw in it an undoubted extreme, but yet only a logically drawn realization, of a temptation that is inherent in every sociopolitical system. As a totalitarian regime, Stalinism consisted in making impossible the permanent renewal of achieved justice. In this regard, Levinas uttered the paradoxical statement that Stalinism, in a certain sense, is worse than Hitlerism (RA 15). With this, he avoids all simplistic identification between both. Though both are comparable insofar as they developed the horrible terror of an oppressive totalitarian regime, at the same time, they differ thoroughly from each other. Their mutual difference does not so much consist in their totalitarian character, wherein they are indeed related, but in the foundation and inspiration of their system. Hitlerism rested simply on an immoral foundation, or put more strongly, he incarnated "the diabolical criminality of the absolute evil" (CCH 82) of racist persecution and extermination, cynically presented as the EndlOsung of the Jewish problem.

According to Levinas, the core of racism consists not in the denial of, or failure to appreciate similarities between people, but in the denial, or better, the failure to appreciate and value people's fundamental and irreducible otherness by which they fall outside of every genre and are thus "unique": "alterity flows in no sense out of difference, to the contrary difference goes back to alterity" (VA 92). A racist relation wants to recognise and value only the "same," or one's "own," and therefore excludes the "foreign." Out of self-defense, we are easily inclined to accept and consider positively only that which agrees

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with, or is "similar" to ourselves. One finds the other embarrassing, threatening, and frightening. One therefore tries to expel him from oneself, to place him outside so that he can be considered the "enemy" from whom one "may" (!) defend oneself, and whom one may even "destroy" as what brings life and well-being under pressure--unless one can reduce him to oneself or make him a part of oneself. One wants to accept "others" (or "strangers," or "foreign- ers") only to the extent that they belong to one's own "genre" or "kind," which is to say to one's own blood and soil, to the same family, tribe, sex, clan, nation, church, club or community, to do the same work, have the same birth- place and date. One's "own" is praised and even divinised at the price of the "other," which is vilified. The "stranger" becomes the scapegoat on whom we blame all of our problems and worries. One accepts differences only in so far as they are a matter of accidental particularities or specificities within a same genre or basic design, in which individuals differ from one another within a same "sort" only very relatively (for example, character, taste, intellectual level), and in which their deeper affinity is not at all tested. Against this background, it is clear that for Levinas, anti-Semitism, as a specific and advanced form of racism, takes aim at the Jew as the intolerable other. For anti-Semitic thinking and sentiment, the Jew is simply the enemy, just as for every racism the other is the enemy as such, that is to say not on the basis of personality, one or another character trait or a specific act considered morally troublesome or objectionable, but due only to his or her very otherness. In anti-Semitism, the Jew, as "other," is always the guilty one. It is never "oneself," but the embodi- ment of the "same" which not only arranges everything around itself but also profiles itself as principle of meaning and value.

From this perspective on racism as rejection of the other, it appears, according to Levinas, that racism is not a rare and improbable phenomenon existing in the heart and thought of only some "perverse" people, and which has nothing to do with us. In so far as one is, according to the spontaneous dynamic of existing, or "conatus essendi,'" directed toward the "same," toward maintain- ing and fortifying one's "own"--al l such as I have just sketched i t - o n e must be considered "by nature" potentially racist, though of course without being "predestined" for it. In itself, this admits no question of psychological or patho- logical deviation. According to Levinas, this implies that one can not simply dispense with the racism of Hitler and the Nazis--in contrast with something instead occurring only once--as a wholly distinct and incomparable phenomenon, at least if one views it not quantitatively but qualitatively, which is to say in terms of its roots and basic inspiration. In an attempt to hold open a pure- - in fact, Manichean--dis t inct ion between "good" (us) and "bad" (the "others"), thus keeping oneself out of range of the difficulties in question, it happens all too often that Hitlerism is described as something completely unique which has nothing in common with the aims and affairs of the common mortal. The perspective of Levinas shows that Hitlerism with its genocide and other pro-


grams of eradication is only a quantitative extension, that is to say a consistent, systematic, and inexorably refined outgrowth of racism in its pure form--one which, in its turn, represents a concretization of the effort of existing, which, as the reduction of the other to the same, is the "nature" of our existence (without, however, us being abandoned to this "nature" as a fatality, since as ethical beings we can overcome it). No one is invulnerable: any of us is a potential racist, and at least sometimes a real racist. Racism, like Hitlerism, does not occur by chance, or by an accidental turn. Nor is it an exceptional perversion occurring in a group of psychologically disturbed people. It is a permanent possibility woven into the dynamic of our very being, so that whom- ever accedes to and lives out the dynamic of his or her own being inevitably extends racism in one or another form. We can no longer blame racism and anti-Semitism on "others," for both their possibility and the temptation to them are borne in the dynamic of our own being, as "non-reciprocal determination of the o ther"- -which is precisely the kernel of our conatus essendi (AS 60- 61).

