Ethical Temporality, Justice, and Dystopia of Being-for-the-Other: Between Ethics and Politics

Irina Poleshchuk

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Chapter 8 Ethical Temporality, Justice, and Dystopia of Being-for-the-Other: Between Ethics and Politics

In: Analysing Darkness and Light: Dystopias and Beyond

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Irina Poleshchuk

Irina Poleshchuk
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 173–193

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004681385_010

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Abstract

In Difficult Freedom Levinas sketches a temporal horizon of futurity as being formed in our intersubjective encounters with the other person. It is described as a messianic instant which regulates the ethical meaning of our community. According to Levinas, the transcendence of the other enroots community in the messianic instant. Our understanding of responsibility is regulated by justice and equality. Irina Poleshchuk demonstrates that ultimate being-for-the-other becomes a dystopian modality of ethical subjectivity. Yet, this failure is mitigated by the temporal structure of the messianic instant, which initiates a disrupted sensibility that gains its future freedom by giving a gift of time in asking for forgiveness. This chapter analyses the ethical impacts of the messianic instant as a dystopian project. Poleshchuk claims that the messianic instant opens up a dystopian horizon in relation to thought as being-for-the-other. Contrary to the interpretation of the messianic instant as the image of utopia, this chapter conceives of it as dystopia since there is always a possibility of not being pardoned and not receiving forgiveness in the future.

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Analysing Darkness and Light: Dystopias and Beyond

Series: Social and Critical Theory, Volume: 31

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004681385

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 18 Aug 2023

Subjects
- Philosophy
  - Aesthetics & Cultural Theory
  - Anthropology

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Chapter 8 Ethical Temporality, Justice, and Dystopia of Being-for-the-Other: Between Ethics and Politics

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Analysing Darkness and Light: Dystopias and Beyond

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