Beyond the Ethical Demand

3. Sovereign Expressions of Life, the Golden Rule, Character Traits, and Norms

T H R E E Sovereign Expressions of Life, the Golden Rule, Character Traits, and Norms The sovereign expressions of life At four o’clock in the morning there is an insistent ring at the door. When the woman descends the secret police are outside, demanding that she open up. Once inside, they ask for her husband. They are informed that, as it happens, he is not at home but away on business. One of the two men, the subordinate, heavily armed, ugly as sin, and looking capable of every kind of brutality, starts searching the house. The other, possessed of an engaging manner, all amiability and courtesy, is talking to the woman meanwhile and assuring her that the visit is of no consequence, merely a routine procedure. The woman acts obligingly, appearing surprised—a composed and polished performance. She is perfectly aware that his charming insistence on the insignificance of their visit is aimed solely at getting her to talk, and is not taken in by anything that he says. She knows that from the 83 Beyond the Ethical Demand 84 least unconsidered remark ammunition will be forged for use against her husband and herself. In spite of that—and this is probably the oddest part of the whole business—she needs constantly to rein in an inclination to talk to the man as to another human being, as though he might be drawn from his destructive enterprise to properly human perceptions and good sense. Unremittingly, she must keep a cool head. Why? What manifests itself in that inclination? Nothing other than the elemental and definitive peculiarity attaching to all speech qua spontaneous expression of life: its openness. To speak is to speak openly. This is not something the individual does with speech; it is there beforehand, as it were, qua anonymous expression of life. We yield to its sovereignty at the very moment in which we begin to speak. Even in a situation where hoodwinking the other is a matter of life or death, where the other’s destructive intent is patently obvious and his strategy wholly transparent—even there, it makes itself felt, so that not speaking openly is palpably felt to be contrary to nature. The sovereign expression of life preempts us; we are seized by it. Therein lies its spontaneity. That too is illustrated by the above episode. The man from the secret police seeks to exploit the fact that openness of speech and trust preempt the woman’s recognition of the intentions behind his questions and her astute calculation of the consequences her answers will have. In all their elementalness and definitiveness, the expressions of life are what normally sustain all human interaction. Indeed, this is evidenced by the fact that however interested we may be in attaining knowledge and a just estimation of whatever it is we might be talking about, we do not seek to scrutinize each other’s characters and size each other up in face-to-face situations. That is something we reserve for our musings, when the others are absent and when, in calling to mind all the negative experiences we have had with them, we get vexed with them. In our musings, we are brimming over with thoughts about the people we are at odds with and the standards against which we judge their characters. Their presence, by contrast , expunges all our notions and standards, unless we seize the opportunity to have it out with them and passions run high. But otherwise there has to be an ingrained animosity or a deep-seated sense of grievance if those thoughts and standards are to persist in the presence of the other. If you are averse to losing your animosity, there is nothing for it but to stay away and nurse your musings. All this comes of the fact that the immedi- Sovereign Expressions of Life, the Golden Rule, Character Traits, and Norms 85 acy of human interaction is sustained by the immediate expressions of life, whose sovereignty is such that they defeat our past experiences and private musings. The sovereign expressions of life and the Golden Rule Attitude of mind and outcome of agency are inextricably intertwined in the sovereign expression of life. In that feature, too, consists its spontaneity . This is manifest in an expression of life such as mercy, which consists in removing the hindrances that hamper the flourishing of the individual in disadvantaged circumstances...