It is this racist foundation that radically distinguishes Hitlerism from Stalinism. In contrast to Hitlerism, Stalinism finds its original inspiration in Marxism and its struggle for the "rights" of the other, namely the proletarian other. One cannot deny that Marxism was nourished by the "great anger in the belly" about the injustice and oppression of which the workers were the victims in the capitalist system. This seems to connect, simply speaking, with the priority of the other sketched above- -" the stranger, the widow, the orphan"- -as an ethical appeal, which implies that Marxism intends to be a form of the ethical good. Its intention is holy and lofty, insofar as it falls back on the ethical pref- erential option for the vulnerable and injured "other."

And yet we cannot simply equate Marxism with it. After all, it states that we can save the other if that other demands what is rightfully his or hers. That is why it summons all proletariat of all nations to unite themselves and demand that which the capitalist and rich 'T ' is obligated to give them. In this regard, a well-defined view on the struggle for power is inherent in Marxism. It explicitly opts for class struggle, in the conviction that the solution of social contra- dictions can only be reached by bringing them to their extremes and by means of a violent confrontation. This struggle, furthermore, must lead to the rule of the workers, in fact to the "dictatorship of the proletariat" with its reversal of the positions of poor and rich. Moreover, Marxism "believes" and pretends to avail of the objective, absolute and monolithic truth regarding history, that is to be safeguarded from error in its historical acts in favour of the proletariat and furthermore to be the "bearer" and "realizer" of the "goal" of history, whereby it likewise pretends to be the "sacrament of the good."

Notwithstanding this not-coincidental power-hungry striving for conquest, Marxism clearly had an ethical impact insofar as it stood up for the weak or "proletarian" other (EN 138). In this regard, its intention or goal was pure and

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good. Moreover, from the very start it has conceived of the ethical responsibility for the other in economic terms. It readily rejected a responsibility that was only expressed in the "good word," without tangible deeds of economic "as- sistance" and without the social-economic changes that are necessary for that purpose. Nonetheless, one cannot overlook that "Stalinist madness" that en- sued directly from it and, along with the discovery of the Third World, is one of the most gripping experiences of postwar humans in the twentieth century. One had to consider with astonishment how the originally generous, but at the same time power-hungry, Marxism, perverted under the impulse of Stalin into an administrative and bureaucratic state socialism, that acted inwardly--in the name of the priority of the oppressed proletariat, i.e., in the name of the appeal to the ethical good that flows forth from the face of the other--as an unmerci- ful totalitarian and outwardly as an usurper. In Marxism we do encounter the love for the other; but Stalinism, while relying on Marxism itself, has radically perverted this love by means of raising one specific socioeconomic and political system, among others via a totalitarian planned-economy and a tightly closed one-party system, to a final system, meaning to say the Absolute Good. Convinced by its own historical rightness, meaning to say, moving along the line of history that can only be a development towards a communistic society that spans the entire world, one cannot accept any compromise and not carry out negotiations with the "corrupted ones" (the capitalists, the rich, the dissi- dents). Each formed a pact with evil, meaning to say those who reject or com- bat the socialist system as the bearer of the destination of world history were absolutely evil.

In such a system, which considered itself as totally conclusive and "objec- tively true" the individual with one's fears, disquiet, and needs belongs to the domain of illusion and ideology. The needs of the subjective conscience count as symptoms of hysteria. It considers the individual person simply as an ele- ment and a molecule of the societal organism, so that the well-being of the individual is subordinated to the good functioning of the social-economic and political mechanism, with an eye to realising the "meaning" of history (DL 222-23). Where it pretends to obey the laws of history, it translates these laws not into norms of good and evil for individual behavior, but rather for the human race as a whole. It is the human race as actor in history and as embodi- ment of its laws that determines the significance of the individual, and no longer the individual out of oneself and for oneself. It is then not a coincidence that Stalinism has accepted, in the name of this history, the incarceration and extermination of a (great) number of people as a necessary contribution to a higher goal in the framework of a greater whole. The goal justifies the means, meaning to say terror and persecution in the name of the good must be achieved--and that also will be achieved, for history has its own relentless pattern (dialectic materialism). In such a consideration from the "end" of history, persons no longer have irreducible value in themselves, but they receive


their significance from the "totality" that is dominated by the "cunning of reason" (Hegel). In a totalitarian regime, three moments are held valid: first, the rigidity of violence that is dominated by one party; second, the deduction carried out to the end on the basis of one official doctrine concerning the meaning of society; and third, the administration as an oppressive system of bureaucratic control. Together, they form the "system" that in Stalinism considered itself as the ultimate incarnation of justice and the meaning of history, whereby it inadvertently donned itself the aureole of inner-worldly messianism (EN 139). 3

And that has been the horrible, internal contradiction of Stalinism: in the name of justice that one upholds for the proletariat, a regime has been established where justice is regulated in such a conclusive and definitive manner that it was altered into its own opposite, namely the greatest and most unbear- able injustice towards the proletariat, i.e., the "widow and orphan" or the "mis- erable other" whom it radically pretended to defend. Stalinism became the terror of the inherent perversion of one's own ethical movedness. It was so convinced of its own "incontrovert ible rightness," meaning to say its own "vocation" to have to establish the utter Good and Pure of its own sociopolitical order, that it rejected and likewise attempted to eradicate all dissidence as dis- order and the undermining of the justice and truth of history--with all its force, dogmatism, and persecution. Or put differently, Stalinism inadvertently went against its own original "good will." The evil of Stalinism does not ensue from a bad will, which would lie at the basis of the Stalinist system. Its evil has an objective character, in the sense that it clings on to its view of the good itself, insofar as it has altered----on the basis of its "coercion of the system"--into its own opposite. Stalinism then evokes our repugnance and indignation, insofar as the ethical good in Stalinist totalitarianism as a "conclusive system" acquires the "bril- liant" face of depersonalization. In the name of the ethics of the face of the stranger or the proletariat, Stalinism as a socioeconomic and political system has incarnated the evil of the good, "beautiful but mercilessly ruthless."

