Levinas and the Crisis of Humanism

Title Page, Copyright, Dedication

LEVINASAND THE CRISIS OF HUMANISM This page intentionally left blank CLAIRE ELISE KATZ LEVINASAND THE CRISIS OF HUMANISM INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS Bloomington and Indianapolis This book is a publication of Indiana University Press 601 North Morton Street Bloomington, Indiana 47404-3797 USA iupress.indiana.edu Telephone orders 800-842-6796 Fax orders 812-855-7931© 2013 by Claire Elise Katz All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses’ Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Katz, Claire Elise, [date] Levinas and the crisis of humanism / Claire Elise Katz. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-253-00762-9 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-253-00765-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-253-00767-4 (electronic book) 1. Lévinas, Emmanuel. 2. Education— Philosophy. 3. Humanities—Philosophy. I. Title. B2430.L484K37 2012 144—dc23 2012026292 1 2 3 4 5 18 17 16 15 14 13 To Dan, for everything and to our daughters Olivia and Evie Deuteronomy 22:3 This page intentionally left blank Here I am; send me (Isaiah 6:8) But in truth I know nothing about education except this: that the greatest and the most important difficulty known to human learning seems to lie in that area which treats how to bring up children and how to educate them. —Michel de Montaigne, “On educating children” This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilised in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow-men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society. —Albert Einstein, “On Education” (1949) And here I am not speaking of the elite among us who were real Resistants, but of all Frenchmen who, at every hour of the night and day throughout four years, answered NO. But the very cruelty of the enemy drove us to the extremities of this condition by forcing us to ask ourselves questions that one never considers in time of peace . . . Resistance was a true democracy: for the soldier as for the commander, the same danger, the same forsakenness, the same total responsibility, the same absolute liberty within discipline. Thus, in darkness and in blood, a Republic was established, the strongest of Republics. Each of its citizens knew that he owed himself to all and that he could count only on himself alone. Each of them, in complete isolation, fulfilled his responsibility and his role in history. —Jean-Paul Sartre, “The Republic of Silence” This page intentionally left blank ...