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Nine An Ethics of Affection
- Fordham University Press
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256 The relation of most ethical theory to the anguish of existence is like the relation of dusting to architecture. It’s good to dust. And since dust always returns there is always more good to be done by dusting. But good dusters presuppose furnished structures, and there is no connection between being able to polish a table and being able to design it, between dusting a house and designing a building open on all sides to life. Ethics navigates through life within the frame of representation. But only by being drawn to life, only by being drawn to the other side of representation, can we live our lives in the seafoam joy of becoming becoming. We expect ethical considerations to generalize. So ethical considerations can present themselves in terms of what some types of being owe to other types of being. This is the logical structure of the demand to respect other people, for example. And it is the logical structure of considerations affecting the distribution of goods of all sorts, like access to medicine and to food, education, shelter, a living wage, a reliable voting apparatus, and N i n e An Ethics of Affection Man is but a speck. —Benedict de Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus Either ethics makes no sense at all, or this is what it means and has nothing else to say: not to be unworthy of what happens to us. —Gilles Deleuze, Logic of Sense An Ethics of Affection 257 more. These are worthy ideals, but the ethical machine works only on instances of types—for example, instances of the type sentient creature or the type person. Ethical machinery is therefore blind to sensual singularities , and if these are what draw us to becoming becoming, then ethics and life drawing will find themselves in conflict. And so it is. The ethical machine cannot digest sensual singularities. Refusing beauty. It spits them out. Not an Ethics of Human Rights Good as these ethical ideals are, if they are taken to be foundational, or normative for living, then there will be no room for life drawing. So take a deep breath. I will be spending a few pages in an attempt to show that ethical theory, whether grounded on human rights or on mutual respect, cannot ground itself; it begs the question. Then by means of the surrealism of the Césaires, I will return to characterizing the ethical dimensions of life drawing. It is not a matter of obeying this rule or this principle, or even of treating all members of the same type the same way; it is rather a mode of existence that aims to be affected by as much of one’s surroundings as possible and to affect as much of one’s surroundings as possible (Spinoza [1677] 1994, IVP38). Hardly an ethics of the traditional sort, this is not a systematic way of making decisions; it is simply another way of saying becoming becoming. It is not an ethics but an aesthetics of existence, and so if it were not so cute, we might spell this ethics of affection one letter differently: An Aethics of Affection. Let us approach the difficulty of grounding ethical theory by means of a real ethical problem. Antiblack racism in the United States of America. There are many structural and psychological dimensions of antiblack racism , but let’s focus on the fact that many schools in predominantly black neighborhoods are not funded at the same dollar/student level as schools in predominantly white neighborhoods. This inequity would be justified if black schools and white schools, although both instances of the type school, were nevertheless not both instances of some other type. And not just some other ad hoc type but some other relevant type. In the United States many people think that one relevant type that differentiates many black and [3.128.199.162] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 16:32 GMT) 258 An Ethics of Affection white schools is being in a community that generates substantial income from property taxes. These people think that being in a community that generates substantial income from property taxes is what earns you the right to have more money spent on your education. The property tax type in question separates, but only roughly, predominantly black schools from predominantly white schools. The connection between these two types of school and the property-tax type is only made by the accident of the history of slavery and its aftermath in the...