"Social Stalinism': The Actual Evil of the Good

Now, this is valid not only for historical political Stalinism, but for every form of social, economic, and institutional Stalinism. Even though Levinas himself does not make this application, in our opinion it can indeed be made insofar as his critical analysis is not bound to specific factual coincidences of historical Stalinism but establishes the connection with the inherent inclination of every social political institution and structure to raise itself to a decisive system of salvation, i.e.; to the good, whereby it then degenerates into its own opposite.

When one strives for a society that immediately and completely realizes the "responsibility of the 'one-for- the-other '"--when one broadens this responsi-

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bility and organizes it in a social system as the answer to all questions of all others--one inadvertently runs the risk of Stalinism and thus the perversion of the good (EFP 97-98). A social institution or organization can as such appoint itself as the final word on justice, raising itself to the definitive answer to all questions which have to do with that specific social sector. The same can be said of economic organisms, structures and institutions. The economic reality of production and distribution of goods and services, which is at the same time realized by means of money and finance, can as such be governed by the financial network of banks and stock exchanges and others that becomes an anonymous, almost divine (or should we say, demonic) omnipotence (SA 82). And note well, this is not simply accidental, but inherent to the system itself, as we have stated above. It is brought along with its structural and objective externality that it inadvertently presents itself as a self-evident and definitively valid social or economic regime. Its inherent conservatism implies the temptation of a social or economic Stalinism. That is why, according to Levinas, we should not be blind to Stalinism, or rather to the "Stalinoid" traces that are inherent in our own social-economic system, whereby this laboriously constructed welfare and well-being system brings about the degeneration of its own noble goals. In our society, we have built up an immense social and economic technocracy, which is not only becoming all the more complex, but, like an octopus with its tentacles, reaches and grasps even farther, whereby the evil in the good lurks around the corner.

The ethics of responsibility of the "one-for-the-other," however, is never content with social-economic justice, just as it is not content with a political order. The options, priorities and achieved balances, which are established, for instance, in the systems of education, healthcare and welfare, create ever new injustices. That is why, as we have stated above, better social and economic justice is necessary, which as a critical corrective discerns, prevents, remedies or even radically questions very attentively every degeneration of structural social-economic justice. This is only possible in a non-totalitarian regime, that in principle proceeds from the position that the justice achieved is always in- complete. This implies the need for questioning social and economic actions, even when they are just. After all, they are never just enough. By means of this questioning, or this "permanent socio-economic revolution," we can prevent the absolutizing of our social and economic realizations, meaning to say the terror of the good that raises itself to the absolute good and thus changes into evil.

The Ethical Necessity and Meaning of Human Rights

This undertaking is only possible by creating space for human rights, which take to heart in their pure, non-political formulations the rights of the unique other against all systems (EFP 98).


The Prophetic-Critical Force of Human Rights

And human fights fulfill this defense in different ways, in the sense that they both surpass as well as correct and supplement every social, economic, juridical, and political system.

The one who thinks and acts from the basis of human rights--e.g., standing up for and committing oneself to the fights of certain minorities or forgotten people--then does more in terms of humanization than what the sociopolitical structures can achieve. This is so because these structures can never take to heart completely the singular realization of the rights of the unique other. In our ever more international and structurally constructed societal bonds, they precisely make it possible to orientate separately every responsible person towards the necessary surplus of the good for each and every other. In one of his three articles, which Levinas dedicated entirely to human rights, 4 he expressed the bond between the uniqueness of the other and human rights in a radical and challenging manner (HS 176-78). Human fights, which in no way whatsoever must be attributed from without because they are experienced as a priori and therefore as irrevocable and inalienable, express the altefity or absoluteness of every human being (AT 151). Every reference is annulled by human rights since it is acknowledged that every individual person possesses those fights: they are inherent to their being-human as persons. In this regard, human rights wrench every human person away from the determining order of nature and the social body, to which everyone indeed obviously belongs. Herein lies, according to Levinas, a remarkable paradox. Thanks to the belongingness of every person to the human kind - -humani ty--every person possesses an incomparable alterity and uniqueness, whereby everyone likewise transcends the generalness of the human kind. The belongingness of every person to the human kind does not mean a reduction to a neutral unity, but a presentation as a unique person, who by means of that fact itself actually destroys humanity as an abstract idea. Every person is unique in his or her genre. Every person is a person like every other person and yet utterly unique and irreducible: a radically separate other. Humanity exists only by grace of irreducible beings, who are for each other utterly unique and non-exchangeable others. Levinas also calls it the absolute identity of the person (HS 176). It is about a uniqueness that surpasses every individuality of the many individuals in their kind. The uniqueness or dignity of every individual person does not depend on one or the other specific and distinctive difference. It is about an "unconditional" uniqueness, in the sense that the dignity of the person--over every individual person--is not determined by their sex, color of skin, place of birth, moment of their existence, nor by the possession of certain qualities and capacities. Every person possesses dignity that is to be utterly respected, independent of whichever property or characteristic. It is about a uniqueness that precedes every difference, namely understanding a radical alterity as an irreducible and

