A different way to look at the same thing

Recently I began discussing how the ethical impulse towards the Other, towards the person who is different, is something completely lost in democracy. I examined some of what Levinas, the Jewish talmudic commentator, had to say about such an issue and used the follow quotation:

"Modern philosophy viewed subjectivity as a clash of egos, in which competing drives ultimately find themselves at war... [and because they are at war they] are together. And this view understood peace as that condition in which reason reigns. Thus, modern philosophers believed reason [would stop the war]." and because of this "Rather than maintaining the alterity of the other, [that] peace assimilates the stranger into the Same." And another quotation:"This pursuit [of peace] violates the alterity of the other, in the name of the needs of the community".

I got this as a response to my discussion:

"You do a good job of identifying a specific point to discuss, but you could discuss this quotation a little more closely. Get in there and talk about the words and the ideas that the quotation raises as specifically as possible."

I began to wonder if I could discuss this quotation "more closely" and "as specifically as possible". I commenced in trying to work through what that might mean in a blog post, or in a piece of writting in general. How can we get more specific? What does that mean? How does that look like?

It reminded me of two things:

First on the blog planet Dave Humphrey posted a piece of "reading up against a text" rather than "reading against a text". Perhaps I have actually "read up against" and not "read against" his post enough to understand what he means but it seems to me to be pertinent to what I am discussing here. Reading "up against" is a method which is "less decided" and "more tennative". The meaning, and the role that we as readers have in sharing in the construction of such meaning, has the presence of uncertainity with in it. It is unlike reading against which "forces" the reader to come at the text from a fixed position, a solid way to understand what is being said which lacks being able to be "circuitous instead of straight", it lacks the ability to be close by but not there.

That idea of "reading up" has a strangle correlation to something in Katz' book about the Jewish midrash. The jewish practice of retelling and reframing epic biblical stories is explained. Exhorted if you will.

"But the midrash is not simply rabbinic commentary on the Torah.. not simply a tool for reading a story. The Bible is a holy text, and the rabbis believe that through midrash - that is, through their interpretive process- the holy voice of God as alterity open itself up to us... Midrash opens up the voices in the Torah that are muted in the text.. Midrash lifts these voices out of the text and then brigns them to bear on the narrative. By enabling our access to these others, midrash brings us closer to the ethical and, thus, closer to God." (pg 18)

So not only is reading up against a text something which is possible but the Jewish rabbis bring this further by saying that through reading it differently, in a variety of ways, you open up the possibility of hearing the marginalized and the different. You are listening to the voice of the other. And this practice is so good, so saturated in ethics, so close to love that we are, in some way, close to God. Closer to God. Simply by reading differently, reading "up against" rather than "reading against" we open the possibility of hearing other voices that we never heard before. Voices of the other. Voices, maybe of God.

This brings up something neither the academy (by that I mean all the university institutions, guilds, guidelines, journal editors and anyone in the industry of making knowledge) nor the church (by this I mean something which is individual congregations, theologies, pastors... not an 'industry' as such though occasionally acting as one through publishing houses, seminaries etc) want to admit. The interpretation and understanding of a work of fiction or non-fiction, literature or trash, novel or shortstory, philosophy or fantasy, pop stuff and scripture is not controlled by one source.

Usually what is objected is that such a thing will take away from the "real meaning" of text (whether that be the Bible, Lord of the Rings, Lewis' books, Shakespeares plays). This critique leads me to add to my argument using (pay attention to that word) an unconventional source: a work of old french sociology from the sixties I found in a friends cultural studies text book.

The work is called "The Practice of Everyday Life" by Michel de Certeau, a jesuit and sociologist who shows a fascinating prejudice in the way we talk about things economically, culturally and even historically. He says his study intends to examine 'users' "whose status.. in society is concealed by the euphemistic term 'consumer' ". What he is proposing is that economically and culturally we look at two classes: the producers and the consumers. The producers make the product (be it a car, a television ad or a book) and the consumers, well, consume it. They eat it (not literally), they take it all in. In thus model "they are assumed to be passive and guided by established rules". Not true says Michel. Instead we are users, we do not just take in but we fiddle and manipulate (as users) what is given to us (by producers). Like the indigenous peoples using the catholic rituals for their pagan beliefs after that Spanish conquerors tried to force them to convert. They did, outwardly, but used Christian objects and texts in a very non Christian way.

Michel brings his ideas of users (not consumers) and producers back towards literature and reading.

"In reality, that activity of reading has on the contrary all the characteristics of silent production... he insinuates into another person's text the ruses of pleasure and appropriation: he poaches on it, is transported into it.. A different world (the reader's) slips into the authors place. This mutation makes the text habitable, like a rented apartment. It transforms another person's property into a space borrowed for a moment of transient."

I am pulling on three quotations together now. In order to read and discuss "a lot more closely" I would have to give up reading "up against". And in doing so I claim, in some ways, to be a producer and not a user. I am a user of the text I am reading, not a consumer and certainly not a producers. The thing is not mine, yet I can use it in away that is in some sense uniquely mine. And If it is some how unique to me, perhaps I can practice some sort of Midrash. The book I am reading is no sacred text. Therefore the best I can hope for in practicing midrash is an interesting idea, a different reading of that text, maybe hearing the voice of a marginalized, a specific group, or the marginalized in general. In that way I am doing the ethical, or at least searching for that.

Now returning to the original quotation, the one about clasing egos. It seems to me through reflection that perhaps this clash, resulting in difference, is not solved by trying to eliminate difference. Rather perhaps we can apply harmony and not discord between the differences. Harmonious difference.

How?

Perhaps by reading "up against" a text. Maybe by using, not consuming or producing, what is there. Possibly by practicing midrash. Perhaps we can get closer to responding to the other. Closer to harmonious difference.

I say this very tongue-in-cheek but maybe reading and discussing "as specifically as possible" is not the only right way to write and think.