The Intrigue of Ethics: A Reading of the Idea of Discourse in the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas

8. The Im/possibility of Peace

The Im/possibility ofz Peace I. INCREDULITIES OVER THIRTY YEARS have passed sinceJean-Francois Lyotard first characterized “the postmodern condition” as an incredulity toward meta-narratives, that is to say, as a loss in the belief that a Master Story (a comprehensive account of the truth of being and history used to legitimate the sciences) can effectively, and innocently , integrate and guide our communal existence,’ and this characterization has, in the meantime, become increasingly plausible . For our age zyxw is marked by a widening recognition of the legitimacy of a variety of disparate discourses, each seemingly answering to its own parochial exigencies, and as such locked in an intractable struggle with the others due to their respective and (at least seemingly) incommensurable “interests.” It is, of course, nothing new to find a variety of voices vying for cultural preeminence . What is new is a widespread suspicion (despite a powerful backlash arising from many domains) that no account of what is and should be zyxwv should have preeminence, and that the ascendancy of any particular voice over the others is (at) the very root of violence. So where “modernists” saw the eventual conversion of all reasonable persons from their parochial prejudices to the one true, rational, objective view of things as our salvation, as the way to universal peace, justice, and prosperity, “postmoderns” perceive the modernist drive toward such unity asjust one more competing meta-narrative,just one more prejudice among prejudices, one more dogmatism among dogmatisms.2 Alasdair MacIntyre perspicaciously puts the postmodern question: “Whose justice? Which rationality?”3Now, while this condition has, thank God, begun to help to alleviate (or at least created a cultural and political climate sympathetic to the alleviation of) at least some societal oppression in taking the nasty edge off the oppressive hegemony of the “one true way,”4it does create a certain difficulty in gener- ating enthusiasm for the hope that through anongoing: dialogue we mightbeable topacificallyresolve certain of our conflicts that threaten to degenerate into violent confrontations.And this “difficulty” should be of particular interest to any of us who are of the conviction that words, however harsh, are better than guns. For if we postmoderns’ no longer believe in a unificd truth, or in a universallyaccessible, human facultyin terms of which truth might be attained (which for the greater part of our occidental tradition-from Plato to Habermas-and for modernism in particular has been “reason,” or the “logoJ’), what becomes of the possibility of dialogue (which is, etymologically, zyxw din-logos: communication “through” the “word” or “reason”)? That is, the problem with therecognition of competingandincommensurate rationalities and the diverse conceptions of justice that correlate tothem(what w e might technically call a multiplicity of “lifewol -ld, constitutional paradigms”) is that we can no longer presuppose a common “point of appeal” on the basis of which a dialogue might be founded and proceed.‘’ And this is not without serious repercussions.For while valuing differcnces is no doubt a good thing,we are still faced, bothlocally and globally, with workingoutjust (consensual)solutions to conmionproblems,and problems that very often do not admit of an “each to his or her own” kind of solution. But lacking the common point of appeal requisite to dialogue as din-logos, on what basis, starting out from what,are we to speakto“others”and worktowardsuchsolutions ? How are we even toagree as towhata‘tjust”solution might be? Andis this not precisely the problem? Is dialogue, and the hope for peace we have long placed in it, another casualty of postmodernism? Are we inevitablyfacedwith the violence of a deepening tribalism? Or arewe better off attempting to return to the “violent peace” of modernism, the Pax Romana of “peaceful ,” if crushingly oppressive, hegemony? zyxwv 11. OFFERINGS This work has beenmotivated by a belief that theanalyses of Levinas , particularly his ideaof discourse, have much to contribute to a philosophical analysis of the conditions of possibility fordia- THF. IM/POSSIBILITl’ zyxwvuts OF PEACE 405 logue zyxwvutsr zoithin thepostmoderncondition,that is, ina situation wherc the common logos that indwells diu--logoson the traditional philosophical model can no longer be presupposed. The current problem, as weread it, is this: How do we arrive at a conlmon logos (i.e., a shared rationality) thatwould be capable of founding and sustaining dialogue (as diu--logos)as an organon of conflict resolution , withoutviolently imposing upon others, under the pretence of neutrality, our own truth, our ownworld...