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inalienable alterity, whereby a person can precisely say "I." This leads Levinas to state that human rights reveal the uniqueness or the absoluteness of the human person, in spite of their belongingness to the human kind or rather thanks to this belongingness. This absolute, literally detached and unconditional alterity and thus uniqueness of every person simply signifies the paradox, the mystery and the newness of the human in being!

But there is more. Human rights also fulfil a function within socially and politically organized justice itself, namely insofar as they also offer a specific contribution to an even better justice. Or rather, they precisely flow forth from the awareness that justice is never just enough (EFP 98). From within their surpassing position, people will begin to demand that the current, not yet stipu- lated or realized human rights be acknowledged in society and also acquire a structural, social, economic, juridical and political rendition. In this regard they belong to the essence of a non-totalitarian order of society itself, which namely is an order where the political (to be understood as a synthesising term for the entirety of social, economic, financial, juridical and state structures, institutions and forms) is not the definitive and total regime. Even though they are not identified with the presence of a government, and thus they have no direct political or state function, it is still within the political structure that they are acknowledged as their own parallel institution alongside the written laws. It is precisely this acknowledgement that makes the sate a non-totalitarian state. For human rights to make a specific institutional place means indeed accept- ing that the political order does not proclaim itself as the final word. A politics that accepts human rights agrees at the same time to be critiqued on the basis of these human rights so that a better justice becomes effectively possible. With human rights, which is not equated with the regime, one can lay one's finger on the sore spot. By means of pressing charges when human rights are violated, one can question radically a political system that has become rigid or break it open towards greater justice. Human rights remind us that there still is no perfect social and political just ice--and there will never be as well (EFP 119).

Thus human rights have both a critical as well as a prophetic character. They go against all conservatism that is self-resigned and plays it safe, pro- voking or calling us forth literally to strive for full justice, without lapsing into the faults of a totalitarian regime, however. By so doing, human rights keep the future of the ideal society open. We can call this a utopia insofar as it is about something that shall not and cannot be realized. But at the same time it is an effective utopia because, ultimately, it leads all our ethical actions of responsibility and justice. Even though the utopia is unattainable, it does not hinder the condemnation of certain, factual conditions and structures. It makes it concretely possible to have an eye for relative progress that can be achieved. Utopian thinking does not condemn all the rest, but on the contrary works like leaven in all the rest, so that the future is held open dynamical ly time and again. No ethical life is possible without the utopia of human rights (PM 178).


In Search of a New Ethical Foundation for Human Rights

This general affirmation concerning the ethical necessity of human rights is not sufficient, however. The question actually is how we must understand human rights. In the present postmodern climate, or rather late-modern, the emphasis was laid strongly on individual freedom, which in its turn leads to the unders tanding of human rights especially as "rights to f reedom" (AT 52). Moreover, according to Levinas the one-sidedness became greater as a conse- quence of the factual link between freedom and self-interest. Since the human 'T ' as a finite and thus needy being is driven by self-interest ("int~ressement"), human rights are primarily understood as rights of the 'T ' that strives for self- determination and self-unfolding. Hence Levinas explicitly begins to search for an ethical re-definition of human rights, inspired by the global perspective of his thought, which he himself qualified as a "thinking towards the other" ("un penser-&l'autre"). 5 We shall now follow his argumentation.

If we try to formulate in a positive manner the above-mentioned prohibition "thou shall not kill," which as a "wordless word" of the epiphany of the face of the other comes towards me, then we end up in the commandment of respect for the other, and to begin with for the other 's life. Levinas describes this fundamental ethical attitude as "justice" in the broad sense of the word (to be distinguished from what we described above as social justice in the strict sense) (TI 54). The appeal towards responsibility that not only speaks to us through the face but also is already effective as "the other in ourselves" and conse- quent ly directs us to the other as other (AT 141-143), does not mean a subjective preference that goes towards a particular other on the basis of the other 's (pleasant or interesting) qualities. This still is no ethically quali- tative responsibility for the other. The face is the appeal to come meet the other as other, not because we would be inclined to do so from a specific preference or predilect ion, but because the other ' s face categorical ly demands me. The other simply has a right over me, independent of my coincidental disposition and goodwill. Justice as commitment to the other is an absolute and ineluctable (not irresistible) demand (DL 34). It is no philan- thropy on the basis of emotion and compassion, dependent on a noble character or conscience, but the ethically ineluctable appeal towards responsibility for the other that proceeds from the face. It is apparent from this how the concept of justice in its broad sense is understood as doing justice to the other, meaning to say to acknowledge the other in one's being-other and to let the other be given one's due.

This fundamental justice in the broad sense forms the direct foundation for rights, or rather, for fundamental rights, on which all rights fall, and thus even for human rights. The face indeed lays upon me a responsibility, which not only precedes "the opposit ion of freedoms and war, whereby according to Hegel history commences" (DL 34), but also every pact and every contract

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(AE 112). The appeal of the face then forms the first fundamental and minimal demand in terms of fights, namely the fight to life, the fight to respect for one's own alterity and individuality, i.e., for one's own being-person. To see a face is already to hear: "Thou shall not kill." And heating this means: "doing justice to one's neighbour and letting them live" (AT 134-35).

Rights, therefore, do not begin from the strong "I," but from the weak other: "the person whose rights we must defend is first and foremost the other person, and not primarily I myself" (SaS 17). This then leads Levinas to state that human rights, which have become so famous in our time, are originally and absolutely the fights of the other. "Everything begins with the fight of the other and with my unending responsibility" (SaS 20). In this regard, ethics intends to say that I must see the face of the other and its ethical command over me, and also acknowledge that the other has rights on me. A truly humane right is then only possible on the basis of the "humanism of the other," which runs counter to the classic humanism of the 'T ' that has made, since modernity, such an overwhelming rise. The humanism of the other implies the dethrone- ment and decentralisation of the "I": "One can only make mention of civilisation when one has arrived at the conviction that the centre of my existence does not lie in myself ' (CJ-I 31). "Disputing that being is therefor me is not the same as disputing that being is there for the human person. Neither is this so with abandoning humanism or with the separation of absoluteness and humanity. It only implies the denial that the humanity of the human person lies within its position as an "I." The human person par excellence--the source of humanity--is, to be sure, the other" (LC 59). Only when I put the other higher than myself is the other no longer approached as a rival, whose power must be subdued, but as a full fledged person, who has unconditional right to be acknowledged and treated as an other (AT 135-36).

At the same time, it is apparent how an asymmetry is produced out of the ethical symmetry on the level of human fights: rights begin as heteronomy and inequality. Rights do not begin in my freedom but in the face of the other itself: it is "an-archistic." Hence, the rights of the other are primary to the rights of the "I." The other is not my equal but my superior, who out of their ethical height makes a claim on me (TI 267). The rights of the other go above my own rights, which even provokes the obtuse statement from Levinas: "the T is the only one who has no rights" (IH 184). This a symmetrical structure of fundamental rights imposes itself on us in the name of a very concrete ethical experience, namely that which I must demand of myself is not to be compared with what I may demand of the other. The face may demand more from me than I may ask from the other (TI 24). I know my duty towards the other, and that is why I demand more from myself than from the others. I am responsible for the other without my having to call upon the other's responsibility for me (HAH 99). Beyond all relationships of mutuality, which undoubtedly arise between me and the other, I always have a step more to make towards the other, be-


cause I am responsible for the other's responsibility (AE 106). I always have a degree more of responsibility (El 105).

In this manner, Levinas is finished with the idea that rights, or rather, that human rights, would find their origin in one or the other physical, moral, economic or social and political preponderance. This is a power that, per definition, degenerates into supremacy and dominance and violence. The only foundation for a truly ethical right is the unconditional responsibility that is charged on the 'T ' unconditionally by the appearance of the face, without being forced into it in any way whatsoever.

The realization of this heteronomous, foundational right, however, is only possible when the 'T' takes upon itself this responsibility, meaning to say when the 'T' is converted from its unjust usurpation in order to take it upon itself for the other and let the other be given its due (DL 187). A humane society then is only possible on the basis of a right, whose basic principle is the acknowledgement of the other as other, and of a fundamental ethical attitude of justice in the sense of a "proficiency-with-regard-to-rights,"* whereby that acknowledgement can be realized (SaS 21). "So that people would be able to encounter each other without conflicts and in mutual acknowledgement of their human dignity, whereby they are each other's equals, it is necessary, that someone feels responsible for this equality, a responsibility that goes so far that one forsakes this equality for oneself and that one begins to demand "even more," "infinitely more, from oneself" (IH 183). For Levinas, this means that there can be no mention of human rights without the responsibility and the duty to authenticate these rights for others: the rights of the other are my du- ties !

Conclusion and Theological Perspective

That the rights of the person concern "before all else the rights of the other person" (EN 234) not only makes it clear that human rights (should) surpass every social, economic, juridical and political order, but that they also (should) form their foundation. In the actual social life of humans we constantly see how the rights of the unique, vulnerable other are violated. This then evokes within us a strong moral indignation: "This cannot be! This is unheard of, intolerable, utterly unacceptable!" And it is precisely this indignation concerning all possible violations of the human dignity of others that arouses us towards responsibility for the rights of the other: "~veil du moi par autrui" (EN 104). This heteronomous responsibility by means of and for the other forms, according to Levinas, the condition, the foundation and the inspiration of every human and humane society (DMT 209-210). In this regard, human rights are to be understood before all else as the rights of the naked other, the source of all social, economic, juridical and political order, which in their turn then need the surpassing by human rights in order not to degenerate into the ethical

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terror of a totalitarian and final, Stalinist-style regime. That which precedes the state must also remain external to the state, just like the prophet who spoke not out of himself, nor out of the political regime or establishment, but out of God, the most Transcendent and Foreign One of all (HS 185).

The idea of indignation over the evil that is inflicted on vulnerable others, onto which the idea of human rights refers, still implies another dimension, which we would like to call to mind at the close of our reflections. Precisely the heteronomous character of the indignation and the responsibility implied therein by and for the other brings us into contact with that which already slumbers in the depths of our " I" - - in our "soul"- -and was active and precedes our conscious "knowing and willing." This is namely our solidarity with the other than ourselves, our already being committed to the other without our first having decided about it: "the attachment to the Good precedes the choos- ing of this Good. The Good is good precisely because it chooses you before you have had the time to raise your eyes to it" (SaS 80). When Levinas describes the "I" that spontaneously and at first sight appears before us, he makes use of Spinoza's own term "conatus essendi"; an attempt-at-being, a being that in its being is concerned about its own being, a perseverance in being, a self-interested striving for more and better being--in short, an egocentric striving for se l f -unfold ing: being as being for oneself! Without deny ing this characterisation of the 'T ' as conatus essendi, Levinas later retraces his steps-- especially in the period of his second major work Otherwise Than Being (1974)--in the realization that his description of the attempt-at-being has re- mained too even and superficial. The natural impulse to take to heart one's own being undoubtedly flows forth from human finitude. The idea of a natural human self-interest, therefore, does not need to be done away with. The question only is whether the 'T ' is turned over and surrendered to it. If the natural character of the attempt in order to be would be a synonym of "necessi ty"-- necessity as we encounter it in physical nature--then the 'T ' would be at the mercy of its conatus essendi. Well then, upon closer inspection--by means of retracing his steps and digging deeper in the "I"--Levinas discovers that the "T' is not so much a striving for being, just like a stone that must fall down when you let go of it. In the striving for being he discovers a remarkable distance of the 'T ' with regard to its own attempt-at-being. And it is precisely this non-identification with one's own atttempt-at-being that comprises the ethical character of the "I," which Levinas also calls "the miracle of the human" (VA 99). By means of the fact that unrest and hesitation display themselves in the conatus essendi, whereby the original spontaneity of its striving is no longer so spontaneous, something else than its being manifests itself in its being: an "otherwise than being." In the identity of the 'T ' that is present to itself by means of its consciousness, what is revealed as a difference between the same and the same, meaning to say a non-identity in the identity, a splitting in the intimate (DMT 157). The unease that accompanies the apparently self-assured


being of the 'T ' and which is also described by Levinas as the crisis of being ("la crise de l'~tre") (EN 169) reveals how the 'T ' in its very being is already characterised by the "otherwise than being," and thus is committed to the other than itself even before its conscious and free choice. If the other would not concern me in a manner as original as that of my own being, I would not be troubled in my own being by the other than myself. Precisely because I am already marked---or animated or inspired--before all conscious acts by the other than myself, I realize that the fate of the other concerns me. Note well, however, that this "being involved" in the other should not in turn be understood as a "natural given" or necessity, to which I am relentlessly handed over like a falling star that is irresistibly handed over to the natural laws of gravity. When Levinas redefines the attempt-at-being of the 'T ' as "the other in the same" ("l'autre dans le m~me") (EN 102), then he is not engaging in physics but literally in meta-physics in the sense that being bonded with and committed to the other surpasses the laws and patterns of physics. This is precisely what comprises the ethical character of the "otherwise than being" whereby the attempt-at-being is characterized. As an attempt-at-being I am not what I am in the sense that I am finite and imperfect (even though I am also that indeed), but in the sense that I am not fettered onto the "wild force" of my own being-to-and-for-myself.

This clearly is about an ethical appeal, an ethical summons and obligation. Note well, it is fitting at this point to distinguish between two forms of "musts," namely an "irresistible" and an "irrefutable" must. The duty to care for the other than myself is an appeal that comes to me irrefutably from the vulnerable and wounded face of the other, without thereby having to be irresistible. The ethical appeal that ensues from the other, and through which my self is already marked as the "being committed to the fate of the other in spite of myself," can very easily be resisted: "no one is a slave to the Good" (SaS 80). We can easily set aside and disregard the scruple that manifests itself within me when I am touched by the naked face of the other. After all, an irresistible "must" would not be an "ethical" must, but a necessity or inevitability, a not being able to do otherwise. I can, however, choose for that which I must do, or rather should not do, namely to leave the other to its fate, to forget, to exclude or to kill in one way or the other, whether effectively or not. And that is precisely my ethical "nature," in the sense that I - -paradoxical ly--am not equated with my natural being. I "am" literally "supra-natural" in the sense that I am capable of surpassing my own being and of taking up my responsibility for the other, with whom I am already-- in my very being--connected to as such that the being of that other concerns me---over and above my being! In this regard, the 'T ' is neither by nature bad nor by nature good. I can choose to identify myself with my attempt-at-being and concern myself with my own fate, at the cost of the fate of the other. But I also can--freely---choose to bear responsibility for the other, being appealed to for that purpose by the other in myself. This means,

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according to Levinas, that the human soul is of an ethical nature. "Good will" is, in other words, no coincidental or incidental ornament of the "I," but its very soul, not to be understood statically but dynamically as the "inspiration by and for the good." In my being I discover a "counter-meaning" ("contre- sens") whereby I already am directed towards the other than myself. And this bond, this passive pre-intentional connectedness, inspires me as the appeal to actively connect myself with the other. Or rather, I am "marked" by the capac- ity to be appealed to or be addressed by and for the other than myself, which not only precedes the actual event of being appealed to or addressed by the naked face of the other but also inspires and animates this appeal (AT 141- 143).

This thesis regarding "the other in the same," likewise to be understood as "transcendence in immanence" (EN 102), also brings Levinas to label the ethically marked "I" as a theological creature. In and through the appeal by the naked face of the other, which presupposes my sensitivity for the other than myself, I discover myself as "inhabited" by the Good. In and through my passive "devotion" or "being committed" to the fate of the other I am---and I discover, or rather I suspect--also my devotion and movement "towards God": "pour l'autre homme et par l?t ?7-Dieu" (DVI 13). Heteronomous responsibility is my true religiosity, i.e., a religiosity that is not infected by being (and all its self-interest). In the ethical relationship with the other, I enter into relationship with God, as the idea of the Good within me. Or rather, to the extent that I grow in responsibility for the other, I come ever more near to God: ethics as intimacy with God! The right that I do the other brings me nearer to God in an unsurpassable manner, without God's transcendence being undermined in any way whatsoever. All this implies, according to Levinas, a "theo-logical" definition of the person that is to be literally understood. In contrast to the current, Western definition of the person as "animal rationale" Levinas describes the person as "moved by God," meaning to say as "otherwise than being" and thus as "inspired by the Good that stretches over and beyond one's own attempt-at-being towards the other." My connectedness with the other in spite of myself, upon which rests my being addressed for responsibility for the naked face of the other, is the manner or the "scene" wherein God makes His entrance into my existence, without God's transcendence becoming the victim of His nearness and without the human's individuality and freedom having to be undermined. "Le psychisme est originellement th~ologique" (TrI 39). 6 At the same time, Levinas also calls it a "theological affection" (TrI 26), to be sure, that the theological "creature" of the 'T ' would not be confused with a static essence, whereas it is about a dynamic "being concerned," that in spite of myself is, or rather was, aroused in me by God and sets me in movement towards the other--which Levinas also refers to as longing ("d~sir"): the excellence of a love that is disinterested, or rather "non-self-interested" (TrI 27). This "being concerned," this ethical affectivity, also means that my "soul"


consists in already being connected to God as the Good within me. My responsibility for the other in spite of myself means and also manifests my "belongingness to God" ("l'appartenance ?t Dieu"). I am as such already connected to God, or rather God, as the Good in me--that at the same time transcends me--has connected Himself as such with me that I am also already connected to the other than myself, in particular with the other person, in such a very strong way that the fate of the other concems me unendingly (AV 133).

This "theological" thesis regarding the ethically qualified human subject finally brings Levinas to discover human rights as a "trace that leads towards God," at least when human rights are understood as "doing right to the naked other without looking back after oneself." Human rights are the point in reality where God enters into the person (HS 177). According to Levinas, this should not be confused with a deductive approach to human rights, as if they could be derived or inferred from a preceding Revelation. In the positive religions and their theologies, it is stated that the person is accorded rights by God (the Creator) and thus that human rights flow forth from and comply with God's will. Surely, these formulas bear witness to the unconditional and extraordi- nary character of human rights with respect to all possible juridical conven- tions between peoples, established by people. The way of Levinas, however, is another path. Without endeavouring to present any form of proof of God, human rights, to be understood as the priority of the rights of the naked other, establish a "conjunction," or a "context," where God enters into us as the "idea of Good above being." In this manner, the notion of transcendence stops being a mere negative idea, precisely insofar as it is ethically qualified as the "idea of Good in me," meaning to say being connected and committed to, in spite of myself, the fate of the other. "In a good philosophy, it is not fitting to think of human rights starting from an unknown God. It is rather admissible to bring nearer the idea of God starting from the absoluteness that manifests itself in the relationship with the other" (EN 235).

Notes

2.

This article offers both a synthesis and a further elaboration of a number of insights in my book: "The Wisdom of Love in the Service of Love. Emmanuel Levinas on Justice, Peace, and Human Rights" (Milwaukee, Marquette University Press, 2002, p. 213). The studies of Levinas cited in our text are abbreviated as follows, in alphabetical order, and mentioned in the main body of our text along with the cited page number: AE: Autrement qu'~tre ou au-delg~ de l'essence, Den Haag, Nijhoff, 1974; AS: Autrement que savoir (interventions in the discussions), Pads, Osiris, 1988; AT: Altdrit~ et transcendance, Montpellier, Fata Morgana, 1995; AV: L ' au-delgz du verset. Lectures et discours talmudiques, Pads, Minuit, 1982; CCH : Comme un consentement?~ l'horrible, in : Le Nouvel Observateur, 1988, no. 1211, pp. 82-83 ; CJ-I: Interven- tion, in the volume: La conscience juive. Donndes et d~bats, Pads, Presses Universitaires de France, 1963, p. 31; DEHH: En d~couvrant l'existence avec Husserl et Heidegger, Paris, Vrin, 1967; DL: Difficile libertY. Essais sur lejudarsme, Pads, Albin Michel, 1976 (2de ed.); DMT : Dieu, la Mort en le Temps, Pads, Grasset, 1993; DVI: De Dieu qui vient ?~ l'idde, Pads, 1982; EFP: Entretiens Emmanuel Levinas - Frangois Poiri~, in E Poirif, Emmanuel Levinas. Qui ~tes-vous ?,

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Lyon, La Manufacture, 1987, pp. 62-136; EI: Ethique et infini. Dialogues avec Philippe Nemo, Paris, Fayard, 1982; EN: Entre nous. Essais sur le penser-ft-l'autre, Paris, Grasset, 1991; HAH: Humanisme de l'autre homme, Montpellier, Fata Moragana, 1972; HS: Hors sujet, Montpellier, Fata Morgana, 1987; I: Ideology and ldealism, in M. FOX, ed., Modem Jewish Ethics, Ohio, Ohio State University Press, 1975, 121-38; IH: Les impr6vus de l'histoire, Montpellier, Fata Morgana, 1994; LC: Libert~ et commandement, Montpellier, Fata Morgana, 1994; PM: The Paradox of Morality (interview by T. Wright, P. Hughes, & A. Anley, translated by A. Bejamin & T. Wright), in R. Bemasconi & D. Wood, eds., The Provocation of Levinas. Rethinking the Other, London/ New York, Routledge, 1988, pp. 168-80; RA: Entretien (by L. Adert & J.-C. Aeschlimann), in: J.- C. Aeschlimann, ed., R~pondre d'autrui. Emmanuel Levinas, Neuchfitel, La Bacconi~re, 1989, 9- 16; SA: Socialit~ et argent, in : R. Burggraeve, Emmanuel Levinas et la socialit~ de l'argent, Leuven, Peeters, 1997, pp. 79-85; SaS: Du sacr~ au saint. Cinq nouvelles lectures talmudiques, Paris, Minuit, 1977; TI: Totalit~ et infini. Essai sur l'ext~riorit~, Den Haag, Nijhoff, 1961; TrI : Transcendance et intelligibilitY, Gen~ve, Labor et Fides, 1984 ; VA: La vocation de l'autre, in E. HIRSCH, ed., Racismes. L'autre et son visage, Pads, Cerf, 1988, 89-102.

3. Compare with the five basic characteristics that Raymond Aron gives totalitariansims in his work D#mocratie et totalitarisme (Paris 1965: 287-88): (1) the totalitarian phenomenon presents itself in a regime where one party has the monopoly over political activity; (2) this party avails of an ideology that becomes the official truth of the state; (3) in order to spread this truth, the state monopolizes the means of power and the channels of communication (the press, TV and all media communications); (4) the greatest and most important part of economic activity is subjected to the state and likewise legitimised by means of the official doctrine; (5) an economic or social wrong is taken at the same time as an ideological wrong, since not only state activity but also all social, economic and cultural activity is subject to the official ideology of the state.

4. "Les droits de l 'homme el les droits d'autrui ,'" in : M. Borghi, ct. al., L'indivisibilit~ des droits de l'homme (Actes du lie Colloque Interuniversitaire surs les droits de l'homme), Fribourg, l~ditions Universitalres, 1985, pp. 35-45. Also taken up in: HS, pp. 173-87. The two other articles that Levinas devoted to human rights are: "Droits de l'homme et bonne volontC" in: Le Supplement. Revue d'~thique etde thdologie morale, 1989, no. 168, pp. 57-60 (also taken up in : EN, pp. 231- 35 ; "Les droits de l'autre homme," in: Commission Nationale Consultative Des Droits De L'homme (ed.), Les droits de l'homme en questions, Paris, La Documentation Franqaise, 1988, pp. 43-45 (also taken up in: AT, pp. 151-55).

5. The title of a compilation of essays that was published in 1991 goes thus: "Etre nous. Essais sur le penser-~-l' autre."

* Translator's note: For the word "justice" the author originally makes use of the Dutch term "rechtvaardigheid," which can also be read as the conjunction of two words, "recht" (right) and "vaardigheid" (proficiency or competence).

6. At the same time, Levinas says that this thesis does not presuppose any theology, by which he means that the 'T ' as marked by God, the Good in us, has no confessional significance, meaning to say it does not imply any doctrine or conceptualisation about God from one or the other positive religion. It is rather so that every confessional theology goes back to the literal "ex-cessiveness of life in spite of oneself" just as this manifests and fulfils itself in the "otherwise than being" of the responsibility-by-and-for-the-other (EN 105).

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The good and its shadow: The view of levinas on human rights as the surpassing of political...

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